Usoka's feet
hit the ground, stirring up grey dust.
Like the rest of the young men and women with her, she was excited and
nervous.Crab gempuku can be brutal
and harsh.Family expectations
demand she do the same gempuku as her Hida cousins, even though her skills were
not as appropriate.Such is her
life, daughter of an engineer and a tower commander at the Wall.
They walked
out away from the wall, turned to the lookouts and bowed.
Turning back to the dank wasteland,
she noted a group of Hiruma had already started off on their own.
Understandable, really.
They don't do as well when there are
groups of other bushi lumbering about.
As she walked, she made sure to keep a group of Hida out in front of her.
Regardless of how skilled she is with
her katana, she did not want to stray too far away from help.
This was the Shadowlands.
There are no mistakes here.
-----------
The four
samurai sat quietly around the tea service as it was laid out by the house
servant.
"They should
be starting about now," he thought.
The elder Crane samurai glanced out into the garden, noting the position of the
sun.Although his son, at his left,
would be marrying his host's daughter as soon as she finished her gempuku and
return with them back to Crane lands, he had to admit he had enjoyed his time in
Crab lands.His hosts took their
comfort and well-being seriously, as it should be.
He brushed a stray white hair from
his brow, looking down at his son.
He was nervous.Also, as it should
be.
The younger
Crane, slight and and fair, kept trying to keep still.
His nerves were racing.
He had never met this young
samurai-ko, but she was renowned for her intelligence and her natural ability
with weapons; at killing things.As
a courtier, he wasn't sure if they would have much in common.
His gempuku was an Ichibana display.
She has to kill something and bring
it back.He hoped she didn't smell.
The male Crab
samurai was also looking out to the garden.
He was wondering if the new way the rock was being chiseled for the Wall
was as good as the old methods.
Although many other Kaui had inspected his work and found it good, he wasn't
satisfied.The angle of the upper
grooves, designed to allow for the stones to be stacked with less precision
without losing strength, were not as simple as they should have been and could
take more time at the quarry.Also,
he wasn't satisfied enough testing had been done to see how well they handled
the stress of demolition and reconstruction.
He would have to revisit that.
His wife, the
Hida Commander, was staring at the young Crane.
She had done everything possible to ensure he was physically comfortable
and emotionally frazzled as possible.
Her continuous stories about how Usoka could out duel nearly all of her
peers.How she is so naturally
skilled in go and battle.She may
have streached the truth a bit here and there, but no matter.
She wouldn't be happy until the
little white-haired worm wet himself.
-----------------
She knew the
ground was not stable when she took her first step, but she did not feel she
could call out to the group of three Hida ahead of her on the path.
With the loose rocks above and the
deep crevase below, she felt she had to move carefully even though the three
Hida made it past this point without trouble.
Twenty paces
in, she heard it.Turning back, she
saw the Oni step onto the path.How
did it move so silently?It looked
like an eight-legged horse, it's scales acting as heavy barding over its bloated
body.Its head had two eyes on
either side of it's snout, and the ground sizzled where spit from it's
over-toothed mouth landed.
She did the
only thing she could do; she ran.
She ran towards the Hida.
To their
credit, they heard her and the Oni coming.
Unfortunately, their instinct was to charge.
And yell.
Now halfway down the path with the
Oni close behind, the ground crumbled beneath them, the pounding of their feet
along with the Hida's barbaric cries were enough to destabilize it.
She fell, the rocks beating her
body as she tumbled down the mountain side.
The disturbing bleating of the Oni told her she was not the only one
caught in the avalanche.After a
brief time, she rolled to a stop.
She paused and listened; there was no sound from the Oni.
It must not have fared as well as she
did.Her left wrist was broken, her
forehead was bleeding.She stood and
checked her katana; still there.
Looking up, she could not see the Hida on the path, nearly 100 feet above and
through a cloud of dust.
Looking
ahead, she saw she was now at the bottom of a twisty, narrow canyon.
The landslide blocked the direction
she came; hopefully she could find a way to meet back up with the Hida above by
walking out the way ahead.
She got three
steps ahead when she heard the rocks behind her begin to move again.
She assumed the worst, that the Oni
was awake.She ran down the canyon,
her head pounding and her left wrist screaming in pain as she pumped her arms.
The Oni stormed out of the rock, two
of its six legs pulled up under its body.
It spotted Usoka as she ran around the corner in the canyon and charged.
Usoka swerved
left and right through the rock.
There were no places to hide, no places to climb, the canyon never narrowing
beyond the width of the Oni's wide body.
There was no hope of help.
She ran.
