Burning.

Burning. Burning.

Burning. Burning. Burning.

Burning─red hot.1

Burning─ablaze.

All was burning.

All would burn away.

Burning up─and burning out.

“■■■─listen to me.”

Afire.2

Aflame.3

As if possessed of a tenacious, individual will, the conflagration spread and multiplied, all encompassing─a ring of fire.

For us.

Protecting us from something out there.

“■■■”

In air so hot that it was difficult to breathe─

You spoke to me.

Calling my name─the name that I’ve forgotten.

“It looks as though I’ve failed─we’re in a bind. I see no way of turning things around.”

Sounding utterly resigned.

No.

Nay─you had always been resigned.

Not like I had any hope of understanding anything you said─but one thing was for sure.

You understood from the beginning.

Knew that your plan4 would end in failure.

Knew that your plot5 would end a failure.

Knew all along.

Knowing─well aware.

What it was you knew, though, I’ve forgotten─

But you were thoroughly resigned.

Starting off with no delusion of success─which is what made your deeds so wicked.

Never expecting to succeed, and banking on your failure─indeed.

Nothing to hide, nor anything to show.

There we were.

Engulfed in flame─hot air so suffocating we could nary see a foot ahead, just as you predicted.

As planned, from the beginning.

All you wanted was to know for certain that your efforts were in vain─to make sure, once more, and for good measure, that despite your every precaution, and having planned things so assiduously, you nevertheless failed.

Which explained─that smug6 look on your face.

A face announcing you had no regrets.

“So this is how I meet my ruin─hah. Pretty interesting turn of events, I must say…”

You have to admit.

Indeed.

Though knowing you would fail─you never knew exactly how.

How history would rewrite itself.

How history would expunge7 you.

Those things were beyond your control.

Not if, but how to fail.

That was all this struggle ever meant─all that the thousand-thousand8 war dead, friend and enemy alike, could ever mean to you.

“This history is all wrong.”

You.

Repeating those words I had heard before─only to forget.

“I’ve done my part to show just how wrong it is─but for the time being, my work is done. It sure could have been easier─don’t expect me to do that again. I’m not cut out for this line of work─I’m a homebody at heart, just trying to muddle through, between our family vacations. Don’t ask me how things came to this─but all the same.”

You told me.

“In the end, ■■■, I’ve said all I had to say, and that’s what counts.”

Had to say?

What are you saying?

You hadn’t told me anything─

You’d said nothing.

You were severed from me─

What was it?

What were you trying to explain?

“Damn─”

You cast your eyes beyond the flames.

And on your face─a smile.

You were laughing, like you were amazed.

“I’m going to burn to death regardless, even if they let me be, but it would seem there is one man left among them who believes in following formalities.9 It’s too bad. If I had my druthers, ■■■ would be the last person I spoke to─but alas. This thing called history is too cruel for words─ah, well.”

And then you turned to me.

“Hide in there─and don’t come out, no matter what. If history proceeds as I suspect─and if the lessons I have garnered from this failure prove a fact, then you, and only you, will make it out alive. The sole survivor of this gruesome chapter in our history.”

History will make a place for you.

At least for now.

Not like this─made any sense to me.

“If I cared more about the code of the samurai, ■■■─this would be when I put you out of your misery…but I cannot help myself from taking pity on you. Killing you is one thing I could never do, even if correcting this flawed history depends on it. We’re good as dead, but I can’t force myself to take you with me.”

That’s what you said.

Saying things that I’ve forgotten.

“How could I kill─my own daughter?”

You said that.

Then you stuffed me in a closet─and I was too small10 to fight back.

How did I react?

Did I cry?

Bawl my eyes out?

Huff and puff?

Howl?

I can’t remember.

All I remember─is that right after you shoved me in there, locking me away, a man appeared─piercing the ring of fire.

He was a swordsman.

Except he had no sword.

The Swordless Swordsman─

“Well, well, well, Mutsue. They send you here to kill me?”

You played dumb.

The Swordless Swordsman answered you─without so much as glancing toward me.

“■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■”

I’m not sure what he said.

I don’t remember.

Nor would I care to.

Because the Swordless Swordsman─

The Swordless Swordsman took your life.

And right before he did.

Somehow─you stood there.

Laughing.

“Hah hah hah!”

Laughing─just like that.

“Wow, this tops everything, Mutsue─to think that things would come to this. Me left with no choice but to die at your hand, and you with no choice but to kill me. I have no hope of combatting your swordplay, while you must have a thousand different ways that you could take my life─how can one human being have so much power over another?”

“■■■■■■■■■■■”

“Now, don’t misunderstand me─I’m not complaining, and I’m not giving in.11 It’s just too funny. I know I’m up against the wall, but I’m amused at how inconsequential12 this all feels─besides. This history is so unbelievably wrong, I have to laugh.”

You said.

That’s what you said.

“■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■”

“Afraid not, Mutsue. If anyone has had their hands tied up by history, it’s you─though I suppose that it’s not you, so much as your whole school, the Kyotoryu. Granted, you have every right to be an imbecile, but if at all possible, try to spare posterity from your idiocy─for starters, don’t force your son and daughter to carry the same weight.”

“■■■?”

“Did I confuse you? Oh well. Why even bother trying to get through to you? Hey, don’t take it personally. I don’t hate you or your kind. It really is a pity that the two of us had to wind up pitted against one another. If you had been my ally, perhaps history could have been corrected─though at this point, so be it. There’s no way around it.”

With that.

You took a seat.

Turning your back on the Swordless Swordsman─so that you faced me.

Wearing that usual audacious look of yours.

In your usual stance, ready to laugh off history, wrong as it was─you looked at me.

“■■■─■■■■!”

A katana flashed─aimed at your neck.

The nonexistent sword─of the Swordless Swordsman.

Raised high.

Gleaming─ready to take your acquiescent head.

“■■■!”

These were your last words.

“I need to leave you now─but one more thing! Even if nothing I’ve said got through to you, and even if you forget everything else about me─remember this!”

Except I did forget.

I can’t remember what he said─

“I ■■■■ you ■■■■■■■!”

This was supposed to be the most important part.

But I forgot it.

His words left me─along with the color of my hair.

As Togame the Schemer arrives in Mutsu, returning home a stranger.

Only three left of the Twelve Possessed, those masterworks of legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki─but as we near the end of our adventure, its bitter ends begin to come together!

Just three more episodes left in this Saga of Katanas!

Togame the Schemer! Princess Negative! The Maniwa!

Their three-way struggle is finally nearing its conclusion─at least, probably!

This flowery battle, this florid family feud!

Slicing the corpse of this period piece to pieces─say what?!

Sword Tale, Book Ten ♪

Only a month ago.

At the juncture of our story when Togame the Schemer, Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu, and Shichika Yasuri, the Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu, were just about to take their leave from Shogi Village, the holy land of shogi players in Tendo, in Dewa, where they had journeyed in the hopes of capturing Oto the Cured, one of the Twelve Possessed, the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki.

Zetto the Leveler. Zanto the Razor. Sento the Legion. Hakuto the Whisper. Zokuto the Armor. Soto the Twin. Akuto the Eel. Bito the Sundial.

Standing apart from the owners of the other eight Possessed which they had captured, Zanki Kiguchi, Twelfth Master of the Heartland School and owner of Oto the Cured, proved an unlikely steward of a Mutant Blade.

Her nerves were like taut string.

Her sword was made of wood.

Wooden, yet nevertheless lethal.

She was the owner of Oto the Cured, the only Shikizaki blade that was without venom─that actually leached venom away, invested with the power to detoxify.

Which brings us to the day after our heroes prized Oto the Cured from Kiguchi─sole guardian of her school.

Shichika Yasuri visited the Heartland Dojo on his own.

Togame, who had her hands full packaging Oto the Cured for shipment and converting the nitty gritty details2 of their conquest into another one of her reports, remained at the inn where they were staying─or rather, she was so engrossed with her work that Shichika was at a loss for what to do and figured that he may as well walk over to the Heartland Dojo to kill time.

Packing up the sword was one thing, but writing the report would probably take her hours. Too long for him to sit there on his hands.

After all, now that Togame’s tale of the Sword Hunt had won her considerable praise within the bakufu, it made sense that she would pour her heart and soul into its composition─Shichika could see that.

But he was aware of something else.

Because her rival,3 Princess Negative─Inspector General of the Yanari Shogunate and sworn enemy of Togame the Schemer, was among the many avid readers of her accounts of their adventure, Togame could not exactly write them with the innocent disclosure of a civil servant reporting back to her superiors.

She had to weave together fact and fiction.

Which is why─they took her lots of time to write.

Since nothing was more difficult for Shichika than the subtleties of politics, even being in the same room with her while she was working made it hard for him to breathe─so he excused himself and headed over to the Heartland Dojo, situated in the middle of Shogi Village.

He had spent ten days at this dojo as a follower.

To some extent, perhaps he wished he could have stayed there longer─a questionable sentiment, since he was the current master of his school, the Kyotoryu, but regardless.

“Hey.”

Shichika left his straw sandals by the door and stepped up into the dojo.

Like he owned the place.4

“Well, if it isn’t Master Shichika.”

Kiguchi greeted him, but only after she completed her set number of repetitions─it had taken her some time to even notice he was there.

Her powers of concentration were astounding.

As goes without saying, the wooden sword she held was not Oto the Cured─but there was nothing different about her disposition.

Mopping away her sweat with a tenugui, Kiguchi walked over to Shichika.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

Shichika was unsure of what to say.

He had no real reason for being there─he had simply been bored of sitting around the inn and needed to get out. He had wandered over to the dojo partly by force of habit.

Kiguchi helped Shichika along.

“If I’m not mistaken, the two of you are heading back to Owari tomorrow or the day after,” she said, setting the topic. “I was planning to see you off, but since you’re dropping by like this, Master Shichika, perhaps your plans have changed─”

“No, that’s still the plan─I was just in the neighborhood.”

As he spoke, Shichika reached for the wooden sword that Kiguchi was holding.

“Think I could try that for a sec?”

“Of course, by all means…”

Handing Shichika her sword, Kiguchi looked a little puzzled.

And why not?

She knew all about the Kyotoryu.

Knew about the Swordless Swordsman─and his school.

She knew that Shichika was known as the “Swordless Swordsman” for good reason─inept not only when it came to wooden swords, but every kind of sword imaginable, hewn from stone or forged from steel. Hearing him ask to try hers would be enough to puzzle anyone.

Unbothered by her reaction, Shichika went ahead and tested out the sword.

Needless to say─it wasn’t pretty.

To be blunt─it was disturbing.

Though Shichika had practiced with a wooden sword in his ten days as a follower of the Heartland School, he had hardly gotten used to it.

He could barely even hold the thing.

And that was with a wooden sword.

What would happen with a real sword─

Or one of the Mutant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki?

What would happen─if he held one of the Twelve Possessed?

“…Master Shichika?” said Kiguchi, sounding worried. “You look unwell─be careful not to overexert yourself.”

“Oh, no─don’t worry, it’s not like holding a sword is enough to make me queasy.” Or so he replied, promptly returning the wooden sword to Kiguchi. “It’s interesting, though, how fighting with you made me realize how weird it is to call the Kyotoryu a school of swordplay. Back on the island, I barely gave it any thought.”

Then it hit him.

Wow.

I’m here because of what Kiguchi told me yesterday─

Feeling bored sitting around the inn, wishing he could stay at the dojo a little longer, and wandering over here by force of habit─all of that was little more than an excuse.

You see.

What Kiguchi said to Shichika had gotten in his craw.

“Do you remember─what you told me yesterday?”

“…”

Kiguchi looked confused.

“What I said─could you be more specific?”

“You know, about the curse and all.”

“Oh.”

This would hardly seem to be enough to jog her memory, but Kiguchi caught his drift. While she had a tendency to take things way too seriously, overall she was perceptive.

“I do remember saying that it felt like some kind of a curse. I was speaking, of course, to the way that your abilities, Master Shichika, are more readily apparent when you fight without a sword, as opposed to fighting with one─but in retrospect, my choice of words was awfully disrespectful. Please forgive me.”

Kiguchi bowed her head.

Shichika panicked.

“Whoa, no need to apologize.”

This conversation was not exactly going smoothly.

Shichika may have been an insensitive rube, a wild boy unable to take a hint, but after over half a year of traveling alongside Togame, he had lost his innocence to some degree and gained a certain sensitivity, an ability to read between the lines, at least occasionally. Yet as a result, he had grown uncomfortable with the simple act of carrying on a conversation.

He was ashamed of being such a lousy conversationalist.

At times like this, he wished he had even a tenth of Togame’s charisma.5

It was so hard for him to share his thoughts.

“Honestly, I think you were exactly right─I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense. So, I was thinking─”

Kyotoryu.

From the First Master, Kazune Yasuri─up on through the Sixth Master, Mutsue Yasuri, celebrated as the Hero of the Rebellion, to the current master, Shichika Yasuri.

Not one of them─could swing a sword to save his life.

Which is why─they called them swordless swordsmen.

“─Suppose you’re right, and I am actually cursed, I was hoping you could tell me more.”

Hence─why he came.

Essentially sneaking away6 from Togame.

Shichika, her supposedly loyal bodyguard, had come over to the dojo on his own, without asking for permission.

“Oh, but Master Shichika─”

Kiguchi looked like she was in a fix.

“I must admit that I was careless to use a word like curse so lightly─but think of it as a kind of joke. I’ve never heard of anything along those lines about your school.”

“Wait, really?”

“Really─I’m terribly sorry for causing this confusion. This sort of slip is out of character for me.”

Again, she bowed her head.

Though Shichika was not seeking an apology.

“Huh.”

I guess that makes sense.

Not like Shichika actually thought that he was “cursed” simply because he couldn’t swing a sword─besides, he didn’t even believe in curses.

And neither did Togame.

While they saw the world from different perspectives, Shichika and Togame were alike, in that both of them were realists.7

“Yeah─but that guy Sabi said something similar, which kinda made me wonder.”

“Sabi?”

This name struck a chord with Kiguchi.

Hers was not a sword for killing, but for cultivating the soul─as a swordsman, however, she could not help but perk up when she heard this name.

“You mean─Hakuhei Sabi?”

“Yeah…wait, didn’t I tell you? He used to own one of the Mutant Blades, like you.”

“Is that so…”

Kiguchi sighed with admiration.

This comparison of status was not exactly fair. Up until about six months ago, when Shichika had battled Sabi, he had been owner of Hakuto the Whisper, one of the Twelve Possessed, the thinnest and most delicate sword in existence, as well as the most beautiful, nothing like Zanki Kiguchi, who had taken on Oto the Cured as a matter of course, a mantle passed down from the previous generation when she became Twelfth Master of the Heartland School─

But there was no way Shichika could articulate these particulars.

After he spoke, he was aware that he had cut too many corners with his explanation, but the thought of what would be required to set things straight was enough to make him let it go.

All that she needed to know, Shichika concluded, was the fact that he had fought Sabi.

“So, Master Shichika, you struck down the mighty Sabi, the Strongest Swordsman in Japan─I’m so embarrassed I was ignorant of this. What kind of swordsman does that make me?”

“Word spread around Kyushu─but only because we fought on Ganryu Island in Suo. It seems like people haven’t really heard about it north of Edo, much less up here in Dewa.”

At least according to Togame.

“I guess it’s a matter of time.”

“I wish you had mentioned this sooner.”

“Yeah, but considering how pitiful a sight I was armed with a wooden sword, you think you would’ve believed me if I’d told you that I beat Hakuhei Sabi?”

“Hmm─maybe not.”

Though not going so far as to apologize again, Kiguchi nodded solemnly, looking ashamed of her lack of sophistication.

She must have heard his question as a jab.8

This conversation─was hopeless.

He felt bad for Zanki Kiguchi─dead serious, the polar opposite of his personality. Up against somebody as overwhelmingly9 severe as her, most anybody would have had a difficult time carrying on a conversation.

“Well─what exactly did Master Sabi tell you?”

“Uhh…”

Shichika scrambled to remember.

“Something about the Kiki Pedigree…not too sure. Anyway, I know he said the Kyotoryu was bound to him.”

“Bound, you say?”

“Yeah, he said the Kyotoryu was bound to Kiki Shikizaki─something about how we can’t escape his lineage─because he made the Kyotoryu as a memento or something… To be honest, I have no idea what he was saying. Even Togame had to admit she was confused─”

“I can understand if it was just you, but if Madame Togame was unable to make any sense of what he said, that makes it quite the riddle.”

This comment sounds like something of a dis on10 Shichika’s intellect, but opposite as these two may have been in some respects, they were a perfect match, in that they spoke without feeling the need to crack jokes or make snide remarks.

In that sense, if not in any other, their conversation was exquisite.

“When you said curse, it made me think of when Sabi said the word bound─though I dunno, maybe there’s no connection. Since you’re both swordsmen, I guess you might have similar reactions.”

“I’m nowhere near deserving of comparison with the Sword Saint, Hakuhei Sabi.”

“Stop being so modest─to be honest, I’ve been kinda bummed I can’t just go all-out against a swordsman strong as you─”

“I’m sorry that I failed to meet your expectations─but my teaching holds me back.11 As Master of the Heartland School, I am unable to engage in mortal combat…”

With that.

Kiguchi paused─like she was thinking.

When she grew quiet, Shichika stopped talking.

Forced to wait until she spoke again.

“While I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about your wish to fight me uninhibited, there is something I can do to alleviate at least a little bit of the frustration that you seem to be experiencing.”

“Huh?”

“Just a moment.”

Carrying the sword that Shichika had returned to her, Kiguchi went to the edge of the room and placed it on the dojo floor.

Next, she doffed the jacket of her gi, thoroughly12 soaked with sweat after long hours of practice, and placed it, folded, by the sword.

While Kiguchi looked thin even in her beefy gi, her body thus exposed looked even thinner─and while her breasts were of average size, they were wrapped tightly13 with a sash,14 to keep them out of the way.

Keeping on her hakama, Kiguchi proceeded to the center of the room, stripped to the waist but for the sash around her chest.

Being unsure of where to look─was no issue for Shichika. His inchoate sensitivity had yet to reach the point where the sight of a half-naked woman registered as such.

“Over here, Master Shichika,” said Kiguchi.

“Huh? What are you doing over there?”

Though full of questions, Shichika did as he was told and walked over to Kiguchi─before halting once he was a short distance away from her.

He felt the spirit15 emanating from Kiguchi.

The spirit─of the fight.16

The aura he had felt when they had fought the day before─

“I think you know exactly what we’re doing─”

Kiguchi spoke─and took position.

Ready for kenpo.

Kenpo─not swordplay.17

“─This time, I thought we’d fight each other empty-handed.”

Thus far, Shichika Yasuri had fought Zanki Kiguchi on three different occasions─the first and second of which involved both of them using wooden swords.

The third time, Shichika went barehanded, while Kiguchi used a wooden sword.

But now─for their fourth battle, Kiguchi was proposing something new.

This time─the two of them would fight barehanded.

“You mean…you can do kenpo, too?”

“We’ll see,” Kiguchi answered. “Come over here and find out for yourself─I know it’s frustrating, but I’ll still need for you to go easy on me. You see, this is my first time entering a fight without a sword─”

“…”

Their fourth fight.

Although without Togame, who had thus played the role of referee, there was no one there to give the signal to fight. Hence, once Shichika moved─the battle had begun.

Still unsure of what Kiguchi was trying to do, Shichika started going with the flow and tried a shuto─though holding back significantly.

Putting far less oomph18 into the move, he in fact sliced his hand that much faster.

Yet Kiguchi deftly dodged the shuto he had fired at her breast─using the opportunity to make a run at Shichika’s torso.

Closing the space between them in an instant.

“…nkk!”

This was enough to make Shichika go tense all over─their strange duel may have started without explanation, at first posing no threat to him whatsoever, but nobody had closed in on him so easily since his showdown against Hakuhei Sabi.

His body responded, operating out of reflex.

Kneejerk reaction.19

“Kyotoryu─Mokuren! Kyotoryu─Noichigo!”

Using his knees and elbows, he countered Kiguchi at close quarters─the Mokuren being a flying knee kick, and the Noichigo a flurry of elbows. Not to the face, but body blows which, if delivered effectively, would flense20 the very skin and muscle from his adversary.

Shichika had meant─to pull his punches.

But he had countered out of reflex.

He may have pulled his punches─but they’d land with full force.

Up against these knees and elbows, Kiguchi evaded him by shifting her upper body, without moving her feet. Bending gracefully backwards─and snapping back to her original position.

Planting a headbutt in his chest.

Gently.

Yet after his serial misses, this gentle attack was plenty─to make Shichika stumble.

He took a step back, managing to stand his ground, but Kiguchi doubled back─squatting for a second only to burst straight upwards and whack him with the heel of her palm─grazing Shichika’s jaw.

“Ugh…”

Feeling his brain jiggle in his skull─Shichika somehow managed to catch her arm.

And with that, Shichika thought, the fight was his.

Although the Kyotoryu was fundamentally a school of swordplay, and thus designed for fighting swordsmen─an empty-handed enemy did not require different moves.

Countering kenpo was no problem.

Like when Nanami Yasuri fought Chocho Maniwa.

Raised in the peculiar setting of Haphazard Island, Shichika was so accustomed to fighting emptyhanded that it almost made him homesick─after all, he had spent nineteen years training exclusively under the late master of his school, Mutsue Yasuri.

“Kyotoryu─Kikyo!”21

Shichika went to twist Kiguchi by the arm─in a grappling move intent on locking the enemy’s shoulder and elbow in one go.

This would seem to guarantee his victory.

However, this time around Kiguchi used her lower body to break free─spinning away before Shichika could make the twist, freeing herself from his hand.

But there was more.

Using the momentum of her spin─she threw her weight into her shoulder and slammed it into him.

Making a direct hit.

Because of the vast difference in size and weight, Kiguchi was hardly able to throw Shichika backwards─but perhaps by chance, her thin shoulder nailed Shichika in the lung, knocking the wind out of him momentarily.

So that he gasped for air.

No time to catch his breath.

