Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction ❯ Abstinence Education ❯ Part Thirty-Five ( Chapter 35 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Madame Manga 
Rough stuff, 'nuff said...
Anime/Manga: Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Drama / Samurai | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.01.2007 | Pages: 6 | Words: 9.7K | Visits: 753 | Status: Completed
Rough stuff, 'nuff said...
Anime/Manga: Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Drama / Samurai | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.01.2007 | Pages: 6 | Words: 9.7K | Visits: 753 | Status: Completed
Rough stuff, 'nuff said... ;-)
FYI: My primary posting venue is Livejournal, so you are always going to see updates there first. Usually Adultfanfiction.net gets updates soon afterwards, since all I have to do for that site is cut and paste it from my Livejournal post. Mediaminer needs to have separate documents prepared for posting, so it gets chapters on an irregular basis when I have time to do the clerical work; I mostly think of it as a backup for the first two sites, since I've had bad luck over the years with fic sites going down at random.
However, if a lot of readers were depending on this site for updates, I'd probably get on it more quickly. Since this story gets so few reviews here, I'd assumed it also had few readers. But I've been getting inquiries about Mediaminer updates lately, so maybe I'm wrong. You'll just have to tell me!
The characters and universe of Blade of the Immortal/Mugen no Junin are copyright by Hiroaki Samura and do not belong to me. Not one sen will come into my hands in consequence of this story.
ATTENTION: EXTREME AND EXPLICIT VIOLENCE. This chapter is almost single-handedly responsible for the long-standing violence warning on this story. The content doesn't pass the bar already set by Hiroaki Samura (which would take some doing!) but it does go far beyond what this particular story has been accustomed to show over the last year and a half. Be suitably cautioned.
Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga
Part Thirty-Five
“Cut off both his hands...?” Ryonosuke echoed O-Hama. He looked at his tachi as if she’d demanded that he use a priceless porcelain vase to bail out a sewer. The blade shone with a silky gleam; although it was a deadly weapon, probably it had never touched anything harsher than a polishing puff. The expression on his lover’s beautiful face resembled that sword in a way, thought Rin. “And his legs as well? But... even if his wounds heal so quickly...”
“My word is your law?” she snapped.
“Uh... yes, of course.” Ryonosuke bowed to her and gripped his gilt-ornamented ivory hilt. “I shall carry out your just verdict, O-Hama-dono...”
Manji grimaced, but Rin sensed a flicker of amusement. Lose some limbs? What else was new? He straightened and raised his chin. “So, little boy... you have some plan for delivering me to Edo Castle when I’ve got no legs to walk there?”
O-Hama and Ryonosuke looked at each other.
“Glad to see you’ve considered all the details, idiot. I’d suggest the horse, but...” Manji jerked his head at their mount. The horse stretched its neck down towards the grass, but Ryonosuke had not allowed enough slack in the reins for it to graze. “Just for your information, hauling in a prisoner you’ve chopped to bits is not going to score you points with the banshu, no matter why they want my carcass. I was a cop once myself... there are rules about shit like that. Even for torturing out confessions!”
“Foul fiend – so you beg for mercy after all?” O-Hama made a sniff of contempt.
Manji snorted back at her and twitched his nose. “Look, lady, it’s not like I’m gonna give you an argument. Demon?” He let out a mirthless laugh. “Go ahead. Cut ‘em all off, and you can stick the pieces back on when you’re finished! How fucking human is that?” He gave a sour glance to Ryonosuke and looked back at her. “Where I come up short is letting HIM carry out the verdict!”
O-Hama stood silent, her lips tense.
“I’ve wronged you... to the death. Nobody with your claims has to accept an apology. You want to walk over here and make me regret I was ever born, that’s your right.” Manji showed his teeth. “Not that spoiled brat of a hatamoto! You were samurai, girl – hold the blade in your own hands. I killed your daddy. I cut pieces off your big brother – so freakin’ take your revenge!”
O-Hama turned her back on him. Rin glimpsed her face in profile; for an instant cold rage contorted through her outward composure.
“OK, we’ll leave you two loverbirds with yer toy.” Mado laughed and strode past Ryonosuke. The big foreigner had to make a detour to avoid bumping against the wide shoulder shields of his colorful antique armor. The young man looked up from his sword, startled.
“Where are you going?”
“Boss, this is fascinatin’ stuff and all, but you don’t need five of us just to torture this guy to death. Have fun.” He beckoned to Hebi with a quick motion of his head and approached Rin’s tree.
“But I am not going to kill – ”
“You touch her – ” Manji raised a glare when Mado put a hand on the trunk near Rin’s shoulder.
“Chill, dude.” Hebi sidled over and picked up Rin’s bag and sword. “We’re not the guys you should worry about...”
“Hey!” The bandit flushed dark; he and the boy converged on Rin as well. “You assholes quit trying to swipe my deal!”
Mado ignored him and reached behind the tree. Rin felt a light tug on the doubled cords around her waist and upper arms, and instantly the loops released and fell to the ground. He’d used some sort of trick knot? Her wrists were still tied in front of her, and Mado’s hand emerged with the cord. “Let’s get going, sweetheart.” He took a few turns of the tether around his own wrist and pulled Rin towards him. She tried to yank away, sending a look of frantic appeal to Manji.
He clenched his fists and flexed his elbows against the ropes on his arms; the knots creaked. “You aren’t taking her out of my sight, dammit!”
“Relax. Our buyer prefers his girls unbusted, so she’s keeping it as far as I’m concerned.” Mado shrugged. “Guess I’ll allow ya the benefit of the doubt on that one, yojimbo. Uh, where was it you said you’d jammed yer fool head?” He guffawed; Manji snarled at him.
The threadbare ronin strode towards them, pointing at Rin. “That is not your decision to make, gaijin. I am not interested in filthy cash!”
“So I gather, ya Jappo flower-plucker.” The big foreigner sneered. “Personally, me and my buddy here ain’t interested in wastin’ a good commodity. With what we’ll get for this little virgin, we can buy us enough women to last a month. And the drink to go with them.” Mado tapped his forehead and towed Rin towards the trees, roughly northward. “You damn samurai ought to grow some business sense.”
Although she’d lost her bearings while being carried to this spot, Rin didn’t think the road lay in this direction. Then where did he mean to take her? Rin leaned backwards and tried to dig in her heels, but Mado easily dragged her with him. Hebi took up the rear. The bandit broke into a jog to cut them off, his paunch bouncing. The pimpled boy slunk behind him.
“No!” Ryonosuke made a plaintive gesture with his sword, looking even younger than his nineteen years. “I – you can’t leave yet – we need you to help us take our prisoner to Edo!”
“Sonny, you ain’t gonna have a prisoner after your lady there starts layin’ down the law.” Mado and Manji exchanged a hard look from a distance, almost sharing a conclusion. Manji’s lip curled up and he switched the look to O-Hama. “I don’t care if he knows how to grow a new head – every man’s got his limits, and she’ll find ‘em. Just by way of warning.” He waved in dismissal.
“You two jokers!” The bandit swerved in to seize Rin’s tether and stopped Mado. “You horn in at the last minute, you don’t make a move when this one-eyed asshole is pinking us right and left, and you won’t even take advantage of the benefits!” He peevishly indicated the clumsy bandage where his ear had been. “What’s your damn game?”
“No game, dude! We just ain’t as impatient as you.” Hebi thumped the bandit on the back with a convivial grin, as if calculating how to slip a knife between his ribs. “We didn’t say we were squeezin’ you out of the purse. Come on along and meet our buyer – great guy! Wait till you get your cut.” He threw a broad wink at Mado, who rolled his eyes.
The ronin grasped the hilt of his sword. “The maiden stays here, or there will be blood shed!”
“Crap, you want blood? Hang around, if you like, and watch these crazy kids peel chunks off ol’ Manji-san. They’ll be at it a good long while.” Mado pointed his chin at the declining sun. “There’s three hours of daylight left, give or take. Just about enough time to hand off our little prize and hit a decent inn with the proceeds, if we hustle now!”
Caught in the middle of the knot of arguing men, Rin twisted and shrank away from them. At close range, the bandit’s breath and his greasy mustache smelled so foul that her stomach turned over. Mado yanked her tether out of his hand and the bandit tried to grab it back. “M-Manji-san!”
Her bodyguard still worked at his bonds, his teeth clenched and the tendons pulling in his neck. He threw himself from side to side, and the stout tree gave out a strained groan.
“Um – hear me, my men! We will not delay you long.” Ryonosuke gave Manji’s struggles an apprehensive glance and appealed to the ronin. “Please stop them, Fujikata-san! You pledged me your faithful service, on your honor as a samurai!”
“Yes, lord. I shall not allow anyone to leave until you order it!” The ronin bowed, and then slipped a look at Rin that disgusted her even more than the bandit’s stench.
Hebi shoved the bandit aside; he and Mado headed towards the woods again. The bandit and Fujikata stood together to block their path; both hirelings threatened moves towards their weapons when the Itto-ryu men tried to sidestep them.
Mado drew Rin behind him and ground his jaw. Hebi made a soft hiss past pursed lips. They halted, apparently unwilling to fight their way through.
Rin looked at Hebi’s tattooed chest looming behind her, almost like a shield. The Itto-ryu men’s motives perplexed her just as much as they did the bandit. They didn’t want to draw now and strike down a couple of inferior swordsmen they intended to kill anyway? Her safety in the middle of an all-out battle seemed to concern them excessively, even if they were mostly interested in keeping her intact to sell for a higher price.
Hebi gave Rin a brief, unaccountable smirk when he noticed her scrutiny, then turned to watch their rear and backed up against her. The bandit’s boy circled them with his sling in hand. The two fighters stood in an immobile huddle, with Rin squeezed between them like the filling in a rice ball.
Ryonosuke sighed in relief and turned to O-Hama. Manji also looked slightly relieved, obviously for different reasons. His face and bare chest ran with sweat.
“I... I will sever his right hand to pay for the one your brother lost, O-Hama-dono.” Ryonosuke brandished his sword. “Yes? Then we can have my men take him to the authorities and let them deal with him, demon or not.”
O-Hama shook her head. A stray lock of hair fell over her high forehead, giving her an unbalanced air. “No... that is not enough!”
“My lady – I cannot keep them much longer!” He pointed at the standoff. “Please... if they abandon us – ”
She seemed about to vent another outburst, then gestured in frustration. “Very well. One hand!”
“Will you men remain at least until that’s finished? Please!”
“Shit, like we got a choice...” grumbled Mado. He and Hebi gradually stood at ease and gave Rin a little room. “Get it over with!”
“Come on, little boy.” Manji grinned at Ryonosuke and rolled his shoulders. Though the sailor’s hitches held fast, Manji’s exertions had slightly stretched the ropes and gained him some freedom of movement. Raw welts faded from his biceps and forearms as Rin watched from under Hebi’s arm. “Let’s see you try it!”
Ryonosuke lifted the gleaming tachi high over his head and advanced, keeping a wary eye on Manji’s unbound legs. The weapon’s reach was probably long enough to allow him to strike at Manji’s arm without venturing within kicking distance, but Rin wondered how much sword skill he could have gained since losing the duel with her. He halted a couple of generous paces from Manji’s tree and settled his stance, self-consciously shuffling his feet into position. Squinting along the blade, he took an over-careful measure of his stroke. Manji gripped the branches to which his arms were lashed and slightly bent his knees as if preparing to push off from the ground.
