The Shadow of Issu

Disquiet of Spirit

 It has been two days since they came here in Goundo. What Hase said resonated in Akane’s mind so loudly that she had not been deprived of sleep for the nights that had passed by. This is the third night that they are in Goundo, and as each day passes, the Teyan could already be passing by Katen.

Akha seemed to be relaxed, and it was already the time when she came to him a cold evening after she had met with Hase that she noticed that he seemed a little strange. 

“Tomorrow we confront Hase’s request.” She called to him. “Will you be able to do it?”

“Yes.” He answered.

“I see. Tomorrow will be our last day here in Goundo. Ten days await us on the road to Ikiori, by then we should be able to—”

“Why did lord Hase come to ask of such?” Akha interrupted, his eyes cast downwards.

Akane looked to him, and her mind was filled with the same question.

“It is what was asked, we will know of it come first light tomorrow.”

After meeting with him, Hase refused to tell them the reason as to why they had to accept such a request, but they had to, for it was the duty of Togoma Akane. Though the old ruler did promise that he will make things clear once it is done—but it was no ordinary dirty work. Goundo upholds swordsmanship in one of its virtues, and it was through a duel that they must pertain a victory against Lord Hase’s granddaughter.

This was a request shrouded upon any detail whatsoever, driven only for the fact that this was the only way that Hase was to cooperate with the capital. Akha’s sword will be put to the test of an opponent that Akane had not expected.

"Try to get some sleep, Hase requests our presence by dawn.” She told Akha

Akane stood up, prepared a futon. and dimmed the lights. The cold air once again blew inside, and warmth that seeped through the crevices of the paper doors and walls suddenly left the room. There was great unrest in Akane’s mind, something that entailed through the words spoken with death that resonated something buried inside her. This did not bother her, and she made sure not a single falter of weakness was shown from these haunting thoughts.

“Sleep.” A calm voice spoke. It was Akha’s.

She turned slowly, inconspicuously, to his direction. He was by the paper door, slightly opened, staring into the crescent moon. The moon, she whispered, something about it gave her a dreaded feeling. A sensation that began from her back as it crawled its way up to her nape. She ought not to forget such things, even if they stemmed from past ordeals and regrets.

She had to cling to them, for reasons that only Togoma Akane knows, and the brooch that she holds ever so meticulously in her possession was apparent to this.

“I cannot.” She answers him. “Not while you stare at the moon ever so longingly.”

He shifts his gaze from the moon and down to that patch of floor almost to her eyes that began to hold tears.

“The moon...” He repeated, as he closes the door.

Akane sits up, her white silver hair falling on her shoulders like snow. “They say the light from the moon does not belong to it, and that it is only borrowed.”

“Is that so.”

“Just as all things are.”

“Just as this land was borrowed from the Yasukagi?” Akha asks.

“Yes, just as this land is borrowed by the Yasukagi, and when it had finally departed, it came to be what it has always been, where wheat does not grow and the soil too sour.”

“Then our lives— are they not borrowed also?” The swordsman asks as he was met with an astounded, though realizing, look from Akane.

“You ask strange questions, master Akha. To say that it is borrowed, it shall be followed by the premise that it can also be taken. Where is life borrowed, and who takes them, I wonder? You ask strange questions, indeed.” She smiles, but Akane was met with the cold indifference that the swordsman had worn for the many months that they had shared in travel together. It was strangely comforting for her.

“You met someone here, did you? An old friend?” Akane asked.

“An acquaintance.” Akha answered.

“I see.”

“No… someone who I once met.” He corrected.

It was during that time, in the first day, that the sun was enshrouded cast above in an ashen sky. The air was filled with a melody played by a reed that was picked from the river as he plays a tune. It was a melancholic, one that mirrored the shadow that suspends over the land’s somnolent planes, and as soon as twilight beckoned from his waiting under the fig tree. He waited for her.

Akha stops blowing upon the reed, and lifts his eyes to the settlement, it had been several hours now since.

He stands up and walks a notable distance from the fig tree where he sees the meandering river from an eyeshot. The wind blows across his face, lifting his hair in the air as they thrashed like serpents. The black threads that fell upon his face were split to reveal the jagged scar that run up from his eye. The wound that had long been closed ached with familiarity, for though subtly, he senses the despair that hangs miasmic in the air.

A certain eye caught sight of him who was intrigued by the mournful tune that was played.

“A pleasant evening.” The figure greeted and Akha bowed.

“The wind here certainly does not get any warmer.” She spoke along with a cold gust of evening air.

Akha steadies his eyes on the clouds that began to take on the color of plum and amber. The setting sun draped the sky in a deep ember that settled like flames from a distant horizon as the mountains darkened. He shuffles from where he stood and turned to go back to the city.

“I must go back.” He spoke. “Farewell.”

The swordsman walks away from the woman, and she tailed behind him as he returned to the fig tree from where he was supposed to meet with Akane.