Shichika was well aware─painfully aware. Unable to inhale, he did his best to make a counterstrike.

He had to make some space.

Close range─was her domain.

He was too close to make a hit.

By now he understood why she had doffed her gi and stripped down to her hakama─it was easier to move. That simple. Her speed was on an entirely different level from when she was encumbered by her pads and wooden sword.

Yet this awareness was not enough to explain the unexpected quickness of her reflexes─Kiguchi the swordsman and the Kiguchi he faced now did not match up as the same person. Shichika expected her to move far slower. The breach of expectation was debilitating.

His panting counterstrike dodged summarily, thrashing like a wounded animal─he gave Kiguchi yet another chance to make a hit.

This time, hammering the heel of her hand downward.

Ordinarily, the move would have targeted the crown, but due to the aforementioned differences in stature, she came dangerously close to nailing him in the collarbone.

Shichika had been so conscious of their “different stature” that he ruled out any possibility of a hit from above. It was all that he could do to dodge the move─

No time to think of what came next.

He failed to realize that the swat was only the beginning.

“Whew─”

Kiguchi followed through, letting her palm reach the dojo floor, so that for a moment she crouched forward─and then.

Propping one hand on the floor, she sprung her body up.

From a handstand, she swept her legs along an oblique path, in a graceful swinging kick. This would have taken off the head of somebody less tall, but up against Shichika it cut an arc that passed just below his armpit, right over his pectorals.

He never saw this coming.

The very notion of her going from a handstand to a kick was unimaginable to Shichika─not like the Kyotoryu was lacking similar attacks, but he would have never expected Kiguchi to make a move like that.

“Grh, ugh─”

Shichika took the full brunt of the kick.

Neither intentionally nor courageously, he caught her foot square in the chest─though it was not too much for him to take.

From there, he hoisted up her leg.

As if to scoop her up.

Propped up on a single hand, Kiguchi was unable to defend herself and tumbled to the floor─expecting her to spring up right away, Shichika leapt back and took position.

“Ouch!” Kiguchi said. She sat where she had fallen, no sign of standing up. “Wow, well done─I thought that I could fend you off a little while longer, but I guess I reached my limit. You beat me, Master Shichika.”

“Huh?”

“In four fights, I’ve bested you only once─truly remarkable.”

After a beat, Kiguchi worked her way back up to standing.

“How are you feeling, Master Shichika? Have I given you some small amount of succor?”22

“Hmm, I’m not really sure,” Shichika answered candidly, relaxing his stance. “So wait─you know kenpo just as well as swordplay?” he continued. “I can’t believe how well you dodged my moves─that was insane. Pretty bold of you to lie to my face, though, calling that the first time that you fought someone barehanded─”

“I tell no lies. I’m constitutionally unable to do so. I have to tell it like it is,” Kiguchi insisted. “I’ll give you this, though, Master Shichika. They say that mastery of one art means mastery of a thousand─it’s true. I have so much to learn, but as a swordsman, I count myself among the masters of the art, though somewhere toward the bottom. Hence─if challenged to a fight, even barehanded, I’m able to hold my own, to some extent.”

“To some extent? Come on!”

“Okay, but you only see things that way because we jumped straight into battle, without any preamble─all I did was catch you by surprise. Surely, you were not expecting me to come at you with kenpo?”

“Nope, I wasn’t.”

“Right. And you know what? Strictly speaking, I wasn’t using kenpo─I was just pretending that I knew what I was doing. But even so, I’m able to hold my own to some extent─as you have seen.”

“So, are you saying...”

Shichika considered this.

Thinking, in an attempt to figure out what Kiguchi wanted him to take away from this.

“When I had to use the wooden sword, it was so strange how weak I felt─like my body was refusing to grip the sword.”

“Because it was,” Kiguchi nodded. “Hence why I used the word curse─and why Master Sabi said that you were bound. We extol swordplay as a fine art, but at a fundamental level, you’re just swinging a stick around─the wooden sword is the most primitive and violent of all weapons. Hardly what you might call refined. Under ordinary circumstances, no warrior should be weaker thusly armed.”

“So you’re saying─that even if I am the Kyotoryu, it makes no sense that I can’t hold my own armed with a sword, even if it doesn’t help me much, since you can fight without a sword and still do fine?”

“All I’m saying is perhaps…the obstacle was forced upon you.”

Kiguchi chose her words with care.

“What I mean is─perhaps you’ve just been led to believe that holding a sword will make you weaker. That doing so would be unnatural for the Kyotoryu─were you not raised to think this way? It’s possible this expectation─has inhibited your very physical abilities─”

“I doubt it─but I wouldn’t rule it out.”

What about his genius of a sister?

Not like she was fully liberated from the curse.

But her ability to defeat her less-than-genius brother could largely be credited to her ability to wield Akuto the Eel, one of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki, despite being an exemplar of the Kyotoryu.

“Maybe so, Master Shichika. But regardless, I imagine there are other reasons─persistent and essential reasons, in the absence of which the story would not add up.”

“Hmm.”

“This is just a hunch, Master Shichika, based on my own experience as a swordsman─but just as the Heartland School has certain precepts that make it what it is, I would venture to say these reasons, if you will, are what makes the Kyotoryu the discipline it is. And I have a feeling that these things cannot be easily defined─as skills or lack thereof.”

Zanki Kiguchi, Twelfth Master of the Heartland School.

With that, she ended the scene.

Hereafter, Togame the Schemer, having realized Shichika was missing, headed over to the dojo, only to discover what could easily be mistaken for a clandestine rendezvous23 between the swordsmen (one of whom was bare to the waist, the other stripped down to the sash around her breasts), causing yet another one of the conniptions24 prompted by renewed suspicion of a love affair, but since this represents business as usual, let us forge ahead.

There was a time when his domain, entrusted to him as a daimyo, was so vital that it bore comparison to the Capital and to Owari, the seat1 of the Yanari Shogunate─but those days were gone now, lost with the late Rebellion.

Lo, the Rebellion.

The only thing close to a war to have occurred under the rule of the Owari Bakufu, which reigned over the land under the slogan “Peace and Order”─though as of late, its legacy was losing relevance.

Which makes sense─after all, it had been over twenty years.

The ranks of those who knew naught of the war had grown.

As had the number of people unaware that this city had once prospered─to their generation, Oshu was synonymous with a disgraceful obsolescence.

If there was one place you could call a destination.

Then it was Hyakkeijo2─the site of Hida Castle, once home to Takahito Hida.

The place where those linked with the Rebellion he had launched had been exterminated by the new regime.

So.

The instant that Togame the Schemer set foot on the grounds of Hyakkeijo, her face became distraught and her displeasure audible.

Her appearance was the same as ever─

White hair that would have stood out anywhere.

The seemingly dozen layers of brash and brilliant silk.

Down to her flat-soled seta─but her face was out of character, uncomfortably disturbed.

The man standing beside her─stripped to the waist and dressed in but a hakama, wearing arm and leg guards, tousled hair, was Shichika Yasuri, Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu. Though not exactly the observant type, he had noticed something had come over Togame and found it hard to speak or even look her way. And so he gazed ahead.

Ahead─toward Hyakkeijo.

Where once stood Hida Castle.

It was a veritable slaughterhouse─though long since razed, the land having been used for public executions in only those few years following the late Rebellion. By now, there was no artifact or structure left to indicate its history.

Silly3 to call this place a destination.

When it was no more than a field.

Not a whiff of its lost function as a killing ground, or of the castle that once stood there─no more than an open piece of land.

Shichika had heard that Hida Castle went up in flames in the end, leaving not a cinder,4 and that in its years used as a site of capital punishment, the means of execution were not exactly, shall we say…sophisticated. Seeing it now, its history may come as a surprise.

─I figured it would be a whole lot creepier,5 he thought.

Though he knew better not to say as much─with Togame looking so upset beside him.

Her family.

Her close relations.

Nearly all of whom─were slaughtered on these grounds.

“…”

Togame the Schemer, Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu─whose name and origins were unknown, and who had edged her way into the inner circle of the bakufu, was in actuality connected to the insurgence─being the daughter of Takahito Hida, Kaoyaku of Oshu and principal figure6 of the Rebellion.

Positioning herself within the government.

Channeling her energies toward rounding up the Twelve Possessed.

Every effort but a means for her revenge against the bakufu.

Her careerist inclinations,7 too, were no more than a means to gain direct audience with His Excellency, the Yanari Shogun.

And so─of course Togame lost her usual composure upon entering these grounds, the very soil of which was supersaturated with8 justification for her vengefulness.

─That said.

The fact that his own father, Mutsue Yasuri, the “Hero of the Rebellion,” had been the one who struck down9 her father, Takahito Hida, made it especially difficult for Shichika to discuss the particulars of the situation with Togame…

─The castle is gone because this is where Takahito Hida died.

Shichika remembered his father’s heroic retelling of the event.

How he entered the burning castle on his own and took the head of Takahito Hida, who likely would have otherwise burned into obscurity with Hida Castle─

An exploit that had won him accolades as “Hero of the Rebellion.”

This was the peak of life for Mutsue Yasuri, who shortly after found himself marooned.

Hyakkeijo.

The premise and the catalyst behind the deeds of Togame the Schemer.

And the circumstances linking her with Shichika Yasuri─were all here.

Though no more than a field.

These things persisted, in the land as in the air.

“…I don’t like this place one bit.”

Finally─at long last.

Togame the Schemer opened her mouth to speak.

When they arrived, the sun had been high overhead, but at this point it was making its way down─Togame had spent hours maintaining that moody silence.

Shichika doing his best to keep her company.

“I was so confident I had this hunt for the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki in the bag─but out of nowhere, the Princess got the better of me…”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Shichika nodded at Togame. “Things have been pretty weird─at least since Bito the Sundial. And Seito the Garland feels like more of the same. You think─she knows the whereabouts of the other two swords? Dokuto the Basilisk and Ento the Bead─”

“We can’t even say for sure that Seito the Garland10 is still here. Both times we’ve returned to Owari, the Princess has given us new information on the swords, almost like she’s pushing us away11─isn’t that strange? I mean, I can see once, but twice?”

Shichika could not help but agree with this concern12 wholeheartedly. Standing by during her conversation with the Princess, he had asked himself the exact same thing─

“Congratulations.”

Her Highness, Princess Negative, had told them.

After winning Oto the Cured from Zanki Kiguchi, Twelfth Master of the Heartland School, at Shogi Village in Tendo, in Dewa, Togame the Schemer had returned to Owari, having been there just a month before in August,13 and yet again she had been summoned, along with her trusty sword, to Mansion Negative, the residence of Princess Negative, Inspector General of the Yanari Shogunate.

While being mortal enemies gave them a certain intimacy, the Grand Commander of Arms and the Inspector General had essentially no good reason for convening. As a result, Togame was not technically obliged to show up if summoned by the Princess─but baited with more information on the Twelve Possessed, she felt the need, in part because of her position in the government, to hear the Princess out.

In fact, Princess Negative may have engineered these very circumstances─Togame had told Shichika later on.

The Princess could have been pulling strings since her resurgence─waiting for Togame to come marching home to Owari, once she had gained traction in her Sword Hunt.

Personally, Shichika doubted that the Princess could have pulled strings so effectively, but after all those years of shared antagonism, Togame saw things differently.

Regardless, there they were─

In a chamber of Mansion Negative.

Princess Negative, sitting in the seat of honor.

Togame and Shichika, seated before her.

Like a replay of their last visit in August.

“Your Highness… Is that guy up there in the ceiling?” Shichika inquired.

Starting off with this question, he had ignored her word of praise, but since Togame had apparently done so by design, there was no need for Shichika to take heed.

Coming from Princess Negative, the praise felt like a trap.14

“That guy? Who exactly do you mean?”

The Princess gave them a look of surprise.

Blond hair and dazzling blue eyes.

But her kimono fit so well that it looked tailor-made.

The metal fan clasped in her hand was, at the moment, closed.

“Do we have some mutual acquaintance I’ve forgotten?”

“…Um, you know, Emonzaemon─the Lieutenant.”

Emonzaemon Soda.

The Non-Ninja─confidant and trusty weapon of Princess Negative.

Playing the same role, Shichika reasoned, that the Kyotoryu is playing for Togame.

“Didn’t you say last time that he’s always up there in the ceiling? I figured that would mean he’s up there now.”

“Ah yes─I know who you mean.” Princess Negative raised her chin and glanced up at the ceiling. “Of course, of course. His name is so long that it’s easy to forget─I appreciate you taking his presence into account, but at the moment, he’s stepped out.”

“Out?”

“If you must know, I’m having him assassinate Hohoh Maniwa,” the Princess told them nonchalantly.

Though Togame had shown no reaction whatsoever to the Princess’s opening word of praise, this statement was too shocking to ignore.

“Did you just say─assassinate? Hohoh Maniwa?”

“I sure did.” The Princess nodded briskly. “I understand you and the Maniwa had forged some kind of an alliance─but why should that stop Emonzaemon from operating independently?”

“How could you─” Togame made her displeasure clear. “I have my own plan, thank you very much. I don’t recall asking you to intervene.”

“Hold your horses. I’m not too fond of being yelled at by you, so allow me to explain. That gloomy bemasked dandy15 has his own personal grudge against the Maniwa.”

Gloomy bemasked dandy…

Harsh words, thought Shichika.

Especially when it was Princess Negative who insisted that Emonzaemon Soda wear the mask (on the dubious premise of him being “gloomy”).

“Personal grudge?” asked Togame. “What would make that gloomy bemasked dandy hold a grudge against the Maniwa?”

Following suit, Togame described Emonzaemon using the same words, but Her Highness showed no sign of having noticed.

“The Aioi Clan,” she proclaimed. “I know that you’re aware of Emonzaemon being a former ninja, but I take it that you’re unaware of the clan to which he once belonged─at this point, I may as well inform you that it was the Aioi Clan. Ever heard of them?”

“…If I’m not mistaken, were they not once hailed as being on par16 with the Maniwa, sharing their status as outliers from the ninja community? I was under the impression they were wiped out late in the era of the Old Shogun─clashing with the Maniwa in an epic battle.”

“Brava!”17

Princess Negative laughed hysterically.

Togame the Schemer and Princess Negative.

Known as the two she-devils of the bakufu, who while holding different offices had a great many things in common─but the starkest difference between them, it now occurred to Shichika, was the well-nigh flippant18 cheer displayed by Princess Negative in times like these.

“Wow, I must say I’m impressed you knew that─when the Aioi have been essentially erased from history.”

“History Shmistory,”19 Togame said. “I suppose that makes Emonzaemon Soda the last of the Aioi Clan. Makes sense. That would explain all kinds of things─I might even say that it’s the only possible explanation for a clown like him winding up the way he is…so, am I to understand you’re leveraging his background to avail yourself, Your Highness, of the all-but-lost Aioi Ninpo?”

“Incorrect,” said Princess Negative.

She snapped open her metal fan.

Smiling all the while.

“I could care less about the Aioi or their ninpo─as intriguing as it may sound. I merely wanted to reject the blundering existence of that gloomy buffoon.”

“Is that so…”

“What would you have me say? Make no mistake, I take no pity on Emonzaemon─I’m merely using him to access the Aioi Ninpo─would that satisfy you?”

While it remained unclear why such a confession would be satisfying, Princess Negative said as much and closed her metal fan.

“At any rate─the Maniwa are Emonzaemon’s bitter rivals.20 This has nothing to do with your Sword Hunt. He really was acting on his own accord.”

“You’re saying that he suddenly decided to pay back a one-hundred-and-seventy-year-old grudge?”

“Now would be as good a time as any─look how weak the Maniwa have become.”

“You didn’t order him to do it?”

“It wasn’t like I didn’t.”

The double negative.

In other words, the Princess must have ordered him.

“So he’s off assassinating Hohoh Maniwa─” Togame said. “Assassinating Hohoh Maniwa… Not like I’d ever expect a straight answer from you, Princess, but let me ask you this. Do you think that’s even possible?”

“Who knows? To be honest, I ordered him to do so back when you were trying to capture Bito the Sundial at Lake Fuyo, meaning he’s been gone for almost two months now. The fact he hasn’t come back yet could mean that he’s been thwarted.”21

“Thwarted.”

“Regardless, I’d expect him to have killed off one or two of the Maniwa Ninjas in the process…which reminds me. Here’s another bit of trivia for you. At present, how many of the Twelve Bosses do you suppose there are?”

“Four─right?” answered Togame.

Shichika was under the same impression.

However.

Princess Negative had news for them.

“Three,” she said. “Hohoh Maniwa, Pengin Maniwa, and Oshidori Maniwa─that gloomy bemasked recluse22 of a dandy has taken care of Umigame Maniwa already.”

So now the gloomy bemasked dandy was a recluse, too.

Harsh words.

“Umigame, huh.”

“Hahaha, feeling relieved? I bet you must have wondered how that ninja swordsman would have performed in a fight against Shichika over here.”

“Well─to be honest, Oshidori seems like much more of a threat. Still…hmm. Three left, huh… Regardless of whether he succeeds or fails in his attempt to murder Hohoh Maniwa…”

The Schemer muttered to herself.

No doubt making adjustments to her numerous schemes, in light of this development.

“Even so, Princess. Haven’t you made yourself extremely vulnerable? Entertaining me and my katana, Shichika, without that gloomy recluse of a dandy in the house─”

Togame piggybacked on the new phrasing.23

Unless Emonzaemon comes home soon, his moniker’s likely to get even worse, Shichika fretted, though it was none of his business.

Well, after all, he could be next.

“Say I was of a mind to murder you right now. How would you defend yourself?”

“I wouldn’t, that’s how─but I strongly doubt that you would ever dare.”

“Hah. It’s an honor to be held in such strong confidence, Princess.”

“Of course. Aren’t you and I friends?”

“…”

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m kidding, okay? If you’re planning to murder me, then go ahead, but before you do, you’d better listen to what I have to say.”

“You have something to say?”

“I mean─we both know how much you love information on the Twelve Possessed,” the Princess sneered.

And with that repeated the opening remark they had ignored.

“Which is why I said─congratulations.”

“…”

“You’ve returned to Owari with flying colors, the proud new owner of both Bito the Sundial and Oto the Cured. Well done, well done. At this point─you have captured a whopping nine of the Twelve Possessed.”

Zetto the Leveler from Komori Maniwa.

Zanto the Razor from Uneri Ginkaku.

Sento the Legion from Meisai Tsuruga.

Hakuto the Whisper from Hakuhei Sabi.

Zokuto the Armor from Kanara Azekura.

Soto the Twin from Konayuki Itezora.

Akuto the Eel from Nanami Yasuri.

Bito the Sundial from Skytron.

Oto the Cured from Zanki Kiguchi.

For a running total of nine swords.

Over the span of just nine months, from the beginning of the year, they had captured nine of the Twelve Possessed not even the Old Shogun could obtain─a success that would prompt anyone, Princess Negative or otherwise, to offer their “congratulations.”

However.

Coming from Princess Negative─the comment was suspicious.

Even happy-go-lucky Shichika knew as much.

“Hahaha, at this rate, you’ll have the last three swords in no time!”

“Nonsense─I haven’t asked for your opinion on my job. There’s no way it will be so easy. At present, we have no information whatsoever on the three remaining swords─for the time being, I’ll be devoting all my resources to reconnaissance. And to stay productive, I plan to stick around24 Owari for the foreseeable future.”

“You said the same thing last time─but things got in the way.”

“Huh?”

“By things, of course, I am referring to myself,” the Princess clarified. “And just like last time─I will now give you another hint, making it impossible for you to stick around Owari. You won’t even have a chance to catch your breath.”25

“…”

“Last time, I gave you information on Lake Fuyo─which led eventually to your procurement of Bito the Sundial, but this time, I have direct intelligence for you about the Mutant Blade itself.”

“Direct intelligence…”

“Pertaining to Seito the Garland,” Princess Negative continued unperturbed. “Its owner is Hermit Magus26 Rinne Higaki.27 You’ll find the sword at Hyakkeijo in Oshu.”

─Ten days had passed since they received this information.

And though it had been somewhat of an exaggeration that the two of them would not have a chance to catch their breath, sure enough Togame the Schemer was unable, yet again, to stick around Owari, practically doubling back and heading off to Hyakkeijo in Oshu─

Which brought them to this empty field.

“Remember how you said it felt like she was pushing us away?” The field was empty, nothing between them and the horizon, but all the same, Shichika made sure the coast was clear when bringing this up with Togame. “Seems like she really is, huh? Could be that there’s some reason the Princess doesn’t want you to stick around Owari.”

“That may well be. Assuming she has some kind of a plan in the works, I can see why I would be unwelcome─but even so, it makes no sense why she would dole out information on the Twelve Possessed. She may have given us the runaround, but she must have known Bito the Sundial was at Lake Fuyo.”

“I guess. But only if Seito the Garland really is somewhere in this field, right?”

There was no guarantee.

Scanning this barren landscape, it was easy to suspect this last bit of intelligence on where to find Seito the Garland had been a manic outburst, nothing more.

But the Schemer was certain.

“This is the place,” she said. “I’m sure of it─what reason would she have to lie? Although it almost makes me sick to admit, this goes to show how bizarrely eager both Emonzaemon and that woman are to cooperate with my Sword Hunt.”

“Same goes for Bito the Sundial and Seito the Garland, but how do you think the Princess, being who she is, got ahold of this information?”

“She has connections, that’s for sure. I was certain I had rendered a good many of them inoperative─but it would seem that they have rallied alongside the Princess.”

“Yeah, but still…”

Shichika once again scanned the vicinity.

Desolate.

Thinking it over, that one word said perhaps everything there was to say about this place where so many had been slain─

“It’s like─this place is empty.”

He was referring not only to Hyakkeijo─but to this whole leg of their journey, from the borderlands of Oshu to the land where they now stood.

Empty was an exaggeration.28

That said, the sentiment of this exaggeration was not entirely off base.

The villages were scattered─as were the people.

Far from lively.29

Void of life.30

As if the land itself─had perished.

Withered and rotted, dead to the world.

“…Be careful how you talk about a person’s hometown.”

