Kaze sat immobile, watching the pain-racked face relax slightly with the release of death. Then he did something he would never have done while she lived. He placed his hand on her cheek, gently cupping her face. Her position as his Lord’s consort made such an action unthinkable to Kaze while she was alive, but now that her spirit had departed her body, touching her face, as she had touched his, seemed the only comfort available to him after days of pain and sorrow.
He stared at her face, seeing her in happier days instead of the visage with black, sunken eyes and tightened jaw muscles before him. The face he tried to see was serene and kind, with the sparkle of good humor in its eyes. It was the same face he carved on the Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, that he made.
Kaze heard the door of the room slide open. Hishigawa entered, holding a sword. He dropped the sword’s scabbard on the floor, unsheathing its blade. Kaze realized it was his own sword, the Fly Cutter. Hishigawa slid the shoji screen closed and turned to look at Kaze. He smiled. “We use this room when we occasionally have a girl that won’t cooperate. I told you we buy maids for the villa, and when they are sufficiently seasoned, we convert them for sale to a brothel. Sometimes we have one who is recalcitrant about the new life we have planned for her. An hour or two hanging as you are is usually enough to make her see the error in her ways.
“You tried to steal Yuchan from me. Although it might be mildly amusing to torture you further, I am not a cruel man. I am reasonable. I am a businessman. I deal in judgments about what is profitable or not profitable to pursue. Keeping you alive is not profitable, so I have decided to cut my losses.” Hishigawa laughed at his pun.
He hefted the blade, looking at it. It caught the yellow light of the lantern, reflecting a silver arc against the walls and ceiling of the room as Hishigawa moved it around. Even through his pain, Kaze thought the blade beautiful.
“Since I paid for this sword, I thought I would use it,” Hishigawa said. “I don’t have the skill with the blade that you have, but you’ll find that I’ll still be able to take your head, even if it might take me two or three blows to sever it. I’ve ordered many deaths, but I’ve never killed a man myself, so this will be a novel experience for me.”
Hishigawa smiled again. “I know you samurai all like to do your fancy death poems when the end is at hand. But as I said, I am a man who deals in efficiency.” He put both hands on the sword hilt. “I believe it would be most efficient to dispatch you without allowing you to declaim the rubbish that you samurai like to yammer as poetry. You see, although I have to deal with you and your stupid wives because they are my customers, I really don’t like samurai. You’re parasites, feeding off the land and interfering with business every time you start one of your stupid wars.”
Hishigawa lifted the blade to the point-at-the-eye position, judging its weight and balance. “I suppose this really is a fine weapon,” he said conversationally. “Maybe I’ll be able to take your head with only one or two blows, instead of having to hack it off.”
Kaze stared at Hishigawa, and, although his body was in pain, he came to an epiphany. He was not afraid. Always in battle there was a chance of him dying, but now he knew that it was a certainty. And yet, despite the knowledge that he would die, Kaze was able to face it with a studied indifference, certain in the fact that life and death were the same and that existence is only an illusion.
Of course, he had been bred as a samurai and trained in the ways of Zen. He had been raised with the thought that the true samurai is always ready to die in the service of his master or his cause. Yet, from personal experience, Kaze knew that such noble sentiments were not always played out in the hearts of men.
At the mere threat of death, some men cowed and broke, their fear overtaking them. In battle Kaze had seen even highborn samurai, new to the violence of war and the clash of arms, shrink from contact with the enemy and shake from fear. It was said that even Tokugawa Ieyasu, when he was a very young man and engaged in his first battle, actually fled the scene of the fighting on his horse. When he reached safety, one of his chief retainers, Honda, looked at the saddle and saw evidence that Ieyasu had lost control of his bowels when fear had overtaken him.
Instead of remonstrating with his young Lord, Honda had simply laughed. Kaze hated Ieyasu for what he and his men had done and yet, even though he was familiar with the story of his first battle, he would not call him a coward-not after the battles he had fought and won subsequently. Any man might lose his nerve the first time he’s confronted by war.
Now Kaze was facing something else for the first time. It was the certainty of his immediate demise. He almost marveled that all the things that he had been taught throughout his entire life about how a samurai faces death were now coming to fruition. He was facing his own death with courage and indifference. He did not want to die, but if he was going to die, then it was the fate of all men. It was simply his time. Karma.
He leaned his head to the side to provide a better target for Hishigawa. Instead of stepping forward to take the cut, Hishigawa hesitated, unsure what to make of Kaze’s hard eyes staring back at him. The eyes held no fear, no pleading, and no sense of panic, all the things that Hishigawa knew he would display if the situation were reversed.
Instead, the ronin’s eyes met his steadily and the ronin’s face was impassive, perhaps even tranquil, because of some deep-seated core of courage that Hishigawa could not begin to understand.
Hishigawa raised the sword and started to step forward so he could deliver the blow to the ronin’s neck. Suddenly, there was the sound of paper tearing behind him and in the pit of his back there was a burning pain. He was propelled forward and could not bring the sword blade down for the death blow. Instead, he felt his knees grow weak and his grip on the sword become numb. The sword slipped from his hands and tumbled to the tatami mat. Hishigawa fell to his knees.
He reached behind him and felt the shaft of a spear. It had been thrust through the shoji screen because the wielder of the spear had decided there was not enough time to open the door. The silhouette of the man holding the sword was the target, and the spear had been driven home.
Blackness started to descend on Hishigawa as life drained out from the thick hole in his back. He gave a cry of pain mixed with fear at the thought that this blow might be mortal. He tried to give a shout, in a desperate attempt to get help. Instead, all that came from his mouth was a long, slow hiss that ended in death.
The shoji screen was kicked down, and Kaze straightened his head to look into the fierce face of Elder Grandma. She had thick arms, well suited to using a spear, Kaze thought, and the anger and blood lust on her face was as fierce as that found on any warrior.
She looked down at the corpse at her feet. She kicked away a scrap of paper from the shoji that masked the face of her victim, revealing Hishigawa’s face. His eyes were still open, but lifeless. His mouth also open, the last scream still on his lips, cut short by death. Seeing Hishigawa, Elder Grandma stopped a moment. Then she placed her foot against Hishigawa’s back and, grabbing the spear shaft with both arms, pulled it hard to release it. She looked at Kaze and a grim smile came to her lips.
“It’s done,” she said. She pointed to the headband that bore the character for “revenge.”
“It’s done,” she said again with a fierce tone to her voice. “It’s done. The vendetta is completed and our family is avenged. Our honor is restored.”