“Why do you follow me?”

“I cannot help but think that I have seen you before.” She spoke.

“You mistake me for someone else.”

The woman held her hand to her chin, leaning forward, observing him. “Maybe, but unless something comes to mind in my recollection of you, then I will not leave.”

The woman’s gaze was like fire, mischievous and blazing, but hollows began to show in her cheeks and the bottom of her eyes. He has known these shallows, these were that from those who tirelessly seek for something, only to end to failure. She had a slender build, and a posture that held her chest high proud. Her hair was hazelnut, long, tied back, and gleaming in the harsh light of the lanterns that began to wreathe Goundo in colors of ember as night fell swiftly upon the lands.

On her hip, a tie was wrapped around suspending a Kuratashi, one that Akha could not mistake.

Then as if she had finally remembered, she stands erect before him, smiling. “There is no denying it, I know that sword you bring, it is the very same Kuratashi when we first met…”

“I have not known why, but it seems that destiny has brought us once again face to face, Kinu.” The voice made itself familiar through a certain tone. Akha he instantly remembers the reverie that came to pass on the river to Goundo.

“Iyone Hina.”

“What brings you to Goundo?” She smiles. The light of the newly lit lanterns from the city softly falls upon her face. Her eyes had seemed to known wear, as though something inside them was taken from her for the years that has passed by.

“It seems you have not changed one bit.” She grins, though through her weary eyes, her smile seems more forced. Akha was deep in thought— he had not noticed her asking that question.

“It has been five years.”

“…and you are still alive.” She utters beneath her breath.

Akha turns away, his hand over the mouth of his Kuratashi, fingers coursing through the varnished painted wood, moving across the lace that ties it to his hip as it reached the guard, moving up to the grip, and finally to a golden pommel that awaited at the end of it. Alive. He whispered.

“The scar on your face.” She spoke. “… where did you get it?”

Akha did nothing to conceal it, and it was conspicuous enough to be noticed.

“I prefer not to speak of it.” He answered, and the girl replied with silence.

“When all is said and done, the scars that live through our lifetime will tell of our stories, and they will resonate louder than any words ever spoken.” She smiles. “Kinu, you still have a bad habit of leaving people unanswered.”

Akha turned to greet her relaxed countenance. Her eyes met his as he stood unwavering from where she was seated on a boulder. The Kuratashi was propped up on the ground as she rests her chin on the end of the grip, her hands doming over the pommel.

“What brings you to Goundo?” She asks one more time.

“A sojourn.” He replies.

Iyone met him with a skeptical glare. “Since I have not heard of the Kinu the red orchid for five winters, so it must have been one long and arduous journey. But Goundo is not a place that you want to settle in for even a few nights. Not in these times. Something tells me that shadowed hands are at play beneath the light that hangs over the streets…” She holds her gaze towards the Kuzuboki, and Akha followed them.

“The schemes of those who hold the weight of war are always churning, and words can no longer trusted more than a sword. For whatever reason that you have come upon Goundo, I warn you to stay away from matters of within the Kuzuboki, as have the Kinu been for a thousand years. It never ends well.”

Iyone Hina, a swordsman of Goundo, spoke that last line as if she knew what had once happened to Akha. Though evidently, she was younger than him, but what she has gone through speaks through multiple lifetimes, with eyes that knew what it was to hold death in between your fingers. All those who take up the Kuratashi knew what their duty entailed, and the consequence that come with it.

“You came from war.” The swordsman uttered.

“I have.” She answered him. “I am the only one left from the Shin sent to northern Katen.”

Akha could not ask what she was doing at northern Katen. Goundo never took any sides, and have not dispensed any military aid to the battles that continue to ravage Katen. Whatever she was doing, it was certainly something that would not exactly meet eye to eye to the reason of them being here.

“I thought strange to witness a man outside Goundo’s gates, beneath a fig tree, to play the Clouds of Icathia with a river reed.”

“A beautiful piece.”

“Yes,” She replied. “The reed that grows in Goundo was once used to call for the spirit of the Yasukagi… I wonder why the spirit has gone deaf now. Is it because the land has receded back to its degenerative state, a land incapable of life? I wonder.”

The two fell silent and the wind blew across their faces.

“As I noticed your Kuratashi, I knew had to greet a fellow swordsman, and of course, an eccentric one at that I expected—but I did not presume it to be you, master Akha.”

“Should not Goundo welcome your arrival?” The swordsman asked.

She scoffed, lightly, but Akha sensed disdain. “No one should welcome a killer with open arms. There are no heroes in war, there is only man— men sent to war, and to spill blood for a cause. One should not be greeted as if it is something to be praised. We all have our reasons to fight, to pick up the sword… though we should not be the ones to decide who lives and who dies. But then again, that would make me a hypocrite.”

She smiles and looks upon the sky. “No one should welcome a hypocrite… would that be more fitting?”