“Uh, wait, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“The people governing this place were massacred, so what do you expect? It looks like others came in to replace them, but evidently things did not go very well─I mean, I’d heard that things had gone awry, but I had no idea that it was so severe. This is my first time home in twenty years─and I don’t recognize a single thing.”

Made sense.

Unless somebody told you there had been a castle here, you never would have guessed─because every trace had been erased.

The Owari Bakufu premised its reign on peace and order.

Which made the late Rebellion a disgrace.31

“…So does that mean the bakufu, in a way, let this place fall apart to make an example of it? Like, a way of showing everyone32 how dumb it was to start a rebellion, by not even trying to rebuild the town?”

“That’s some deep thinking for a guy like you. Though I’d call it a third-rate strategy.”

Careful with her phrasing, neither negating nor agreeing with what Shichika had said, Togame the Schemer began walking─out into the plain.

Not caring whether her brash and brilliant finery was stained.

Mud. Dirt. Plants. Flowers.

Unlike Inaba Desert, which they had visited months before, this place was hardly inorganic─but a feeling that the land itself had died persisted.

Shichika was distraught. He did not remember feeling this sensation in the Level One Disaster Areas of Mt. Odori in Ezo and Lake Fuyo in Edo. Although he knew that he had never seen this place before─

He felt something was missing.

Like he had lost something dear to him─no.

More like something dear to him had been trampled underfoot.

He felt this way─he had not actually lost anything himself, so nothing of his could have been trampled, but just the same. He couldn’t imagine how Togame must feel, in her heart of hearts, as she pushed forward through the grass.

The very thought was unimaginable.

The place where she was born and raised…

“This is not exactly the trip home I had anticipated─but here we are.”

“Just making sure, but there’s no way the Princess knew this was your hometown when she sent you out here, right? To get you going, I mean.”

“I should think not. If she had learned I am the daughter of Takahito Hida, I would have been killed posthaste. Perhaps this is too complicated for an island boy like you, Shichika, but it’s the sort of thing that would result in a summary execution, not some roundabout attempt to rattle me.”

“Hm…guess you’re right. Just feels like too neat a coincidence.”

“Our adversary this time is a hermit magus, after all. Fits the bill.”

He had been afraid to ask her.

Togame had been in a foul mood since her exchange with Princess Negative in Owari, and her foul mood had not been helped by their arrival in Oshu, hence why he was afraid.

Finally, here was his chance to ask.

“Rinne Higaki…right? Why do they call her the hermit magus? And what was up with your reaction when you heard her name? Are you two old acquaintances or─”

“We are not old acquaintances. Every last one of my old acquaintances has been exterminated,” said Togame. “Dead and gone.”

“…”

“I know nothing of this Rinne Higaki─I was merely piqued by the name ‘Rinne.’ To think that anyone today would have a name so foolish─though from a hermit magus, what do you expect.”

“Now that’s what I call being roundabout.”

“I am not being roundabout. I know as little as you do about what we’ve gotten ourselves into. This time around, it’s all riding on our information from the Princess─which means we need to hoof it33 through the fields and track Higaki down ourselves.”

“Look, I know this isn’t as bad as Lake Fuyo, but from the looks of it there’s no one living here. I suppose Higaki could live in a nearby village─but even the closest one is pretty far! The villages here are so spread out… I guess we could check every single one we come across?”34

“Not a bad idea. But if what the Princess said to us is true─and Rinne Higaki is a bona fide35 hermit magus…”

Then.

Suddenly.

The very moment Togame spoke these words.

Literally, that very instant─they felt something appear.

Behind them? No.

In front of them.

There she was─right in front of Togame and Shichika.

Like she had been there all along─though where could she have hidden, in a field like this?

Slight in stature, looking half as tall as Shichika.

Long black hair tied back at her neck.

Impeccable posture─

“Huh?”

Shichika was confused.

“What’s this girl doing here?”

In response.

The girl smiled an ironic smile, far from girlish─

“Hah. So that’s how I appear to you?”

Without further ado, she introduced herself.

“I haven’t been a girl in quite some time─though I may as well enjoy it. Nice to meet you. I’m Rinne Higaki─a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I guess?”

Three bosses in the Bird Unit─

“The Divine Phoenix”─Hohoh Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Life Line and Decapitation Cycle.

Alive and well.

The owner of Dokuto the Basilisk, one of the Twelve Possessed, the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki.

“The Feathered Reel”─Oshidori Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Thorough Thrashing.

Now dead.

Cut down in the ninth moon, at Izu, fighting Emonzaemon Soda.

“Backwords Shirasagi”─Shirasagi Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Flapjack-Flipping.

Now dead.

Cut down in the second moon, in Inaba Desert, fighting Ginkaku Uneri.

Three bosses in the Beast Unit─

“The Dogged Scourge”─Kyoken Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Foaming Mouth.

Now dead.

Cut down in the sixth moon, in Ezo, fighting Shichika Yasuri.

“Komori the Hell-Made”─Komori Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Star Cannon and Body Melt.

Now dead.

Cut down in the first moon, on Haphazard Island, fighting Shichika Yasuri.

“The Nosey Otter”─Kawauso Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Infovac.

Now dead.

Cut down in the sixth moon, in Ezo, by the hand of his comrade, in the line of duty.1

Three bosses in the Bug Unit─

“Kamakiri the Head Hunter”─Kamakiri Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Mantis Talons.

Cut down in the fourth moon, on Haphazard Island, fighting Nanami Yasuri.

“Flying Butter Chocho”─Chocho Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Harlequin Butterfly.

Now dead.

Cut down in the fourth moon, on Haphazard Island, fighting Nanami Yasuri.

“Mitsubachi the Sharpshooter”─Mitsubachi Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Blunderbuzz.

Now dead.

Cut down in the fourth moon, on Haphazard Island, fighting Nanami Yasuri.

Three bosses in the Fish Unit─

“The Immortal Turtle”─Umigame Maniwa.

─No ninpo.

Now dead.

Cut down in the eighth moon, at Shinano, fighting Emonzaemon Soda.

“Kuizame the Sand Trap”─Kuizame Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Dust Devil.

Now dead.

Cut down in the third moon, in Izumo, fighting Meisai Tsuruga.

“Pengin the Breeder”─Pengin Maniwa.

Wielding the ninpo─Fate Blaster and Lucky Pucks.

Alive and well.

Working in concert with Hohoh Maniwa─

Hohoh Maniwa made this announcement without altering the speed at which he walked along the highway.2 Pengin Maniwa, walking beside him, shivered at the very mention of it.

“Huh? O-O-O-Oshidori─”

“Afraid so,” stated Hohoh. “Which means the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa have been reduced to only two.”

The self-derision in his tone of voice was palpable.

Hohoh Maniwa, effectively the head of the Twelve Bosses, the rest of whom were crackpots,3 was among the few of them possessing any sociability─and as a result, he must have been quite bothered by these tragic excesses and excessive tragedy.

However─as the leader of the Maniwa Ninja Clan.

He was not about to speak abjectly of their circumstances.

“O-Only two…”

Pengin Maniwa, weak in the knees.

In stark contrast to Hohoh.

Out of all of the Twelve Bosses, nay, in all of Maniwa Village, he was the youngest to partake in battle─indeed, Pengin was just a boy.

But even in light of his young age, his weak nerves were anomalous.

He had the sort of personality that would not normally befit a ninja, much less a boss.

However, the fact that he not only partook in battle, but had been granted the elite rank of ninja boss, could be attributed to his ninpo, the Fate Blaster, which was truly out of hand─a fearsome ninpo, too much to handle for even Hohoh Maniwa, effectively the leader of the entire ninja clan.

Whether he liked it or not.

This was the ninpo that Pengin Maniwa had been bestowed.

From on high, or perhaps from somewhere else.

“Wh-Wh-What should we do, Hohoh? What do we do now─”

“What can be done? Not like we can rework our entire plan, on account of losing Oshidori─the two of us will have to head for Oshu.”

So it was.

At that moment─Hohoh and Pengin were on their way to Oshu.

Specifically, to Hyakkeijo.

The very place where Togame and Shichika sojourned, hoping to track down Seito the Garland─and obviously, not by coincidence.

Hohoh setting his sights on this place─to stop Togame the Schemer, once and for all.4

“Th-The Schemer has already gathered nine of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki…wh-which means she has expended all the information that you gave her, when the two of you forged your alliance in Satsuma in May. B-But that doesn’t explain why she would go to Oshu. In-Indeed, if you’re of a mind to renegotiate, now is the time…but Hohoh.”

“Enough. Say no more.” Hohoh shook his head. “Your stance is clear. I still believe that we’d be better off withholding our negotiations until the Schemer has obtained another one or two of the Twelve Possessed─and if we could afford to be choosy, we would wait until she has eleven, considering how our ranks have dwindled.”

With that.

Hohoh glanced down at the waist of his ninja garb─at the sword he carried in a motley scabbard.

One of the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki.

Venom stronger than any of the Twelve Possessed─despotically toxic.

Dokuto the Basilisk.

“Negotiating once she has captured the eleven other swords would be most opportune for us─but we no longer have the time for that. Not since that man appeared─”

“Th-That man…”

The man who ambushed their clandestine summit with Oshidori─

Coat and trousers, a pair of swords slung from his hips.

Wearing a mask, on which was scrawled the word “NON-NINJA.”

Acting fast, Oshidori had distracted him for long enough to let the two of them escape─but if Hohoh saw things as they were, she had sacrificed her life in the process.

A characteristic exit5 for a ninja.

Albeit out of character for a Maniwa.

And yet─in character for Oshidori.

But at this point, Hohoh’s guess was as good as Pengin’s.

“Wh-What was his name again…so many details unconfirmed…he doesn’t own one of the Twelve Possessed. He isn’t working for the Schemer─well, what is he?”

“If you rule out those two possibilities, only one remains,” said Hohoh. “You surprise me, Pengin─can’t you see? He must be working under Princess Negative, who's been reinstituted.”

“Princess Negative…b-but I haven’t heard a thing about her having somebody like him at her command… If she did, I wish the Schemer would have told us when we helped her take down the Princess.”

“That only goes to show the Schemer never trusted us at all. Not even Komori. She may have hired him as her first helper in the Sword Hunt, but she refused to divulge even the slightest matter of importance─”

Hohoh gazed off into the distance.

“─Which frankly puzzles me. When we met the Schemer in Satsuma in May, and again in Ezo in June, she acted like she trusted the Kyotoryu immensely. Of course, that could have been an act like so much else.”

“…I don’t see her as the kind of lady who would develop a soft spot, just because the two of them made a trip together.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

“Af-After the Sword Hunt is over and the Kyotoryu has served his purpose, he’ll be cast aside, just like the Maniwa.”

It was unlike Pengin to say such a thing.

He sounded totally disgusted.

“You don’t suppose she could have─lost her way.”

“On the contrary, perhaps a way is what she’s found. Regardless, we can expect to find out once we have the pleasure of reuniting with6 her in Oshu─but I digress. Back to the Princess. It would seem that woman operates according to a different set of standards7 from the Schemer. Unless I’m careful, I’ll be the next to lose my neck─in which case, you’d be the only one left, Pengin. Are you prepared to negotiate with the Schemer, on behalf of the entire ninja village?”

“N-Not one bit.”

This straight answer made Hohoh smile ruefully.8

“This would be a decent time to lie─though I suppose that’s perhaps too much to ask.”

“…Hohoh.”

Timidly─or even timorously,9 Pengin asked a question.

“Am I correct…that you might have a sense of who this man is after all?”

“What? It’s like I said just now. He’s working for the Princess. That’s my guess.”

“Not who he’s working for…but where he came from. Listening to you talk about him, I get the feeling that you’ve known each other for a long time─”

“Sharp as ever, Pengin.” Hohoh grinned. “You truly stand apart.”

“P-Please, you’re flattering me.”

“I’m not flattering you. I’m lamenting the state of our village, in such sorry shape that we have forced you into battle before you’re ready, without giving you a chance to cultivate the genius that is your gift─hah. But I digress again. It would be going too far to say I have a sense of who he is. It’s no more than a hunch, hardly worth mentioning─I’m probably mistaken.”

“Mistaken?”

“Indeed. There is no way that man is still alive─and he would certainly not deign to work under Princess Negative. He’s much too proud. The sort of man who would not work for someone else even if he lost both of his arms. He was that kind of a ninja…”

Hohoh paused.

“This was long before your time.”

“N-Ninja? D-Does that make him a friend of yours?”

“Like I said, it can’t be him. That man is dead and gone─in our age, there are no proud ninjas left. Which applies to us as well─”

“…”

“Well then, let’s make some progress10─that bemasked gentleman,11 not being an old friend of ours, will likely try another ambush.”

“Puh…Perhaps.”

“If we succeed in our negotiations with the Schemer, and thus obtain all of the Twelve Possessed─I think it’s about time that I stepped down. It’s up to me to take responsibility for the ten bosses that we’ve lost. To let12 the next generation call the shots.”

“Y-You’re kidding,” Pengin said.

“I kid you not,” asserted Hohoh. “This is serious. Down the line, you’re the only ninja who could take over for me. At the end of the day, the Maniwa are relics of another era. Same as the Schemer and the Kyotoryu and Princess Negative─and even the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki. All relics of another time, the detritus13 of history. Especially that old friend of mine, whose time came over ten years ago─”

The man cited as the cardinal example of this was─contrary to Hohoh’s expectations, or perhaps in line with them, Princess Negative’s henchman, Emonzaemon Soda.

But at present, Emonzaemon Soda─though having been directed to assassinate Hohoh Maniwa, was biding his time in Owari, at Mansion Negative. Hohoh and Pengin may have feared another ambush from Emonzaemon as they made their way to Oshu─but in reality, there was no cause for concern.

After taking down Oshidori Maniwa, Emonzaemon had tracked Hohoh’s progress, committed to his assassination, but before long, upon hearing that Togame the Schemer had safely captured Oto the Cured, he repaired to Owari.

Hence.

During that second conference between Togame and the Princess─

The Lieutenant had been hiding in the ceiling after all. If the Schemer had been so impolitic as to sic14 Shichika on her then and there, Emonzaemon would have stepped up, or hopped down, and battled Shichika, which regardless of the outcome would have spelled the end of Togame’s political career.

It was a cruel trick─Princess Negative at her best.

Though for the most part, she was only trying to amuse herself, not actually hoping to waylay the Schemer. The plot amounted to little more than mischief─all the same.

Princess Negative.

Standing alone in Mansion Negative─in the middle of the room.

Poised, though not for action.

Looked toward the ceiling.

“By now, do you suppose that nasty woman─has met up with Rinne Higaki?” she asked. “Seito the Garland would mark their tenth conquest of the Twelve Possessed, and compared to all the others, this one should be quite easy─to be sure, Oto the Cured and Seito the Garland will likely prove to be the easiest Mutant Blades to capture. The trouble is the owners─which for Oto the Cured meant Zanki Kiguchi, and for the Garland means Rinne Higaki.”

“Hermit Magus.”

A voice came from the ceiling.

The voice, of course, belonging to Emonzaemon.

That man who would sooner die than answer to another─

Was answering to Princess Negative, from behind the ceiling.

“Your Highness─I’m surprised that you entrusted Rinne Higaki, of all people, with one of the Twelve Possessed. I suppose this is another of the tricks you’re always playing on the Schemer?”

“Make no mistake, I did not entrust it with Rinne Higaki─what would possess me to toss a hermit magus a priceless15 Mutant Blade? I’ll have you know I’m not too keen on her being the owner.”

“Priceless Mutant Blade, indeed─”

“Look, this isn’t just about the Garland. Most of the swords have been held by individuals who posed a nuisance to me. Which is perhaps what makes me so prepared to shower that nasty woman with praises, after rounding up so many of the Twelve Possessed I failed to capture.”

“I know I’ve given my report already, but please allow me to reiterate,” Emonzaemon said softly. “Hohoh Maniwa, one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa and effectively the leader of the ninja clan─has obtained Dokuto the Basilisk, whose venom is stronger than any of the Twelve Possessed.”

“Heard you the first time.” Princess Negative grinned and nodded. “The same Hohoh Maniwa that you failed to assassinate─right?”

“I have no excuse.”

“It’s fine. At the very least, the Maniwa have been distracted for a time─but I have to wonder. My plan did not originally include a scene16 in which the Maniwa get their hands on yet another of the Twelve Possessed─especially not Dokuto the Basilisk. But since when has anything gone according to plan? I’d rather not imagine Hohoh with a Mutant Blade. After my failure to foresee the betrayal of the Sword Saint, Hakuhei Sabi, and the advent of that monster of a genius, Nanami Yasuri, I assumed the worst of my miscalculations17 were behind me…but it would seem that I’ve made yet another blunder.18 I cannot claim to fathom─whether the union of Hohoh Maniwa and Dokuto the Basilisk will prove bad luck, or the worst luck possible.”19

“There’s Dokuto the Basilisk, in the hands of Hohoh Maniwa. And after that there’s our sword─Ento the Bead.”

“Yes. With the help of which you took down Oshidori Maniwa. Well. I haven’t fired the thing myself, but it has turned out to be a very useful weapon. Unbelievable.”

“Should the Schemer be successful in capturing Seito the Garland─all twelve of the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki will finally share the stage.”

“All twelve…”

Zetto the Leveler. Zanto the Razor. Sento the Legion.

Hakuto the Whisper. Zokuto the Armor. Soto the Twin.

Akuto the Eel. Bito the Sundial. Oto the Cured.

Seito the Garland. Dokuto the Basilisk. Ento the Bead.

Masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki─the Twelve Possessed.

“Indeed. Exactly. Like you say, the time is finally upon us─although it took us quite a while to get here.”

“Which means your cherished dream has nearly met fruition─”

“Whoa, whoa. The walls have ears just as the paper doors have eyes. How can we be certain someone isn’t eavesdropping? Quit speaking so carelessly, Emonzaemon─you almost make it sound like I’m the direct descendant of the legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki, who reigned over the Age of Warring States, and that’s why I know all about the Twelve Possessed, allowing me to always stay a step ahead of that nasty woman.”

Thus spoke Princess Negative.

She snapped open her metal fan─and laughed derisively.

“None of that is true, of course, so please refrain from saying so.”

“…Certainly.” Emonzaemon nodded behind the ceiling. “Your Highness has no relation whatsoever to Kiki Shikizaki. Please forgive me if my remark was misleading.”

“This is why they call me Princess Negative─for I reject all other aspects of myself entirely. I have no history or ancestry─okay? I even reject my cherished dreams, whether they bear fruit or otherwise.”

“…”

“That said, don’t think that I like twiddling my thumbs20 while the Maniwa meet their goals and the Schemer realizes her ambitions. Seito the Garland and Rinne Higaki ought to hold them off a while longer. The Schemer and the Kyotoryu will surely stop once they reach the land of Oh.21 Until then, I will continue preparations here, as best I can. Ideally─the Schemer and the Kyotoryu will drub out22 the last two of the Maniwa for me. They’re bound to make a move against the Schemer any day now.”

“Inevitably. They are ninjas, after all.”

“That argument has weight,23 coming from you, truly. However─we must keep our eyes on the prize. I hate to ask you this, Emonzaemon, but would you go after the Maniwa again for me?”

“You mean─assassinate them?”

“No, but now that Hohoh Maniwa has Dokuto the Basilisk, those scenes will need to be rewritten yet again. We wouldn’t want to startle him…depending on the circumstances. I suppose, at the end of the day, he’ll have to die regardless─”

“What about the other boss?”

“Hm? What was his name again?”

“Pengin Maniwa.”

“Ah yes…I’ll leave him up to you. I don’t know anything about him, but at this point what’s another middling boss, dead or alive? Anyway, if the Maniwa are planning to confront the Schemer, the odds are high they’re heading for Hyakkeijo in Oshu. Alright, catch up with them before they have a chance to make a move.”

“Will do.”

“Hold on.”

Princess Negative had something else to tell her henchman in the ceiling.

“Entirely unrelated, something else is bothering me─you can take care of this afterwards, but I’d like for you to look into it personally.”24

“Huh? What is it?”

“It happened when the Schemer and the Kyotoryu were visiting these chambers. When Shichika heard me tell them where to find Seito the Garland, the strangest look came over him.”

The whereabouts of Seito the Garland.

Hyakkeijo in Oshu.

The former site of Hida Castle─once home to Takahito Hida, Mastermind of the Rebellion and Kaoyaku of Oshu.

“Perhaps you couldn’t tell behind the ceiling? He didn’t seem to react to ‘Rinne Higaki’ or ‘Hermit Magus,’ but either ‘Hyakkeijo’ or ‘Oshu’ tripped him up─regardless, he started acting strangely after that.”

“…How about the Schemer?”

“No, she was the same nasty woman as always─though perhaps I’m imagining things.”

“I can’t say…I noticed anything strange about the Kyotoryu.”

“No?”

“Do you mean─he seemed perturbed?”25

“Not so much perturbed, as pretending not to be perturbed─Shichika spent what, like twenty years marooned on Haphazard Island? This has to be his first time visiting Oshu.”

“His father, Mutsue Yasuri, was Hero of the Rebellion─is there a chance he simply recognized the name from stories he heard as a child?”

“Sure, but none of that explains why that nasty woman hasn’t visited Oshu before─how is that possible? Unlike me, her work takes her all over the nation… How come she hasn’t made it once to Oshu? Wouldn’t you say that it’s among the places that the Grand Commander of Arms should be familiar with?”

“It’s more than possible. I’m sure that Oshu is by no means the only place the Schemer hasn’t visited. It just so happens to be on the list of places that she hasn’t been─regardless of whether going would behoove her.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Nevertheless,” the Princess firmly stated, “I have no choice but to reject such a bland26 interpretation─sending you on a fool’s errand isn’t such a bad idea, as far as plots go, anyway. Well, then. Go figure out whatever link there is between Shichika Yasuri and Hyakkeijo─or between Togame the Schemer and Hyakkeijo. I’ll be waiting.”

The two she-devils of the Owari Bakufu.

Real names and origins unknown.

Princess Negative and the Schemer.

