High overhead, an ominous stream of black emerged from the academy. At first Konda thought it was a thundercloud or magical storm conjured by the yamabushi. It swelled to enormous size in seconds, billowing larger than the building it came from. Then the black mass began to descend toward the battlefield.
Three eyes opened in the top of the buzzing black cloud, and two sweeping horns extended up through the clouds. Konda felt two rushes, one of disgust at the vile creature before him and one of anticipation, for today he would utterly destroy it.
“Men of Eiganjo,” he bellowed, “behold! The gluttonous Beast of Chaos! Once we have destroyed him, victory will be ours!”
The ghost army roared again. The moth-riders banked away from the school and streaked toward their new target, a cold, yellow sheen already glimmering on the moth’s powdered wings.
Konda paused once, for the briefest moment, to appreciate the noise, the splendor, and the sheer scale of what he was about to accomplish. Then the daimyo spurred his horse and charged forward to meet the enemy.
“Did you really think I didn’t know?”
Toshi noticed Hidetsugu’s joy was rapidly becoming more manic and dangerous. Kiku still regarded Toshi with eyes of hate, but she had also taken a few steps back and away from the ogre.
As he often did when speaking to Toshi, Hidetsugu had sat himself cross-legged so he and the ochimusha were at eye-level. The ogre rocked back and forth slightly as he spoke.
“I knew the very moment you slithered out from under your mark, kanji mage.” He yanked the metal plate off of his shoulder, revealing the hyozan triangle branded deep into his flesh. Hidetsugu then reached forward and hauled Toshi out of the yamabushi’s grip, holding the ochimusha by his left hand. Toshi’s sleeve immediately slid back, revealing the false hyozan mark. Hidetsugu spit on the forgery and smeared it with his thumb.
“Ours was a blood oath, Toshi. Do you remember? I told you vengeance is based on blood and demands blood as payment. The oath would not have worked without our blood to power the ritual. My blood became steam under the branding iron, but I gave it willingly according to our deal. I offered you the brand and a sharp knife, but you chose the tattoo.” The ogre snorted derisively. “You took the coward’s way out, Toshi, but you still bled. With every tap of the needle, with every new drop of ink, you gave a drop of blood in return.
“Blood bound us, Toshi: your blood, my blood. Our oath. We are the true pillars of the hyozan. These others,” he waved at Kiku, “they didn’t bleed for their oaths. You cut into their flesh and you recited your silly spells, but they are subordinate, mere reflections of the oath we two maintain.” Hidetsugu rocked forward so he was face-to-face with Toshi. “And now you have abandoned it. And you are mine.” He released Toshi’s arm and dropped him into the waiting clutches of the yamabushi.
Hidetsugu rocked back and leaned on his hands behind him. “Hurt him, my hunters. By now Toshi has regained enough of his faculties to become a nuisance. Shorten his breath.”
Toshi gasped as something hard thudded into his stomach. It felt like the end of a staff, but it could have just been the yamabushi’s fist.
From the other direction, the rock-hard edge of the other yamabushi’s hand slammed into Toshi’s windpipe. The ochimusha gagged and thrashed as the yamabushi kept his hands pinned behind him.
“Good. Now bring him here.”
They dragged him forward, dazed and choking, and then forced him to stand straight before the o-bakemono.
Hidetsugu leaned forward, lifting Toshi’s head up with a single thick finger. “I’m curious, Toshi. How long have you been working on a way to kill me in spite of our oath?”
Toshi’s eyes flickered. “Not long,” he grunted. “Since you sicced your oni dog on me over Oboro.”
The ogre’s face widened in honest surprise. “That is very disappointing,” he said. “I’ve known how to kill you without breaking the oath since before it was cast.”
Toshi’s retort died in his throat.
“Didn’t you know that? Didn’t it ever strike you that I might have outsmarted you from the very beginning?”
“Lying,” Toshi croaked. “No way out.”
Hidetsugu smiled wide, displaying his terrible teeth. “Here,” he said. “I’ll demonstrate.”
The ogre stopped his hand as it was about to close around Toshi’s head. “Hang on. You quit the gang, didn’t you? I could pop your head like a fat tick and the curse would never be invoked.”
Toshi guessed what was coming, but he couldn’t summon the breath fast enough to warn Kiku. In a blur of motion, Hidetsugu lashed out with his other hand and pinned Kiku within his massive fist. She struggled and squirmed, but he lifted her like a child’s toy without even glancing at her. Held as she was, she could neither reach her throwing axes nor raise her hands to create a flower.
“Ours is a blood oath,” Hidetsugu said again. “And so requires blood. You’ve always interpreted the spell as cursing us if we harmed or tried to harm one another. But I crafted it specifically to work only if one of us spilled the other’s blood. Cut my throat, crush me under tons of rock, or run me through and the curse will claim you. But if we managed to kill one another without actually shedding any blood …”
Toshi watched the muscles in Hidetsugu’s arm ripple as he slowly clenched his hand around Kiku. Incrementally, bit by tortuous bit, he was crushing the life from her.
“Her bones won’t break,” the ogre said. “Her heart won’t burst. But if I squeeze her just so.” He shut one eye and made a show of concentrating. “I can prevent her from breathing in. Once I get the grip just right, all I have to do is hold it until her face turns blue.”
Kiku moaned and her breathing became ever more shallow. Soon she was gasping soundlessly, her mouth wide open and her eyes bulging.
Hidetsugu cocked his head. “Surely you’ve noticed how often I’ve picked you up and squeezed you during our long partnership? That was me testing my theory … as well as my grip. I soon figured out exactly how hard I had to squeeze. After that … it was just fun.”
The ogre suddenly loosened his fist. Kiku sucked in huge gasps of air as Toshi forced himself to breathe.
A thunderous explosion shook the building. Toshi thought he could hear the sounds of battle, of men shouting as magical energy sizzled in the air.
Hidetsugu sighed. “Our time grows short. So sad.” The ogre lashed out, snatching Toshi from the yamabushi with his free hand. With Toshi in one fist and Kiku in the other, the o-bakemono rose smoothly to his feet and held them out to each side at arm’s length.
“Goodbye, Toshi Umezawa. You were an amusing oath-brother. I will send you to the spirit world with your paramour. Let us see which one of you departs first.”
Hidetsugu’s powerful hands constricted around Toshi’s chest, and Toshi’s breathing simply stopped. He heaved and strained as best he could, but his lungs could not expand past his ribs, and his ribs were compressed to the point of breaking. Toshi’s face began to tingle and his chest began to burn.
This is how Kobo died, he thought. If Hidetsugu allowed him any air, he might have pointed this irony out to the o-bakemono. Instead, Toshi sent his eyes darting around the room, searching for an out. All he saw was Kiku’s panicked face and the ogre’s dreadful leer.
Behind Hidetsugu, the door to the chamber cracked open. To Toshi it seemed like the door was very far away, at the end of a glittering tunnel. But glittering tunnels don’t have rats, do they?
Toshi’s mind came back to him and he recognized Marrow-Gnawer. What was the little vermin doing here? He was supposed to be on the roof. Not only had he abandoned his post, he was going to get himself killed.
Despite his lack of air and his impending death, Toshi tried to shout a warning. Hidetsugu was too enraptured with constricting the life out of his former oath-mates. The yamabushi were keeping a close eye on Toshi and Kiku. The nezumi had not been spotted, but if he struck Hidetsugu …