The Shadow of Issu

The Code of the Shadow

Morning came without rain, but the night before was ruthless enough to shake Akha into a reverie.

It was all merely a recollection, from a time long gone that he had vaguely even remembered. His first journey towards the capital, and most of it are nothing more but a hazy memory. Yet during that strange dream, everything had seemed so real, so vivid, as if he had felt the pulsating strength course through his arm, as he would, with each powerful swing of his sword.

But it no longer mattered now, for most of it he had already forgotten. Buried deep into the farthest reaches of his mind, surfacing only to haunt him, then come by morning, crawling back into the pits from where it once came.

He started a fire and boiled some water over an iron kettle. He looked over outside, the morning called to him as the light slowly seeped into his abode, or at least it was to Akha. It illuminated over a small space of woven grass that served as his bed, a campfire, an axe, a bow, and a small collection of things upon a piece of lumber, one of these things was a small wooden figure, withered and chipped, resembling a stout man.

He took the axe and went outside.

The sound of the sea met him at some close distance, and the scent of the ocean wind filled his chest to the brim. The sky was once again blue, and over south, a cluster of grey giants shadowed the far ranges of the regions of Kobeka.

The winds blew calmly across his face. A scar was drawn from the side of his left temple streaming down to his jaw. He proceeded into one of the forests and decided to stack up on wood. Atop many of these trees, the thick canopies harbored eggs from within its greeneries.

Akha presumed they would be great for breakfast.

After a short while, a felled tree came to become his resting place. About four eggs were raided from it as he placed them over a makeshift satchel from animal hide. He promptly went back, brewed himself tea from dried leaves, and broke his fast.

He did it all in silence as the crackling of the fire beside him conversed in the same reciprocated manner. His eyes were cast unto the flame, lost in the red embers that breathed with every spark that crawled its way up, only to disappear into the darkness.

Ironically, the days lived in constant war were more serene than those that are lived in constant regret. This was what Akha had realized, but he had learned to live by these days. He was no longer tied to anything, and had lost all reason to live. It was far more dishonorable even for him to continue breathing whilst his very reason of being was cast behind him. One might call it abandonment, but Akha’s reason was far more complex. A complexity that should not be incorporated in a Bladesworn’s life, and yet here he was, living off of what little these lands had to offer.

He did not fear death, yet he could not embrace it as well. Though, strangely, he awaits it. The days that pass by are mere counting of his fingers, all in deep meditation. A quick sustenance in the morning, to go back into a deep meditation for the many hours of the day in his dark cave. Perhaps it was his own definition of resolution, even his own mind could not decipher what voices had come to tell him of his mistakes.

One of these voices was his father’s.

It has been seven years since he had last seen his father’s face. Akha hoped he was doing well. But being far south from the capital, it would be most likely that his father was far from the flames of a brewing unrest, a prelude of war from a region farther east from the capital of Issu. The capital must have also sent word of the dishonorable bladesworn that was to be his foster son. It has been seven years already, how would his father take these news, he wondered.

Akha shook the thought, and went back into a deep concentration. Instilling peace into his mind, letting every breath come as soft and controlled as the waves of the ocean, it was already a few hours of the sun before nightfall.

In all the years that he had been in solitude inside the cave, he felt something disturb that silence.

A presence? Akha could not be mistaken.

He did not flinch from where he sat, his back was faced towards the mouth of the cave. He heard it, no, felt the steps sink into the sand pulsating through the ground and reaching to Akha. It was light, each step seemed almost weightless, graceful even. The presence was extremely close, Akha stood up, though he was still facing into the darkness that stretched deep into the cave.

“Leave,” He spoke.

“So it is true,” the voice spoke.

Akha’s tensed muscles eased as he heard the voice. It was soft, gentle like a breeze breathing life to a plum tree in the cold morning of spring, or the bustling of a stream beneath a midday sun. It was the voice of a woman.

“You are not dead.”