Whose showdown─was not so many days away.

Slight in stature, looking half as tall as Shichika.

Long black hair tied back at her neck.

A girl with perfect posture.

Rinne Higaki─said they could have it.

The place where those who joined1 the rebel army, and those who had not joined but were connected to the ones who had, as well as those who merely were suspected of doing so, were mercilessly executed─in sanctioned genocide.2

The place where once there stood the brash and brilliant grandiosity3 of Hida Castle, where the leader of the rebel army, Takahito Hida, resided with his family─though it had long since been reduced to ash.

Hyakkeijo.

Three days had passed since Shichika Yasuri, Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu, visited the site alongside Togame the Schemer─

And there the two remained.

Nothing to be done.

This girl, Rinne Higaki, sitting before them on a little boulder, could not possibly have been too comfortable.

In one hand─Higaki held a carafe of sake.

From which she drank without a cup.

─Strange.

Déjà vu4─thought Shichika.

Noticing the concerned face he was making, Higaki tilted her neck quizzically.

“What’s up, Yasuri?” she asked. “You seem bored.”5

“Bored… I mean, yeah, I am bored.”

He really was.

Togame was perhaps another story─but Shichika was bored out of his skull.

“Wait, though…Higaki. All that aside, I gotta ask you─”

“Oh, I know─don’t even bother finishing. You’re wondering what’s up with me. What’s the story with this Rinne Higaki character?”

Higaki said this with a grin.

“Hate to break it to you─but the details of my backstory have nothing to do with you. Backstory…such an impersonal6 word. The story behind your back7…what’s that supposed to mean? Right, Yasuri? My existence, properly speaking, is of no use to you─for that matter, to either of you. The only thing that you─or either of you care about is the Mutant Blade of Kiki Shikizaki that I have. You’re here for Seito the Garland. Yes?”

“…Well, yeah,” admitted Shichika. “But this time around, Togame is taking care of all of that─forcing me to sit here with my thoughts. Togame brought this up last month─thinking is easy, but not thinking is evidently something that not everyone can handle. Which is why an ordinary guy like me is stuck here with my thoughts.”

“Really. What’s on your mind?”

Higaki wore an impudent8 expression.

An unlikely expression for a girl─but even from that face she made.

Shichika got déjà vu.

Indeed, almost as if─

“Hey, Higaki, I know you said that it was nice to meet me─”

Shichika spoke frankly, not mincing words.

“But have we met somewhere before?”

“Nope.”

For three days.

From the moment Higaki miraculously appeared in the field before them, and ever since, this thought had stayed with Shichika─at long last he had summoned the resolve to ask her, but Higaki shot him down like it was nothing, rejecting the idea outright.

“Remember, I’m a hermit magus─I basically keep my distance from the world. And by keep my distance, I mean cut myself off, severing all ties and connections─I’m what you might call ‘free-floating.’9 Which means the odds that you and I have met at some earlier date are less than zero. No chance we even passed each other on the wayside without knowing.”

“Y-Yeah, but─”

Déjà vu.

This feeling had been with Shichika since they met.

Like reuniting─with someone from his past.

And by no stretch of the imagination was this reunion happy─

“I know you from somewhere─I think,” Shichika said.

Despite his hasty qualification.

The first part of the statement had the stubborn nature of a fact.

“I’m pretty sure we’ve met somewhere before.”

“Listen, Yasuri. Your eyes are playing tricks on you.”

Higaki struck an inciting10 tone─

Suggesting insight11 on the situation.

Perhaps such insight should not come as a surprise, since after all she had declared herself to be a hermit magus.

“Yeah, I mean…I figured it was déjà vu─”

“Déjà vu? Whoa. You know some fancy words─but you’re wrong, Yasuri. If this déjà vu you speak of involves some kind of mental misperception, where something that you’re sure you’ve never done starts feeling like you’ve done it once before─then this eerie feeling that you have about me is not déjà vu after all.”

An eerie feeling, but not déjà vu.

Higaki spoke like this was overwhelmingly self-evident, at least to her.

“I am a legitimate perception─based on your legitimate memories.”

“Legit…”

“Yes. Unequivocally.12 Keheheh!”

Higaki laughed out loud.

What a weird laugh, thought Shichika.

Almost like someone─who knew not how to laugh, but laughed like crazy all the same.

“Remember what I said when we first met? ‘So that’s how I appear to you?’─please, remind me. How exactly do I appear to you?”

“…You look like a girl.”

Though her personality be far from girlish.

“A girl, with black hair. And also─somehow, as you sit there chugging sake, looking aloof, your posture is weirdly perfect. Something in the way you hold yourself feels too familiar, like I’ve seen it somewhere else before─”

“Sure you have,” acknowledged Higaki. “I’m a projection of your memory.”

“…”

“The fact that I appear that way means only that, in your specific case, I happen to embody that kind of a person─get it, Yasuri?”

This girl who called herself a hermit magus.

Rinne Higaki─gave Shichika an unpleasant sidelong glance.13

“I am a hermit magus.”

“Hermit magus…”

“I am both everyone and no one.”

She made these otherworldly, fantastical statements─sound matter of fact.

“Through me, people can gaze into their memories─hence what makes me a hermit magus. However present, I am not of this world.”

“My memories…”

“Well now, do you remember? Does any of this jog your memory? Can you pinpoint the experience─the moment when you saw me, as you see me now, creating this perception?”

“Ah.”

As a matter of fact─after so much coaxing.

Shichika─saw the light.14

Of course─it was the sort of thing he should have realized without having things spelled out for him so plainly.

He hardly needed a reminder.

Rinne Higaki.

This figure of a girl.

For Shichika, the memory was unforgettable.

He couldn’t help recalling Konayuki Itezora─whom he had met in Ezo, on Mt. Odori.

That clan of monstrous strength.

A family of monstrous strength unparalleled.

That naive and innocent girl, who gave Shichika the first X on his scorecard.

Owner of Soto the Twin, the heaviest sword in existence.

Konayuki Itezora.

But that black hair─and that hairstyle.

He needed no reminder.

He should have noticed this the second that he saw her─from its color to the way she tied it back, this was unmistakably the hair of Nanami Yasuri, his older sister.

Owner of Akuto the Eel, the most wicked sword in all the land.

Nanami Yasuri.

In which case─that thoroughly15 perfect posture, which made such a strong impression, must have come from the Twelfth Master of the Heartland School, Zanki Kiguchi, whom he battled just last month.

The owner of Oto the Cured, that sword following the most righteous of all paths.

Zanki Kiguchi.

“…”

Konayuki Itezora.

Nanami Yasuri.

Zanki Kiguchi.

What these three shared was all too clear.

The greatest common factor being painfully apparent.

All three of them─though doing so in their own way, had defeated Shichika.

“I said that you could gaze into your memory,” said Higaki. “In other words, I am a manifestation of your failings16─when people recall how they acted in the past, they tend to make convenient changes to the details. But not when you observe the past through me. From the look on your face, it would appear I’m helping you relive some not-so-pleasant memories…”

This reunion─being anything but happy.

After all.

Though it may come in many forms, no memory could be more bitter, for a creature of the battlefield17 like Shichika, than defeat.

Nay, this troubled him not only as a warrior.

To Shichika─defeat was tantamount to an act of insubordination towards his owner, Togame the Schemer.

“Makes sense.”

Come to think of it, this even explained the eerily familiar way Higaki drank her sake.

Guzzling it down with abandon.

It had to be a projection of the owner of Sento the Legion, Meisai Tsuruga, whom he had fought at Triad Shrine in Izumo.

Meisai Tsuruga.

Strictly speaking, Meisai had not defeated Shichika─though looking back on it, his memory of the experience was extremely bitter.

Just shy of─perhaps even surpassing the other three.

Bitter.

As well as painful.

“In that case─it makes total sense why I would feel so crummy, when I’m only standing here across from you. Seeing you triggers awful memories.”

“Not so much awful memories as regrets. I might even call it guilt─but for the record, understand that I’m not forcing you to do this. I’m not doing anything at all─you’re projecting all of this onto me, on your own.”

“Really? Uh, you mean…you’re not using some kind of hermit magic?”18

“Nope. And I couldn’t if I tried,” Higaki overshared.19 “Stop treating me like I’m human. I’m a hermit magus, don’t you forget it.”

“But…”

What about eternal life and youth?

What about ethereal powers?20

What about flying through the sky─the term “hermit magus” conjured all kinds of mystical abilities defying reason.21

Known collectively as hermit magic.

Togame the Schemer and Princess Negative in Owari─had both mentioned as much.

However.

“This is yet another way you people have projected your experience on me…on us. Eternal life and youth? Ethereal powers? Flying through the sky? Nothing more than broken dreams─which translate into personal failings. What is a hermit─if not a mirror into the soul?”

“Mirror?”

“A magical mirror, made to display the truth. Hey, Yasuri. Do you know a fairy tale from overseas that goes like this? Once upon a time there lived a queen─and this queen asks her mirror a question. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? The queen is hoping that the answer would be her, but the mirror gives a different name, the name of someone who the queen absolutely despises… What do you think of that, Yasuri? You think a mirror can tell you that sort of thing?”

“Hard to say─mirrors can’t talk.”

“Exactly. The answer wasn’t coming from the mirror─it was no more than the queen’s inmost self22 responding to her vanity. That’s how it works. Standing before me, Rinne Higaki, nobody is able to look away.”

“But it’s not like I hate Konayuki, or sis, or Kiguchi, or Meisai. Not at all.”

“Konayuki? Sis? Kiguchi? Meisai? Are you referring to the manifestation of your failings, having risen to the surface where you can view it plainly?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know─you’re basically a composite of the four of them.”

“I’m not acting. I really don’t know. I have no way of knowing how I look to you─I may be a projection of your memories, but that doesn’t mean that I can read them. Telepathy is for mortals─I am a hermit magus, far beyond the mortal realm.”

“For a hermit magus…you sure seem short on superpowers.”

Everything─was in the eye of the beholder.

Her form and her comportment.

All a matter of how Shichika perceived them─Higaki was doing nothing.

“Exactly. I’m doing nothing. Not a thing. And that’s what makes me a hermit magus, Yasuri. You humans are the ones who feel the need to do things, to mess with23 things─I’m still a rookie,24 far as hermit magi go. I haven’t lived for such a very long time, you see. But one of the few things I’m proud of is that I’ve done absolutely nothing my whole life.”

“How old are you, anyway?”

From the looks of it, she was maybe ten years old.

But even this was all about how she appeared to Shichika─irrelevant to the actual appearance of Rinne Higaki.

Indeed.

Rinne Higaki had no actual appearance.

She was a hermit magus.

No backstory─no story behind her back.

“About three hundred. Or I guess three hundred and fifty, counting my time as a human,” Higaki answered nonchalantly.

But then.

She never spoke with any kind of gravitas.

Hence every statement sounded casual.

“Then at some point─however many years ago, I received Seito the Garland from Kiki Shikizaki, the man himself, and became its owner.”

“Is it really fair to call yourself the owner of Seito the Garland?” Shichika took issue with Higaki’s choice of words. “I’m amazed to hear that you received it from the man himself─but if you’re the owner of the Garland, why aren’t you carrying it?”25

Rinne Higaki, perched atop her boulder.

Armed neither with Seito the Garland─nor with any other kind of weapon.

Completely emptyhanded.

Just like Shichika.

“Why wouldn’t you keep the Garland with you? Most of the other owners of the Twelve Possessed I’ve met so far refused to let their swords out of their sight.”

Komori Maniwa, who hid Zetto the Leveler in his belly.

Ginkaku Uneri, who slept with Zanto the Razor safely at his hip.

Ditto Zanki Kiguchi.

“But you?”

“I already told you─doing nothing is my game. That sword would only be a nuisance to me. Though I couldn’t exactly toss the thing, when it was given to me by a friend─so I figured doing what I did was the best bet.”

Higaki’s voice was cool26 and unperturbed.

Shichika could only answer this frivolity with silence.

─Four days earlier.

Togame the Schemer, though caught off-guard by the sudden appearance of this hermit magus─nevertheless commenced diplomacy with all her usual tenacity.

Almost immediately, Rinne Higaki interrupted.

“Huh? You’re saying you guys want Seito the Garland? Ah, alright. You can have it. It’s yours. Go ahead and take it.”

Then added this:

“You’ll find it buried over there─have fun digging it up. It’s probably, what, a hundred feet27 underground? Of course you’ll have to dig it up yourself, Togame.”

She made it sound like a walk in the park.

…

Meanwhile, Togame the Schemer was a short distance away from them─digging in the spot where Rinne Higaki said she buried Seito the Garland─now for three days straight, using the trowel28 Higaki had lent her.

Needless to say, Togame had not hit paydirt.

So she kept on digging.

“If it was me…” Shichika said.

Addressing Higaki.

His tone acerbic.

“If it was me, I could have dug down a hundred feet in a day, or two days max─why make Togame dig it up herself? Why did you have to tack on the dumb condition that I’m not allowed to help her?”

“From the sound of things, Togame is a little too dependent on your aid─some physical exertion now and then would do her good.”

“Physical exertion? That’s every day for her. She’s nearly died a bunch of times since we’ve been traveling together.”

“I’m sure. And that’s exactly why I’m teasing her─you see, in her eyes, that’s the sort of person I appear to be.”

“Huh?” Shichika was baffled by this statement from Higaki. “What the heck─are you saying your appearance borrows from her memory too?”

“You were together when you saw me, so that’s the way it goes. My appearance and mannerisms come from your memory, Yasuri─but my personality is derived from hers.”

Derived.

From the memory of Togame the Schemer.

From the failings of Togame the Schemer.

“Does Togame have any failings, though?” asked Shichika. “All I can think of is Princess Negative, but I’m not sure that she sees her as a failing, so much as hates her guts─”

“No one is without some kind of failing, or memory which they are loath to recollect. Including you and Togame, and even this Princess Negative… Let me be clear. If you were to take pity on Togame and help out with her little excavation project,29 our deal is off─I will only allow you to have Seito the Garland if Togame digs the sword up on her own.”

“No need for the reminder.”

Hearing this, Higaki laughed out loud. Keheheheh.

“Sure, sure─I’m sure she’ll grin and bear it, for the sake of the Yanari Shogun, for the sake of the Owari Bakufu, and for the sake of the nation.”

“…”

For the sake of the nation.

Higaki, Hermit Magus, could not have possibly believed such drivel─that said, although she may have been a projection of Togame’s memories, she could not read her mind, and as such had no access to her true intentions.

All the same, she spoke as if she saw right through her.

Perhaps that was what made Higaki a hermit magus.

Though Shichika also suspected she was just faking it.

“Then again…” she said, like she had thought of something. “Thinking it over, it’s no fair that Togame has a job to do while you sit here bored out of your mind─so tell me, Yasuri, am I correct you won the swords from all the other owners of the Twelve Possessed by battling them head-on?”

“For the most part… I mean, there’s been a couple situations where head-on might not be the best way to describe it, but basically that’s how it’s been so far.”

“In that case, would you like to battle me?”

Higaki pointed at her chest.

“I may not know any hermit magic─but I know a few martial tricks.”30

“If I beat you, will you give us Seito the Garland?”

“Please. I’m not about to alter our conditions─this time around, Togame will be capturing the Mutant Blade on her own. You’re only fighting me as an amusement, to kill some time, for no reason and no purpose whatsoever.”

Responding to this impudent remark, Shichika said, “Why should I fight you, if it’s not for any reason or purpose? In that case, why bother?”

“Why bother?” Higaki laughed. “I should be asking you the same thing─what are you fighting for?”

“…”

Once─Meisai Tsuruga had asked him the same thing.

Shichika had told her he was fighting for Togame.

None of that had changed.

But meanwhile─

That ninja, Kuizame Maniwa, one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa, who had been listening in on his exchange with Meisai─offered the following:

What are you fighting for?

If you have to be asking such questions, don’t even bother fighting─

Nobody has time for your philosophy!

Don’t be ridiculous!─

That is what the ninja had to say.

“Yasuri. As a hermit magus defying reason…” Higaki─set down the carafe and stood from her seat on the boulder. “I’m of the opinion that it’s time you faced31 your failings.”

Shichika checked in on Togame, to see the hole that she was making with her trowel. Most of the time she shooed him off, saying having him just stand there, doing nothing, sapped her productivity.32 As such, if Shichika wanted to talk with Togame, he had to catch her on one of her breaks.

The hole was getting pretty deep─but climbing the rope ladder from its depths, which as of yet were shy of a hundred feet, Togame was miserably dirty.

Her robes, which should have been so brash and brilliant, were smeared with dirt and mud, far too much for even the Schemer to play off as a fashion statement.

Her white hair, too, was blackened by the soil.

“Hmph…”

Nevertheless, she did not whine one bit.

She gulped down water from the bamboo flask33 that Shichika had brought her.

“Wish you could have burgled Higaki’s carafe for me─I sure could use a drink right about now. It feels like I’m digging through potsherds─like at Lake Fuyo, I’m working through some serious junk.”

“Junk?”

Now that she mentioned it, in their search for information about Kiki Shikizaki, they had conducted another excavation at Lake Fuyo, the Level One Disaster Area─though on that occasion, Shichika had been asked to do the digging on his own.

The tables had turned.

Togame was doing all the work─while Shichika just watched.

Though actually, she wouldn’t even let him watch her work.

“Well done, Shichika─sounds like you’ve uncovered some useful information. Failings, huh. I suppose it could be stranger than that.”

“You think…” said Shichika, peering down into the hole Togame had been digging. “You think Seito the Garland is really buried there?”

“Do you feel the lifeforce?”

When Shichika beheld one of the Twelve Possessed─he felt an inexplicable vibration.

Thus far, he had oft relied on this lifeforce to “appraise” potential Mutant Blades.

And yet─the lifeforce test was definitely not foolproof.

“If it is buried down there, I’m not sure I can feel it. Did she say a hundred feet? Buried that deep in the ground─”

“Well, we have no choice but to believe the hermit,” said Togame.

Though she refrained from whining─her choice of words betrayed her exhaustion.

“Another thing, Shichika. Are you planning to fight Higaki?”

“Oh. I’m not really interested in fighting for no reason─but it’s hard for me to sit there doing nothing, while you’re working over here like crazy. Same way as our pointless chat was anything but pointless, there’s surely something to be gained from fighting her. End of the day, fighting is the only thing I’m good at, so I guess I’ll fight,” answered Shichika. “Unless you stop me.”

“I have no plans of stopping you,” Togame said, massaging her arms. “Have fun. It’s bound to be constructive.34 Fighting a hermit magus─I’m sure you’ll learn all sorts of helpful things from that experience, Shichika.”

“Alright.”

“Think of it this way─we have it pretty easy,35 capturing one of the Twelve Possessed by just digging a hole. You know, it makes me wonder how much that nasty woman knew about these circumstances in advance. If she was hoping to get on my nerves, this was quite a shrewd move.”

“Princess Negative─oh, wait.”

What Togame had said made Shichika remember something, so he told her.

“If Higaki is for real, then on the outside she’s a manifestation of my failings─while on the inside, she’s made up of yours.”

Konayuki Itezora. Nanami Yasuri. Zanki Kiguchi.

And Meisai Tsuruga.

Higaki’s outward appearance drew upon these four.

While on the inside.

“Does Higaki’s arrogant personality remind you of someone in your life? Doesn’t seem like Princess Negative. Or Emonzaemon… Only other person I can think of would be Hohoh Maniwa, but it doesn’t seem like it’s him either.”

“Heh.”

A chuckle.

Togame the Schemer chuckled dejectedly.

“Plain enough. I don’t need you to talk it through, and I don’t need to think it over either─Higaki is the spitting image of the person who has given me a harder time than anyone in my entire life. Her manner of speaking, that self-important delivery. Goofing around, like nothing matters─but most of all, the way she forced me to do manual labor. Shichika, she acts exactly like the man I dislike more than anyone who ever lived.”

“Who?”

“Takahito Hida,” said Togame. “She’s a dead ringer36 for my father.”

They hadn’t seen Higaki sleep a wink.

She just sat there on her boulder.

Doing nothing─sitting up all night.

Perhaps that was what made Higaki a hermit magus.

Literally doing nothing, sleep included.

And now─the two of them were facing off.

Since Togame the Schemer had been shoveling away since waking up, she was unable to play her usual role of referee─but there would be no refereeing.

This was for fun.

Since they were only killing time.

“I will say this, though,” Higaki said, shaking her arms and legs in some kind of preliminary stretch. “The failings I embody for you keep to the surface─I have none of the monstrous strength of, what’s her name, Konayuki Itezora, nor do I have any of the genius of your dear sister, and nothing of the seriousness of your buddy Zanki Kiguchi.”

“I mean, if you had even a shred of the seriousness Kiguchi has, I doubt we would have wound up in this situation.”

The arrogant personality─of Takahito Hida.

The personality of Togame’s father.

Shichika had a difficult time believing that a man of such high standing, the leader of an army, could have such a flippant personality.

Unlikely enough for a girl.

But absurd for a daimyo.

“Get it, Yasuri?”

Higaki continued.

“I’m disproportionately weaker than you─remember that, once we begin.”

“Weak…” Having a hard time grasping what Higaki meant by this, Shichika nodded cautiously.1 “What’s that, a frontloaded excuse for losing?”

“I’m afraid not─you’re unable to beat someone weaker than you. Winning is off the table. Do I make myself clear?”

“…”

“Alright─come and get it, as they say, but watch out, ’cause I’m coming to getcha!”

Sticking a fork into2 their conversation.

Rinne Higaki, out of nowhere, made a run at Shichika.

As before─Higaki was unarmed.

To wit, she had not so much as a gimlet.3

As should come as no surprise, Shichika was also emptyhanded─having doffed his armguards, as was his practice, the Master of the Kyotoryu was ready to rumble.

And so─Shichika Yasuri versus Rinne Higaki.

Swordplay betwixt two parties lacking swords!

“Kyotoryu─Yuri!”

Shichika spun from the hips, countering Higaki with a spinning kick─except the second that he moved, he knew that his defeat was certain.

This bum-rush4 from Higaki.

