The Shadow of Issu

The River and Malice Pt. II

What remained of the old man was a dragging corpse that seemed to move like he was attached to suspended strings. He swung his sword blindly around, his skin a hue of dark sickly blue with veins protruding like serpents. His eyes turned completely red.

“Izuki!”

“Understood.” She came at him, and delivered an attack, but Ichiru seemed to have retained his skill as a Tenshando. He parried the attack just as swiftly and even countered it with a quick riposte, which Izuki narrowly deflected due to her surprise. That strike was enough to throw Ichiru away. As he stumbled back, Izuki ran a sharp swing through his neck, which was already a mass of flesh that pulsated from when he began to attack Maru, pushing the blunt edge of her sword with her hand to make sure the blade went through every bone and ligament.

Then, where blood was supposed to spill, white opaque liquid sprayed from where Izuki landed the strike. It draped the walls, continuing to fountain from the wound like a broken bamboo pipe, glowing nebulously from where it coated the walls and the ceiling. With sinews and vessels ruptured, Ichiru’s head hang from what little flesh suspended it. Suddenly, the white liquid stopped, and there was a black, oozing, and viscous fluid that replaced it. It began to form around the wound, into a grotesque shape that resembled a human head with tendrils that protruded from where his spine was supposed to be. Eyes began to materialize from this black muck.

“What a terrible fate.” Kaito whispered.

The black liquid ran down the deceased’s arm and found its way to his Kuratashi.

“Izuki! Watch out!” Minato screamed. Too late, the creature swung around and the blunt part of the blade hit her with such force that she was thrown to the wall, breaking it into splinters as she rolled down on the patch of dirt outside.

Minato’s face was filled with rage. “Ichiru!” He screams in anger and clashed blades with the monster.

Tainted. No, it can’t be. Hina whispered to herself. How could she not see it—this was a set-up. Someone was awaiting her arrival here in Kado. But who had the ability to cast a curse upon one of her fellow Tenshando? Ichiru was fine just a few days ago, only then had he began to act peculiarly when they reached Kado. What has she really come for in Kado?

The voice once again echoed in her skull. It was the voice of a person, though at least not one who is human. Some stories that have traversed through the ages speak of men that have shed their humanity in pursuit of power. These men have long existed through time, as their motives persisted beyond their own generation, infecting the next person whose endeavor shares the same as the ones that preceded them, only to be touched and tainted by pure, unbridled malice.

Hina remembers the teachings of her grandfather, and how he once spoke of an entity that existed dormant in the soil of where Issu stands. As the gods have provided sustenance and life through the river that flows from the land, so has there existed the same, equivalently powerful, being that wished corruption upon the land and its people. This malice is spoken to be the root of all negative emotion that stems from mankind—fear, anger, regret, contempt, envy. All of these emotions flowed from the great malice, and it is even spoken, that when overcome by these emotions, a human begins to shed a part of himself, until there is none left turning him into a Yasu.

She had sense greatly of the malice in Ichiru, and turned a blind eye against it.

A large swing delivered by Ichiru was taken by Minato with full force with his blade. He was sent back, his upper arm ached with great pain.

“Minato… Don’t leave Maru’s side.” Hina uttered and he rushed beside his dying friend.

She drew her blade and took upon the stance of the Fushi Hiru. Her breaths were now controlled, her footwork set her on the floor as she caressed her fingers upon her blade, sliding them towards the tip of her Kuratashi. In a flash, she dashed forward and the strike went through that black mass. She pulls her blade and rends it apart.

The damage of the impact was severe as pieces of flesh flew everywhere. The creature staggered, but it grew more in size until Ichiru’s body was suspended in the air, massive bloats and tendrils held up the legion as more eyes emerged from that black pulsing mass.

It destroyed half of the house in mere seconds, thrashing its limbs around and disintegrating stone and wood alike. A rogue swing caught Hina, which she blocked in just a nick of time, and she was thrown outside under the evening sky.

It was dark, Minato was clutching a barely-breathing Maru, and Izuki was still lying on the ground unconscious. Hina tried to pick herself up but there was a painful click on her shoulder, and suddenly she could not stand up.

Kaito Hiro emerged from the debris. He snapped a finger and the stone lanterns around the forest lit up. Hina looked over, and he was standing there, in one of his arms cradled a stone lantern in the shape of a yasu head bundled in a red cloth. Yua was behind him.