“Wait, my lord!” O-Hama interrupted when Ryonosuke straightened up to swing.
“What?”
“Even though his wounds will seal themselves, the pain may cloud his mind.” She put a hand to her lips, her eyes scanning back and forth. “No... not yet!”
Ryonosuke lowered the sword with a puff of breath and an unmistakable look of relief. “What do you wish me to do, then?”
O-Hama didn’t reply. She focused on Manji for a few moments: revulsion filled her expression, mixed with an odd note of fascination. Rin drew a breath through closed teeth. Her impression of O-Hama had changed from her first impulse of outraged sympathy, but she still felt sorrow for her ordeals. How dreadful to have to flatter a man who disgusted you, and try to persuade him that you enjoyed his touch! Rin couldn’t imagine how a pleasure woman submitted to such indignities even in ordinary circumstances. She shivered and blushed; her bodyguard had taken her in ways she’d had no idea existed, and although she had opened her arms to him with eagerness, sometimes fear or pain almost overcame her desire. Maybe you just got used to it, one way or another...Manji and O-Hama engaged in a staring match; he seemed determined to search further into her mind if he could, and she both resisted his advance and seemed unable to break eye contact. An intuition brushed Rin’s mind as she examined the queer look on the other woman’s face. O-Hama had said she remembered every detail of Manji’s body, and of what he had done with hers. She longed to blot out the memory, even with her own death. Years of obsessive fantasies centered on her phantom enemy – and then to recognize him only at the moment he possessed her? Rin bit her lips.O-Hama might have feared Manji would kill her if she let slip that she knew who he was. But he wouldn’t have treated O-Hama brutally, even if he was used to relaxing his restraints with experienced women. He’d tried to make her like it to the best of his ability, and he wasn’t unskilled in the pillow. Rin creased her brows and looked at each of them in turn. Had Manji really failed as completely as he’d thought? She seemed to open her eyes to a memory so clear it hurt: to confront the face of the only person who would stop to give her water. His sharp, smooth features; his graceful economy of movement. Every detail of his body. She had known him instantly with only the barest of glimpses from a distance, even disguised and hampered as he must have been. Rin shuddered as if insects crawled over her skin. What had Manji said about what a woman could do with hate?Her face went cold. A woman who had so much reason to despise and fear a man, and who had no other knowledge of him at all? Her hate might have multiplied a thousandfold if he gave her even the briefest moment of pleasure...
O-Hama abruptly turned away from Manji; her eyes met Rin’s. Both women stared at each other for a moment of overlapping, transparent thoughts. O-Hama’s eyes dilated wide, as if her own ideas startled her. For an instant Rin saw only an angry, wounded girl. Desperate for justice and her family’s honor, or for simple revenge – at any cost, to anyone. All on fire, untempered and unquenched. A girl who didn’t think twice before offering her innocence as a killer’s wages, but who had never yet seen the blood of a human being she called an enemy. Rin’s knees wobbled and her mouth opened in appeal.
“O-Hama-dono? What is your desire?”
O-Hama broke eye contact, looked down at Rin’s body and compressed her lips to white lines. Pain and violence trembled in her clenched hands.
“We... I will strip him of his last redemption...”
“My lady?”
“This girl!” She aimed a finger at Rin, but looked away.
“What?” Ryonosuke looked shocked, and Manji stopped yanking against the ropes to listen.
“As you know, my lord, I can retrieve some gold I saved over the past few months. I will promise it all to these men as compensation for lost value.”
“What? But that’s all the money we – ”
She beckoned to the Itto-ryu fighters. “The money is hidden a few hours’ journey from here. Fifteen ryo! More than sufficient, since she wouldn’t bring more than thirty, even with her mizuage.”
“Hey, hey!” The bandit rubbed his hands. “Who wouldn’t stick around for that?” Mado and Hebi shifted stance; although they didn’t confer, clearly neither entertained any interest in the offer.
“But... but what do you mean to pay for, my lady?” Ryonosuke’s face screwed up as if he didn’t want to hear the answer. Manji looked as if he knew it already.
“Pain will not daunt him, nor even mutilation. He has felt them too often to fear them now.” Manji’s mouth twitched at that. “But the killer of a hundred can still suffer every agony of failure.” O-Hama let out a shaky laugh. “Her violation is his violation!”
Ryonosuke’s jaw fell slack. Manji’s teeth snapped together.
“He took my father’s life. He took my brother’s limbs. His ‘little sister’ – his precious woman – will lose what I have lost.” O-Hama wept in painful rage. “Chastity and honor! Shame them both together! A woman he has protected, whose body he thinks he owns – These men will strip her naked, and he will witness her defilement. Here! Now!”
For a moment, silence that hammered the senses. Rin could not draw breath; her legs sagged and Hebi supported her before she fell. He and Mado muttered a quick exchange she could make no sense of; they might have been debating whether to make a run for it.
A rising rumble penetrated her ears – not from her own pounding heart. Both of Manji’s eyes seemed to bulge and his face grew fiery red. His mouth stretched to a demon’s mask and his voice swelled to an incoherent roar. He thrashed and arched his whole body against the shaking tree. Dry leaves dislodged and fell around him in a shower. He sounded like a wild bear fighting a pack of hunting dogs. Across the clearing, the tethered horse tossed its head and rolled frightened eyes.
“O-Hama-dono!” The young man took a backwards step. He stared at his lover as if she had sprouted fangs like a flesh-eating ogress. “Holy name of Amida Butsu – ”
O-Hama cried out over Manji’s furious yells. “If you love me, my lord, give me my revenge! What else have I lived for?” She tore the tie from her long hair and shook it forward to hide her face.
With a sharp report, the branch that held Manji’s right arm cracked and split several ways down the middle. It didn’t break away from the tree, but when the splintered sections shifted and collapsed inwards, the double hitch on Manji’s wrist went slack.
He worked his hand out through the loop and yanked it down the branch. The other hitches sagged loose. Ryonosuke yelled in alarm and dashed at him, then realized his danger and skidded to a stop.
Manji dragged his arm free of the ropes. He lunged and caught the projecting edge of Ryonosuke’s shoulder shield as he tried to retreat. Ryonosuke lurched forward, off balance and pinwheeling his arms. Manji seized him by the throat.
O-Hama shrieked. Ryonosuke struggled and thumped Manji on the head with the pommel of his tachi; the blade was too long to stab him at such close range. When Manji tried to catch the hilt in his jaws, the young man had a sudden attack of common sense, and flung the sword out of his adversary’s reach.
Choking and convulsing, he clutched Manji’s wrist with both hands and tried to break his grip. Manji’s arm flexed, his lean muscles knotting across his chest. He had left swatches of skin on the tree’s rough bark and ripped the back of his hand against the splinters. Blood stained the bright silk braid of the armor. Ryonosuke rose up on his toes, lifted by one hand. He let out a strangled cry; his face turned dark purple. Manji grinned like a wolf.
Hebi darted past the startled bandit and the boy while Rin watched in amazed excitement. He leaped and seized Manji’s right wrist. Manji roared again and kicked Hebi’s feet from under him before he could latch on with both hands.
Hebi twisted his body and landed on his upper back, as nimbly as if he had meant to take the dive. He rolled behind the tree and flipped upright. Then he ducked under the split branch and came at Manji again from behind. Rin yelped in warning.
Braced against the bole of the tree, Manji aimed a kick at Hebi’s knee. Hebi jumped in the air, caught a branch and swung from it. Before Manji could pull back, he gripped the outflung leg between his thighs. He locked one foot behind his other knee to keep Manji trapped and pulled himself higher into the tree. Off balance, Manji grimaced and jerked his body, trying to free his leg and keep control of the thrashing Ryonosuke.
Hebi leaped from his height and seized Manji’s choking arm on the way down. Manji swung Ryonosuke into him, never letting go of the young man’s throat. Hebi took Ryonosuke’s flailing feet in the shins and his metal-edged shoulder shield in the mouth. He jerked backwards, slipped and lost his lock on Manji’s leg. Manji kicked him off. Hebi rolled away in a cloud of dirt, spitting out blood from a cut lip.
Mado dropped Rin’s tether, moved in on Manji’s left and shot a heavy fist at his stomach. Manji blocked the blow with an abruptly raised knee, then planted his heel in Mado’s groin with a side kick.
It was a quick, awkward move without much force behind it, but Mado doubled over. The big foreigner staggered backwards, clutching his crotch and groaning. Hebi bounced up again and wrapped his hands around Manji’s right wrist. He struggled to pry his grip off Ryonosuke’s throat while warding off a flurry of kicks.
Mado threw up his head, scowling. An angry flush showed under his scraggly beard. “Jappo asshole!”
Instead of punching again or trying to drag Ryonosuke free, he lunged straight for Manji. He slammed his chest into Manji’s left side and threw a thick arm around his neck as if to throttle him. Manji growled and snapped at Mado’s biceps. Mado shifted his grip lower, grabbed the back of Manji’s neck and jammed the heel of his other hand to the side of his skull. He bore down from his superior height, forcing Manji’s head sideways towards his shoulder. Under the weight and assault of three men, Manji’s knees started to buckle. He yelled in pain when Mado jerked on his neck.
Rin belatedly realized she was free. Except for her bound wrists, nothing restrained her, and the hirelings were watching the struggle around Manji. She glanced around at the trees and deep underbrush, but instead of fleeing into the forest, she made a dash for the center of the clearing. There stood five of Manji’s naked blades, still planted in a fence. They cast their variously-shaped shadows over the trampled grass, their honed angles gleaming.
Fujikata yelped and ran after her, closely followed by the bandit. Rin scraped one wrist on the razor edge of the shido’s fork while cutting her bonds. She grabbed the weapon by the cord-wrapped hilt and yanked it from the earth just as her pursuers reached her. It weighed down her arm – she should have chosen a lighter blade. Too late now to change her mind! She spun around and whirled the shido in a wide arc. The men jumped backwards.
Hebi bent his knees and rammed his shoulder up under Manji’s right armpit. He locked one hand around Manji’s forearm and applied all his force to twisting it so that the elbow pointed downwards. Manji’s arm began to tremble, but he still held fast to the fading Ryonosuke. Hebi grunted, grabbed his own wrist to reinforce his grip and straightened his knees. With a sharp pull, he forced Manji’s arm to bend the wrong way, with his shoulder as fulcrum. The elbow snapped with an audible pop and Manji lost his hold on Ryonosuke. He let out an agonized scream; a crunching sound accompanied another downwards push on his head from the bulky foreigner.
Ryonosuke tumbled to the ground in a gasping heap, seemingly only half-conscious. O-Hama flew to him.
Mado let go of Manji’s head, then grabbed a cord from his jacket. With Hebi’s help he pulled Manji’s sickeningly contorted right arm straight again and re-lashed it to the cracked branch. This time he double-knotted each turn of the rope. For good measure, they pulled his legs up against the tree trunk and got out more cords.
Manji groaned. Obviously badly hurt, with his limbs dangling limp, he tried to roll his head upright on his sharply angled neck. He spotted Rin holding off the two men with his shido and his mouth opened. He looked gray and utterly drained, as if his brief, ferocious effort had squandered the last resources of his already-sapped strength.