Had been a ruse.

Her way of getting Shichika to fight back─an inelegant attack, intent on inducing an inelegant interception.

Higaki threw an elbow up against Shichika’s kicking leg.

Tipping him off-balance.

“Whah…”

He was sure he knew where she was aiming next, but Higaki didn’t follow through. Instead she pulled away, taking one step back.

Shichika quickly recovered his balance.

Her counterattack had caught him unawares, but this proved Higaki was not lying about the similarities only being skin deep─if she had shared the monstrous strength of Konayuki Itezora, her rising arm could easily have blown his leg to pieces.

She was physically fit, to be sure─but not to any unbelievable degree.5 Her strength was well within the confines of believability.

Knowing that much was enough.

No monstrous strength, and no genius.

Though he would have loved her to be serious─

“Kyotoryu─Bara!”

Shichika came at Higaki with a front kick.

Since she looked half as tall as him, he had to be choosy with his attacks─had to bear in mind that grappling moves and throw moves would not serve him in this fight.

That left strikes.

Which should be plenty!

“Whoa, nice one.”

Higaki calmly ducked his front kick─and when Shichika bore down on her, she summarily blocked, dodged, or brushed away the blades of his hands and feet.

You guessed it─

She saw his attacks coming.

“Ugh…”

He remembered.

A month earlier─in his fourth fight against Zanki Kiguchi.

The fight in which neither of them bore a sword─though Shichika was beginning to realize what made this fight and that fight completely different.

Something─wasn’t clicking.6

Like there was sand between his teeth7─

“Kyotoryu─Shichika Hachiretsu!”

Since it would appear that he was getting nowhere,8 Shichika resorted to the Last Fatal Orchid of the Kyotoryu.

The Seven Fatal Orchids of the Kyotoryu.

Fatal Orchid One: Kyoka Suigetsu.

Fatal Orchid Two: Kacho Fugetsu.

Fatal Orchid Three: Hyakka Ryoran.

Fatal Orchid Four: Ryuryoku Kako.

Fatal Orchid Five: Hika Rakuyo.

Fatal Orchid Six: Kinjo Tenka.

Fatal Orchid Seven: Rakka Rozeki.

In the Last Fatal Orchid, Shichika Hachiretsu, he unleashed them simultaneously─though note that this was not “Shichika Hachiretsu Redux,” the updated sequence he had devised at Seiryoin Gokenji Temple in Tosa, after his fight against the genius Nanami Yasuri, but rather “Shichika Hachiretsu,” the classic form.

Flawed, perhaps─but more adaptable.

Not necessarily inferior to its flush-riveted update─however!

“Oops, oops.”

Hopping away.

Rinne Higaki created so much space between them there was no way Shichika Hachiretsu could reach her.

“Wha… Y-You─”

Shichika almost called her a cheat.

Granted, all that she had done was smartly retreat, so such a reproach would hardly have been fair─but this last move helped Shichika to finally see the light.

Rinne Higaki.

Doesn’t care─about this fight at all.

Though inviting it upon herself─she’s barely even fighting.

“So sad, Yasuri. It seems that you have quite the inferiority complex towards your genius of a sister, but in the eyes of a lowly hermit such as myself, you’re a fine young specimen in your own right, a genius of the first degree─”

Dodging Shichika’s strikes, Higaki grinned.

“─On a scale from one to ten, where your strength index is at the top, I’m probably somewhere around seven. If you gave me everything you’ve got, I couldn’t even hold my own.”

“Then! How come you haven’t been torn to smithereens?!”

“Thing is, you’re splitting your ten-out-of-ten power down the middle, dividing it between offense and defense, so that your attacks are only half as strong. As a result─because I’m putting all my strength into my defense─you’re unable to break through my defenses. After all,” said Higaki, “Seito the Garland’s special characteristic─is self-awareness.”9

“What do you mean, the characteristic of the Garland?”

The hardest sword in all the world, Zetto the Leveler.

The sharpest sword in all the world, Zanto the Razor.

The most myriad sword in all the world, Sento the Legion.

The frailest sword in all the world, Hakuto the Whisper.

The toughest sword in all the world, Zokuto the Armor.

The heaviest sword in all the world, Soto the Twin.

The wickedest sword in all the world, Akuto the Eel.

The most humanoid10 sword in all the world, Bito the Sundial.

The most innocuous11 sword in all the world, Oto the Cured.

“The sincerest sword in all the world─verily so, indeed! And how could it be otherwise, with me as its owner?”

“Cut the crap! What makes you sincere?”12

“Whoa, whoa. Be careful with your accusations─that side of me comes from your darling Togame.”

“Dammit!”

Consider Zokuto the Armor.

Unparalleled in armor class.

No attack was capable of breaking through the Armor in and of itself─in an example of how defense can surpass offense in certain applications. And unlike Azekura, Higaki made no effort to convert this defense into offense─her modus operandi being exclusively defensive.13

Truly, no attack from Shichika had so much as marred Higaki.

The blades of his hand missed her entirely.

The blades of his feet slicing only air.

“I’m done!”

Thump.

Shichika gave up attacking Higaki and plopped down on the earth.

Sulking on the ground of Hyakkeijo.

“Cripes, this isn’t even a real fight! Enough of this stuff about confronting failings─I’m not here to help you finally get some exercise! I’d much rather be swinging a wooden sword at Kiguchi! You think it’s fun adding to my list of failings?”

“Sure do. There’s nothing I love more than teasing you.”

Higaki said this without a hint of shame.

“It’s interesting to hear you say you’re helping me to get some exercise, when I’m the one helping you kill time. Is that such a bad thing?”

As she spoke, Higaki dropped her guard─at ease, she sallied over to the little boulder and took her usual perch.

Then laughed out loud. Keheheheh.

“You know, some people would learn a hard-won14 lesson from this kind of fight.”

“Yeah?”

“One ought to try and take a lesson from a fight,” Higaki said, pointing at Shichika. “You know, things like ‘Fighting is pointless,’ or ‘It’s not whether you win or lose.’ I heard Togame say our fight was bound to be constructive, but the experience of battle is inherently destructive. Even the constructive moments are unsettling. At this point you have spent close to a year fighting for Togame─but it would seem that you have failed to learn this on your own. Kind as I am, I decided I would teach you.”

“Next time, save it.” Shichika made no effort to conceal his displeasure. “Not like that hasn’t crossed my mind before─but we’ve got a job to do, and that gives fighting and success15 definite value.”

“Where do those words come from, you─or Togame?”

Higaki turned away.

Toward the hole Togame was digging─since by now she had dug several times her height, they could no longer see her.

Yet as if she could─Higaki gazed in her direction.

“Her too,” she said. “So hung up on fighting. It’s almost like─she sees life itself as some kind of a battle. What exactly is her motivation? I’m sure you know. Although you don’t agree with it.”

“…”

“You don’t agree with it, you merely sympathize.16 Isn’t that right?”

“No─this isn’t about sympathy.”

“You’ve fallen for her, haven’t you? It’s too bad,” Higaki said, oozing sarcasm. “As far as I can see, your feelings for her fail to qualify as love or romance.”

“You’ll pay…for saying that.”

Shichika found himself threatening Higaki─but she brushed it off like it was nothing.

“You can ignore me, I was only joking,” Higaki said. “If this sort of thing bothers you that much, when you hear what I really think about you, you’re probably going to faint─not like it’s my duty17 to inform you of such things.”

“You call yourself a hermit magus.”

Shichika stood up, moving sluggishly.

Though he had not received any blows from his opponent, and was not tired─his motions had one way or another become sluggish.

He was tuckered out.

“But honestly─who the hell are you?”

“Have you misunderstood me? You do realize that this, too, is merely an indication of the way that I appear to you. Where do you think this irritation that you feel towards me is coming from? It’s you. A manifestation of your failings─nothing more.”

“…”

“Still, though, the foolish honesty with which you accepted my offer and consented to have a face off shows that you have promise18 yet, my boy─compared to you, Togame is, how shall I say, rather intransigent, cunning even. Over there, digging like crazy, when her only interest is to stay as far away from me as possible.”

“Oh─”

Come to think of it.

Shichika had been the only one to interact significantly with Higaki.

A first among the owners of the Twelve Possessed.

“Yeah, but Togame didn’t find out that you’re only a projection of our failings until last night.”

“Because for her─it’s about personality. That’s how her failings manifest. Since yours take shape on the surface, it took a little extra time to notice. I reckon…she’ll probably keep on looking away like that forever. Turned away for as long as she lives.”

Which is one way to live a life, Higaki said, her tone of voice unchanged, flippant as ever. “Fact is─whatever else I might have told her, the second she heard me say ‘It’s buried over there,’ she knew exactly where to find the Garland. Instead of trying to dig it up herself like an honest fool, she should leave it to you.”

“You’re the one who said that was off-limits.”

“And she’s the one who’s following the rules. What’s stopping her from breaking the promise that she made with me?”

“Isn’t it honorable to honor promises?”

“Oh yes, and how she wants to be admired,” Higaki quipped sardonically. “She craves the admiration of her past self, or the admiration of her future self, or perhaps the admiration of the gods. Not for me to say─but in the end, she will have failed to overcome her failings. Because she has a guilty conscience, she will never break the rules.”

Higaki paused for effect.

As if to observe Shichika’s reaction.

“You see─she has forgotten the most important thing.”

“What?”

“I wonder. Although I cannot read her mind, I’m certain that she’s forgotten something of great importance. And you know what─she has no hopes of remembering it, either, as long as she does not confront her failings. Which would be fine, if it wasn’t something that she wanted desperately to recall─but still.”

Following suit with Shichika, Higaki stood.

Even standing, she was less than half as tall as Shichika.

Nevertheless.

He felt inexplicably19 intimidated.

Something in her gaze─made it feel like she was looking down at him.

“Hard to live a long life when you live like that. Given how much success means to her, I recognize that this is in the service of her goals, but isn’t the ultimate goal of any human being survival? What good’s success if you have to kill yourself to get there?”

“Life’s a small price to pay for reaching a goal. Don’t you think that’s an admirable and proper way to live? Or does being a hermit lead you to think otherwise?”

“I’m not too sure about that.” Higaki had herself a chuckle. “I never think of anything at all─if I appear to be, the two of you are doing the thinking.”

“…”

Insinuation.

Pretense.

Innuendo, mischief.

And she called herself a hermit magus?

Yet Shichika knew that on an overarching level, Higaki was not incorrect─the fact that everything she said stung so bad was evidence that she had struck a nerve.

“Here’s a good example, Yasuri.”

Higaki was still─looking away from Shichika.

Looking instead in the direction of the hole Togame was digging.

Or perhaps.

Was she looking in the direction of her sword, Seito the Garland?

The sincerest blade?

“For one person to reach her goal, how many other people’s goals must be stymied?”

“…”

“It’s not possible for everyone to meet their goals and live happily ever after─for one person to achieve happiness, a great many others will pay the price. Am I not stating the obvious here? Human beings survive only by sacrificing one another.”

“How do you mean? Togame isn’t after happiness. If anybody’s life is being sacrificed, it’s hers.”

“Which I believe to be precisely what Togame is the most averse to seeing─she knows that better than anyone. And while I cannot say for sure what she’s trying to achieve─I’m certain that it isn’t worth her sacrificing her own life, much less the lives of others.”

“But─”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Yasuri.”

Refusing to let Shichika object, Higaki doubled down.

“In hunting down the Mutant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki, have you not taken countless lives? Stymying the supreme human objective of survival?”

“…”

Komori Maniwa.

Ginkaku Uneri.

Meisai Tsuruga.

Hakuhei Sabi.

The slew of challengers he had killed off after becoming the Strongest in Japan.

And his own sister─Nanami Yasuri.

All dead─at his own hand.

“When you kill someone,” Higaki said, “you do realize they die, Yasuri. Though it would seem you’ve turned your head away from this elementary principle.20 And so has our dear Togame─she thinks she’s faced the facts, except her eyes are closed. The way I see it─you and her are both─lacking resolution.”

Higaki took a breath.

“The Garland gives a reading on the self─it’s like a scale, allowing you to gauge the balance of your deeds. Could you let Togame know? It seems like we’re not speaking.”

“Fine…”

Shichika nodded begrudgingly.

So the Garland was like a scale.

He pondered21 the meaning of this explanation.

In actuality─it was Rinne Higaki, Hermit Magus, who acted like a balance.

A scale weighing human behavior.

“I’ll let her know during her next break.”

“That would seem to be right now,” Higaki said, glancing in the direction of Togame. “At the moment, it would seem she’s out of energy and resting in the hole.”

When done involuntarily and repeatedly, this is a form of torture.

An example of how repetitive menial labor can drive a person crazy, though Togame the Schemer was not so weak in spirit as to be driven crazy by such a trifling matter.

Only her physical resources were limited.

As seen from her traversals22 of such inhospitable environments as Inaba Desert, Mt. Odori, and Lake Fuyo, she was able to withstand a decent trek, no weaker than the average person─but this didn’t mean that she was notably23 stronger than the average person either.

If tacticians deal in tactics, then the Schemer dealt exclusively in schemes. A strategist eschewing armaments of every stripe, able to fend off hardship and adversity by strategy alone─

She had never had a reason to temper her body.

In fact, it was important that she not.

Hence─

“Togame!”

The Schemer had collapsed in the hole.

Just as Rinne Higaki indicated.

Shichika leapt down into the hole without delay. Togame was unconscious; he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her body, trying to awaken her. It was quite a dangerous thing to do to someone who was unconscious, but as luck would have it─

“Mm.”

She came to.

“Ugh… Hey, Shichirin.”

“Uh, I think nickname’s run its course…are you okay?”

“Right. I must have fainted.”

Although she had lost consciousness─Togame had not let go of the trowel.

By now dirt covered her from head to toe, but nevertheless, she brushed the soil off her face and resumed her excavation.

“Whoa─let’s take a break.”

“It’s not time for my break yet.”

“Focus on the way you’re feeling, not the time. Don’t tell me you don’t know how.”

“Hmph…”

It was no use─Togame wasn’t listening. She stabbed her trowel in the dirt, scooped some up, and tossed it in the bucket beside her. When the bucket was full, she carried it up the rope ladder.

Then started again.

The same thing, over and over.

From the looks of it24─she had dug about fifty feet.

Halfway there.

Over the course of the morning, she had made remarkable progress as compared to the days before─perhaps she had grasped the finer points25 of hole digging.

Almost impressive─still.

Something had to give.

Her increased efficiency no more than a warning that she was working far too hard.

“Uh, Togame, I gotta ask you something important.”

“Ask me something?”

“Yeah, I need your advice.”

This was not about advice, of course.

But Shichika understood Togame─he knew that if he put it this way, she would stop working for at least as long as he was talking. While she probably guessed what Shichika was up to, she was not so mentally depleted as to ignore26 his clumsy attempts at connecting.27 She owed this to him, as his employer.

Her fatigue was merely physical.

Sore arms for sure, but likely sore all over.

Advice─

Considering the situation, it must involve Rinne Higaki.

“Like I said yesterday, Higaki and I had a face off─but let’s just say it was no contest.”28

“Huh? You mean you lost?”

“No, I wouldn’t say I lost…”

Togame frowned. She looked skeptical.

“Then again,” continued Shichika, “I wouldn’t say I won. It was no contest. Literally. She dodged everything I threw at her.”

Shichika gave her an unabridged account.

Including all the nonsense Higaki had spewed.

Togame looked a little bored, but she waited for Shichika to finish.

“Not sure I buy that,” she confessed. “All this self-awareness stuff aside, I don’t see how focusing exclusively on defense would make any difference─all she did was throw the fight.”

“I mean, as much as it got under my skin, I gotta say it was pretty effective. You can’t have a duel unless both sides agree─if one side throws the fight, the other side no longer has a way of winning.”

“I beg to differ,” said Togame. “Fundamentally, there’s a big hole in Higaki’s strategy of choice. If you can take aim at the hole, you will be able to plunder her defenses, regardless of how focused they may be.”

“A big hole?”

Higaki’s strategy of putting all her strength into defense.

The hermit magus lacking hermit magic.

What kind of a hole did her strategy have?

“If that’s the case, tell me what I gotta do─I know I didn’t lose exactly, but it feels like I lost and it’s getting me down. The way she says and does things is so aggravating29─I gotta get back at her, or I’ll never settle down.”

“Come on…use your head a little. Basically, she─”

Togame stopped midsentence─stopped moving entirely.

She had been about to tell him something, but now her lips were sealed.

She only narrowed her eyes─until finally.

“Right,” she said. “Right…that’s what it is. Or rather, what it means…”

“Huh?”

Togame’s mutterings made Shichika nervous─but she did not pay him any mind.

She picked up the trowel and stabbed it in the earth.

“Ugh─I can’t stand her personality.”

Still only fifty feet deep.

Or fifty feet shallow.

But then─the tip of her trowel dinged30 against something that could not be dirt.

“To-Togame?”

“Basically…” Togame smiled bitterly and spoke in an acid tone. “We’ve been tricked.”

After waiting an entire twenty-four hours, Togame the Schemer paid a visit to the so-called hermit magus, Rinne Higaki, owner of Seito the Garland.

As usual, or as to be expected, Higaki was perched atop her little boulder─though for whatever reason, she was blowing on a reed.1

Toot, toot.

When Higaki noticed Togame approaching, she stopped playing.

And tossed the reed into the wind.

“Hey there.” Higaki smiled broadly at Togame. “If it isn’t Togame─the Schemer. What happened to that hole that you were digging so devotedly?”

“Hah.”

Refusing to be the butt of Higaki’s joke─Togame snorted and sat down cross-legged on the ground in front of the boulder.

At this point, no use worrying about her clothes getting dirty.

Having a wardrobe vast as hers, Togame was able to change into fresh clothes every day, so her current outfit was unsoiled as of yet─but over the past four days of her “excavation project,” she had grown considerably comfortable in the dirt.

“What happened to Yasuri? I don’t see him anywhere─there’s no place for a lug like him to hide in all of Hyakkeijo. Unless you buried him inside your hole?”

“I sent him to buy foodstuffs for us at the nearest village─though even Shichika probably realized I was just keeping him busy.”

With that.

Togame drew a certain something from her kimono.

A certain something.

First the hilt of a katana.

The hilt. And then the handguard.

And then─but that was it.

“Seito the Garland─I presume?” said Togame.

“Why ask me─when you can have Shichika use his sixth sense? You don’t need me to tell you what it is.”

Though after saying this─Higaki confirmed, “Yeah, that’s it.”

A swordless sword─only a hilt and handguard.

“Though you uncovered it much faster than expected─you could have dug for your whole life and never found the thing, Togame.”

“Hah. What was that about a hundred feet? Where the hell did that random number come from? It was only buried half as deep as that.”

“You expect me to remember that after three hundred years? So I was fifty feet off. Call it random, but I call that the margin of error.”

Higaki was feigning ignorance.

“Besides, if you had done things differently, Togame, you would never have found Seito the Garland─not a hundred feet down or even a thousand.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You realized something, didn’t you? If you had never had that realization─I doubt you would have found the Garland a mere fifty feet below the surface. On the other hand, if you had realized it immediately, you would have found it the instant your trowel sank into the earth.”

“Well. You sure have a way of making flights of fancy2 sound matter-of-fact─I bet you merely calculated3 how long it would take for me to suss out your game and buried Seito the Garland accordingly.”

“A reasonable assumption─but if that were the case, Togame, and you continued your excavation hellbent on antagonism─would you have had the mental space to realize that a sword like this, only a hilt and handguard, could be one of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki?”

“I doubt it,” Togame admitted begrudgingly. “But that’s where Shichika’s sixth sense comes into play.”

“This sixth sense of his allows him to be sure of what is not a Mutant Blade, but it does not allow him to be sure of whether something is─did he not say he was unsure of Zetto the Leveler being so?”

“That stupid boy4─of course he had to let that slip.”

“Don’t say such things. He is a fine young man─at least in my opinion,” Higuchi said nonchalantly. “As you are well aware, I am a manifestation of your failings and his combined. His failings are manifest almost exclusively in my exterior appearance, while on the inside, by which I mean my personality or constitution, I mostly comprise your failings, Togame─and what do you suppose that all this means in practice?”

“…”

“Because of his upbringing, you might assume Shichika to have had a harder time dealing with his father than his sister─but that has not been his experience. Perhaps he’s simple, or perhaps he’s just an imbecile─but he is not what you call maladjusted.”

“High praise.”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t say this to his face. I’m too much of a contrarian5 for that─how else would I have made it as a hermit?”

Higaki laughed out loud. Keheheheh.

“In that sense, you’re something of a hermit in your own right, my dear Togame. You’re a bit more contrary than most─you’ve accused me of being calculating, but how could I have begun to guess when you would find Seito the Garland?”

“You bogged us down with all those riddles, incapacitating Shichika. I’d say you had a guess, alright. But now I understand,” Togame said, wielding the Garland─only a hilt and handguard, a sword without a blade. “Seito the Garland─encourages an analysis6 of the self.7 It slashes self-perceptions─testing the identity, enabling self-awareness. Hence why it has no blade─making it a swordless sword.”

“Precisely,”8 certified Higaki, with an exaggerated show of applause.

“It makes sense, thinking it over─storing a Mutant Blade under the ground is hardly what I’d call safekeeping, but if there’s no blade to keep safe, there’s no issue.”

“I find your way of working backwards9 disagreeable─though I suppose that’s just the way you are.”

“There’s that detestable personality,” Togame said, practically spitting out the words. “You sound exactly like10 him.”

“Like him? Oh, you mean my personality─as you are well aware, these failings you see in me are not the result of my reading your mind. Make no mistake─you’re seeing me this way entirely of your own accord. Understand? I have no clue who you mean by him. Would you mind clueing me in?”

“…”

“Relax. I’m a hermit magus. My lips are sealed11─I promise not to tell the world about your failings.”

“…I mean my father,” Togame finally said, after much deliberation.12 “I won’t tell you his name or divulge any more particulars─but to me, you sound exactly like him.”

“Is that right? Sounds like a bad dad.”

