“Halt!”
Four bushimen barred entry to the Daimyo’s wing, huge double doors locked at their backs. Banded black across their chests, iron helms and face guards, nagamaki naked in their hands. This hallway was wider than those of the servants’ wing; wide enough by far to wield the longblades. And for these men to have been stationed outside the Daimyo’s halls at all meant they were no strangers to the art of steel.
“You girl,” barked the commander. “What are you doing here?”
“I bring gifts,” she said, proffering the box in her hands.
“Gifts? What madness is this? Who are you?”
“Michi-san,” said another guard. “I recognize her. She used to serve First Daughter.”
The bushiman commander stepped forward. “No one is to see your mistress, Lady Michi. By orders of the Daimyo. Best to head downstairs and help with—”
She reached into the box and drew them out, scarlet card falling to the floor. Four and three feet long, gentle curves and glittering saw-blade teeth. She thumbed the ignitions on the hilts and the motors roared to life, vibration traveling up her arms and into her chest, bringing a small smile to painted lips.
Michi gunned the throttles of Ichizo’s chainkatana and wakizashi. Tearing away the intact layer of her jûnihitoe gown, she stepped out of her wooden sandals, wriggling her feet in split-toed socks. She took up her stance, flourishing the blades about her waist and head, a twirling, snarling dance of folded steel.
The commander looked incredulous. Several of the bushimen behind exchanged amused glances, wry smiles and short bursts of baffled laughter.
“Put those down before you hurt yourself, girl,” the commander said.
Michi dashed across the floorboards, narrowed eyes and gleaming teeth. The commander came to his senses first and stepped forward, bringing his nagamaki into some semblance of guard. She slipped down onto her knees, fine Kitsune silk and her momentum sending her into a skid across polished boards, blade passing harmlessly over her head. Cutting the commander’s legs out from under him, a blinding spray of red, a shriek of agony as the chainsaw blades sheared through bone like butter. Spinning up to her feet, katana cleaving through another bushiman’s forearm, wakizashi parrying a hasty thrust from a third as the soldiers at last registered the threat. Sparks in the air as steel crashed, the girl moving like smoke between the blades, swaying to the music she made.
A blade to a throat. A crimson spray on the walls. A parry. A wheel-kick. A thrust. Red mist in the air. Heart thundering in her chest.
Then stillness.
She blew stray hair from her eyes, idling chainswords dripping into the gore pooled at her feet, staring at the commander’s corpse.
“I think I’ll put you down instead,” she said.
She wiped her cheek on her forearm, smearing it with red, staring at the door before her. Sugi wood shod with cold iron. Rivets as fat as her fist. Six inches thick. Though she might have hacked her way through with enough time, the guards beyond would certainly hear her coming. And judging from the clamor behind her, more still had heard the screams of their dying comrades and were on their way to investigate.
She looked at the doors blocking the way she must go.
She looked back down the way she’d come.
And then she looked up at the ceiling.
49
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION
Yoshi woke to the slap of ice-cold water in his face, followed by a real slap hard enough to rattle his teeth in his head. He could hear the swell of distant crowds, roaring flames and sky-ship engines. Sweat and old lotus and the stink of his own blood hung in the air. And he remembered Jurou lying dead on the alley floor, gnawed eyeless, stumps for fingers and toes, and he felt hatred burn so brightly inside him he feared he might catch fire.
Another slap to his face. Harder this time.
“Wake up, boy.” A lisping growl.
Tossing the hair from his eyes, he blinked in the gloom. He was dangling by his wrists from a hook and chain, just long enough for his toes to touch the ground. Naked save for his new hakama, now bloodied and covered in filth. The concrete was sticky, stained dark. A single globe threw a circle of light on the floor. On the periphery, he could see a dozen men and women, arms folded, watching him the way corpse-rats watch a death rattle. On each of their biceps, in the negative space between the tattoos, two scorpions were locked, claw to claw.
Yoshi’s heart stilled inside his chest.
He saw Hana opposite him, hands bound, arms held by vicious-looking men with full-body irezumi. Her hair was draped around her face, nose bleeding, good eye closed, out cold.
Yoshi looked at the one who’d slapped him. Thin and hard and cruel, a street-sharp, angular face, dark, hateful eyes. He recognized him from their first rip; the Gambler’s partner. The man held a pair of long-nosed pliers in his hands.
“Rise and shine, lazybones.”
“Fuck you,” Yoshi spat.
“Funny.” A broken yellow smile. “Your boyfriend said much the same.”
Yoshi tried to lunge, succeeded only in making himself spin on his chain. The thin man laughed, all yellow, crumbling bone and dirty breath.
“My name is Seimi.” The man pressed the pliers against Yoshi’s cheek. “My face is the last thing you’ll ever see. And for that, you have my apologies.”
“My sister had nothing to do with this. Let her go.”
“Nothing to do with it?” Seimi raised an eyebrow. “Do tell…”
The man turned to a workbench on the edge of the light. It was arrayed with every tool Yoshi could imagine: hacksaws, screwdrivers, tin snips, drills, pliers. A bottle of saké. A bowl of salt. A chi-powered blowtorch. A hammer.
Seimi dashed water into Hana’s face. He slapped her hard as she sputtered, head rising slowly, eye rolling around her bruised socket as she blinked and tried to focus.
“Hello, pretty one.” Seimi grabbed her face, fingers and thumb pressed into her cheeks, squeezing her thin lips into a pout.
“Yoshi?” His heart nearly broke at the terror in her voice. “Yoshi, what’s happening?”
“It’s all right, sis.” He tried to keep his own voice from rising upward toward hysteria. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Did you hear that, pretty one?” Seimi leaned close, stared into her good eye. “Your thieving whoreson brother said it’ll be all right. Does that still your pounding heart?”
“You bastards, you let her go! She has nothing to do with this!”
Hana was shaking so hard her teeth chattered. She struggled against the men holding her, but they were twice her size, all inked muscle and gap-toothed grins. Seimi ran one hand down her throat, parted the collar of her tunic. A hungry stare caught on the golden amulet draped around her neck. A tiny stag with three crescent horns. Glaring.
“Stop.”
The voice was low-pitched. Ironclad.
Soft footsteps. Measured breath. A man stepped into the light. Short. Tanned. Simply dressed. Graying hair swept back from sharp brows. Staring at Yoshi with empty, black eyes.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No.” Yoshi gasped for breath. “No, I don’t.”
He stepped closer, hovering just inches away. Yoshi could see the pores in his skin, the lines at the corners of those bottomless eyes. There was no anger—not even a hint of malice in the man’s voice.