Fujikata and the bandit flanked Rin, weapons out. Every move she made, they matched. She couldn’t get past them in any direction. The shido felt like a stone; her shoulders already ached. The men stood back and watched her point droop lower as she tried to keep up her guard. Both of them smiled, as if the spectacle amused them: only the beginning of the entertainment they intended at her expense! Rin hyperventilated. Their greedy eyes scanning her – they would move in and disarm her in a few more moments unless she acted.
Oddly, she felt less concerned for herself than she did for her bodyguard. Allow these men to ravish her in front of Manji? She could hardly imagine any ordeal more cruel to his feelings, even if she could have endured the nightmare in the first place. Her mother’s endless, heart-tearing screams, and the jeers of her tormentors...
Rin clenched her trembling jaw. Brave enough to take the escape her mother had been denied? Wasn’t there any other choice left?
Not for her, there wasn’t. At least, like her father, she still held a sword in her hand.
Manji’s gaze was riveted to her across the clearing, his body sagging and still except for his heaving chest. Rin gasped at the fear in his wide-open eye; he had read her train of thought as it formed.
Manji’s expression cracked and fell apart with grief. His naked agony cut through Rin with an edge like steel. “Oh... Manji-san...” She whimpered and almost dropped the shido.
Manji forcibly set his lips together and averted his eye. He might have a small measure of strength left, if only enough to master himself...
As Rin watched, Manji’s features went dark and still, like a shuttered window. He straightened his neck and breathed evenly. Only a slight tremor in his limbs betrayed him when he looked at her again.
A formal bow of his disheveled head: apology and farewell. His hair fell back when he raised his face, and she saw every detail of his meaning. A self-indulgent display of emotion could do nothing but sabotage her resolve. He knew her imperative as well as she did; he was samurai too...
Her guard down, Fujikata made a grab for her. Rin shied away. She reversed the shido, pulled it towards herself and aimed the point at her breastbone.
“Aw, crap!” The bandit yelled and tried to seize the weapon, but Rin ducked to avoid him and scrambled to get some distance. In a crouch, she backed up to a clump of brush, and jammed the ringed end of the shido’s hilt into the grassy earth. Fall forward, and her own weight would do the work... probably.
The hirelings flinched away when she threw up her chin in warning. With one hand she adjusted the point’s lie between her breasts, trying to locate the vital spot.
On their knees, the Itto-ryu men turned their attention from securing Manji’s ankles and craned to see what was happening. Rin took a deep breath in preparation and looked around Fujikata’s worn-out hakama to find Manji’s eye again. Should she try to give her bodyguard one last comfort, or would that only inflict a greater cruelty?
He had never taken his gaze from her. Despite his grim and frozen expression, Rin caught a glimpse behind the shutters he had drawn. One warm glow: a small bright presence that still lit a single room in a charnel house.
Rin’s lips quivered. If she perished here, she snatched that light and hope from him forever. In stoic silence he’d watch her kill herself, helpless to save her from outrage and dishonor in any other way. Then somehow, he’d find his chance and take them all down with him, into the darkest circles of hell...
“No, maiden – stop!” Perhaps to his credit, Fujikata looked deeply distressed. He thrust his sword back into the scabbard as Rin hesitated. “Please, don’t end your life!”
“Wh-why shouldn’t I? I won’t submit to – !”
She heard a loud exclamation in a strange language; Mado stood up, looking towards her. The ronin knelt in front of her and clasped his hands. His stringy hair and hollow cheeks gave him a superficial air of a pious ascetic, though probably he only lacked the cash for regular meals. “I beg you... I could never approach an innocent girl with needless violence. I mean to cherish you as the precious flower you are!”
“I ain’t such a nasty guy, honest.” The bandit offered a yellow-toothed grin and an open gesture of both hands. Rin’s eyes followed the dark crescents of his filthy fingernails. “I know better than to treat a broad real bad. Getting carried away with the fun wouldn’t hike your price any – uh, that is – ”
Rin gripped the shido harder to steady it and half-closed her eyes. This was her failure too, not just Manji’s. Her parents would remain unavenged. Mourning spirits drifting into oblivion, with no living descendants to remember them. She might go out like a samurai, but in the same act she abandoned her beloved father and mother. Tears ran down her cheeks and she tensed her muscles for the thrust.
“Asano Rin-san!” yelled Hebi. “Ho-hold on there!” He raced Mado across the clearing and crowded Fujikata aside. Rin looked up in startlement. “God, no! If you even got scratched, we’d so get the living shit kicked – ow!”
Mado slapped him on the ear to silence him. “Put that damn thing down, kid. Nothing’s gonna happen to you, understand? You’re coming out of this in one piece... honor and all.”
Rin threw him a disbelieving glare.
He raised a brow and put a hand to his heart. “As the good Lord’s my witness. Uh, the buyer’s gonna, uh, he’s gonna keep you on ice even after he gets you – uh, that little lady could tell you how it works at the expensive joints, but I suppose she ain’t liable to say.” He cocked his head at the seething O-Hama. Ryonosuke had revived enough to sit up and hold his injured throat.
“Oh, really? Prove it!”
Mado guilelessly spread his hands. “You got a suggestion?”
“Cut Manji-san loose!” She darted an eager look at her bodyguard. He grimaced and worked the rest of the crick out of his neck.
“Well... hell, kid, he’d pick up his slicers and rip us all to shreds.” Mado shrugged and toyed with the brass whistle that hung around his neck. “You gotta admit, that ain’t much of a – ”
“Cut him loose this instant, or I’ll – !” She poked her chest a little too hard with the shido while making her point, and squeaked in discomfort.
“He ain’t in real great shape, y’know,” offered Hebi. He dropped to one knee near Rin, about where Fujikata had supplicated her a few moments before. “That bullet, an’ busting trees with muscle? He’s a stud, sure, but he’s about wasted. Maybe if he promises he’ll leave his hardware and split?”
“Well... OK.” Mado scratched his hairy chin and quirked his mouth at his companion. “I guess I can live with that.”
“Fine by me.” Hebi nodded back and slightly shifted his weight.
“Traitors!” spluttered Fujikata.
“What are you doing?” O-Hama sounded shrill. “Stop!”
“Hold your damn horses, lady. This here is a delicate ongoin’ negotiation.” Mado moved away towards Manji’s tree as if to speak to him. Rin unconsciously relaxed her grip on the shido, and Hebi sprang.
“Noo!” She wrestled with him for the weapon and tried to stab him. He wrapped both of her wrists in his long-fingered hand, flicked the shido away and tossed it over his shoulder.
The bandit lurched aside to avoid it and it plunged into the ground several paces distant. “Hey, watch it, dickhead!”
Rin struggled and sank her teeth into Hebi’s tattooed forearm, but he pulled her to her feet and lightly twisted her arm to hold her still. “Ohh!” She burst into furious tears.
Manji closed his eye while Mado pulled Rin’s hands behind her. He made her fold her arms over the small of her back so he could tie her wrists, then wrapped the rope over her shoulders and under her breasts a couple of times, weaving the turns together in back like a policeman trussing a prisoner. Again, he had not tightened the cords to the point of cruelty, but she could not even shift her arms now. Escape seemed more remote than ever.
The big foreigner tied the last knot and clapped her on the shoulder. “Aw, good try, kid. You got spunk.” He stooped and spoke lower. “I ain’t blowin’ smoke, so buck up.” Rin sniffled and glared at him in hostile confusion. His ugly freckled face stretched in a smile and he held the rope end close to the knot so that she had to stand right by him. Sullenly, she hung her head.
“Stalwart foreigner,” said O-Hama in a sweet singsong. All of the men looked at her as if impelled, even Manji. She touched her lips and gazed only at Mado. “Will you satisfy me on a point of curiosity?”
“Hah? Me?”
“Have you any taste for the women of this country? Or are those of your own race more beautiful in your eyes?” She turned her flank towards him and examined him along the line of her shoulder. “Are they as tall and strong as you?”
Mado snorted. “Hey, I’m a sailor. A woman’s a woman.”
“Then you prefer to take the pillow with females? Not with youths?”
He flushed and looked uncomfortable. “If I had ten coppers for every time somebody’s offered me a boy without blinkin’ an eye – shit, the girls and the bawdy houses is about the only thing they do right in this heathen craphole... assumin’ I’m flush enough to afford the good places.”
O-Hama pushed her hair out of her face, then shed her short haori coat. With tantalizing care, she unwound the knotted straps of her hakama.
Mado gave her an uncertain eye. O-Hama stepped out of her oversized pants when they slipped to the ground. In a man’s plain dark silk kosode that fell to her ankles, her figure appeared lithe and feminine. Mado’s jaw fell a little slack; he didn’t seem to be able to look away.
“Yeah, uh... maybe someday before I catch my death from the goddamn everlastin’ bathtubs... uh... I might just decide to waste a whole month’s take on a woman like – ”
Manji chuckled with a harsh note. “Get a clue, gaijin... what was it you said about her finding any man’s limits?”
O-Hama gracefully shifted her collar to dip lower in the back and adjusted her obi to lie higher. She moved closer to Mado with a dainty, sidewise shuffle. With a demure smile, she glanced at both the Itto-ryu men, fingers to her pink lips. Her lashes fluttered down to hide her eyes for a moment. Then she looked up again with a dewy, fawn-like glimmer.
Mado cleared his throat. Hebi gulped hard. Even Rin took a deep breath; O-Hama’s expert seductiveness daunted her. Without flaunting her body like a streetwalker, she suggested a mysterious sensuality that lent even greater allure to her delicate beauty. For a man she meant to impress, she might form an almost irresistible temptation.
“Well, shit...” muttered Manji. “I waste the cash for nothin’, and now the little bitch hands out the good stuff for free?” He raised his voice. “Oh, yeah – I was gonna take back the part about the apology!”
O-Hama ignored him. “You will not accept gold? Then will you take instead... whatever you desire?”
“Whoa...” Mado’s big body shivered.
“Leave this girl to the others, and I will show you all the delights of Nihon-onna.” She included Hebi in the offer with a flick of her lashes and a smile. “You have only to turn your back...” She did just that, running her fingers through her night-black hair. She smoothed its luxurious length and draped it forward to display her curved white nape, then glanced an enticement over her shoulder. “I promise you, the first moments in my arms will dispel all thought of that skinny virgin...”
She caught Rin’s cold glare out of the corner of her eye as she turned again, and flinched almost imperceptibly.
“Lady,” said Mado in a strangled tone, “I hate to say no to any gal with moves like yours, but...”
O-Hama put a hand on his chest. She now stood almost side to side with Rin, an arm’s length from her. Mado drew a deep breath through his nose; a whiff of gardenia-scented hair oil floated in the air. Rin’s face screwed up in disgusted recognition.
“Oh... sweet God.” Mado loosened his grasp on Rin’s tether; the flush across his cheekbones deepened its heat. Hebi’s jaw hung slack. She’d seen for herself how little a man in the grip of desire might consider the aftermath –
Rin slowly raised one tabi-shod foot; she wished she still had her wooden geta, but even her tough bodyguard could go down with one well-placed blow. The element of surprise was key, but the choice of target even more so.
She wiggled her raised leg from side to side to make a little room in her narrow skirts, leaned against Mado’s side to brace herself, and kicked O-Hama in the right kneecap as hard as she could.
“Oh!” The girl staggered backwards, fell and rolled in the dirt. Her hair spilled over her face. “Ohhh!”