Though in a sense referring to herself, Higaki made it sound like someone else entirely.

Of course, this wasn’t actually about her.

Though even this─reminded Togame of him.

Togame’s father.

The Kaoyaku of Oshu, Takahito Hida.

A sore spot for Togame.

A great failing indeed.

And this failing─is what made Togame see Higaki in this manner.

“Well, is this father of yours alive? Judging by how robustly his personality has manifested, I gather he’s alive and kicking… Is your relationship antagonistic?”

“He’s dead, but he has never been an enemy of mine, in life or death,” replied Togame. “I might even go so far as to say that my father is my reason for living─certainly the reason for conducting my Sword Hunt for the Shikizaki blades. Antagonistic? Hardly.”

“He is, however, a failing of yours,” Higaki noted lightheartedly. “Isn’t that right? Admitting this─is the only reason you discovered Seito the Garland, and why you’re finally showing yourself to me, after being so evasive. No one forced you to come report back to me about your big discovery.”

“Time to face my failings, huh.” It was as if Togame were ignoring what Higaki said─and at the same time, confronting her message head-on. “You make it sound so easy─but that sort of thing is deceptively13 complex─even once you stop averting or closing your eyes.”

“You got it!” said Higaki. “I’m glad you figured things out before your muscles got too sore.”

“Sore? I’m sore all over. My muscles are ready to snap.” Togame waggled her arms to underscore her point. “Though I must say, facing you like this has made me realize a variety of things. If only in that sense, I must admit I’m grateful.”

“So, what did you realize? You seem to have forgotten some very important things.”

“Well, for one thing─my father’s last words to me.”

She remembered how Takahito Hida looked in his last moments.

Vividly remembered watching Mutsue Yasuri take his life─and yet.

Togame had forgotten.

The last words of Takahito Hida.

Even forgetting─she had forgotten them.

“Since the memory was a total mess, it took quite a bit of time to sort things out, even for a thinker such as myself.”

“There’s one thing that sort of puzzled me,”14 Higaki said, as if the thought was no more than a passing fancy. “Why didn’t you sic Yasuri on me after our first fight? Knowing you─I’m sure you instantly thought up some clever way to have him beat me.”

“On a scale from one to ten, where Shichika’s strength is at the top, you’re seven─but Shichika divided his strength equally, between offense and defense. Then you devoted all your strength to defense─which makes it seven to five in your favor, right?”

Togame spoke calmly, breaking it down.

“That makes it simple. If you devote all your strength to defense, Shichika has no reason to defend himself─whereby he may as well focus entirely on offense. That makes it ten to seven, in his favor─does it not?”

“You got it.” Higaki nodded magnanimously,15 pleased with her response. “I’m not so sure that I would call it simple, but Yasuri could have worked it out if you had told him what to do. But you didn’t. Why is that? It would have been a great way of letting him blow off steam.”

“Because I realized there was another way of seeing things.”

Realized.

She had made a realization.

“If Shichika devoted all his strength─all ten points to defense, what then? There wouldn’t be a battle at all, much less a winner. Therefore─”

Togame glanced at Seito the Garland.

But since it lacked a blade─her eyes had nothing to catch.

“By foregoing offensive tactics, we were able to achieve our objective, without actually having to win the fight─case closed.”

“Go on,” Higaki urged her.

Togame nodded.

“Infuriating as it may be, it is exactly as you say─if I had failed to make this realization, and I had happened upon this hilt and handguard, I never would have thought it was a sword. At best I would have seen it as an artifact, discarded in an execution site─and tossed it aside with all the other trash that I uncovered in the dig. I doubt I would have thought to ask for Shichika to appraise it. I thought it was the blade that makes the sword─necessitating the likes of superior steel that never bends or breaks or loses its edge. I’m not about to toss that idea aside─but I’ve realized there’s another way of seeing things.

“The hilt and the handguard are without question part of a katana. In the absence of a blade, this sword needs not a scabbard to protect it─which means to carry it, you simply hold it tight, like this─a hilt and handguard, all you need to face yourself, with firm conviction. Isn’t that so?”

“Splendid. Precisely!” Higaki said. “Perhaps my hints gave it away.”

She was probably right.

Yet this, too─reflected the personality of her father.

The personality of Takahito Hida.

He always said─one word too many.

Not to his detriment─but to his profit.

She remembered.

“Clever girl, my dear Togame.”

“It’s unbelievably annoying to be talked down to like that, when you appear to be a child. But whatever─listen Higaki. In recognition16 of my cleverness, how about answering a question from me?”

“Sure. Ask me as many as you want.”

“You mentioned receiving Seito the Garland directly from Kiki Shikizaki─in that case, when the Old Shogun arrived with an army17 to wrest this sword from you, how did you fend him off? Where were you during the Age of Warring States?”

“On the battlefield─trekking my way from one realm to the next. Though hermit magus I may be, I cannot afford to be aloof in times of war. I performed the daring feat of fighting without doing anything at all─wielding Seito the Garland, I checked a good many adversaries along the way. By checked, of course, I mean suppressed.”

“…”

“Fending off the Old Shogun was a cinch. The larger the army, the more diverse its pool of failings─which made it easy to make short change18 of his troops.”

“Perhaps this behavior explains why Kiki Shikizaki entrusted you with this Mutant Blade. Or was it the sword that chose its owner…”

A sword does not choose who to kill.

But a sword will choose its owner.

Besides─the Garland had no blade to kill with.

“Since you said to ask as many as I wanted, here’s another. What kind of man was Kiki Shikizaki? I seem to remember you calling him your friend.”

The legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki.

The swordsmith who effectively reigned over the Age of Warring States.

And yet─his life story19 was shrouded in mystery.

“Yeah. How can I put this. He was a negative guy.”

“Negative?”

This word gave Togame pause─catching her attention.

You could say it rang a bell.

“Although I did call him a friend, that was forever ago─I’ve forgotten a great deal. What I can say is that through me, he perceived an abyss, or perhaps something abysmal?20 Not the sort of thing you usually call a failing. That man─he had one of the oddest failings you’ll ever see. And in the end, he never faced it, simply rejected it and slipped away. Averting and closing his eyes, he forced me to accept Seito the Garland. As unwelcome a present as it gets,” Higaki said. “I tried my best to find someone I could pass it off to, but I was unable to locate an unassuming victim─and since I’m not trying to poison myself carrying that thing around, I buried it in the ground.”

“Did you bury it recently?”

“What?” asked Higaki. “No, just after the wars. This time, my dear Togame, I’m afraid that you’re mistaken. I buried it immediately after the wars ended. Then a castle was built on top of it, and when the castle burned this place became Hyakkeijo─times change, huh.”

“…”

Incredible.

One of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki─had been buried under Hida Castle.

Hence what made─Takahito Hida realize.

That history was wrong.21

Taking a moment to herself, Togame put it all together.

Reconciling22 her long-forgotten memories─with this new information.

In the end.

This is why her father─took aim23 on the Owari Bakufu.

Sacrificing so much.

Risking the lives of all his family and his comrades.

Taking aim─for the sake of history.

“Well, all matters of venom aside, by the time that he made this one here─”

Higaki pointed at Seito the Garland, which Togame was still holding.

“Kiki Shikizaki was pretty close to perfecting his vision of the Mutant Blades.”

“Perfecting? That’s an odd way of putting it, when the Twelve Possessed are said to be his masterpieces.”

“Wait. Don’t you know, Togame?”

Higaki cocked her head.

Her tone unchanged, dispassionate as ever.

Light─unemphatic.

“Togame─have you honestly been dragging around Yasuri without knowing what he is? I suppose you’re also unaware of why your sword is blessed with this ability to appraise the other Mutant Blades.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“At this rate, I should be asking you. It comes as a complete surprise that you know absolutely nothing of the sword that Shikizaki made after the test run24 we call the Twelve Possessed. The last sword that he ever made. His magnum opus25─Kyoto the Diamond.”

“Sh-Shichika?”

“Not Yasuri─so much as the entire Kyotoryu.”

The hermit’s words reminded Togame of something she had heard in the fourth moon of the year.

The words of the Sword Saint, Hakuhei Sabi.

Sabi called the Kyotoryu─a memento left by Kiki Shikizaki.

The Kiki Pedigree.

Whereas Sabi had called himself a reject.

At the time, Togame had been totally confused─but Sabi had assured her that the spirit26 of his choice of words would become clear as she continued with her Sword Hunt.

In which case.

Perhaps this was the moment of clarity─!

“A matter of bloodlines as well as bloodshed.27 But really─I must say I’m impressed that you could make it this far without knowing. Since you came armed with the Diamond, I assumed you were qualified to do so, but it seems that I was jumping to conclusions. Which led me to assume you could relieve me of the Garland…although I guess I was a bit confused. Whoa, what a rocky ride…but no harm done. Things worked out in the end.”

“Now that you mention it, Kiki Shikizaki and Kazune Yasuri, the founder of the Kyotoryu─were contemporaries.”

Both of whom had lorded over28 the Age of Warring States.

In which case─perhaps the two of them had some kind of a connection. But did that mean that Kiki Shikizaki─played a role in the creation of the Kyotoryu?

The magnum opus─Kyoto the Diamond!

“Which is why─which is precisely why it has no blade,” Togame said.

“Seito the Garland was one of the last swords Shikizaki ever made─so I guess it makes sense…but my dear Togame, after making it this far without knowing, I doubt this information will change anything for you.”

“…”

Higaki was right.

Nothing was going to change─knowing the truth about Shichika and the origins of the Kyotoryu made no difference whatsoever.

Togame’s Sword Hunt was no more than a device.29

No more than a means to an end.

A convenient means─for taking down her father’s foes.

However.

It was this Kyoto the Diamond who took the head of Takahito Hida; and this stubborn fact─

Could prompt an inexorable change in Togame.

Though it was too soon to understand in what manner.

“So, Seito the Garland…” Togame brought their conversation to a close─and stood. “Thank you kindly for allowing us to take it.”

“I’ve done nothing to deserve your thanks─if there’s anyone you should be thanking, it’s yourself.”

“Hah─listen to you. Shichika will be returning any minute─I should be going. I didn’t have time to fill the hole in. Hope that’s alright.”

“It’s fine, but why didn’t you fill it?”

“Because I didn’t have the time.”

“Oh really. I thought you might be planning to use it as your grave. I was worried you might ask me to bury you there when you die.”

“Thanks for the lesson.”

Togame stashed Seito the Garland in her kimono and turned away from Higaki, so that the hermit magus could not see her face when she continued.

“Thanks to you, I learned about a whole new kind of strategy. This lesson has broadened the scope of my scheming abilities immensely. The fact your battle was a draw has probably left Shichika a bit unsatisfied─but sometimes we must step over our frustrations, if it means reaching our goals.”

“Precisely─wrong, at least this time,” Higaki said indifferently. “Sometimes we must throw away our goals as well. That’s the lesson that you ought to learn from all of this. Aspiration, ambition, vengeance─all of these are disposable, in the name of the true goal.”

“On that front, I have to disagree.”

Togame spoke without turning to face the hermit.

“I have abandoned everything except my goal─the goal I could never forsake.”

“I see that overcoming your failings has made you no less obstinate. Oh well─since that’s your nature, keep at it. There’s just one thing.”

Here, at the very end.

Rinne Higaki─had one more question for Togame the Schemer.

“What were your father’s last words?”

“Hah. What else?” Togame said without turning around. “What any father would tell his daughter─especially a daughter as lovable as me. It goes without saying, really.”

“Come on, spit it out.”

“I love you so much.”

Togame said it quietly.

“And here I am…thinking of him as my greatest failing.”

On her face, which the hermit could not see, was a faint, if also sad─

Smile.

Shichika emerged from his main fights along the way as follows.

Fight One, versus Komori Maniwa.

Victorious─winning move: Shichika Hachiretsu.

Fight Two, versus Ginkaku Uneri.

Victorious─winning move: Rakka Rozeki.

Fight Three, versus Meisai Tsuruga.

Victorious─winning move: Kyoka Suigetsu.

Fight Four, versus Hakuhei Sabi.

Victorious─winning move: Hyakka Ryoran.

Fight Five, versus Kanara Azekura.

Victorious─per referee.

Fight Six, versus Konayuki Itezora.

Defeated─per referee.

Fight Seven, versus Kyoken Maniwa.

Victorious─winning move: Hika Rakuyo.

Fight Eight, versus Nanami Yasuri.

Defeated─winning move: Hinageshi into Jinchoge.

Fight Nine, versus Nanami Yasuri.

Victorious─winning move: Tampopo.

Fight Ten, versus Skytron.

Victorious─per referee.

Fight Eleven, versus Zanki Kiguchi.

Defeated─winning move: hit to the wrist.

Fight Twelve, versus Zanki Kiguchi.

Victorious─winning move: hit to the face.

Fight Thirteen, versus Zanki Kiguchi.

Victorious─winning move: Hyakka Ryoran.

Fight Fourteen, versus Zanki Kiguchi.

Victorious─opponent surrendered.

Fight Fifteen, versus Rinne Higaki.

Draw─no winner.

In summary:

Fifteen fights, eleven wins, three defeats, one draw─

On the road home from Hyakkeijo─

Around the time they reached the border between Mutsu and Dewa, Shichika finally wrapped his head around the explanation that Togame the Schemer had given him. He looked up at the sky and muttered.

“That means the thousand Mutant Blades, including the Twelve Possessed that the Old Shogun failed to capture, were only practice for making me, his final sword and magnum opus─I hear what you’re saying, but I gotta admit it doesn’t really click for me.”

“Strictly speaking, his magnum opus isn’t you per se, but the entire Kyotoryu─whereby the founder of your school, Kazune Yasuri, as well as your father, Mutsue Yasuri…and even Nanami Yasuri, though she be something of an exception, collectively form Kyoto the Diamond.”

“I wonder─I have a weird feeling about this. Besides, this is all according to that pesky kid Rinne Higaki, right? What if it’s just a stupid lie and she’s just messing with your head?”

“You’re right about her being pesky─she’s a pain alright, always saying the most random things. That said, my father was never one to lie simply to be annoying.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. When he wanted to be annoying, he told the truth.”

Togame and Shichika continued down the highway, side by side.

Their hope was to return again to Owari.

“I dunno, Togame, I still have this funny feeling. I appreciate the explanation for why I have a sixth sense for the Mutant Blades. That clicks for me,1 but so what? Who cares, right?”

“It must be nice to be happy-go-lucky─but don’t forget to hurt a little. Though perhaps you’re fine as you are…”

“What if this thing where I, and no one in the Kyotoryu, can swing a sword to save our life is all because we’re cursed by Kiki Shikizaki? Or in the words of Sabi, bound to him… Well, Togame? What next? If we head back to Owari, the Princess will probably just send us on our way again.”

“In that case, I’ll stop and hatch a scheme. That is, if Princess Negative gives us an indication2 of the whereabouts of the last two Shikizaki blades.”

“Hmm. Last two, huh.”

Two swords remained.

Dokuto the Basilisk. Ento the Bead.

At present, neither Togame the Schemer nor Shichika Yasuri had the foggiest idea of where the two swords were, or who it was that owned them─

“Does that mean you’ve almost realized your ambition?”

“Hard to say. That hermit magus might try teaching me another lesson if we start talking about ambition or goals again.”

Rinne Higaki.

When Shichika returned, the girl had disappeared.

Literally3─without a trace.

Perhaps this meant his failings, as well as Togame’s, had gone with her.

“Another thing, Shichika…about the sword we shipped back to Owari from our last inn, Seito the Garland. While I found the concept of a swordless sword, comprising but a hilt and handguard, captivating on its own, it reminded me a little of our experience with the Cured… Don’t you think it was a little bit too easy to capture?”

“Nah, it just means that hermit wanted us to have the Garland, right?”

“Perhaps you’re right. However─since holding the sword makes you want to kill, but all the venom is directed back at you, its function as a sword is topsy-turvy.”4

“If holding it makes you want to cut yourself…maybe that’s why it has no blade. I’m starting to see why that hermit kept it buried underground…and what was up with that woman─I mean, was she even a woman? That’s just how she appeared to you and me.”

“Hmm. As a hermit magus, perhaps she has transcended5 gender─whoever she was, she’s certainly not someone I’d like to see again. But enough about Higaki, our focus now is Kiki Shikizaki. What drove the legendary swordsmith to create the Mutant Blades, the Twelve Possessed, and then finally his magnum opus? What was the Old Shogun’s actual motive for trying to hunt down all the Mutant Blades…and what caused him to fail? Last month, I touched upon these questions with you, but I think it’s about time that I thought long and hard about these things.”

“That sounds like a lot to think about. Why not hold off until we’ve rounded up the last two of the Twelve Possessed?”

“Out of the question─we need to beat them to the punch before they even make a fist. It’s best to finish counting your chickens as far ahead of them hatching as possible.”

“Hmm.”

Kiki Shikizaki.

The Old Shogun.

Princess Negative and Emonzaemon Soda.

And of course the Maniwa…

There were a lot of things to think about.

Thinking about these things was up to Togame, not Shichika, but then, from a different perspective, he could not exactly separate himself from everything.

Namely.

Rounding up the last two swords─meant that his journey with Togame would be ending.

This trip that felt like it would last forever─was almost done.

More than the origins of the Kyotoryu or anything else.

This fact occupied his thoughts.

Once the journey was over─what would Togame do with him?

What would become of Shichika Yasuri─the son of her father’s immediate adversary?

“Although,” said Togame, “I’ll have to do some thinking about the Basilisk and the Bead as well. I have absolutely no idea what kind of sword the Bead might be…but I’m not without a sense of what to expect from the Basilisk. Judging by the name,6 I suspect it is the polar opposite of Oto the Cured, which has the power to detoxify.”

“What’s the use in spending your time guessing? That’s what got me into such deep trouble when we were going after the Twin─but the polar opposite of Oto the Cured, huh?”

Shichika realized they were now entering Dewa.

“Since we’re already here, how about swinging by Shogi Village on the way home?”

“Why?” asked Togame.

Her face not so much serious─as expressionless.

The menace in her eyes made Shichika falter.7

“What reason would we have to stop? So you could see Zanki Kiguchi? Eh?”

“‘Eh’?”

“Cheerio!”

She slugged him in the gut.

If he had flexed his abs, Togame would have hurt her fist, so Shichika took the full brunt of her attack, which packed much more of a punch than he anticipated─her excavation project must have toned her skinny arms.

Unnecessarily…

“Incredible. I can understand Konayuki, with her monstrous strength, and Nanami, staggering genius that she is, but I find it seriously unsettling that you would count Kiguchi as a weakness, when all she did to beat you was follow the rules.”

“Your jealousy is out of control.”

“Another thing─Higaki mentioned this as well. I get why you would see your sister as a failing, but it comes as something of a surprise that you wouldn’t feel the same way toward Mutsue Yasuri. To be honest, I figured you, like me, felt inferior8 to your father.”

“Hmm. Not so much for me. Actually, I’m kind of surprised about how hung up you are about your father. Since you’re plotting to avenge his death and all, I would have thought you’d be bursting with love9 for him.”

“Nothing strange about a little family feud.10 Not in my family─and not in yours. The tribe of Kyoto the Diamond… Nanami touched upon this, didn’t she─maybe she knew something?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you don’t. If you did know, this story would have been a whole lot shorter… Anyway, we’re not stopping at Shogi Village. We need to hurry back to Owari.”

“Aren’t you being a little obstinate?”

“Not in my book.”

On that Togame was firm.

But she had more to say.

“And another thing─I may as well divulge the reason why my father started the Rebellion in the first place.”

“Reason? Wasn’t it just that the Owari Bakufu was too sleepy11 for him? That’s why he harbored his ambitions to unify the land─”

“Right, that too─but it was mostly about history.”

“History?”

“Yeah. Now I remember what he said to me. This is about history. Fixing a history that is all wrong─or exposing it as being wrong. My father said those things to me─but I was just a little girl. I failed to fully comprehend the meaning of his words, and have no choice but to fill the blanks myself. But in light of the fact that one of the Twelve Possessed was buried beneath Hida Castle─”

Then.

As she uttered these words─both of them stopped.

The passion of the conversation was not to blame.

Shichika and Togame were accustomed to talking as they walked─so why stop?

Because something was blocking the way.

Before their eyes─a child lay facedown in the road.

“Hey. You alive?” called out Shichika, dashing over to the child─Togame, though not quite dashing over, didn’t miss a beat either.

They turned the child over, so that he faced the sky.

It was a boy, not even ten years old.

“He’s alive─or seems to be. Oh, wait─he’s hurt.”

Saying the boy was hurt─was a gross understatement.

His chest had been slashed open and was oozing blood.

Without question─his wound was from a sword.12

“Don’t shake him. Just set him gently on the ground. Careful with his wounds,” Togame warned Shichika before he could try anything.

Not so very long ago, shake was exactly what he’d done to her.

“Okay.”

Shichika did as he was told. Over his shoulder, Togame gazed at the boy.

“Huh? He’s─”

“Hel─”

It seemed the boy was conscious, however barely. From the size of the gash, Shichika had taken it for granted he had passed out─

“H-Help… Help.”

The boy could barely form a sentence.

He spoke in a faint voice, without looking at Shichika.

“Help…please help.”

“Shh, I understand. Stop talking. Here, drink some water─it looks like you’ve stopped bleeding…but we should probably disinfect13 it.”

“N-No… T-Too late for me. Too late.”

Sleeveless ninja garb.

Those peculiar chains encircling his body.

The boy.

Pengin Maniwa─pleaded to Shichika.

“Hurry─please help Hohoh.”

Their fraught relationship, at times friendly, at others hostile─was nearing its conclusion.

This marks the close of the tenth book of the epic novel Sword Tale. Now that Book Ten is complete, I can just barely see the finish line ahead of me, but the homestretch won’t be easy, so I’ll have to keep chugging along and hoping for the best. The fact that Togame the Schemer and Shichika Yasuri have only two more months together on their Sword Hunt makes me want to give it all I’ve got. What’s going to happen to them now? I almost want to finish things with Book Eleven and fill Book Twelve exclusively with take’s awesome illustrations, but regardless of what happens, that’s all I have for Sword Tale─Book Ten: Seito the Garland.

