Blade of Burden

宿業の刃

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Aug 7

What struck him first was not the dead, but the rice field glinting with ribbons of yellow. First one, then more caught the light upon hardened steel. The afternoon heat hung here, thick enough to soften distant mountains into hazy silhouettes, while dragonflies skimmed across the water, indifferent to the world around them. Only when the wanderer drew …

Sunlight moved differently beneath the cedars. Out in the fields, its ferocity blinded the eyes. Here, the canopy suffocated most of it. Whatever touched the forest floor came down in fragments, shifting when the air moved through branches. Where the light failed, shadows gathered. But the samurai walked without haste, listening beneath the cicadas for the footsteps of predators.

He kept to the path, even when it seemed to vanish in the foliage. The forest bustled around the samurai. When one creature called, another answered, then another. Before long, the scent of old wood crept towards the samurai, scratching at his memory. He imagined a forest from another time, with two boys playing under a similar tree. Toru must have been two years older, perhaps three; things weren’t as clear after all these years. He came running from the trunk of a tree, stick in hand, to practice rudimentary maneuvers with the younger boy.

“Your feet!” Toru trapped his opponent’s ankle with his stick. “Watch your feet.” Then the stick struck his opponent’s shoulder, and he fell into leaves. Toru laughed, and the samurai smiled with him. Toru was always three steps ahead.

The memory lingered, but the cicadas did not. Before the samurai knew it, he stood alone, in a darkening forest. When had the breeze died? He thought. Time was passing in ways which turned moments on their heads, with cicadas falling silent one after another. Then it reached the samurai. Hot, soggy breath on the nape of his neck caused goosebumps to race up his spine, but his body remained locked in place. All he could do was look down at a beastly shadow appearing to devour his own. The shape was enormous. Its horned head rose above his own, shoulders spreading wider than his body,

He did not move, could not, but his hands did. He felt the left curling over his sword’s scabbard, locking it into place at his side. A trembling right hand moved across his waist, making its way towards the handle. Overlapping both were shadows, pressing down into the physical world. Their fingers had already gnarled his own the closer they inched to his sword. For an instant there was no telling where flesh ended, and shadow began. The samurai had to still his mind, fight to control his own body, so he inhaled and closed his eyes. Something grunted behind the samurai, and his right hand rushed the remaining gap to grip the sword’s handle.

His hands. Another day. A different forest.

That day, his sword came free from its sheath, and Toru was the one screaming, his blood on the trees. The samurai forced harder, “Once was enough.” The words were barely a whisper, but the sword trembled in response. The samurai did not fight, only stood still, and the forest stood still with him.

A drop of sweat trickled from his temple to his jaw.

Then—

Nothing.

Slowly, the heaviness began to subside, followed by what could only be described as more grunting sounds, fading fast. Monstrous shadows loosened and folded into his own. Only then did the samurai open his eyes. Cedars, sunlight, and crying cicadas. But he waited, expecting the world to darken again.

Thirty minutes of walking had passed before the cries came again. The samurai stopped. They came from somewhere beyond the trees to his right, faint beneath the canopy but unmistakably human. A man, perhaps, screaming through the forest. He listened. The voice came again, followed by another, and then a sharp howl that ended abruptly. Nothing in front of him moved between the cedars. He rested a hand against his hip, then stared into the undergrowth. Whatever had made those sounds was close.