As if all form of cowardice had unexpectedly left Hiro, he stood there under the shadow of the grotesquerie as if it was simply a figment of the mind's eye. He snapped his finger once again and a spark flew from his hand. It exploded in the face of the creature in an flare of blue flame and the night sky lit up. He fell to his knees after displaying such a spectacle, and Yua caught him by the chest.

“Master Minato,” He called, panting. “Take Master Izuki…”

Hiro turns to the man cradled in Minato’s arms. “Master Maru is… no more.”

With a reluctant nod, he placed Maru’s cold head on the grass. “We will meet again, my friend. Save your jokes until then.” He whispered then he drew his blade and turned his furious gaze to Ichiru.

The creature loomed in the middle of the clearing, and beyond it, Izuki lay cold in the ground. He wiped the blood that poured from his nose and sprinted towards it without hesitation, vengeance streaked across his face.

Ichiru’s Kuratashi has already been extended by the black flesh that consumed more than half of him. It grew to be longer than his own body. The fiend prepared to swing his sword, a hundred eyes fixated on Minato, who was running towards the creature’s animate blade. To reciprocate, Ichiru attacked first—he thrusted the blade, which Minato evaded, as it pierced the ground burying half of it. It was exactly what Minato had planned. He climbed the blade sprinting non-stop towards the body of a wide-open Ichiru whose ribs have been torn and revealed by the explosion of Hiro’s flames. This exposed cavity revealed a crimson stone that glowed a menacing red in the moonlight.

A Yasu’s weakness. Hina spoke to herself. Ichiru has turned into a Yasu, but something far much more sinister than what they would usually encounter.

Tendrils now formed fingers around him, noticing the enemy and instinctively trying to rid itself of it, but Minato leaped high into the air to where these black appendages could not reach, capturing the draft with the wind stance, and descending down, extending his Kuratashi and spiraling his body into a whirlwind of death towards the glowing stone.

With the kill-move secured, Minato landed on the ground contented, for he knew his blade had felt it.

But Ichiru did not fall.

Minato turned and saw that he had blocked the attack with his Rakatashi— the small sword that every Tenshando carries along with the Kuratashi. His left human arm was the one that held the blade, and it had covered that part effectively. A twisted and misshapen grin began to display on Ichiru’s face.

“Impossible.”

Staring into his friend’s eyes with horror, Minato failed to escape the impending attack. A ten-meter blade of pure black flesh passed through his own chest as it began lifting him from the ground.

“Minato!” Hina screamed.

Blood poured from his mouth. He could feel his own fingers turn numb and cold. His weapon dropped to the soft forest ground as red drops trickled from his feet. The creature neared Minato’s face towards its own— a lumping, upside-down visage of his dead friend who was wearing a gruesome blood-stricken smile. It whispered something to Minato’s ear, something terrible, for the look on Minato’s face, before his head was severed from his body by the Rakatashi, was one filled with pure absolute dread.

Ichiru swung his blade to remove Minato’s body, which flew into the creeps of the forests. The head rolled down on the grass, eyes drowned in terror.

“No!” Hina screamed. 

She turns around and she sees Yua lifting Hiro on horseback. The lanterns around them had gone out one by one. It was counting down. With an apologetic and ashamed look, Hiro turns away from Hina’s contemptuous gaze as the two rode into the forest.

With each lantern waning, Ichiru seemed to grow in size. Hina makes her way to Izuki, who was already returning to her senses.

“Get up, Izuki.” Hina spoke to her softly. “Get up, please.”

“M-master Iyone…”

Hina swung her companion’s arm around her neck and helped her up. The hundred eyes of Ichiru glared at them with every intent to kill. There was no use fighting, they have to retreat. Hina turned to the opposite direction as the two shambled towards the horses. Hina’s eyes were steadfast on the lanterns— there were only ten of them left.

“Quickly Izuki!” She told her as she matched her steps. Five lanterns left. Four. Three. Hina kept walking, shambling, the horses are only a few steps away.

There is still time. There is still time. There is still…

The last lantern went out, suddenly time went still. Izuki and Hina witnessed the woods around them fall silent. Everything froze—the leaves, the sound, even the creature that was once Ichiru, which was just behind them, and with the blade of his flesh-like Kuratashi swung at full force, its edge reaching to Hina’s side.

If time had not stopped, the two might have already been sliced into two.

Wonderful. She heard a voice speak.