Akha turned around, and he saw the silhouette of a woman clothed in a familiar apparel—It was that of a wrapped rectangular garment, worn over like a robe, with square-shaped sleeves and a piece of cloth tied to the waist. It draped just above the woman’s knees, and below that, she had worn blacks and a wooden sandal that had left almost no sound as she had approached him from behind. Strapped to her back was an elongated object wrapped in a deep crimson cloth. It was all in darkness, Akha did not come to see it clearly.

“Who are you?” He asks.

“I would not be so surprised for you to not remember me.”

Akha shook his head in reply. “If you have come to kill me, do it quickly.” He spoke. Akha turned his back from the unexpected visitor, and sat down on the patch of grass. There were no signs of hostility from the man when he had offered her this defenselessness.

The woman did not answer, instead she took the package and unwrapped it. It was a sword, and she took it from its sheathe and placed it into her hands. In Issu, these curved, single-edged blades, fitted with a long grip to accommodate two hands were called Kuratashi. In the archipelago of Issu, there is no shortage to the ingenuity of weapon design ever since the dawn of the first folk, but it is by far, the Kuratashi, the oldest form of sword, with its ageless design and practicality, that has been deemed a weapon of choice to the Tenshando, and as well as the Kinu, the Bladesworn.

Its edge, even without light, seemed to glow with an surreal sheen.

“Your hands are quivering.”

“S-Silence,” She told him. She raised the sword above her head, with palms damp with sweat. She could not stop herself from shaking. After staring at Akha for quite a reasonable amount of time, she lowered the blade to the sand, and sheathed it back into its wooden case.

“I have not actually come to kill you,” She told him. “But believe me, all my being screams to strike you down here and now.”

“Then why have you not?”

The girl fell into a quick silence, thinking. “I need your help.”

“Whatever it is, a shadow is of no aid to you.”

“Perhaps,” She threw the Kuratashi besides Akha. “But a swordsman would be.”

As Akha’s eyes set upon the weapon, every fiber of his body shot up as if they were set ablaze. The sheathe seemed to have been maintained well, the dark mauve paint was still well-varnished, and the flowing designs of maroon and gold that ornamented the mouth seemed to have known no signs of tear. The weapon seemed as exactly as it was when it was given to him by his father. Akha never thought he would see it ever again.

He emptied his lungs and took it by the wooden sheathe. Revealing a portion of the blade, it was as if a portion of Akha was unearthed as well, something long gone, thought long forsaken. His face did not show any evidence of this feeling, for he knew, that it was too late for him to go back. There was no absolution for someone as him. No pardon from any god that existed beyond the planes of Kobeka. Here, the recluse of the southern sea was a prison of his own doing, a penance that was all too merciful for the crime of a dishonorable Bladesworn.

Akha placed the blade back, and placed it beside him.

“Tell me your name.”

“Akane,” The woman spoke. “I have come from Tokube, Ogana, and have searched for half a year of the Orchid’s owner, so be sure to remember it. Now that I am here, I implore you to come with me, to make amends from all the sins that you have committed.”

“You probably know better more than anyone that I cannot go back,”

“I know, and I can help you.”

Akha scoffed, “If you think it is easy for one such as myself to be—“

“I am the general advisor of the Fourth Shin of the Issian Army. I am not without power. The improvisatory minister of Issu, Kuzaemon Shida, is current commander of the capital’s strongest brigade against a stemming rebellion from the northeast after the late Lord Kuzaemon Yukono was slain in the battle near Orel. Lord Shida has taken upon his father’s position and, though young and inexperienced, is currently the most powerful person in all of Issu.”

“An underhanded method,” Akha spoke amused. “So Issu has reached this state of depravity that it has resorted to such interventions. To ask of aid from dishonorable men, so as long as they know their way around the sword.”

“You are mistaken, if you think he would choose just anyone, then you are gravely mistaken. Lord Shida has heard of the Orchid’s prowess over the blade. He knew that you possessed skill second to none in all the swordsmen of Ogana. He had also learned of your loyalty to Lord Yuko, which was as steadfast as your talent with the blade. Lord Shida knew of the Orchid’s—No—your betrayal, but he is willing to overlook this if you were to lend your skills, and your loyalty, for Issu.”