“Ow!” Rin took a couple of hops for balance, grimacing over her stubbed toes.
O-Hama whipped her head around while lying in a sprawl. She crouched and bared her teeth as if she meant to spring at Rin’s throat.
“You!” Rin planted her feet, leaned forward and jutted her jaw. “You take your stupid prostitute stuff out of here, you – you rotten cunt!”
O-Hama sat up, her mouth wide open.
“How DARE you! Ordering them to do awful things to me – gosh, if it would make you feel so much better to have some other girl suffer like you did – they killed both my parents! They raped my mother in front of me! At least you still have a family – but who needs a brother that damn stupid? Couldn’t suck it up and act like a man, instead of lying around drinking you out of house and home! What a LOSER!”
Rin paused for breath, shaking with excited anger, and swept a challenging glance around the clearing.
No one looked like he wanted to laugh at her. Fujikata and the bandit exchanged glances while the boy goggled. The Itto-ryu men coughed and shrugged their shoulders, avoiding her eyes.
Manji gazed straight at her; a crooked grin lit his face. Rin couldn’t quite return the grin, but tried to let her eyes speak for her. Manji closed his, still smiling, and slightly shook his head with a silent chuckle. O-Hama still sat in the dirt, breathing hard and staring at the ground.
“I... I mean, you think you’re special? That nobody’s pain matters but yours? You think you’re the only girl who ever had to pillow with a man she – ” Rin choked. “At least... at least you knew that when he finished... he’d go away and never come back...” Rin bit back tears and looked down, her throat tight. She began to tremble all over in the ebb tide of her anger.
O-Hama slowly rose to her feet and brushed off her dusty clothes. Leaves hung in her tangled hair. She picked them out and wiped her hands. The look she threw Rin felt poisonous. When she approached Mado again from a safer angle and tried to compose her face into a smile, Hebi leaned over and punched him hard in the upper back. Mado jerked and whirled on his companion. He snapped up a fist as if to give him a blow, then slowly opened the hand and made a conciliatory gesture. He had the grace to look a little ashamed of himself.
“Sorry, ma’am... we got obligations.” He looked over O-Hama’s head. “Keep it for your boyfriend – uh, he’s just about shitting his pants, by the way.”
He was right; Ryonosuke glared at them all, simmering red. He gripped his sword, strode right up to Manji and swung it high. The blade flashed down; Rin squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away.
Steel grated against bone. Manji muffled a grunt, and blood gushed and pattered on the fallen leaves. Rin opened her eyes, expecting to see his hand lying severed on the ground, though she hadn’t heard it fall.
Ryonosuke struggled to free his blade, which had lodged in Manji’s wrist. He had cut only a little way through the joint. Blood sprayed from the wound and stained the front of his coat, though he tried in vain to avoid the spatter. “Oh... damn...”
“Use the tip of the blade, genius. No leverage with the hilt end.” Manji made a face half sarcastic, half in pain. Ryonosuke pried at the sword and finally managed to free it. He moved a little farther off and took his stance.
“Come on, boy, put some back into it! You ain’t got enough muscle to snap a reed with a freakin’ wood ax.” Manji managed a chuckle.
Hot-faced, Ryonosuke struck again with the tip of his sword. This time the cut went deeper, but still didn’t sever both arm bones, since it hit a handspan lower than the first wound.
“Crap... he’s got shitty aim too.” Manji shook his head in a jocular way, though his forehead perspired. “Third try’s the charm?”
Mado and Hebi restrained laughs; she felt their stomachs shaking. The bandit wasn’t as discreet – he snorted out loud and slapped his leg.
Chunk! Again the blade bit through flesh, striking in between the first two wounds and stopping on the bone. Manji let out a louder grunt, then a forced laugh. “That ain’t a cucumber you’re slicing for pickles! Make a freakin’ clean cut if you can manage it, and let’s move on to the next trick.” Blood poured down his arm and dripped from the bend of his broken elbow. “Think you can finish this... while it’s still light enough to see what you’re swingin’ at?”
“You…you taunt me…” panted Ryonosuke, already out of breath. “But I shall wipe out those disrespectful words!”
Rin shut her eyes again, clenching her jaw to hold back sympathetic agony. She would only shame Manji’s bravery if she showed too much concern.
Ryonosuke struck again and again, each time more weakly, hacking Manji’s forearm and sending shreds of meat flying. The beautiful tachi dulled and chipped on Manji’s defleshed bones. The edge began to catch and tear the muscle instead of cut it. His wrist tendons slowly snapped, blow after blow.
Eventually the hirelings stopped laughing, even the bandit. Hebi gritted his teeth and rubbed the back of his neck; the ronin sighed. O-Hama watched with a hand over her mouth, twitching a little at each strike.
Two fingers lost joints from a particularly badly directed swing. Every awkward scrape and slice brought a fresh flow of blood. How much more could Manji’s immortal body provide? The dead leaves glistened red in a wide radius under the branch. Manji had long since fallen silent except for involuntary, nearly inaudible sighs through his teeth. He examined the ruins with a dulling eye.
“Stop!” Rin screamed, at last unable to bear the sight any longer. “Stop it, please... oh, Manji-san!”
Manji growled at her. “Shut... the fuck... up...”
Ryonosuke looked nearly as pale and faint as his victim. He wiped his sweating face on his armored sleeve and kept chopping, tears streaming from his eyes. By using the notched sword like a saw, he finally severed the hand. It dangled from the destroyed arm, held only by the damaged rope and a single tattered strand of tough ligament. Manji rolled his head back against the tree. He hardly seemed to see the evening sunlight that shone in his face.
“Think I…” he gasped out through gritted teeth, “...I might’ve already mentioned a guy I knew once... who liked to play this kind of shit. Frankly, I’d rather he was hacking on me than you.” The frayed rope broke and the remains of Manji’s hand fell to the ground, splattering blood. “I got... a feeling... he would’ve been a little more... efficient about it...”
Manji’s shoulders slumped, and his head fell forward on his chest. His mangled stump slipped from its unraveled restraints and hung down. O-Hama vibrated with anger. She stalked up to Manji and slapped his face.
No reaction: he had passed out cold. Rin cursed the heavens for such belated mercy.
“Disgusting beast...” O-Hama gave a contemptuous glance to the mangled hand at her feet. “This is all? This is my satisfaction?”
“Shit, woman, what do ya want?” said Hebi, looking revolted. “This show over yet?”
“N-no... no more!” Ryonosuke stumbled and sat on the ground. He put his head in his hands and sobbed.
O-Hama’s lips drew back. She glanced around at all the men. “Will you aid me, then?”
“What with?” The bandit looked at her with a hint of trepidation. “I guess we could load his carcass on the horse for ya or something...”
She dismissed him and looked around again. Her glance stopped on Manji’s scattered weapons. With decisive strides O-Hama moved to pick up his hooked knife. She tested the edge with a thumbnail and approached Manji’s unconscious body.
An ugly presentiment startled Rin to alertness. She blinked tears from her eyes and tried to wipe her face on her shoulder to clear them.
O-Hama looked at the crossed scars on Manji’s chest, and lower. She extended a hand towards his bunched-up, bloody kosode. Gingerly, she felt through the folds for the belt that held it around his waist, then pulled it taut and slashed it. The men stared at her.
Manji’s clothes fell open and exposed his hips and thighs. His skin and his fundoshi had soaked up a watery reddish stain from the blood seeping through his outer clothing. O-Hama hesitated, then gripped the knife and reached for the twist of Manji’s loincloth.
Rin screamed in horrified realization, and O-Hama halted. Every man in the clearing cursed or shielded his eyes, except for the oblivious Ryonosuke.
O-Hama gave an uneasy glance to the knife she held, seeming to register the true gravity of what she was about to do. Perhaps she also disliked the idea of touching Manji’s naked body, even to wreak such a decisive revenge. She pulled back her hand as if she felt a burn and retreated.
“Holy freakin’ shit... I ain’t letting that gal anywhere near my family inheritance...” muttered Hebi. The others nodded in profound agreement and wiped cold sweat from their faces, as if they had all been reprieved from execution. Mado looked particularly green.
O-Hama stood with her back to Manji, her shoulders heaving with tension. After a few moments, she looked around on the ground near the tree. Unmanning him had balked her, but now? Rin watched her, her mind racing. O-Hama picked up a stout fallen branch and struggled to break it under her foot. Ryonosuke looked up, his face red and tear-streaked.
“My... lady?”
With the aid of the knife O-Hama cut a straight stick about the length of a sword hilt, a thick finger-width through the middle. She stood up. “I would like a moment’s help. Can you do that much for me, my lord?” She did not hide the sarcasm in her words; Rin thought she seemed almost as spent as her lover, though she showed it less. “Here, take this.” She pointed at Manji with the stick she had cut and tossed it to Ryonosuke. “Hold his head.”
Blank and obedient, Ryonosuke took the stick and rose. Manji still hung limp from the tree, though Rin saw some signs of returning consciousness. His mangled arm didn’t look much better than it had when Ryonosuke had stopped chopping at it. The young man took hold of Manji’s topknot and raised his head. He groaned faintly.
“Foul, arrogant beast – you’ll regret your vile speech! Where are your taunts now?” O-Hama spat in Manji’s face. He pulled a slight grimace and his lips moved without making a sound.
Mado tugged at Rin’s tether and whispered to her. “Come on, kid. No point in you goggling at this crap any more.”
“But, but Manji-san –”
“He’s a goner, hey? Give him up.” She resisted, and he scooped an arm around her and pushed her in front of him. “Get moving, or I’ll have to carry you. Don’t think you’d like that.” Rin took a few unwilling steps towards the trees and looked back.
Ryonosuke had wedged the stick between Manji’s teeth like a horse’s bit, and pulled his head back so that his jaw hung open. O-Hama pulled at her left sleeve and peered up at Manji’s opened mouth. Mado grabbed Rin by the waist, swung her into his arms and jogged into the forest. Hebi fell in close behind them. For the moment, the hirelings watched O-Hama and didn’t notice their departure.
“Put me down!” Rin kicked and struggled. “Manji – Manji-san!” She managed to crane around Mado’s shoulder to see. “Oh, God!”
O-Hama reached up into Manji’s mouth with a fold of fabric covering her hand. She grasped at his tongue and pulled it under the stick that Ryonosuke held. Shaking back the sleeve on her right arm, she raised the knife. His tongue?
“MAANJII! NOO!”
The boy looked around at Rin’s scream. He spotted the Itto-ryu men escaping with her and shouted to the others.
“Shit!” Mado broke into a run and shoved Rin’s head under his smelly jacket. “I told you not to look, kid!”
Years before, she had felt much the same horror in the sound of a beloved voice. Deep in his throat, wordless, agonized –
O-Hama cried out, her scream mixing with Manji’s in a hair-raising dissonance. Mado stumbled on a fallen log and his grip slipped before he recovered. He heaved Rin up and threw her head-first over his shoulder. Upside down, she strained to catch a glimpse of O-Hama dropping the knife and flinging something else into the bushes. Frantically wiping her bloodied face and hands as if she had been poisoned.
So she’d finally sickened herself with her own cruelty? Ryonosuke tried to take her in his arms, but she threw herself back and forth in hysterics and collapsed to the ground, sobbing.