Two books left!

When the land was in chaos, during the Age of Warring States.

Long, long ago.

In a place called Tango.

Deep in the mountains, a far cry from the Capital, a young warrior stood all alone, swinging a sword with total focus.1

Fit and muscular.

His sword, too, had the gleam of a fine piece.

The young warrior was silent, swinging his blade again and again─if you looked closely, it appeared that he was trying to slash the leaves as they fell from the trees around him. A worthy effort if there ever was one─however, the warrior was unable to successfully cut through even a single leaf.

The word practice is far too gentle to suffice.

Same goes for the word training.

This was different─this was religious.2

In this chaotic era, when there was always a battle being waged somewhere in the world─the warrior had chosen to retreat into solitude, so he could focus exclusively on honing his own skills, deep in the mountains where no one could distract him.

Call it discipline─or call it irresponsible.

“So rudimentary.”3

In these mountains where no one could distract him─a man approached the warrior.

Out of nowhere.

Suddenly behind him, the man casually addressed the warrior, as if they had known one another for a dozen years.

“This is child’s play─it’s a wonder you can even swing a sword.”

“…”

The warrior did not turn around.

And just continued swinging his sword, as if he had not heard or noticed him.

When the warrior did not turn, the man did not appear concerned.

“Let’s put it this way,” he continued. “You’re a tenderfoot4─when it comes to swordplay. I’ll go ahead and say you have no talent whatsoever. You have no aptitude; your form is awful…and worst of all, I don’t think you have the guts5 to kill.”

“…”

The warrior would not turn around.

“You could cut through thousands upon thousands of those leaves, but it would never make you any stronger─if you want to make any progress as a swordsman, you’ll need to start by cutting people down. The sword is a weapon. Meant to kill. Which is why a swordsman must kill at least three hundred─before he even calls himself a novice.6 And here you are,” the man said, “unable to cut a single leaf.”

The warrior registered no reaction.

By now the man was getting fed up.7

“When I heard there was a promising young warrior hiding in the mountains, devoted day and night to honing his abilities, I trekked far afield from the Capital, despite my busy schedule─and what do I find but a runt like you─ugh. I must be losing my edge8─ramping things up from my masterworks to my magnum opus has got me acting hastily, out of character.”

“Masterworks? Magnum Opus?”

When the man stiffly9 scratched his head and twisted his torso─the warrior stopped swinging his sword and turned around, as if the man had finally caught his interest.

Who was this guy?

Dressed in light clothes hardly fit for a hike deep into the mountains, he carried almost nothing on his person.

The warrior glanced down at his sword.

He knew not why this man was here─if he could be trusted, he was simply here to visit him─but if they came to blows, the warrior was the one armed with a sword, which gave him the advantage.

Thus was his judgment of the circumstances.

And as if reading the young warrior’s mind─

“Give up, tenderfoot.”

The man told him who was boss.

“Every sword across the land is on my side─nay, every sword across the land is working under me. Your pitiful ineptitude aside, that sword would never lay a scratch on me.”

“What’s this about your masterworks and magnum opus?” the warrior asked, ignoring the man’s comment.

Glaring at the man.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like─what part don’t you understand? I guess for a novice such as yourself, my masterworks are way out of your league, not to mention my magnum opus.”

“I’m well aware that my swordplay has a long way to go,” the warrior said. “That’s why I’m out here, training like crazy.”

“Like crazy? While I commend your dedication─you better hurry, tenderfoot. Pretty soon─the wars will pass you by.”

“Huh?”

“Not like you would have a clue, shut off from the world out in these mountains─but the conditions10 out there have changed considerably from what you used to know.”

“Who cares about conditions.”

“Excuse me?”

“My only interest is honing my abilities─taking my study of swordplay to the extreme. Whether this be an age of war or peace has no influence on my path.”

“Hahaha.”

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, though I must say your dedication truly is commendable─and on top of that, I’m quite taken by your disinterest in the happenings of the world. I almost thought I was wasting my time…but I guess this means you pass the test, however barely,” said the man. “To be honest, I have no interest in the world myself─if anything, I prefer to dabble in a little thing called history, in the broad scheme of which the things that we refer to as society or the world are merely a façade,11 strictly the surface.”

“History? Huh?”

The warrior frowned.

“What the heck─I’ve barely understood a word you’ve said since you arrived. You some kind of megalomaniac12 or what?”

“That accusation is not entirely mistaken─to most people out there, I suppose I am. Which is precisely why I must keep up the fight─though things are sure to go wrong soon enough. Blame a lack of access to materials─but nothing I can do about that.”

“Materials?”

“That’s right. Without materials, how’s a guy supposed to make his swords? Now, where was I? I’d say you passed, though barely squeaking by. Or wait, you wanted to know what I meant about my masterworks and magnum opus?”

“Not necessarily.”

The warrior shook his head, as if developing a distaste for the man’s elusive manner of speaking, which grew more puzzling the more they spoke. Perhaps he was regretting he had ever turned around.

“At this point, I could care less─would you please let me be? I have a lot of things I gotta do. I haven’t crossed off13 half of my program for the day.”

“By program, are you referring to your ineffectual training regimen? It’s like I told you, tenderfoot─if you want to progress as a swordsman, you need to start by cutting people down.”

“Kill at least three hundred─before I call myself a novice?” the warrior asked the man, who seemed ready to repeat himself. “You make it sound like you’re a role model14… If I want to be a model of a man, how many do I have to kill?”

“Hard to say. These days, I’m not sure we have any model swordsmen to point to…just a bunch of third-rate chumps who can’t handle the swords I make.”

“The swords─you make?”

“Huh? Didn’t I just say that?” the man asked.

Grandiloquent in tone.

“I’m not a swordsman─I’m a swordsmith.”

“S-Swordsmith?”

“I used to be a fortuneteller,15 but it stopped paying the bills─enough about me, though. Let’s talk about you, tenderfoot. I’m going to see to it that your painful efforts come to fruition.16 That said, it’s up to you whether your roots take hold,17 Kazune Yasuri─”

This was a few centuries ago.

When the land was in chaos, during the Age of Warring States.

Long, long ago.

Thus was the advent of the relationship between Kazune Yasuri, who would go on to establish the Kyotoryu─and Kiki Shikizaki, who at this point was already a living legend.

And Shichika Yasuri put it into practice.

Their quest for the Twelve Possessed of legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki─the Sword Hunt launched at the beginning of the year, is passing through its latter stages, fast approaching denouement.18

Zetto the Leveler, check! Zanto the Razor, check! Sento the Legion, check!

Hakuto the Whisper, check! Zokuto the Armor, check! Soto the Twin, check!

Akuto the Eel, check! Bito the Sundial, check! Oto the Cured, check!

Seito the Garland, check!

Among the Twelve Possessed─two remain!

Dokuto the Basilisk!

Ento the Bead!

This late in the game, no need for declarations or fanfare!

Let’s unroll the scroll of this war of katanas!

This sanguinary, slipshod period piece!

Book Eleven of the Sword Tale ♪

Shichika Yasuri, Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu.

Turning twenty-four this year.

Yet of his twenty-four years, he remembered little of the first four─not like he was unable to recall, not like he had forgotten; he had simply not retained the details.

For Shichika, life began on a certain desert island, nominally part of Tango.

Around twenty years earlier─when his father, Mutsue Yasuri, Sixth Master of the Kyotoryu, found himself banished to the place that they would later call Haphazard Island, Shichika and his older sister, Nanami Yasuri, were dragged along.

That was the day his life began.

The precepts of the Kyotoryu─and battle.

On rainy days and windy days and snowy days and stormy days─these things were hammered into him, through personal instruction from his father.

The Kyotoryu.

The swordless school of swordplay, forsaking every type of blade.

A discipline1 in which the body is treated like a sword and honed to a keen edge─in the confines of that desert island, Shichika was raised to be the Seventh Master.

The late Rebellion.

Spurred by Takahito Hida, Kaoyaku of Oshu, this was essentially the only battle to take place during this age of peace and order─the conflict quelled by his late father, once dubbed a hero of the war, by whom Shichika was trained morning, noon, and night.

Training so much he had no time to think of anything else.

As a result, even in the years following those first four, where his memory began, it was as if his life as such was nil.2

Training, training, and more training.

None of the things which normally make up a life.

Special mention should be made here of the genius on the sidelines of this lifestyle that was not what most would call a life─for Shichika had a sister, three years older, named Nanami Yasuri, who was a monster of a genius, or perhaps a genius of a monster, and whose constant presence must have impacted his personality immensely.

If Shichika was made of effort, then Nanami was made of genius.

The Hero of the Rebellion, Mutsue Yasuri, feared her genius so much that he chose Shichika, not Nanami, to be the Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu─and when Shichika came to realize this had happened, his heart of hearts was anything but serene.

Yet the difference in skill between Nanami and Shichika was beyond absolute.

This way of life lasted for nineteen years.

Continuing for nineteen years─uneventfully and dependably.3

Shichika Yasuri, Mutsue Yasuri, and Nanami Yasuri all adapted to this lifestyle, as if it were perfectly natural─for Shichika, being coached by his father came more naturally than breathing; while for Mutsue, coaching his son came more naturally than breathing; and for Nanami, secretly watching the both of them came more naturally than breathing─all three of them, the hero and the next master and the genius, took for granted that this lifestyle would go on for another nineteen years, and another nineteen after that, ad infinitum. But just then.4

Something happened.

Mutsue Yasuri realized that Nanami Yasuri’s genius, or genius capacity, was developing even further─although he only realized due to Shichika’s lack of discretion.

Nanami made no effort to hide her genius from her hard-working younger brother─one might call this an uncharacteristic indiscretion on her part as well, though she was caught totally unawares. Why would she expect her genius to be sufficient reason─for her father to attempt to murder5 his own daughter?

One night.

When Nanami was fast asleep, Mutsue tried to strangle her to death, without relying on the Kyotoryu─and when Shichika realized what was happening, he killed his father to save Nanami.

It was a fight between the Kyotoryu.

His genius sister made no attempt to intervene6─watching the two of them battle in the same manner she had always watched them practice.

Simply watching.

Though lauded as Hero of the Rebellion, at this point Mutsue was past his prime7─and by the age of twenty-three, Shichika Yasuri had already surpassed his father, both in brute force and in repertoire.

Hence─Shichika managed to kill Mutsue.

Thus, through this abnormal sequence of events, Mutsue Yasuri lost his life, and in the process Shichika succeeded him as Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu.

Their life as a family of three on that desert island became a life shared between siblings.

With the death of Mutsue Yasuri, the one who had been banished here a criminal, Shichika and Nanami had no reason to remain there on the island─but like their father, the two of them were resolved to live out their lives8 on Haphazard Island.

Especially Shichika─who chose to suffer the same fate as the Kyotoryu, and turn to rust.

For him, there was no other option.

Lacking the war record of his father or the genius of his sister─he had nothing but the Kyotoryu.

“Listen, Shichika.”

At some point or another, his sister Nanami gave it to him straight.

“To be perfectly honest, I think you’re a fool─to waste your time working so hard. I respect effort itself. You and Dad working so hard, like it was nothing, is something I instinctively9 admire. That’s why I can’t sit back and watch effort going to waste. It’s too much.”

Shichika talked back to her.

Defiant for a change.

“If I’m wasting my effort, aren’t you wasting your genius, sis?”

The turning point came one year later.

In the first moon10 of the following year.

Haphazard Island─so small it was not even listed on the map, enjoyed its first new visitor in quite some time.

Bedizened in two dozen layers of brash and brilliant finery.

White hair the likes of which they’d never seen, completely without pigment.11

Armed─with a sword.

The first real sword that Shichika, though swordsman he may be, had seen in all his life. In actuality, it was extremely rare for this woman to wear a sword─that was how frantic she was feeling; though at the time, Shichika had no way of knowing this.

The woman said that she had come to Haphazard Island seeking Mutsue.

When Shichika said his father was dead and introduced himself as the present master, the woman didn’t skip a beat.

“I see,” she said. “You have a nice build. You’re in good shape. I’d say you pass muster.”

She continued.

“My business remains with the master of your school. Which means, young master, that my business with your father is now with you─”

The woman introduced herself as Togame the Schemer. Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu─being her full title.

She came here on a sword hunt.

In plain terms, that was the business she referred to.

The legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki had effectively reigned over the Age of Warring States─and the swords that he created were called the Mutant Blades.

One thousand in total.

Among which the Owari Bakufu currently held nine hundred and eighty-eight.

Which left twelve Mutant Blades.

Yet these twelve swords were more than a handful.

Zetto the Leveler.

Zanto the Razor.

Sento the Legion.

Hakuto the Whisper.

Zokuto the Armor.

Soto the Twin.

Akuto the Eel.

Bito the Sundial.

Oto the Cured.

Seito the Garland.

Dokuto the Basilisk.

Ento the Bead.

These were the most sophisticated, refined, and masterfully designed of all the Mutant Blades produced by Kiki Shikizaki─twelve swords.

The Twelve Possessed, his masterworks.

The swords not even the first leader to unite the nation─the Old Shogun, as he is known today, had been able to collect, for all his might. The nine hundred and eighty-eight Mutant Blades currently held by the Owari Bakufu represented the total of what the Old Shogun managed to capture─but these last twelve evaded even him.

Togame the Schemer asked12 the Kyotoryu to round up these twelve swords for her.

To justify why she would launch this risky sword hunt now, amid these times of peace and order, with the late Rebellion only a faint memory─the Schemer offered a variety of reasons, but Shichika failed to grasp the logic of her explanation.

Or rather, the very concept of logic was beyond him─

He wasn’t really interested.

Brought up on that desert island, Shichika was a mellow guy.

Little of what the Schemer told him sank in13─or, rather, perhaps some of it sank in, but not enough to make him want to leave the island.

What got through to Shichika was not the words Togame the Schemer used─but her heart.

That was enough to make him leave the island.

The Kyotoryu, swept into a corner of history in this age of peace and order─was able to go back into the world.

The trajectory of their Sword Hunt for the Twelve Possessed was not without its unwelcome surprises─but they had managed to round up one sword after another.

In the first moon, Zetto the Leveler.

Wresting the hardest sword in all the world, Zetto the Leveler, from Komori Maniwa, one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa Ninja Clan, who had come to Haphazard Island seeking information on the Sword Hunt from Togame the Schemer.

In the second moon, Zanto the Razor.

Wresting the sharpest sword in all the world, Zanto the Razor, from Ginkaku Uneri, a master of iainuki, who was holed up in a room of Gekoku Castle, the only person who insisted on living in the harsh climate of Inaba Desert.

In the third moon, Sento the Legion.

Wresting the most myriad sword in all the world, Sento the Legion, from Meisai Tsuruga, Mistress of Triad Shrine in Izumo, who looked after the thousand Kuromiko and practiced the Sentoryu, in some ways the polar opposite of the Kyotoryu.

In the fourth moon, Hakuto the Whisper.

Wresting the frailest sword in all the world, Hakuto the Whisper, from Hakuhei Sabi, the Fallen Swordsman, who lost the cherished title Strongest Swordsman in Japan on Ganryu Island in Suo, a holy site where once a man bearing a greatsword and another bearing two fought what has since been called a holy battle.

In the fifth moon, Zokuto the Armor.

Winning a one-on-one match14 against Kanara Azekura, one of the pirates based out of Dakuon Harbor in Satsuma, from whom they wrested the toughest sword in all the world, Zokuto the Armor.

In the sixth moon, Soto the Twin.

Wresting the heaviest sword in all the world, Soto the Twin, from Konayuki Itezora─a girl of monstrous strength, and sole survivor of the Itezora Clan, who once populated the Level One Disaster Area of Mt. Odori in Ezo.

In the seventh moon, Akuto the Eel.

Wresting the wickedest sword in all the world, Akuto the Eel, from the genius Nanami Yasuri, who had left Haphazard Island in pursuit of Shichika and fell to him at Seiryoin Gokenji Temple in Tosa, one of the holy sites for swordsmen, alongside Ganryu Island, and shelter of the Katana Buddha, wielded as a pretext by the Old Shogun in his sword hunt.

In the eighth moon, Bito the Sundial.

Wresting the most humanoid sword in all the world, Bito the Sundial, from the mechanical sentry known as Skytron, who patrolled15 Lake Fuyo in Edo, a Level One Disaster Area like Mt. Odori in Ezo, thus capturing Skytron itself, for this owner of the Twelve Possessed was both robot and katana.

In the ninth moon, Oto the Cured.

Wresting the most innocuous sword in all the world, Oto the Cured, from Zanki Kiguchi, the embodiment of solemnity, and the Twelfth Master of the Heartland School, a discipline of swordplay intent on giving life that had been handed down for generations in Shogi Village─the holy land of shogi players─in Tendo, in Dewa.

In the tenth moon, Seito the Garland.

Wresting the sincerest sword in all the world from Rinne Higaki, a hermit magus and acquaintance of Kiki Shikizaki, in Mutsu, Oshu─at Hyakkeijo, the site of Hida Castle, where Takahito Hida, the Kaoyaku of Oshu, once resided with his family, and where almost everyone associated with him had been put to death.

Ten swords in total.

Though suffering vicissitudes─they had captured ten of the Twelve Possessed.

Accessing knowledge.

Accessing feelings.

Though prepared for the worst, their journey was proceeding steadily.

Granted,16 a few concerns remained.

For one thing, the Maniwa Ninja Clan, that band of expert assassins who were conducting a sword hunt of their own.

For another, Princess Negative, sworn enemy of Togame the Schemer and Inspector General of the Yanari Shogunate, Owari Bakufu, along with her confidant, Lieutenant Emonzaemon Soda.

And then the lessons─of Oto the Cured and Seito the Garland.

What they had learned through rounding up these two swords reshaped17 their entire concept of the Sword Hunt going forward─not to say their impression of the Sword Hunt as experienced thus far.

Two swords remained.

Dokuto the Basilisk.

Ento the Bead.

In both cases, Shichika expected to discover them in little time at all─an assumption that the Schemer might deride as being overly optimistic. Nevertheless, he had been thinking about what would happen after the Sword Hunt ended. He had been thinking of this all along─but recently the thoughts had drastically increased in frequency.

The end of a journey.

When his journey with the Schemer was over─what would he do with himself, when he was no longer her sword?

What would become of him?

What would Togame the Schemer─do with him?

The Schemer had enlisted the Kyotoryu for the duration of the Sword Hunt─but what use would she have for the Kyotoryu when it was over?

He didn’t know.

Or rather, didn’t want to know.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Reason being: for Togame the Schemer, the Kyotoryu was inextricable from Mutsue Yasuri, Shichika’s father and Hero of the Rebellion, who murdered her own father, Takahito Hida, the Kaoyaku of Oshu─and that made it the bane of her existence.18

“Don’t ask me,” Togame the Schemer, Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu, replied─with a shrug of consternation, to Shichika Yasuri, Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu.

They were in Dewa, staying at an inn.

In a room on the second floor.

Sitting, facing one another, across a futon unrolled in the middle of the room upon which lay─

A boy.

Sleeping soundly─or perhaps more aptly, sleeping so heavily19 he almost looked like he was dead.

He was alive, however barely.

But from the looks of him, you would have thought that he was dead.

“If this kid can be trusted─we can’t stay here forever. Since he was not mortally wounded,20 he’ll probably recover. We should depart as soon as possible.”

“Yeah,” Shichika nodded. “I’m not sure how I feel21 about that─it feels real fishy.22 It could easily be yet another trap.”

“True, considering who he is, that’s not out of the question.”

“I had my doubts about this from the start.”

Shichika pointed at the boy sleeping between them.

“Could this kid─really be a Maniwac?”

“I’ll vouch for that,” Togame told him, nodding. “He’s one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa Ninja Clan─Pengin Maniwa, of Fish Unit. He and I have met before. I’m positive… Of the Twelve Bosses, he was feared more than any other, next to Hohoh Maniwa.”

“This little guy? Hard to see it, from the looks of him.”

“I don’t know anything about his ninpo. Though by one account,23 it is said to surpass even that of Hohoh─hmm.”

“Is that right…”

Even with this confirmation from Togame, Shichika was skeptical.

Then again, if it was true─

That fearsome ninja─in his current state and physical condition?

It was scary enough on its own.

If the story this kid Pengin Maniwa had given them was true─

“…”

This had begun the previous month.

On the road home from Hyakkeijo, the site of Hida Castle in Mutsu, Oshu, where they received Seito the Garland from the hermit magus known as Rinne Higaki.

The road home─to Owari.

It happened after crossing over from Mutsu into Dewa.

Pengin Maniwa was lying facedown in the road ahead of them.

When Shichika sat him up, they realized Pengin had been slashed across the chest. An outrageous wound which could easily have proven fatal24─though miraculously, the slash had missed his vital organs.

This was no normal gash.

But before Shichika had a chance to realize that this boy’s appearance─his sleeveless ninja garb, the chains wrapped around his body, signified a particular allegiance; and before Togame the Schemer realized the boy was in fact Pengin Maniwa─he told them something.

“Please help Hohoh.”

And with that─Pengin lost consciousness.

As goes without saying, Togame the Schemer and the Maniwa were bitter rivals─though they had been the first party whom she called upon to join the Sword Hunt she had personally planned and devised.

A Maniwa Boss by the name of Komori Maniwa, her partner for a time, had done a splendid job of rounding up Zetto the Leveler, only to betray her forthwith.25

As a result, Togame had found herself in quite the fix26─and when she was betrayed again, this time by Hakuhei Sabi, back then the Strongest Swordsman in Japan, it only added insult to the injury of the betrayal of the Maniwa.

Togame had a tendency, which Shichika had witnessed time and again, to lose her cool the second she beheld a Maniwa Boss. He would have thought the boy’s affiliation with the Maniwa would be enough for her to refuse to help him in the first place─

But after all, he was only a boy.

And had been seriously wounded.

Unable to care for or fend for himself.

In the end, she decided to forego their plan to return to Owari, instead stopping at a nearby inn─when they carried the savaged body of the boy inside, the innkeeper protested,27 but Togame shut him up with money.

