The Eye of the Kami

After some time, he stumbled into a large hall that was made up almost entirely of tall shoji doors. To his left, the pale moonlight could be seen illuminating the opaque screens, which meant that this was the side closest to the veranda, which certainly faced the landscape garden he had seen before. In the very center of the room, there was another large encasement of doors, demarcating the central or innermost room. These doors were heavier and more elaborate, with a continuous mural of a painted koi fish winding its way around. Surely, this had to be the chambers of the former daimyō, and presently the steward, Sagi Hiroto.

Gin stepped forward but stopped as the door to the innermost chamber opened, almost as a response to his coming. The Lieutenant emerged, flanked by two elite soldiers. All three men were fully armored in heavily blue mail, as if ready to mount and take the field. The soldiers charged at him, but Gintaro was not to be deterred. Despite the thick armor, he was able to exploit their weaknesses, aiming for the throat and knee, and brought them down without much difficulty. When he had finished, he turned and faced the Lieutenant, who had yet to draw his sword.

The older man glowered at him, like a lion who had let his rival free and had come to regret it.

“So, it was you who did all of this,” he said, motioning towards the flickering glow of fire in the distance. “I knew that it wasn’t an accident.” His face was edged with frustration.

“You set this fire when you brought me here and lied about my daughter,” Gin replied darkly.

“Who are you?” the Lieutenant asked bluntly. “I thought only a fool would run into a battle with a dull blade, but now I see you are no fool. You knew what you were capable of. If it was to be a struggle between you and another, you trusted in your abilities to prevail. I respect that, as I am also a man of war.”

Gin did not appear to acknowledge this compliment.

The Lieutenant examined his opponent carefully. He was standing still, too still for a man who had just killed. Even the most battle-hardened soldiers would often get the shakes during and after a battle. There was the need to move, to attack, to do something with the adrenaline surging in their veins. But this man did not move, he just breathed. And his eyes!

“Some used to call me, Raijin,” Gintaro finally answered.

The Lieutenant lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “The Raijin? But he died at the siege of Yoshimitsu Castle. He fell with the rest of the Kurogumi. I saw your grave with my own eyes.”

Gin said nothing and remained deathly still.

“Yet, this would explain a great deal,” the Lieutenant said, looking around at all the death and devastation.

“Where is the Steward?” Gin demanded.

“No!” the Lieutenant cried suddenly, shaking his head. “I shall not be the one to hand him over to you. You must kill me first!” He then slowly unsheathed his long sword and held it out. “This may be the just recompense for all of my misdeeds, to be killed in battle by the ghost of the Raijin. But I will not die a coward! I’ve served this house all of my life and have known nothing other than duty.”

“Yet you have abandoned honor for cruelty,” Gin accused. He drew up to his full height and extended one sword out in reply, while the other remained pointed downwards towards the bloodstained floor. “The way of the warrior is one of peace,” he quoted.

“I see you’ve read the Treatises. So have I. It says nothing about how I can treat my property. That woman is filth. I only keep her around to…”

“You know what I see when I look at you?” Gin said, interrupting him. “Weakness.”

At this, the Lieutenant darted forward, but his heavy sword was met quickly by Gin’s, and the echo of their blades filled the great hall. The Lieutenant was indeed a skilled duelist and put forth a better fight than all the others. He was patient and survived Gin’s first combination through some clever swordsmanship of his own. And Gin, now matched with a more formidable foe, deeply regretted his lack of training for the last ten years. His fighting style required continuous flawless precision and unfathomable speed, but he now was lacking both. It was a mere imitation, and the gamble was great.

For the second clash, Gintaro moved in first, and this time he was able to work inside the Lieutenant’s defense and land a slice along the thigh, but it was largely mitigated by his thick-plated armor. This left him open to an attack from above, and as he held out his second sword to absorb the blow, he could feel something go terribly wrong. As the blades met, his sword completely shattered under the strain. Shards of steel fell everywhere, and it was all he could do to dodge the strike. Gin reeled back, cursing under his breath. He was unpleasantly reminded that he was dueling with standard-issue swords, not his own, which despite being dull was incredibly tough. He lamented the loss of his weapon to a cruel twist of fate, but he still had one sword left.

The Lieutenant looked pleased by this, and took to the offense, hoping to catch his opponent off-guard. But Gin was used to switching styles. Indeed, it was one of the key pillars of his training, and so he rose to meet the Lieutenant’s strike. For several moments, the two men fought furiously, neither one gaining ground on the other.

Finally, Gin managed to find a weakness.