Manji gurgled and choked, his head lolling back. His throat worked; gouts of red spouted from his mouth. Between the crashes of Mado’s and Hebi’s rapid footfalls, and the angry calls of the pursuing hirelings, Rin caught the rasp of an escaping, dying bubble of breath: Manji, drowning in his own blood.
Continued...
FYI: My primary posting venue is Livejournal, so you are always going to see updates there first. Usually Adultfanfiction.net gets updates soon afterwards, since all I have to do for that site is cut and paste it from my Livejournal post. Mediaminer needs to have separate documents prepared for posting, so it gets chapters on an irregular basis when I have time to do the clerical work; I mostly think of it as a backup for the first two sites, since I've had bad luck over the years with fic sites going down at random.
However, if a lot of readers were depending on this site for updates, I'd probably get on it more quickly. Since this story gets so few reviews here, I'd assumed it also had few readers. But I've been getting inquiries about Mediaminer updates lately, so maybe I'm wrong. You'll just have to tell me!
The characters and universe of Blade of the Immortal/Mugen no Junin are copyright by Hiroaki Samura and do not belong to me. Not one sen will come into my hands in consequence of this story.
ATTENTION: EXTREME AND EXPLICIT VIOLENCE. This chapter is almost single-handedly responsible for the long-standing violence warning on this story. The content doesn't pass the bar already set by Hiroaki Samura (which would take some doing!) but it does go far beyond what this particular story has been accustomed to show over the last year and a half. Be suitably cautioned.
Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga
Part Thirty-Five
“Cut off both his hands...?” Ryonosuke echoed O-Hama. He looked at his tachi as if she’d demanded that he use a priceless porcelain vase to bail out a sewer. The blade shone with a silky gleam; although it was a deadly weapon, probably it had never touched anything harsher than a polishing puff. The expression on his lover’s beautiful face resembled that sword in a way, thought Rin. “And his legs as well? But... even if his wounds heal so quickly...”
“My word is your law?” she snapped.
“Uh... yes, of course.” Ryonosuke bowed to her and gripped his gilt-ornamented ivory hilt. “I shall carry out your just verdict, O-Hama-dono...”
Manji grimaced, but Rin sensed a flicker of amusement. Lose some limbs? What else was new? He straightened and raised his chin. “So, little boy... you have some plan for delivering me to Edo Castle when I’ve got no legs to walk there?”
O-Hama and Ryonosuke looked at each other.
“Glad to see you’ve considered all the details, idiot. I’d suggest the horse, but...” Manji jerked his head at their mount. The horse stretched its neck down towards the grass, but Ryonosuke had not allowed enough slack in the reins for it to graze. “Just for your information, hauling in a prisoner you’ve chopped to bits is not going to score you points with the banshu, no matter why they want my carcass. I was a cop once myself... there are rules about shit like that. Even for torturing out confessions!”
“Foul fiend – so you beg for mercy after all?” O-Hama made a sniff of contempt.
Manji snorted back at her and twitched his nose. “Look, lady, it’s not like I’m gonna give you an argument. Demon?” He let out a mirthless laugh. “Go ahead. Cut ‘em all off, and you can stick the pieces back on when you’re finished! How fucking human is that?” He gave a sour glance to Ryonosuke and looked back at her. “Where I come up short is letting HIM carry out the verdict!”
O-Hama stood silent, her lips tense.
“I’ve wronged you... to the death. Nobody with your claims has to accept an apology. You want to walk over here and make me regret I was ever born, that’s your right.” Manji showed his teeth. “Not that spoiled brat of a hatamoto! You were samurai, girl – hold the blade in your own hands. I killed your daddy. I cut pieces off your big brother – so freakin’ take your revenge!”
O-Hama turned her back on him. Rin glimpsed her face in profile; for an instant cold rage contorted through her outward composure.
“OK, we’ll leave you two loverbirds with yer toy.” Mado laughed and strode past Ryonosuke. The big foreigner had to make a detour to avoid bumping against the wide shoulder shields of his colorful antique armor. The young man looked up from his sword, startled.
“Where are you going?”
“Boss, this is fascinatin’ stuff and all, but you don’t need five of us just to torture this guy to death. Have fun.” He beckoned to Hebi with a quick motion of his head and approached Rin’s tree.
“But I am not going to kill – ”
“You touch her – ” Manji raised a glare when Mado put a hand on the trunk near Rin’s shoulder.
“Chill, dude.” Hebi sidled over and picked up Rin’s bag and sword. “We’re not the guys you should worry about...”
“Hey!” The bandit flushed dark; he and the boy converged on Rin as well. “You assholes quit trying to swipe my deal!”
Mado ignored him and reached behind the tree. Rin felt a light tug on the doubled cords around her waist and upper arms, and instantly the loops released and fell to the ground. He’d used some sort of trick knot? Her wrists were still tied in front of her, and Mado’s hand emerged with the cord. “Let’s get going, sweetheart.” He took a few turns of the tether around his own wrist and pulled Rin towards him. She tried to yank away, sending a look of frantic appeal to Manji.
He clenched his fists and flexed his elbows against the ropes on his arms; the knots creaked. “You aren’t taking her out of my sight, dammit!”
“Relax. Our buyer prefers his girls unbusted, so she’s keeping it as far as I’m concerned.” Mado shrugged. “Guess I’ll allow ya the benefit of the doubt on that one, yojimbo. Uh, where was it you said you’d jammed yer fool head?” He guffawed; Manji snarled at him.
The threadbare ronin strode towards them, pointing at Rin. “That is not your decision to make, gaijin. I am not interested in filthy cash!”
“So I gather, ya Jappo flower-plucker.” The big foreigner sneered. “Personally, me and my buddy here ain’t interested in wastin’ a good commodity. With what we’ll get for this little virgin, we can buy us enough women to last a month. And the drink to go with them.” Mado tapped his forehead and towed Rin towards the trees, roughly northward. “You damn samurai ought to grow some business sense.”
Although she’d lost her bearings while being carried to this spot, Rin didn’t think the road lay in this direction. Then where did he mean to take her? Rin leaned backwards and tried to dig in her heels, but Mado easily dragged her with him. Hebi took up the rear. The bandit broke into a jog to cut them off, his paunch bouncing. The pimpled boy slunk behind him.
“No!” Ryonosuke made a plaintive gesture with his sword, looking even younger than his nineteen years. “I – you can’t leave yet – we need you to help us take our prisoner to Edo!”
“Sonny, you ain’t gonna have a prisoner after your lady there starts layin’ down the law.” Mado and Manji exchanged a hard look from a distance, almost sharing a conclusion. Manji’s lip curled up and he switched the look to O-Hama. “I don’t care if he knows how to grow a new head – every man’s got his limits, and she’ll find ‘em. Just by way of warning.” He waved in dismissal.
“You two jokers!” The bandit swerved in to seize Rin’s tether and stopped Mado. “You horn in at the last minute, you don’t make a move when this one-eyed asshole is pinking us right and left, and you won’t even take advantage of the benefits!” He peevishly indicated the clumsy bandage where his ear had been. “What’s your damn game?”
“No game, dude! We just ain’t as impatient as you.” Hebi thumped the bandit on the back with a convivial grin, as if calculating how to slip a knife between his ribs. “We didn’t say we were squeezin’ you out of the purse. Come on along and meet our buyer – great guy! Wait till you get your cut.” He threw a broad wink at Mado, who rolled his eyes.
The ronin grasped the hilt of his sword. “The maiden stays here, or there will be blood shed!”
“Crap, you want blood? Hang around, if you like, and watch these crazy kids peel chunks off ol’ Manji-san. They’ll be at it a good long while.” Mado pointed his chin at the declining sun. “There’s three hours of daylight left, give or take. Just about enough time to hand off our little prize and hit a decent inn with the proceeds, if we hustle now!”
Caught in the middle of the knot of arguing men, Rin twisted and shrank away from them. At close range, the bandit’s breath and his greasy mustache smelled so foul that her stomach turned over. Mado yanked her tether out of his hand and the bandit tried to grab it back. “M-Manji-san!”
Her bodyguard still worked at his bonds, his teeth clenched and the tendons pulling in his neck. He threw himself from side to side, and the stout tree gave out a strained groan.
“Um – hear me, my men! We will not delay you long.” Ryonosuke gave Manji’s struggles an apprehensive glance and appealed to the ronin. “Please stop them, Fujikata-san! You pledged me your faithful service, on your honor as a samurai!”
“Yes, lord. I shall not allow anyone to leave until you order it!” The ronin bowed, and then slipped a look at Rin that disgusted her even more than the bandit’s stench.
Hebi shoved the bandit aside; he and Mado headed towards the woods again. The bandit and Fujikata stood together to block their path; both hirelings threatened moves towards their weapons when the Itto-ryu men tried to sidestep them.
Mado drew Rin behind him and ground his jaw. Hebi made a soft hiss past pursed lips. They halted, apparently unwilling to fight their way through.
Rin looked at Hebi’s tattooed chest looming behind her, almost like a shield. The Itto-ryu men’s motives perplexed her just as much as they did the bandit. They didn’t want to draw now and strike down a couple of inferior swordsmen they intended to kill anyway? Her safety in the middle of an all-out battle seemed to concern them excessively, even if they were mostly interested in keeping her intact to sell for a higher price.
Hebi gave Rin a brief, unaccountable smirk when he noticed her scrutiny, then turned to watch their rear and backed up against her. The bandit’s boy circled them with his sling in hand. The two fighters stood in an immobile huddle, with Rin squeezed between them like the filling in a rice ball.
Ryonosuke sighed in relief and turned to O-Hama. Manji also looked slightly relieved, obviously for different reasons. His face and bare chest ran with sweat.
“I... I will sever his right hand to pay for the one your brother lost, O-Hama-dono.” Ryonosuke brandished his sword. “Yes? Then we can have my men take him to the authorities and let them deal with him, demon or not.”
O-Hama shook her head. A stray lock of hair fell over her high forehead, giving her an unbalanced air. “No... that is not enough!”
“My lady – I cannot keep them much longer!” He pointed at the standoff. “Please... if they abandon us – ”
She seemed about to vent another outburst, then gestured in frustration. “Very well. One hand!”
“Will you men remain at least until that’s finished? Please!”
“Shit, like we got a choice...” grumbled Mado. He and Hebi gradually stood at ease and gave Rin a little room. “Get it over with!”
“Come on, little boy.” Manji grinned at Ryonosuke and rolled his shoulders. Though the sailor’s hitches held fast, Manji’s exertions had slightly stretched the ropes and gained him some freedom of movement. Raw welts faded from his biceps and forearms as Rin watched from under Hebi’s arm. “Let’s see you try it!”
Ryonosuke lifted the gleaming tachi high over his head and advanced, keeping a wary eye on Manji’s unbound legs. The weapon’s reach was probably long enough to allow him to strike at Manji’s arm without venturing within kicking distance, but Rin wondered how much sword skill he could have gained since losing the duel with her. He halted a couple of generous paces from Manji’s tree and settled his stance, self-consciously shuffling his feet into position. Squinting along the blade, he took an over-careful measure of his stroke. Manji gripped the branches to which his arms were lashed and slightly bent his knees as if preparing to push off from the ground.
“Wait, my lord!” O-Hama interrupted when Ryonosuke straightened up to swing.
“What?”