From the darkness before them, a figure emerged. He was barely seen in the moonlight but Hina could distinguish a few features. A thin figure, wearing a fitted robe upon a vest. There were strange attachments to his clothes— on his shoulders, his forearms, his shins— that seemed to take on figures and patterns of Issian heritage, evident on multiple ornaments and designs as the dim light of the moon reflecting from them. The shadows deepened the furrows, most which took on the shapes and forms of flowers and evil beasts.

“You…” Hina greeted with hostility.

“I do not believe we’ve met… but it is of no surprise that you know me, Iyone Hina.” The man spoke. He turns his head and meets the eyes of Izuki, who drew her blade instantly the man had spoken his first word. Her legs were shaking.

“And who might this be?” He asks.

“Okina Izuki,” Izuki answered for him. “You were the one who did this.”

The man crossed his arm and smiled, the moonlight falling upon them as time held completely still. There was no sound, and the both of them could hear their own heart beat restlessly inside their chests. The man was grimacing, almost as if he could hear them too as fear coursed through their veins in cold blood.

 “Well there is no denying the perfect work that comes from these wretched hands. You are clear to say that, Okina Izuki.”

“Why?” She spoke, her voice suddenly filled with trepidation.

“Why, you say? Well…”

The man stepped forward, and revealed his face. “Because I wanted to.”

Overcome by anger, Izuki rushed to him with the Kuratashi. It happened in moment—the man held his hand out, as if waiting for her to come to him, and like a flash, there was an eruption of red that overturned the scene into a bloody downpour. Hina’s ears rung, and she was caught face to face with a man holding up his hand where the crimson pooled and glowed ethereal. She looked to the direction where Izuki was supposed to be. What remained was a pool of blood that spread out like twisting figures and her sword clanking on stone.

Hina stood still, the blood drenching every inch of her as it continued to pour. Her hand was quivering and her throat ran dry as dust. She had never felt this way before—this was the first time that she had truly felt afraid.

The blood fell upon what seemed like a barrier above the man, and when it stopped he threw his arms and the blood was whisked away to its direction. He fitted his own robes and brushed away any dust upon them.

“Truly Magnificent, am I not?” He spoke.

Hina’s lips were sewn shut, and they quaked in his presence.

“Well, speak up, I do not mind the criticism.” He spoke sarcastically.

“Who… are…you?” Hina managed those words and the man turned just as quickly with a sour look on his face. He gave out a disappointed sigh.

“I know that it isn’t our queue yet, but I just cannot help it. I am an artist! No matter what Ioru says I cannot simply be kept in the dark, for that is completely contrary of what I am supposed to be! I am the dawn as I am the night, the puppeteer of dreams, the twister of fate, and the weaver of both beauty and terror.”

After speaking those words, he twirls and his hand throws out petals, nebulous paper that illuminated purple and red. He reaches his hand to cover a portion of his face and does a little bow to present himself. 

“Rayone of the Nine”

Hina stares at him dumbfounded.

“I know, I know.” He replies with another dissatisfied exhale. “Then maybe you may have perhaps heard of the Ictha Shinu?” The man let out a bone-chilling grin.

Hina thought her blood could not have gone any colder, but she was wrong. Her grandfather spoke of them as something to frighten her to submission during the days that she was being stubborn and mischievous. Later on in her years of adulthood, she learned the truths behind those dreadful enough to be called the Ictha Shinu. Men who shed all forms of humanity, men who are more monster than man.

From the archives of Goundo’s darkest history, it is said that leaders of old once asked for aid from the Ictha Shinu, and it went by as one of the most tragic event that occurred in Goundo until present time. They s*******r without discrimination and without reason, and their motives are usually unknown, except for one— to hasten the coming of the one they call the Saint of War.

Rayone. She spoke in her mind.

“Did you kill Iyone Yoshida?” She asked.

The man tilts his head, and gazes up to the night sky. “I’ve killed numerous—I cannot possibly hope to remember them all, unless they are of utmost magnificence, worthy of my attention and praise.”

“The ambush at Hundan Pass.” She asks, her stomach churning.

“Ah, The Ukumari War. Yes, such an amusing distraught that befell upon Issu. They had no chance in winning that war, not while the Kinu breathe. If they sought for our help instead, I wonder the outcome with burning fascination… But the Ukumari have heads larger than the land they inhabit, and look what it had cost them. Their own home, their own bloodline. There is none pure Ukumari blood left in Issu. Pity.

The Hundan Pass ambush was the first that we intervened. Fifty brave men—fifty of Goundo’s finest— ready for the taking. We just had to. We had to let people know that we still existed. And what better way to do that than to unveil our presence in a place where memory lingers— for is it not what the Hundan Pass is known for?