“His hand!” he thought to himself. “He is favoring the hand that struck Kaya. He must have injured it when he hit her.” He could see that the Lieutenant was unable to fully grip the hilt of his sword and that the hand itself appeared swollen. Gin positioned himself close to the Lieutenant and then purposefully tangled swords with his enemy. Like lightning, he then pushed downwards with a loud scrape. The Lieutenant's hand was not cut due to the protection from his sword’s crossguard, but they were so close together that their fists collided. Normally, this would have put Gin in a terrible position, but as he expected, his foe lost control of his sword, and it tumbled to the floor. The Lieutenant cried out in pain, and this gave Gin just enough time to deliver a finishing thrust to the abdomen.

The Lieutenant staggered and then fell backward with a loud thud. He writhed aggressively for several moments before coughing up blood. Then his head fell back, and he remained still from then on.

Gintaro took a moment to catch his breath. As he gazed down upon his slain enemy, he felt a pang of regret.

“Surely this isn’t what Kaya had wanted, was it?”

But at that moment, he could hear the shouts of other soldiers, who had likely come down from the castle or up from the samurai district, looking to put out the fires that he had started. He quickly stepped over the former Lieutenant and proceeded inside the central chamber.

The room was dark, with only one lampstand lit at the far back of the room. Gin searched back and forth for any signs of movement, but he could sense none. He overturned the futons and ripped up some of the tatami but could see no hatch or any secret passage under the floor.

“Did Sagi already flee?” he wondered.

He then noticed that the far wall, illuminated by the glow of the lampstand, was different from the others. It was made of wood, while the others were heavier shoji. Gin strode up to the far wall, and then put his hands upon it, trying to find if there was a passageway of some kind. After some searching, his fingers finally uncovered a shallow indentation. As he was familiar with such devices, he was able to provide the right kind of pressure to open the secret door and pass through.

He then came into the central and most important chamber of the estate, reserved for the daimyō alone. Before him, among the armor and sword displays, chests of gold, kegs of sake, and shelves of old books and scrolls sat the steward, Sagi Hiroto, quivering with fear. He was clutching Gin’s sword, which had been taken at some point during his capture.

“It’s you!” Sagi sniveled with a jump, scooting himself backward, away from Gin. “The Lieutenant said it might be. Where is he?” the man shrieked, almost as if talking to himself.

“He cannot help you anymore,” Gintaro said softly, closing the door behind him.

Sagi made a move to unsheathe Gin’s sword, but it became stuck again, and he faltered.

“I don’t think you’ll find much use for a dull blade,” the swordsman said coolly. He then strode over and hoisted the steward up by the collar of his kimono with both hands. He brought him up so that his eyes were level with his own, even though the man’s feet were dangling off the floor.

“Where is my daughter?” he growled.

The steward cowered back as if the words pained him. “I don’t know...”

With that Gin threw the man into a nearby bookshelf and then pulled him up again.

“Where is she?” he asked again.

“I don’t know!” the man cried, beginning to sob. “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“Tell me!” Gin roared, throwing him over the large casks of sake.

Sagi let out a howl of pain as he crashed onto the floor.

This time Gintaro held him down and pointed his bloody sword at Sagi’s throat.

“This is your last chance!”

“I honestly don’t know!” Sagi insisted frantically. “It was all a lie! I said what I said to try and get you to talk! The courier said that you would be searching for a girl, your daughter. He said that she was there when my soldiers were killed. I needed information, so I lied!”

Gin eased up, but only slightly.

“Why were your soldiers there to begin with? Why did they help the black merchant take my daughter?”

The steward shook his head violently. “I... I... I don’t know! I had nothing to do with it! They were brought in by someone else. That's why I thought it was the Kagi daimyō! I thought that this black man was an agent of his sent to make a mockery of me! But I can see now that the letter of warning was true. Oh, what have I done! The Shōgun must be behind all of this!”

“What about the merchant in black? Where is he now?”

Sagi, fearing that one more negative response would be the death of him, merely shook his head with a hopeless look in his eyes.

“He must still have her, and he probably didn’t come through Kagiminato after all,” Gin thought to himself. “Mashige…”

At this, he rose and left Sagi splayed on the floor.

“What are you going to do with me?” the steward asked, his voice was weak and pleading.

Gin glared at him menacingly, holding out the sword as if poised to thrust, but then, as if something had come over him, he relented. “I will do nothing,” he said, turning around to exit. “But I don’t know how pleased the Shōgun will be to hear that you allowed one of his estates to burn to the ground and let one of his most important cities fall into chaos. And if it is indeed the Shōgun who tried to warn you about me, well, if I were you, I’d anticipate the harshest of punishments and carry it out here.”

With that, he picked up his own sword and walked out through the secret door. After that, he tipped over the lampstand in the central room, dropped the bloody sword he had acquired from the first guard that he slew, and then disappeared back into the frenzy that had consumed the grounds.