“I do not know.” He answers.

“Some of us truly are incorrigible, master Akha, yet only to a certain degree. This was a strange reunion, though it was one quite enjoyable. May our paths cross again, though I doubt it will be out of mere pleasantries…” Iyone bid farewell, as she walked on.

Later that day, Akane and Akha regrouped. They eventually found themselves a place to stay, and the two had dinner in a small business that served guests even in the late of night.

In Goundo, travelers were no scarcity. But for the past seven years, the streets have been silent and the inns that once housed weary travelers and intrepid spirits have turned into spaces of shadows and emptiness. Everyday, the tenants cycle the arduous task of lighting the lanterns that surround these ghosted establishments, with nothing but the local seeking solace in their own homes as they make their way down from a mountain that stands behind it.

This was Goundo now—no longer was a place where wine flowed. It took on the color of the coal that is dug in the stone, and the iron that is melted to create steel.

“The gatherers hunt outside the borders, to Southern Katen. They return with provisions enough to last my people a month, and they return again.” Hase once mentioned when Akane was there to meet him.

“So Goundo took upon itself to raise an army larger than the Ogana First Shin...” The swordsman utters.

“Yes, and to have acquired such, it would almost seem impossible that Goundo did it all independently. It was far too great a feat to pull off, but somehow, it seems all true. Hase amassed a great army, kept his people from resorting to anarchy, and assures death upon anyone who dares try to take his land—even if it was one that bore no life.”

“What drives the man?” The Kinu asks, intrigued.

Akane answered with a long pause, and let out a sigh. “There is no use thinking of it, all will come to light soon.” She spoke those words, but from the twitching of her fingers, the unsettled tapping of her feet on the floor. Something tells Akha that Akane already had deduced to what haunts Goundo Hase, to the point that he defies almost any downfall that awaits his ruling.

The two continue in silence, and when they finished, the two cleaned themselves for the night.

 “I saw the Shin of Goundo in the second day.” Akane opened.

Akha, who was combing Akane’s hair with the brooch that she keeps, listens attentively.

“None were struck by forms of weakness or illness. They were as what all of Issu would describe those that practice the swordsmanship of the River Blade.”

The swordsman stopped, and placed the comb beside her. He stood up, and turned to her direction. “Is it not what you are looking for?”

“It is what Shida is looking for, not me.” She corrected.

“I see.”

Akane faced to Akha as their eyes met—his were darkened by the trenches beneath them and menaced by the shadow that casts overhead when he drops his head. But somehow, they were like two pools—serene, still, though distrurbed, harboring a regret that fills those dark brown pupils as they float in an empty space. Recently, to Akane’s amusement, the furrows of the swordsman’s brow began to lighten, and that threatening, lifeless, gaze of his was almost likeable, though probably not for the common folk.

But there was still one thing that came upon Akane’s mind.

The eyes of a killer? She whispers. Akane had seen many. When she finally found him in Kobeka, his eyes were what Akane first sought. She could not deny it, she was afraid, when she had grasped that blade overhead intending to strike Akha down, her hands were filled with dread of what might happen.

 She knew she had almost let her emotion take the best of her in that moment, and she had promised to herself she would not do something so foolish.

“Before I came into the household of Kuzaemon as official tactician, I was the advisor of the current Kobuke bloodline…” She wanted to say, but the night passed by in stillness. It came back to the present moment in time, as Akha sits beside Akane, accompanying her until the ravenous thoughts leave her and she comes at peace.

She was silent, and so was he. The two deep in thought, and in separate worlds, for Akane, her thoughts lingered to a time when she became Ogana’s Fourth Shin strategist. 

War reveals the worst of oneself, and it reveals the monstrosity that man tries hardest to hide. She had been in this field of work for three years, witnessing, hearing, until eventually, she has grown strangely acquianted to these horrors. She could now distinguish when one is consumed by malice just by looking through a person’s eyes. These people, who have greatly shed a part of humanity, are products of war. Monsters, who roam the land with no other purpose but to satiate their desires and revel in unspeakable atrocities. To speak of their acts was worse, and to hear them would churn even the hardest of stomachs and cower even the keenest of spirits.

Something about Akha’s gaze was different. There was something in them—a subtle sense of humanity enshrouded by his previous sworn life. Remorse, regret, and purpose? all these things can simply be used to justify the act of taking another’s life.

 Akha holds no honor left to his name, deemed a killer by all of Issu. A murderer, a disgrace, and a masterless Kinu, yet he did not possess the eyes of a killer.

Just as Hase’s eyes were filled with pain when he asked of such a request.

Whatever truth that was veiled beneath it, Hase spoke it in all seriousness. Akane had told Akha that this was the lord’s demand but she had not disclosed any name, maybe because she knew that it would be for the best, and that this was a far better approach since, for the fact that it all seemed too ambiguous a reason, and too radical an act, both for Hase and herself.

Akane already knew who was going to win.