“Even though his wounds will seal themselves, the pain may cloud his mind.” She put a hand to her lips, her eyes scanning back and forth. “No... not yet!”
Ryonosuke lowered the sword with a puff of breath and an unmistakable look of relief. “What do you wish me to do, then?”
O-Hama didn’t reply. She focused on Manji for a few moments: revulsion filled her expression, mixed with an odd note of fascination. Rin drew a breath through closed teeth. Her impression of O-Hama had changed from her first impulse of outraged sympathy, but she still felt sorrow for her ordeals. How dreadful to have to flatter a man who disgusted you, and try to persuade him that you enjoyed his touch! Rin couldn’t imagine how a pleasure woman submitted to such indignities even in ordinary circumstances. She shivered and blushed; her bodyguard had taken her in ways she’d had no idea existed, and although she had opened her arms to him with eagerness, sometimes fear or pain almost overcame her desire. Maybe you just got used to it, one way or another...Manji and O-Hama engaged in a staring match; he seemed determined to search further into her mind if he could, and she both resisted his advance and seemed unable to break eye contact. An intuition brushed Rin’s mind as she examined the queer look on the other woman’s face. O-Hama had said she remembered every detail of Manji’s body, and of what he had done with hers. She longed to blot out the memory, even with her own death. Years of obsessive fantasies centered on her phantom enemy – and then to recognize him only at the moment he possessed her? Rin bit her lips.O-Hama might have feared Manji would kill her if she let slip that she knew who he was. But he wouldn’t have treated O-Hama brutally, even if he was used to relaxing his restraints with experienced women. He’d tried to make her like it to the best of his ability, and he wasn’t unskilled in the pillow. Rin creased her brows and looked at each of them in turn. Had Manji really failed as completely as he’d thought? She seemed to open her eyes to a memory so clear it hurt: to confront the face of the only person who would stop to give her water. His sharp, smooth features; his graceful economy of movement. Every detail of his body. She had known him instantly with only the barest of glimpses from a distance, even disguised and hampered as he must have been. Rin shuddered as if insects crawled over her skin. What had Manji said about what a woman could do with hate?Her face went cold. A woman who had so much reason to despise and fear a man, and who had no other knowledge of him at all? Her hate might have multiplied a thousandfold if he gave her even the briefest moment of pleasure...
O-Hama abruptly turned away from Manji; her eyes met Rin’s. Both women stared at each other for a moment of overlapping, transparent thoughts. O-Hama’s eyes dilated wide, as if her own ideas startled her. For an instant Rin saw only an angry, wounded girl. Desperate for justice and her family’s honor, or for simple revenge – at any cost, to anyone. All on fire, untempered and unquenched. A girl who didn’t think twice before offering her innocence as a killer’s wages, but who had never yet seen the blood of a human being she called an enemy. Rin’s knees wobbled and her mouth opened in appeal.
“O-Hama-dono? What is your desire?”
O-Hama broke eye contact, looked down at Rin’s body and compressed her lips to white lines. Pain and violence trembled in her clenched hands.
“We... I will strip him of his last redemption...”
“My lady?”
“This girl!” She aimed a finger at Rin, but looked away.
“What?” Ryonosuke looked shocked, and Manji stopped yanking against the ropes to listen.
“As you know, my lord, I can retrieve some gold I saved over the past few months. I will promise it all to these men as compensation for lost value.”
“What? But that’s all the money we – ”
She beckoned to the Itto-ryu fighters. “The money is hidden a few hours’ journey from here. Fifteen ryo! More than sufficient, since she wouldn’t bring more than thirty, even with her mizuage.”
“Hey, hey!” The bandit rubbed his hands. “Who wouldn’t stick around for that?” Mado and Hebi shifted stance; although they didn’t confer, clearly neither entertained any interest in the offer.
“But... but what do you mean to pay for, my lady?” Ryonosuke’s face screwed up as if he didn’t want to hear the answer. Manji looked as if he knew it already.
“Pain will not daunt him, nor even mutilation. He has felt them too often to fear them now.” Manji’s mouth twitched at that. “But the killer of a hundred can still suffer every agony of failure.” O-Hama let out a shaky laugh. “Her violation is his violation!”
Ryonosuke’s jaw fell slack. Manji’s teeth snapped together.
“He took my father’s life. He took my brother’s limbs. His ‘little sister’ – his precious woman – will lose what I have lost.” O-Hama wept in painful rage. “Chastity and honor! Shame them both together! A woman he has protected, whose body he thinks he owns – These men will strip her naked, and he will witness her defilement. Here! Now!”
For a moment, silence that hammered the senses. Rin could not draw breath; her legs sagged and Hebi supported her before she fell. He and Mado muttered a quick exchange she could make no sense of; they might have been debating whether to make a run for it.
A rising rumble penetrated her ears – not from her own pounding heart. Both of Manji’s eyes seemed to bulge and his face grew fiery red. His mouth stretched to a demon’s mask and his voice swelled to an incoherent roar. He thrashed and arched his whole body against the shaking tree. Dry leaves dislodged and fell around him in a shower. He sounded like a wild bear fighting a pack of hunting dogs. Across the clearing, the tethered horse tossed its head and rolled frightened eyes.
“O-Hama-dono!” The young man took a backwards step. He stared at his lover as if she had sprouted fangs like a flesh-eating ogress. “Holy name of Amida Butsu – ”
O-Hama cried out over Manji’s furious yells. “If you love me, my lord, give me my revenge! What else have I lived for?” She tore the tie from her long hair and shook it forward to hide her face.
With a sharp report, the branch that held Manji’s right arm cracked and split several ways down the middle. It didn’t break away from the tree, but when the splintered sections shifted and collapsed inwards, the double hitch on Manji’s wrist went slack.
He worked his hand out through the loop and yanked it down the branch. The other hitches sagged loose. Ryonosuke yelled in alarm and dashed at him, then realized his danger and skidded to a stop.
Manji dragged his arm free of the ropes. He lunged and caught the projecting edge of Ryonosuke’s shoulder shield as he tried to retreat. Ryonosuke lurched forward, off balance and pinwheeling his arms. Manji seized him by the throat.
O-Hama shrieked. Ryonosuke struggled and thumped Manji on the head with the pommel of his tachi; the blade was too long to stab him at such close range. When Manji tried to catch the hilt in his jaws, the young man had a sudden attack of common sense, and flung the sword out of his adversary’s reach.
Choking and convulsing, he clutched Manji’s wrist with both hands and tried to break his grip. Manji’s arm flexed, his lean muscles knotting across his chest. He had left swatches of skin on the tree’s rough bark and ripped the back of his hand against the splinters. Blood stained the bright silk braid of the armor. Ryonosuke rose up on his toes, lifted by one hand. He let out a strangled cry; his face turned dark purple. Manji grinned like a wolf.
Hebi darted past the startled bandit and the boy while Rin watched in amazed excitement. He leaped and seized Manji’s right wrist. Manji roared again and kicked Hebi’s feet from under him before he could latch on with both hands.
Hebi twisted his body and landed on his upper back, as nimbly as if he had meant to take the dive. He rolled behind the tree and flipped upright. Then he ducked under the split branch and came at Manji again from behind. Rin yelped in warning.
Braced against the bole of the tree, Manji aimed a kick at Hebi’s knee. Hebi jumped in the air, caught a branch and swung from it. Before Manji could pull back, he gripped the outflung leg between his thighs. He locked one foot behind his other knee to keep Manji trapped and pulled himself higher into the tree. Off balance, Manji grimaced and jerked his body, trying to free his leg and keep control of the thrashing Ryonosuke.
Hebi leaped from his height and seized Manji’s choking arm on the way down. Manji swung Ryonosuke into him, never letting go of the young man’s throat. Hebi took Ryonosuke’s flailing feet in the shins and his metal-edged shoulder shield in the mouth. He jerked backwards, slipped and lost his lock on Manji’s leg. Manji kicked him off. Hebi rolled away in a cloud of dirt, spitting out blood from a cut lip.
Mado dropped Rin’s tether, moved in on Manji’s left and shot a heavy fist at his stomach. Manji blocked the blow with an abruptly raised knee, then planted his heel in Mado’s groin with a side kick.
It was a quick, awkward move without much force behind it, but Mado doubled over. The big foreigner staggered backwards, clutching his crotch and groaning. Hebi bounced up again and wrapped his hands around Manji’s right wrist. He struggled to pry his grip off Ryonosuke’s throat while warding off a flurry of kicks.
Mado threw up his head, scowling. An angry flush showed under his scraggly beard. “Jappo asshole!”
Instead of punching again or trying to drag Ryonosuke free, he lunged straight for Manji. He slammed his chest into Manji’s left side and threw a thick arm around his neck as if to throttle him. Manji growled and snapped at Mado’s biceps. Mado shifted his grip lower, grabbed the back of Manji’s neck and jammed the heel of his other hand to the side of his skull. He bore down from his superior height, forcing Manji’s head sideways towards his shoulder. Under the weight and assault of three men, Manji’s knees started to buckle. He yelled in pain when Mado jerked on his neck.
Rin belatedly realized she was free. Except for her bound wrists, nothing restrained her, and the hirelings were watching the struggle around Manji. She glanced around at the trees and deep underbrush, but instead of fleeing into the forest, she made a dash for the center of the clearing. There stood five of Manji’s naked blades, still planted in a fence. They cast their variously-shaped shadows over the trampled grass, their honed angles gleaming.
Fujikata yelped and ran after her, closely followed by the bandit. Rin scraped one wrist on the razor edge of the shido’s fork while cutting her bonds. She grabbed the weapon by the cord-wrapped hilt and yanked it from the earth just as her pursuers reached her. It weighed down her arm – she should have chosen a lighter blade. Too late now to change her mind! She spun around and whirled the shido in a wide arc. The men jumped backwards.
Hebi bent his knees and rammed his shoulder up under Manji’s right armpit. He locked one hand around Manji’s forearm and applied all his force to twisting it so that the elbow pointed downwards. Manji’s arm began to tremble, but he still held fast to the fading Ryonosuke. Hebi grunted, grabbed his own wrist to reinforce his grip and straightened his knees. With a sharp pull, he forced Manji’s arm to bend the wrong way, with his shoulder as fulcrum. The elbow snapped with an audible pop and Manji lost his hold on Ryonosuke. He let out an agonized scream; a crunching sound accompanied another downwards push on his head from the bulky foreigner.
Ryonosuke tumbled to the ground in a gasping heap, seemingly only half-conscious. O-Hama flew to him.
Mado let go of Manji’s head, then grabbed a cord from his jacket. With Hebi’s help he pulled Manji’s sickeningly contorted right arm straight again and re-lashed it to the cracked branch. This time he double-knotted each turn of the rope. For good measure, they pulled his legs up against the tree trunk and got out more cords.
Manji groaned. Obviously badly hurt, with his limbs dangling limp, he tried to roll his head upright on his sharply angled neck. He spotted Rin holding off the two men with his shido and his mouth opened. He looked gray and utterly drained, as if his brief, ferocious effort had squandered the last resources of his already-sapped strength.
Fujikata and the bandit flanked Rin, weapons out. Every move she made, they matched. She couldn’t get past them in any direction. The shido felt like a stone; her shoulders already ached. The men stood back and watched her point droop lower as she tried to keep up her guard. Both of them smiled, as if the spectacle amused them: only the beginning of the entertainment they intended at her expense! Rin hyperventilated. Their greedy eyes scanning her – they would move in and disarm her in a few more moments unless she acted.