“Your Lord Shida is mistaken,”

“He knew how much Lord Yuko meant to you. He could not simply dismiss such loyalty.”

“My loyalty has been buried along with my lord!” Akha’s voiced echoed along the walls, his answer had sundered the atmosphere into an uncomfortable silence. For one such as Akha, who had despised senseless conversation, he broke it.

“Leave me,” He spoke. “There is no reason for me to go back to Ogana.”

 “The Tsagari, they’ve coalesced with the rebellion, and their growing numbers have exponentially become a threat against Shida’s seeking of all Issu’s unification that it should not be merely overlooked, and to make things worse… the Nine Swords of Ictha Shinu… They’ve resurfaced again”

Upon hearing those words, Akha’s brow furrowed.

“I’ve heard the story not just from the victims of the m******e, but those who knew of your Rite as well. They’ve shown themselves after a year of silence now. I do not know what it is you seek, be it revenge, absolution, or something else, but I can help you with it. But if you still think that you have no reason to act upon such reason, then there is one reason that you should still hear.”

Akha turned, and met Akane’s eyes.

“Your master is still alive.”

            He flinched upon hearing those words.

            “Lord Yuko was never killed. He was captured for reasons that we are yet to know of. His captors were the Tsagari, who were said to have schemed with the Nine Swords so they could interfere with your rite of the blade.

His family was murdered, and your absence has become a symbolic metaphor to all the Bladesworn in Issu as a grave and irredeemable betrayal. But we can change all that. If your master is still alive, then you are not yet the broken blade that all of Issu has deemed you to be.”

“All this talk,” Akha whispered. “Yet I do not understand a single one of them.”

Akane shifted her gaze outside to where the moon had glistened calmly across rows of waves crashing into the distant shore. “I would not expect all of this for you to understand. When I have heard of your act against the Kobuke clan, I could not bring myself to forgive you. Now I am here, miles away from the capital to seek for the bladesworn who was accused the death of his young master to ask for his aid. But I do not expect him to understand, so much as to come with me.”

She stood up, and walked to the mouth of the cave. Akha’s mind raged a storm that was greater than the night before. His master, whom he had thought long dead, was alive and in captivity. And the eight, that he had sworn vengeance to, who attacked him at the Moonsprings during his Rite of the Blade had finally shown their presence after a year of silence. The First Code of the Blade was of absolute abidance to one’s master. If he was taken, the Bladesworn should by all means take him back. But the iron chains of the Code were severed when Akha had once learned of his master’s death, that was all until now.

“I can no longer follow the Code of the Blade, for it is a chain that is once severed, could never be mended again.” Akha whispered to himself. “This is no longer a matter of the Bladesworn.”

He stood up, took the sword and unsheathed it with such speed, the air was split into two as a gust from his swipe swayed the hair that fell upon his face. He was holding it in the air with his right hand, though his fingers, they were shaking. Akane looked back from the outside, and no longer saw a Kinu that followed the old code. What her eyes saw was a remnant of his former self—a shadow. Akha was not a total stranger to Akane. She had seen him with the young master before the great incident, but she had kept her relationship as a teacher to Yuko a secret from Akha. If Akha believed that all she was asking of him was an act of servitude for Issu, then it should not further complicate things as she would expect of their journey.

Akha went outside where Akane was waiting under the full bloom of the moon. Her silver hair flowed in the wind like threads woven from the moonlight itself. She was wearing a deep cerulean dress woven upon a white fabric ornamented with weavings of salmon lotus, with a dark cloth tied around her waist. She had brought nothing else on her journey, save for a pouch of a few silver khands.

“You’ve taken up the sword.”

“This hand that holds the Kuratashi is not the hand of a Bladesworn.” He clarifies.

“The hand of a shadow, then.” She tells him.

Upon hearing those words, Akha’s face became less furrowed, almost determined maybe. But no one could tell from the thoughts of a person such as him. Akha was known by many, especially by his enemies, to have spoken words only through the swing of his blade, and Akane wanted to understand that.

“Well then, let us start from the beginning.”