She would
have run off the cliff at the end of the canyon if not for the withered tree
growing out of the canyon's end.She
looked over the edge; there were a number of ledges, but only one was close.
But if she went there, there was no
way up, especially with the Oni charging.
She could hear it coming ever closer.
She leaned against the tree, which flexed surprisingly far.
She shook the tree, and its trunk flexed although the roots held tight. She
grabbed it, pulling it towards her.She had an idea, but she would have to work
fast.
The Oni
charged past the last turn in the canyon, stumbling on the loose rock.
Enraged it still had not captured and
dissolved and devoured its prey, it charged ahead, the tree's top twisted out of
sight behind the cliff wall.
Usoka waited,
wanting to time her strike properly.
When she let go of the end of the tree, her katana wedged into its top, she
hoped she had fastened it well enough and that the extra force of the tree would
force it through the Oni's carapace.
The katana
met the throat of the Oni nearly perfectly, slicing it through.
The body's momentum carried it over
the edge of the cliff where it fell unseen to the ground below.
The Oni's head caught up in the top
of the tree and swung back towards Usoka.
She couldn't
move.There was no where to go.
All she could do was watch as the
head of the now dead Oni flew back into her.
--------------------
The messenger
ran down the road towards the commander's house.
She knew what the message said; the story of what Usoka did was already
legendary.The three Hida who pulled
her acid-scarred body off of the ledge and carried it back to the Wall told
everyone they could.Usoka refused
to stop breathing, so they sent for a messenger.
The commander needed to be told.
The
commander's servant answered the door and let the messenger wait in the front of
the house while he woke the commander and her husband.
While the commander, the engineer and
the messenger spoke, the servant returned to his room.
Lighting a small lantern and placing
in his window, he waited for his message to be received.
About 5
minutes after the commander and her husband left, a small figure approached the
servant's window.A hushed
conversation was heard between the small figure and an unseen person, and the
small figure continued on its way.
Early the
next morning, the Crane samurai were awoken by the servant and told there was a
Scorpion courtier waiting to see them.
The Crane dressed and met the courtier in their host's parlor, confused
as to the absence of their hosts.
All three samurai present sat down and exchanged introductions.
The courtier
turned to the younger Crane and spoke.
"I just wanted to be the first to give my condolences to you on the death
of your betrothed."
-------------------------
"She is
resting.The wounds are deep."
The Kuni spoke, not making eye
contact with either of Usoka's parents.
The commander
was unfazed, at least on the surface.
Her husband spoke, "But she lives.
She is resting comfortably."
The Kuni
shook his head."Not comfortably,
no, but resting.The Oni's spit was
acidic and most of her body is burned."
The commander
nodded.She had seen these sorts of
wounds before.There will always be
some level of torment to the samurai who are wounded in this way.
Usoka's wounds sounded worse than
most, and most would have died by now.
That's my girl, she thought.
Stubborn to the last.
While they
spoke, one of the eta, while attending to the young samurai in the next room,
slipped a small amount of green powder onto a cloth and rubbed it into one of
Usoka's many open wounds.After a
few seconds, her body stopped shaking and became still and cold.
The eta
opened the door to the hallway where the three samurai were still speaking about
the condition of the patient and made eye contact with the Kuni.
The eta shook his head.
The Kuni's eyes fell, and the
commander and her husband knew the news.
The eta
carried the still body out to the crematorium quickly.
No one wanted to see what happened to
Usoka's body if it was left in its current state.
Once inside with the body, he closed the door.
Laying the body gently on the floor,
he began to chant to the kami.
Usoka's body began to shake as she took a ragged breath and began to whimper,
the breath of life bringing renewed torment from her acid burns.
The eta lifted her back up and walked
back out into the street where a pony-pulled cart had stopped in front of the
crematorium's door.He placed the
body under the cloth cover on the cart and went back inside.
The cart driver drove on.
----------------------
The commander
and her husband were not upset the Crane had left by the time they returned
home.The Crane were both happy not
to have to follow through with the marriage, each for their own reasons.
Usoka, with the help of her new
benefactors, began the long journey back to her new home.
"They left
you, you know."The courtier wrapped
a cold cloth on her head as she shivered in the back of the cart, the bundles of
rice around them carefully placed so to create space under the protective tarp.
"The Crane, they left you.
They saw you and thought you unfit.
They shamed your family.
Your family had to fake your death to
save face."
"Pay, they
will. The Crane.
Pay."
Usoka managed to mutter, her eyes opening slightly.
The whites of her eyes showed a faint
green glow.Even through the taint,
through the scars, through the pain, he could see her hate.