But then again, it had gone fairly poorly. The Ukumari interceded, and it became one which they were accountable for, and all of Issu still refuse to believe that we have finally emerged from the shadows. Perhaps it is too dreading a notion that they would keep on denying such truths, rather than accept it?”

Rayone stared into Hina’s eyes, and that twisted smile once again bore on that face. He tapped his foot and Hina felt her body stiffen. He approached her and leaned to her ear.

“This… Iyone Yoshida. Is he your father?” He whispered.

Her breaths quickened, air pouring from her nostrils as the thought of vengeance rung sweet in her mind. Hina tried to move her hand to the hilt of her Kuratashi, but she could not.

“If it had not been for us… He would have still been alive.”

A swing of the sword was delivered, and Rayone backed away. His face was evident with surprise as he held up a severed scarf, the other piece was just below Hina’s feet. He laughed and suddenly his eyes were set ablaze with excitement. There it was again, Hina thought, a façade of frivolity that masks a sinister power.

She stood her ground, took up a special stance that Hase taught her, and suddenly her mien began to pique a certain interest in Rayone.

“Magnificent…” He whispered. “Absolutely Wonderful! No one has ever escaped Itsuburo’s Blade Art.”

Hina wiped the blood that began to pour from her nose. All fear left her that instant, and a powerful glow in her eyes had substantiated that she was no longer subject to her adversary’s tricks.

“Now, now. All things have their own perfect time. I cannot have you dying now, my dear Hina, Instead, to make things far much more interesting…I will show you a glimpse of what Itsuburo is capable of.”

He snapped his fingers, and Hina’s reflexes kicked in. Time returned as the leaves fell from the trees, carried into the updrafts of the cold evening sky—the momentum of Ichiru’s swing had also returned.

Hina evaded just in the nick of time to miss that immense attack. It wiped that portion of the forest clean and Ichiru was left staggered.

The man stood there watching her. There was no time, she had to end this here and there. Like lightning, she shifted her gaze at the body of Ichiru, to that small portion of a glowing red spot in his chest protected by his Rakatashi. She brandished her sword, straightened the blade, and pushed herself against the air with such force that it propelled her to the air. She used that wind as a solid place to launch herself towards Ichiru.

The creature’s Kuratashi was already swung, and it would take a considerable amount of skill and agility to use it again and block Hina’s advancing attack. Ichiru had to rely completely on the Rakatashi to defend that weak-spot.

But Hina’s attack consisted of three-parts. She began by aiming for the heart, which Ichiru instinctively blocked, but then, almost inhumanly, she released her right hand, pushing her wrist to the pommel casting a downward motion of the hilt as the blade turned a complete cycle and hit the Rakatashi by the sharp edge, letting the blade fly from Ichiru’s hand. The last part was when Hina caught the blade mid-air, which then allowed her to drive the blade deep into his heart as the sword opened to the back.

Almost faintly, she could hear her fellow Tenshando’s voice once more.

“Thank you…” Ichiru spoke softly.

The entire mass shuddered violently, uncontrollably. As Hina vaulted herself away from Ichiru, the creature exploded into black flaying smoke that lashed like sentient creatures as it crawled to the ground, dissolving into the soil. There was nothing left save for the mangled and disfigured body of Ichiru that was left lying on the cold hard ground.

“Rest now, my friend.” She bids farewell. The faces of her peers that fell tonight flashed before her one by one—Ichiru, Izuki, Maru, and Minato. She felt the sting of tears well in her eyes as she tightened the grip on her Kuratashi. She turns around and she sees Rayone clapping.

“I will see you all, soon.” She whispered, as she charged towards him.

“Wonderful…” Rayone uttered, and she blocked her swift attack with the blade that was Itsuburo. The edge was pale and glassy, and it possessed a purplish color that was almost transparent. For a moment it seemed like it, then it turns black, seeping any light into its midnight edge like a bottomless void, at that moment it returns to a glass-like translucent hue once again.

“Do you see it?” Rayone whispered. “Can you see your soul inside it?”

“I see nothing but you dead.” And with a blue-like sheen, she strikes Rayone by the heart. The figure exploded into crimson petals before her, followed by a maniacal laughter in the night.

Everything has its own perfect time, Iyone Hina. Everything.

With clouds clearing in the night sky, the full moon was upon her as she held her blade through empty air. On that night, Iyone Hina swore vengeance against the one called Rayone.