Oddly, she felt less concerned for herself than she did for her bodyguard. Allow these men to ravish her in front of Manji? She could hardly imagine any ordeal more cruel to his feelings, even if she could have endured the nightmare in the first place. Her mother’s endless, heart-tearing screams, and the jeers of her tormentors...
Rin clenched her trembling jaw. Brave enough to take the escape her mother had been denied? Wasn’t there any other choice left?
Not for her, there wasn’t. At least, like her father, she still held a sword in her hand.
Manji’s gaze was riveted to her across the clearing, his body sagging and still except for his heaving chest. Rin gasped at the fear in his wide-open eye; he had read her train of thought as it formed.
Manji’s expression cracked and fell apart with grief. His naked agony cut through Rin with an edge like steel. “Oh... Manji-san...” She whimpered and almost dropped the shido.
Manji forcibly set his lips together and averted his eye. He might have a small measure of strength left, if only enough to master himself...
As Rin watched, Manji’s features went dark and still, like a shuttered window. He straightened his neck and breathed evenly. Only a slight tremor in his limbs betrayed him when he looked at her again.
A formal bow of his disheveled head: apology and farewell. His hair fell back when he raised his face, and she saw every detail of his meaning. A self-indulgent display of emotion could do nothing but sabotage her resolve. He knew her imperative as well as she did; he was samurai too...
Her guard down, Fujikata made a grab for her. Rin shied away. She reversed the shido, pulled it towards herself and aimed the point at her breastbone.
“Aw, crap!” The bandit yelled and tried to seize the weapon, but Rin ducked to avoid him and scrambled to get some distance. In a crouch, she backed up to a clump of brush, and jammed the ringed end of the shido’s hilt into the grassy earth. Fall forward, and her own weight would do the work... probably.
The hirelings flinched away when she threw up her chin in warning. With one hand she adjusted the point’s lie between her breasts, trying to locate the vital spot.
On their knees, the Itto-ryu men turned their attention from securing Manji’s ankles and craned to see what was happening. Rin took a deep breath in preparation and looked around Fujikata’s worn-out hakama to find Manji’s eye again. Should she try to give her bodyguard one last comfort, or would that only inflict a greater cruelty?
He had never taken his gaze from her. Despite his grim and frozen expression, Rin caught a glimpse behind the shutters he had drawn. One warm glow: a small bright presence that still lit a single room in a charnel house.
Rin’s lips quivered. If she perished here, she snatched that light and hope from him forever. In stoic silence he’d watch her kill herself, helpless to save her from outrage and dishonor in any other way. Then somehow, he’d find his chance and take them all down with him, into the darkest circles of hell...
“No, maiden – stop!” Perhaps to his credit, Fujikata looked deeply distressed. He thrust his sword back into the scabbard as Rin hesitated. “Please, don’t end your life!”
“Wh-why shouldn’t I? I won’t submit to – !”
She heard a loud exclamation in a strange language; Mado stood up, looking towards her. The ronin knelt in front of her and clasped his hands. His stringy hair and hollow cheeks gave him a superficial air of a pious ascetic, though probably he only lacked the cash for regular meals. “I beg you... I could never approach an innocent girl with needless violence. I mean to cherish you as the precious flower you are!”
“I ain’t such a nasty guy, honest.” The bandit offered a yellow-toothed grin and an open gesture of both hands. Rin’s eyes followed the dark crescents of his filthy fingernails. “I know better than to treat a broad real bad. Getting carried away with the fun wouldn’t hike your price any – uh, that is – ”
Rin gripped the shido harder to steady it and half-closed her eyes. This was her failure too, not just Manji’s. Her parents would remain unavenged. Mourning spirits drifting into oblivion, with no living descendants to remember them. She might go out like a samurai, but in the same act she abandoned her beloved father and mother. Tears ran down her cheeks and she tensed her muscles for the thrust.
“Asano Rin-san!” yelled Hebi. “Ho-hold on there!” He raced Mado across the clearing and crowded Fujikata aside. Rin looked up in startlement. “God, no! If you even got scratched, we’d so get the living shit kicked – ow!”
Mado slapped him on the ear to silence him. “Put that damn thing down, kid. Nothing’s gonna happen to you, understand? You’re coming out of this in one piece... honor and all.”
Rin threw him a disbelieving glare.
He raised a brow and put a hand to his heart. “As the good Lord’s my witness. Uh, the buyer’s gonna, uh, he’s gonna keep you on ice even after he gets you – uh, that little lady could tell you how it works at the expensive joints, but I suppose she ain’t liable to say.” He cocked his head at the seething O-Hama. Ryonosuke had revived enough to sit up and hold his injured throat.
“Oh, really? Prove it!”
Mado guilelessly spread his hands. “You got a suggestion?”
“Cut Manji-san loose!” She darted an eager look at her bodyguard. He grimaced and worked the rest of the crick out of his neck.
“Well... hell, kid, he’d pick up his slicers and rip us all to shreds.” Mado shrugged and toyed with the brass whistle that hung around his neck. “You gotta admit, that ain’t much of a – ”
“Cut him loose this instant, or I’ll – !” She poked her chest a little too hard with the shido while making her point, and squeaked in discomfort.
“He ain’t in real great shape, y’know,” offered Hebi. He dropped to one knee near Rin, about where Fujikata had supplicated her a few moments before. “That bullet, an’ busting trees with muscle? He’s a stud, sure, but he’s about wasted. Maybe if he promises he’ll leave his hardware and split?”
“Well... OK.” Mado scratched his hairy chin and quirked his mouth at his companion. “I guess I can live with that.”
“Fine by me.” Hebi nodded back and slightly shifted his weight.
“Traitors!” spluttered Fujikata.
“What are you doing?” O-Hama sounded shrill. “Stop!”
“Hold your damn horses, lady. This here is a delicate ongoin’ negotiation.” Mado moved away towards Manji’s tree as if to speak to him. Rin unconsciously relaxed her grip on the shido, and Hebi sprang.
“Noo!” She wrestled with him for the weapon and tried to stab him. He wrapped both of her wrists in his long-fingered hand, flicked the shido away and tossed it over his shoulder.
The bandit lurched aside to avoid it and it plunged into the ground several paces distant. “Hey, watch it, dickhead!”
Rin struggled and sank her teeth into Hebi’s tattooed forearm, but he pulled her to her feet and lightly twisted her arm to hold her still. “Ohh!” She burst into furious tears.
Manji closed his eye while Mado pulled Rin’s hands behind her. He made her fold her arms over the small of her back so he could tie her wrists, then wrapped the rope over her shoulders and under her breasts a couple of times, weaving the turns together in back like a policeman trussing a prisoner. Again, he had not tightened the cords to the point of cruelty, but she could not even shift her arms now. Escape seemed more remote than ever.
The big foreigner tied the last knot and clapped her on the shoulder. “Aw, good try, kid. You got spunk.” He stooped and spoke lower. “I ain’t blowin’ smoke, so buck up.” Rin sniffled and glared at him in hostile confusion. His ugly freckled face stretched in a smile and he held the rope end close to the knot so that she had to stand right by him. Sullenly, she hung her head.
“Stalwart foreigner,” said O-Hama in a sweet singsong. All of the men looked at her as if impelled, even Manji. She touched her lips and gazed only at Mado. “Will you satisfy me on a point of curiosity?”
“Hah? Me?”
“Have you any taste for the women of this country? Or are those of your own race more beautiful in your eyes?” She turned her flank towards him and examined him along the line of her shoulder. “Are they as tall and strong as you?”
Mado snorted. “Hey, I’m a sailor. A woman’s a woman.”
“Then you prefer to take the pillow with females? Not with youths?”
He flushed and looked uncomfortable. “If I had ten coppers for every time somebody’s offered me a boy without blinkin’ an eye – shit, the girls and the bawdy houses is about the only thing they do right in this heathen craphole... assumin’ I’m flush enough to afford the good places.”
O-Hama pushed her hair out of her face, then shed her short haori coat. With tantalizing care, she unwound the knotted straps of her hakama.
Mado gave her an uncertain eye. O-Hama stepped out of her oversized pants when they slipped to the ground. In a man’s plain dark silk kosode that fell to her ankles, her figure appeared lithe and feminine. Mado’s jaw fell a little slack; he didn’t seem to be able to look away.
“Yeah, uh... maybe someday before I catch my death from the goddamn everlastin’ bathtubs... uh... I might just decide to waste a whole month’s take on a woman like – ”
Manji chuckled with a harsh note. “Get a clue, gaijin... what was it you said about her finding any man’s limits?”
O-Hama gracefully shifted her collar to dip lower in the back and adjusted her obi to lie higher. She moved closer to Mado with a dainty, sidewise shuffle. With a demure smile, she glanced at both the Itto-ryu men, fingers to her pink lips. Her lashes fluttered down to hide her eyes for a moment. Then she looked up again with a dewy, fawn-like glimmer.
Mado cleared his throat. Hebi gulped hard. Even Rin took a deep breath; O-Hama’s expert seductiveness daunted her. Without flaunting her body like a streetwalker, she suggested a mysterious sensuality that lent even greater allure to her delicate beauty. For a man she meant to impress, she might form an almost irresistible temptation.
“Well, shit...” muttered Manji. “I waste the cash for nothin’, and now the little bitch hands out the good stuff for free?” He raised his voice. “Oh, yeah – I was gonna take back the part about the apology!”
O-Hama ignored him. “You will not accept gold? Then will you take instead... whatever you desire?”
“Whoa...” Mado’s big body shivered.
“Leave this girl to the others, and I will show you all the delights of Nihon-onna.” She included Hebi in the offer with a flick of her lashes and a smile. “You have only to turn your back...” She did just that, running her fingers through her night-black hair. She smoothed its luxurious length and draped it forward to display her curved white nape, then glanced an enticement over her shoulder. “I promise you, the first moments in my arms will dispel all thought of that skinny virgin...”
She caught Rin’s cold glare out of the corner of her eye as she turned again, and flinched almost imperceptibly.
“Lady,” said Mado in a strangled tone, “I hate to say no to any gal with moves like yours, but...”
O-Hama put a hand on his chest. She now stood almost side to side with Rin, an arm’s length from her. Mado drew a deep breath through his nose; a whiff of gardenia-scented hair oil floated in the air. Rin’s face screwed up in disgusted recognition.
“Oh... sweet God.” Mado loosened his grasp on Rin’s tether; the flush across his cheekbones deepened its heat. Hebi’s jaw hung slack. She’d seen for herself how little a man in the grip of desire might consider the aftermath –
Rin slowly raised one tabi-shod foot; she wished she still had her wooden geta, but even her tough bodyguard could go down with one well-placed blow. The element of surprise was key, but the choice of target even more so.
She wiggled her raised leg from side to side to make a little room in her narrow skirts, leaned against Mado’s side to brace herself, and kicked O-Hama in the right kneecap as hard as she could.
“Oh!” The girl staggered backwards, fell and rolled in the dirt. Her hair spilled over her face. “Ohhh!”
“Ow!” Rin took a couple of hops for balance, grimacing over her stubbed toes.
O-Hama whipped her head around while lying in a sprawl. She crouched and bared her teeth as if she meant to spring at Rin’s throat.
“You!” Rin planted her feet, leaned forward and jutted her jaw. “You take your stupid prostitute stuff out of here, you – you rotten cunt!”
O-Hama sat up, her mouth wide open.
“How DARE you! Ordering them to do awful things to me – gosh, if it would make you feel so much better to have some other girl suffer like you did – they killed both my parents! They raped my mother in front of me! At least you still have a family – but who needs a brother that damn stupid? Couldn’t suck it up and act like a man, instead of lying around drinking you out of house and home! What a LOSER!”
Rin paused for breath, shaking with excited anger, and swept a challenging glance around the clearing.
No one looked like he wanted to laugh at her. Fujikata and the bandit exchanged glances while the boy goggled. The Itto-ryu men coughed and shrugged their shoulders, avoiding her eyes.
Manji gazed straight at her; a crooked grin lit his face. Rin couldn’t quite return the grin, but tried to let her eyes speak for her. Manji closed his, still smiling, and slightly shook his head with a silent chuckle. O-Hama still sat in the dirt, breathing hard and staring at the ground.
“I... I mean, you think you’re special? That nobody’s pain matters but yours? You think you’re the only girl who ever had to pillow with a man she – ” Rin choked. “At least... at least you knew that when he finished... he’d go away and never come back...” Rin bit back tears and looked down, her throat tight. She began to tremble all over in the ebb tide of her anger.
O-Hama slowly rose to her feet and brushed off her dusty clothes. Leaves hung in her tangled hair. She picked them out and wiped her hands. The look she threw Rin felt poisonous. When she approached Mado again from a safer angle and tried to compose her face into a smile, Hebi leaned over and punched him hard in the upper back. Mado jerked and whirled on his companion. He snapped up a fist as if to give him a blow, then slowly opened the hand and made a conciliatory gesture. He had the grace to look a little ashamed of himself.
“Sorry, ma’am... we got obligations.” He looked over O-Hama’s head. “Keep it for your boyfriend – uh, he’s just about shitting his pants, by the way.”
He was right; Ryonosuke glared at them all, simmering red. He gripped his sword, strode right up to Manji and swung it high. The blade flashed down; Rin squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away.
Steel grated against bone. Manji muffled a grunt, and blood gushed and pattered on the fallen leaves. Rin opened her eyes, expecting to see his hand lying severed on the ground, though she hadn’t heard it fall.
Ryonosuke struggled to free his blade, which had lodged in Manji’s wrist. He had cut only a little way through the joint. Blood sprayed from the wound and stained the front of his coat, though he tried in vain to avoid the spatter. “Oh... damn...”
“Use the tip of the blade, genius. No leverage with the hilt end.” Manji made a face half sarcastic, half in pain. Ryonosuke pried at the sword and finally managed to free it. He moved a little farther off and took his stance.
“Come on, boy, put some back into it! You ain’t got enough muscle to snap a reed with a freakin’ wood ax.” Manji managed a chuckle.
Hot-faced, Ryonosuke struck again with the tip of his sword. This time the cut went deeper, but still didn’t sever both arm bones, since it hit a handspan lower than the first wound.
“Crap... he’s got shitty aim too.” Manji shook his head in a jocular way, though his forehead perspired. “Third try’s the charm?”
Mado and Hebi restrained laughs; she felt their stomachs shaking. The bandit wasn’t as discreet – he snorted out loud and slapped his leg.
Chunk! Again the blade bit through flesh, striking in between the first two wounds and stopping on the bone. Manji let out a louder grunt, then a forced laugh. “That ain’t a cucumber you’re slicing for pickles! Make a freakin’ clean cut if you can manage it, and let’s move on to the next trick.” Blood poured down his arm and dripped from the bend of his broken elbow. “Think you can finish this... while it’s still light enough to see what you’re swingin’ at?”
“You…you taunt me…” panted Ryonosuke, already out of breath. “But I shall wipe out those disrespectful words!”
Rin shut her eyes again, clenching her jaw to hold back sympathetic agony. She would only shame Manji’s bravery if she showed too much concern.
Ryonosuke struck again and again, each time more weakly, hacking Manji’s forearm and sending shreds of meat flying. The beautiful tachi dulled and chipped on Manji’s defleshed bones. The edge began to catch and tear the muscle instead of cut it. His wrist tendons slowly snapped, blow after blow.
Eventually the hirelings stopped laughing, even the bandit. Hebi gritted his teeth and rubbed the back of his neck; the ronin sighed. O-Hama watched with a hand over her mouth, twitching a little at each strike.
Two fingers lost joints from a particularly badly directed swing. Every awkward scrape and slice brought a fresh flow of blood. How much more could Manji’s immortal body provide? The dead leaves glistened red in a wide radius under the branch. Manji had long since fallen silent except for involuntary, nearly inaudible sighs through his teeth. He examined the ruins with a dulling eye.
“Stop!” Rin screamed, at last unable to bear the sight any longer. “Stop it, please... oh, Manji-san!”
Manji growled at her. “Shut... the fuck... up...”
Ryonosuke looked nearly as pale and faint as his victim. He wiped his sweating face on his armored sleeve and kept chopping, tears streaming from his eyes. By using the notched sword like a saw, he finally severed the hand. It dangled from the destroyed arm, held only by the damaged rope and a single tattered strand of tough ligament. Manji rolled his head back against the tree. He hardly seemed to see the evening sunlight that shone in his face.
“Think I…” he gasped out through gritted teeth, “...I might’ve already mentioned a guy I knew once... who liked to play this kind of shit. Frankly, I’d rather he was hacking on me than you.” The frayed rope broke and the remains of Manji’s hand fell to the ground, splattering blood. “I got... a feeling... he would’ve been a little more... efficient about it...”
Manji’s shoulders slumped, and his head fell forward on his chest. His mangled stump slipped from its unraveled restraints and hung down. O-Hama vibrated with anger. She stalked up to Manji and slapped his face.
No reaction: he had passed out cold. Rin cursed the heavens for such belated mercy.
“Disgusting beast...” O-Hama gave a contemptuous glance to the mangled hand at her feet. “This is all? This is my satisfaction?”
“Shit, woman, what do ya want?” said Hebi, looking revolted. “This show over yet?”
“N-no... no more!” Ryonosuke stumbled and sat on the ground. He put his head in his hands and sobbed.
O-Hama’s lips drew back. She glanced around at all the men. “Will you aid me, then?”
“What with?” The bandit looked at her with a hint of trepidation. “I guess we could load his carcass on the horse for ya or something...”
She dismissed him and looked around again. Her glance stopped on Manji’s scattered weapons. With decisive strides O-Hama moved to pick up his hooked knife. She tested the edge with a thumbnail and approached Manji’s unconscious body.
An ugly presentiment startled Rin to alertness. She blinked tears from her eyes and tried to wipe her face on her shoulder to clear them.
O-Hama looked at the crossed scars on Manji’s chest, and lower. She extended a hand towards his bunched-up, bloody kosode. Gingerly, she felt through the folds for the belt that held it around his waist, then pulled it taut and slashed it. The men stared at her.
Manji’s clothes fell open and exposed his hips and thighs. His skin and his fundoshi had soaked up a watery reddish stain from the blood seeping through his outer clothing. O-Hama hesitated, then gripped the knife and reached for the twist of Manji’s loincloth.
Rin screamed in horrified realization, and O-Hama halted. Every man in the clearing cursed or shielded his eyes, except for the oblivious Ryonosuke.
O-Hama gave an uneasy glance to the knife she held, seeming to register the true gravity of what she was about to do. Perhaps she also disliked the idea of touching Manji’s naked body, even to wreak such a decisive revenge. She pulled back her hand as if she felt a burn and retreated.
“Holy freakin’ shit... I ain’t letting that gal anywhere near my family inheritance...” muttered Hebi. The others nodded in profound agreement and wiped cold sweat from their faces, as if they had all been reprieved from execution. Mado looked particularly green.
O-Hama stood with her back to Manji, her shoulders heaving with tension. After a few moments, she looked around on the ground near the tree. Unmanning him had balked her, but now? Rin watched her, her mind racing. O-Hama picked up a stout fallen branch and struggled to break it under her foot. Ryonosuke looked up, his face red and tear-streaked.
“My... lady?”
With the aid of the knife O-Hama cut a straight stick about the length of a sword hilt, a thick finger-width through the middle. She stood up. “I would like a moment’s help. Can you do that much for me, my lord?” She did not hide the sarcasm in her words; Rin thought she seemed almost as spent as her lover, though she showed it less. “Here, take this.” She pointed at Manji with the stick she had cut and tossed it to Ryonosuke. “Hold his head.”
Blank and obedient, Ryonosuke took the stick and rose. Manji still hung limp from the tree, though Rin saw some signs of returning consciousness. His mangled arm didn’t look much better than it had when Ryonosuke had stopped chopping at it. The young man took hold of Manji’s topknot and raised his head. He groaned faintly.
“Foul, arrogant beast – you’ll regret your vile speech! Where are your taunts now?” O-Hama spat in Manji’s face. He pulled a slight grimace and his lips moved without making a sound.
Mado tugged at Rin’s tether and whispered to her. “Come on, kid. No point in you goggling at this crap any more.”
“But, but Manji-san –”
“He’s a goner, hey? Give him up.” She resisted, and he scooped an arm around her and pushed her in front of him. “Get moving, or I’ll have to carry you. Don’t think you’d like that.” Rin took a few unwilling steps towards the trees and looked back.
Ryonosuke had wedged the stick between Manji’s teeth like a horse’s bit, and pulled his head back so that his jaw hung open. O-Hama pulled at her left sleeve and peered up at Manji’s opened mouth. Mado grabbed Rin by the waist, swung her into his arms and jogged into the forest. Hebi fell in close behind them. For the moment, the hirelings watched O-Hama and didn’t notice their departure.
“Put me down!” Rin kicked and struggled. “Manji – Manji-san!” She managed to crane around Mado’s shoulder to see. “Oh, God!”
O-Hama reached up into Manji’s mouth with a fold of fabric covering her hand. She grasped at his tongue and pulled it under the stick that Ryonosuke held. Shaking back the sleeve on her right arm, she raised the knife. His tongue?
“MAANJII! NOO!”
The boy looked around at Rin’s scream. He spotted the Itto-ryu men escaping with her and shouted to the others.
“Shit!” Mado broke into a run and shoved Rin’s head under his smelly jacket. “I told you not to look, kid!”
Years before, she had felt much the same horror in the sound of a beloved voice. Deep in his throat, wordless, agonized –
O-Hama cried out, her scream mixing with Manji’s in a hair-raising dissonance. Mado stumbled on a fallen log and his grip slipped before he recovered. He heaved Rin up and threw her head-first over his shoulder. Upside down, she strained to catch a glimpse of O-Hama dropping the knife and flinging something else into the bushes. Frantically wiping her bloodied face and hands as if she had been poisoned.
So she’d finally sickened herself with her own cruelty? Ryonosuke tried to take her in his arms, but she threw herself back and forth in hysterics and collapsed to the ground, sobbing.
Manji gurgled and choked, his head lolling back. His throat worked; gouts of red spouted from his mouth. Between the crashes of Mado’s and Hebi’s rapid footfalls, and the angry calls of the pursuing hirelings, Rin caught the rasp of an escaping, dying bubble of breath: Manji, drowning in his own blood.
Continued...