She was not the type of person who thought twice28 before exercising her powers.

As they waited for Pengin to recover─the calendar flipped.

From the tenth moon into the eleventh.

“Listen, Togame. I know the doctor said there’s no reason to worry about the wounds themselves─but I’m concerned about how slowly he’s recovering. He can only speak for a few moments each day─and when he does, he stumbles over his words.”

“He always talks like that,” Togame said, glancing down at Pengin Maniwa as he slept. “Evidently his ninpo is too strong for even him to handle─hence his sickly appearance, and a personality unlikely for a ninja.”

“Pretty thorough.”

“Komori told me.”

Togame sighed and sprang to her feet.

“Come on, we can’t stick around here forever─after what Pengin shared with us today, I think I can connect the dots. I know that this is only a hypothesis, and I can’t deny the possibility that this might be a trap, just like you said─but you and I are out here on a Sword Hunt. If Hohoh Maniwa has Dokuto the Basilisk, one of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki, we have no choice but to go and capture it. Way safer bet than getting wrapped up in some complicated dealing.”

“What do we do about the kid?” Shichika stood, following Togame, but pointed back at Pengin. “Are we just gonna leave him here?”

“Dokuto the Basilisk seems to have many characteristics─but apparently the blade itself is laden with venom. Doubtlessly to blame for his most sluggish recovery. Therefore, I see no problem leaving him behind─if he is able to get up, we will be well enough ahead of him that he could never catch us anyway. We’ve heard all we needed to hear. He is no longer our responsibility. Besides,” added Togame, “I doubt the innkeeper would be so heartless as to give a child like him the boot.”

With that, Togame prepared for their departure.

Doffing29 all two dozen layers of brash and brilliant finery, and donning30 two dozen different layers of brash and brilliant finery.

Changing from her loungewear into her travel clothes.

Ever since Shichika’s sister Nanami cropped Togame’s hair short at the shoulders, freshening her look, the time it took for her to change her outfits had reduced considerably. As he helped her change (while doubting somewhat whether changing clothes was really necessary), Shichika continued.

“That’s not what I meant. After all, he is one of those hateful Maniwacs… Shouldn’t I finish him off or something?”

“You mean kill him?”

Though not changing her tone or facial expression, Togame took the opportunity to recast Shichika’s chosen euphemism31 in direct language.

“Take it easy, Shichika. The Maniwa certainly are hateful─I’m not about to condone their betrayal, but why murder this one for no reason? I’m not so violent as all that.”

“Okay…I guess we can leave him.”

“Pengin Maniwa may have the most fearsome ninpo out of all the bosses─but given the circumstances, there is no need to kill him off. Why not do them a favor instead, and reap the benefits?32 They may not thank us for our generosity,33 but we’ll make sure they owe us one. They can repay us later, though it might not be until after the Sword Hunt is over. This little ninja is far more useful34 to us alive.”

“Useful, huh.”

After the Sword Hunt─

This casual remark from Togame snagged Shichika by the heart─and though she may or may not have guessed what Shichika was feeling, she did a hair toss, making that bob look like it had been her style all along.

“Alright, let’s head along to Iga,” Togame announced. “It’s time we paid a visit to New Maniwa─where Hohoh Maniwa headed when he went berserk.”35

Luckily, there aren’t so many characters to review.

First off.

Our very own Togame the Schemer.

Grand Commander of Arms of the Yanari Shogunate Military Directorate, Owari Bakufu.

She-devil of the bakufu, whose real name and personal history were unknown.

The whitehaired woman always dressed in brash and brilliant finery.

Though the truth2─which, if discovered, would have put her life in danger, was that she was the daughter of Takahito Hida, Kaoyaku of Oshu, and Mastermind of the Rebellion.

In the hopes of taking down the enemy of her father, who lost his life in the Rebellion, she devoted her body and soul to the Owari Bakufu she resented.

Making a name for herself, climbing the ranks.

Her goal was to slip from the inner circle of the bakufu─into its heart.3

The Sword Hunt for the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki was a means to an end.

Unskilled in the martial arts.

Weaker than shoji paper.

She had made it this far, willy-nilly, through her ingenuity and intrigue, relying only on her schemes─and certainly planned to do so in the future.

Though at present, after rounding up the last two swords, Oto the Cured and Seito the Garland, with barely any effort, she was beginning to doubt4 the Mutant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki─

Next up.

Our own Shichika Yasuri.

Seventh Master of the Kyotoryu.

The Swordless Swordsman─a katana incarnate.

A tall young buck with tousled hair.

Raised on a desert island, he was something of a yokel, but he had been selected5 by Togame the Schemer─and partook in the Sword Hunt of his own accord.

In his fifteen fights thus far, he had experienced eleven wins, three defeats, and one draw.

That said, the fight resulting in that final draw was not a proper battle to begin with; and of his three defeats, the first resulted from him underestimating Konayuki Itezora, who was only a young girl, while another resulted from him getting tangled in the niceties of kendo, so that his only true defeat (or the only defeat that could not be explained away) was in his fight against the genius Nanami Yasuri.

After all, he had obliterated Hakuhei Sabi─

At present, Shichika was the Strongest Swordsman in Japan, a position well beyond reproach.

And crucially, for the developments to follow─Shichika was in fact one of the Mutant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki.

Not one of his masterworks, but his magnum opus.

The thousand Mutant Blades, including the Twelve Possessed, being mere prototypes for his final sword.

Shichika Yasuri.

Though strictly speaking, the magnum opus was not just Shichika, but the entire Kyotoryu.

In their pursuit of Seito the Garland, Togame had learned of this from the hermit magus Rinne Higaki, which meant that Shichika heard the story secondhand─though unfortunately, since he lacked her laudable tendency to ponder the significance of life, he didn’t really seem to care.

Though needless to say, his status as the magnum opus of Kiki Shikizaki will greatly influence6 the shape of the story ahead.

Thirdly.

Princess Negative.

Inspector General of the Yanari Shogunate, Owari Bakufu.

Real name and personal history unknown.

A woman with blond hair and dazzling blue eyes, whose appearance in this closed society was an anomaly.

Another she-devil of the Owari Bakufu.

Sworn enemy of Togame the Schemer.

As chief investigator of the government, she was merely fulfilling her duties by probing7 the behavior of Togame the Avenger,8 but had their work not pitted them against each other, these two would still have never got along.

Togame had crushed Princess Negative countless times before.

And every time, the Princess had bounced back─more powerful than ever.

Perturbed by her tenacity, Togame made sure to crush Princess Negative once and for all as she worked the plans out for her Sword Hunt─to ensure that this time, Princess Negative would not bounce back─except she did.

Reemerging in the space of half a year.

Once again─more powerful than ever.

The Princess began to offer her two cents on the Schemer’s Sword Hunt─betraying that Nanami Yasuri, then owner of Akuto the Eel, had occupied9 Seiryoin Gokenji Temple, a holy site for swordsmen. Intimating that Lake Fuyo in Edo was where Kiki Shikizaki had once kept his workshop. Intimating that the hermit who resided at Hyakkeijo in Oshu was in possession of none other than Seito the Garland.

Togame was all the more perturbed by the veracity of this intelligence─but the fact of the matter10 was simple. As established in the previous installment, Princess Negative was the descendant of the legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki.

Unlike Togame the Schemer, hers was not a personal history which would prove to be a burden once revealed─but all the same, she had shared this information with nobody but her confidant.

At least, for the time being.

Just as Togame the Schemer had her aspirations─Princess Negative had her aspirations.

Though perhaps a bit too…negative to describe as such.

In any event─her personal circumstances afforded her with inside knowledge of the Mutant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki. Although at present, it would seem the Princess lacked an understanding of that sword which was a cut above the Twelve Possessed, the magnum opus for which all previous swords were prototypes.

Not even Princess Negative knew everything.

Which is to say, she was unaware of what Shichika Yasuri embodied.

Unaware, as of yet.

Fourthly.

Lieutenant Emonzaemon Soda.

Counselor to the Inspector General of the Yanari Shogunate, Owari Bakufu.

A former ninja, who dressed in a coat and trousers.

The confidant of Princess Negative, discussed above.

As with his liege, his personal history was shrouded in mystery, though he apparently was not concerned with keeping it a secret, for by now Togame the Schemer was in the know─aware that this man was the last descendant of the Aioi Ninja Clan, wiped out by the Maniwa one hundred and seventy years earlier, after a long struggle.

In addition to Aioi Ninpo, Emonzaemon knew Aioi Kenpo and Aioi Swordsmanship.

He was also a co-owner of Ento the Bead, the last of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki.

Ento the Bead.

A revolver.11

And an automatic.12

Apparently, he shared his ownership with Princess Negative, descendant of Kiki Shikizaki─by whom.

He had been tasked with the assassination of Hohoh Maniwa, effectively the head of the Maniwa Ninja Clan.

With whom it seemed he had some kind of a history, their link yet remaining to be disclosed.

Our fifth character, Hohoh Maniwa, and our sixth character, Pengin Maniwa, are best reviewed together.

Two bosses of the Maniwa Ninja Clan.

“Pengin the Breeder,” Pengin Maniwa, of the Maniwa Fish Unit.

“The Divine Phoenix,” Hohoh Maniwa, of the Maniwa Bird Unit.

Pengin Maniwa─had two ninpo moves.

Fate Blaster and Lucky Pucks.

Hohoh Maniwa─at this point had three ninpo moves.

Life Line, Decapitation Cycle, and Infovac.

The Maniwa, that band of expert assassins, originally joined the Sword Hunt as hired hands─called upon by Togame the Schemer to round up one of the swords, a task which they were of a mind to carry through.

But that was easier said than done.

The situation in the village had grown dire─in these times of peace and order, how was a ninja assassin supposed to make a living? But the Maniwa were not so timid as to molder away in obscurity13─hence.

The Sword Hunt for the Mutant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki was just the sort of fundraiser14 they needed.

In all likelihood─this could be the last big job entrusted to them by the bakufu.

Except their bucket had a hole in it.15

Things got off to a good start─they seized Zetto the Leveler from Rairaku Namida of Mino, after which they beat Togame at her own game and stabbed her in the back (despite the Schemer having taken several precautions against being betrayed by the Maniwa)─but things fell apart from there.

“Komori the Hell-Made,” Komori Maniwa, of the Maniwa Beast Unit, fell to Shichika Yasuri.

“Backwords Shirasagi,” Shirasagi Maniwa, of the Bird Unit, fell to Ginkaku Uneri.

“Kuizame the Sand Trap,” Kuizame Maniwa, of the Fish Unit, fell to Meisai Tsuruga.

“Kamakiri the Head Hunter,” Kamakiri Maniwa, of the Bug Unit.

“Flying Butter Chocho,” Chocho Maniwa, of the Bug Unit.

“Mitsubachi the Sharpshooter,” Mitsubachi Maniwa, of the Bug Unit.

All three of whom fell to Nanami Yasuri.

“The Dogged Scourge,” Kyoken Maniwa, of the Beast Unit, fell to Shichika Yasuri.

“The Nosey Otter,” Kawauso Maniwa, of the Beast Unit, perished before he had the chance to fight.

“The Immortal Turtle,” Umigame Maniwa, of the Fish Unit, fell to Emonzaemon Soda.

“The Feathered Reel,” Oshidori Maniwa, of the Bird Unit, fell to Emonzaemon Soda as well.

By now.

Of the Twelve Bosses, there were only two.

Such was the current situation of the Maniwa─nay.

The situation of the Maniwa was far worse than even this─one might even say things were as bad as possible.

A story that is about to unfold─but thus, six.

Three camps of two, embroiled in a three-way struggle.16

The first camp─Togame the Schemer and Shichika Yasuri.

Ten swords to their name.

Zetto the Leveler, Zanto the Razor, Sento the Legion, Hakuto the Whisper, Zokuto the Armor, Soto the Twin, Akuto the Eel, Bito the Sundial, Oto the Cured, Seito the Garland.

Ten swords in total.

The second camp─Princess Negative and Emonzaemon Soda.

Having one sword.

Ento the Bead.

The third camp─Hohoh Maniwa and Pengin Maniwa.

Having one sword.

Dokuto the Basilisk.

Now then, which camp will finally succeed in rounding up all twelve of the masterworks of Kiki Shikizaki?

At present, the answer is unknown─but very soon, the answer will be known to all.

This book is turning out to be a mishmash of recapitulations, reviews of characters, and reminiscences, while the central story makes no progress; but in this reminiscence, some progress will be had.

We return to the month prior.

When Pengin Maniwa and Hohoh Maniwa were walking side by side, heading straight17 for Hyakkeijo in Oshu─hoping to have a word with Togame the Schemer, who they gathered was at Hyakkeijo in Oshu, attempting to secure Seito the Garland.

In that sense, things were proceeding as planned.

Having been made keenly aware of the strength of Shichika, and of the other owners of the Twelve Possessed, Hohoh Maniwa had visibly taken a step back, fine with attaining the bare minimum─just one of the Twelve Possessed.

They would leave the bulk18 of the Sword Hunt to the Schemer and the Kyotoryu.

And overtake19 them afterwards.

That was the plan.

In service of which he had forged an alliance with the Schemer and sacrificed a comrade.

Proceeding as planned─indeed.

At that point, Togame had gathered nine of the Twelve Possessed, and Hohoh Maniwa was carrying Dokuto the Basilisk on his person─making it perhaps as good a time as any to attempt to turn the tide.

Pengin thought it would be best to overtake the Schemer after she had captured one or perhaps even two more swords, bringing her count to ten or eleven─and wondered, too, whether they might wait for her to come to them, rather than go to her, but Hohoh seemed to believe that doing so would make them miss their opportunity.

Which was probably correct.

His belief was not the problem.

Remember, all of those belonging to the Maniwa Ninja Clan, including Pengin, were in some way or another broken souls, poorly suited to the task of crafting strategies─or even executing them. In fact, the plan crafted by Hohoh had been temporarily snafued20 by one of the Twelve Bosses, “The Dogged Scourge” Kyoken Maniwa. It fell to Hohoh Maniwa, effectively the head of the entire ninja clan and the sole boss endowed with some degree of sociability,21 to mobilize the other ninjas around a counterstrategy.

Which is why─Pengin had no right to talk back.

If Hohoh thought they should take action now, he must be right─although in retrospect, Hohoh was perhaps already too late.

“Discontinued.”

Then.

After crossing over from Dewa into Mutsu, they were nearly at their destination─when Pengin and Hohoh saw a figure blocking the road before them.

A man dressed in a coat and trousers, wearing a pair of swords.

A mask covering his face─on which were scrawled the words “NON-NINJA.”

“I knew that if I waited here you would turn up─Hohoh Maniwa…and Pengin Maniwa? Ah yes…since it would be insufferable if you asked me question after question, I’ll introduce myself before you have the chance─I am Lieutenant Emonzaemon Soda, and I am here to kill you both.”

“Yee…”

Pengin heard himself shriek.

This was not their first encounter with this man─in the ninth moon22 in Izu, when Hohoh Maniwa, Pengin Maniwa, and Oshidori Maniwa were gathered around Dokuto the Basilisk, their recent find, determining a course of action, out of nowhere─this bemasked gentleman appeared beside them.

On that occasion, Oshidori staved him off.

Using her body as a shield─to protect Hohoh and Pengin and Dokuto the Basilisk.

The efficacy of which was now in question.

The only certainty was that Oshidori had yet to rendezvous with them─

“Wondering about Oshidori Maniwa? I killed her.”

Reading into the look on Pengin’s face, which was rather juvenile for a ninja, the bemasked gentleman─Emonzaemon Soda doubled down.

On account of his mask, Pengin was unable to read his expression in return.

He could not possibly.

“I mentioned this to Oshidori─so I may as well tell you. I killed Umigame too.”

Pengin was speechless, but Hohoh remained unfazed, taking a step forward so as to protect Pengin.

“Ah,” he said. “Umigame, huh.”

“I’m sure you weren’t expecting him to be alive─get the picture, Hohoh Maniwa? Of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa, you two are the only ones left.”

“We get the picture, no thanks to you. You think this news is gonna scare us off? Don’t make me laugh,”23 said Hohoh. “A ninja lives to die.”

“You never change,” said Emonzaemon. “You haven’t changed a bit, Hohoh.”

This comment was disturbing.

Indeed.

He made it sound like he and Hohoh were old acquaintances─although.

Having suspected this, Pengin had brought it up with Hohoh just the other day─but his answer was not that they were “old acquaintances.”

There was a man he used to know.

But there was no way this was him─

“Well,” said Hohoh. “What took you so long to come after me? I’ve been ready, you know. Don’t think you’ve caught me by surprise by ambushing me on the highway.”

“I’m a busy man─with lots to do. Assassinating you is but a minor errand. Let’s get this over with. I’m eager to get back on track.”24

“Back on track, huh? You and me both…hold on, though, I can’t let what you said slip by. About how I never change? That makes it sound─like you’ve known who I am for ages.”

“Spare me, Hohoh─there’s no way that you’re serious. Surely you figured things out last time─when we ran into one another in Izu. Why else would you have run away?”

“Run away? No chance I’m letting that slip,” Hohoh said. “But more than anything, I can’t let you get away with this ludicrous name, Emonzaemon Soda─if you really are the person I think you are, why not sing it loud for all to hear? What’s stopping you from standing tall and announcing who you are?”

“Sorry, Hohoh, but that’s my real name now,” replied Emonzaemon Soda. “You and I are different. Can’t you see?”

“─You certainly have changed. Hey, get back there,” Hohoh warned Pengin, without turning around. “This open country is no place to try and use your ninpo, not the Fate Blaster and definitely not the Lucky Pucks.”

“O-Okay─”

Pengin nodded and scooted away from Hohoh.

“B-Be careful, Hohoh. If he really did k-kill Umigame and Oshidori─this man is really powerful.”

“I know,” acknowledged Hohoh. “You’re saying that he’s basically as powerful as me─”

“Incorrigible,” said Emonzaemon, reaching for the swords slung from his hip. “I cannot suppress my laughter, Hohoh Maniwa─you sound like some kind of a comedian. You and I, equally powerful? Thanks for stating the obvious─”

As Emonzaemon spoke─Pengin was certain he would pull out his swords. He guessed that this bemasked gentleman must favor the dual wield─though while Emonzaemon indeed pulled at his swords, he pulled them off entirely, scabbard and all.

Whereupon he tossed both weapons haphazardly aside.

“My Aioi Swordplay failed against both Umigame Maniwa and Oshidori Maniwa─I hope you don’t mind if we skip ahead. Besides, I’m not really a swordsman─there’s no rule saying that I need to use a sword.”

“Fair enough.”

But then.

Hohoh did the same─pulling his sword from his waist, scabbard and all.

His sword, of course, being Dokuto the Basilisk.

One of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki.

“Hold onto that,” Hohoh instructed Pengin.

A fight where both opponents tossed aside their swords.

At least, that’s what appeared to be transpiring.

“No weapons. Ain’t that right─what was it, Emonzaemon?”

“Emonzaemon. So it is,”25 affirmed Emonzaemon.

“A fight relying solely on our physical and mental caliber,” Hohoh said. “Works for me.”

“Great,” nodded the lieutenant.

And right before he finished nodding─Hohoh made the first move.

Deploying26 the cache of shuriken he had been hiding in his palm, right before Emonzaemon could act.

But Emonzaemon was no slouch.

Though acting a moment behind, he answered with shuriken of his own─unlike those deployed by Hohoh, his were long like darts, essentially kunai, which made them all the faster─so that in the end.

The shuriken each ninja threw collided in midair between them, spraying off in random directions.

They had agreed to battle without weapons, only to throw shuriken, but neither of them protested. The fight continued─and why not?

Both were ninjas.

The fact that one of them was actively a ninja and the other a former ninja notwithstanding─dirty deeds were how they made a living.

However, Pengin Maniwa had no way of knowing that Emonzaemon was a former ninja as he watched them from the sidelines─as one of the youngest ninja in the village, in fact just a kid, there was no chance that he knew about the Aioi Ninja Clan, who had been wiped out one hundred and seventy years earlier.

No chance he knew─and yet.

From the way Emonzaemon threw those shuriken, he intuited that the non-ninja had some kind of a background27 in the ninja arts.

─That being said.

If they got closer, Hohoh would be sure to win.

Of that much Pengin was certain.

Up close and personal─Decapitation Cycle was guaranteed to reign supreme. Emonzaemon Soda may have taken care of Umigame Maniwa and Oshidori Maniwa─but up against that move, the game was over.

Which is why─Pengin was confident that Hohoh would be victorious.

Confident─and yet he was unable to shake this feeling of unease. Or, even if he shook it off, it bubbled back─again and again and again.

Unease.

A nasty feeling.

This went beyond Pengin being easily worked up.

In actuality─when these overtures28 were over, and Hohoh Maniwa and Emonzaemon Soda entered into the very sort of close-range combat Pengin had envisioned─the fight seemed like it could carry on indefinitely.

Neither one could make a hit.

Nor stand still for a second.

No clincher came from either side.

Not that they could neglect defense.

Pengin watched them from the sidelines, as they wore each other down.29

Exhausting each other─in a battle of attrition.

They may have been unarmed, but from the look on Hohoh’s face, this was anything but easy─while it was impossible for them to read the face of Emonzaemon.

─But why?

Clutching Dokuto the Basilisk to his breast, Pengin felt perplexed.

─Why isn’t Hohoh using the Decapitation Cycle?

From that distance─Emonzaemon was well within the range of his Ninpo Decapitation Cycle─

So why not use it?

“H-Hohoh!” Pengin exclaimed. “D-Decapitation Cycle! Use the Decapitation Cycle!”

“Ah, yes.”

This affirmation came not from Hohoh, but from Emonzaemon.

“So, Hohoh, that’s what you’ve named that move─the Decapitation Cycle?”

“…”

Hohoh declined to respond.

He could not rest from his attacks─or his defenses.

Same goes for Emonzaemon, who while keeping up his side of the fight, turned breezily to Pengin and continued, “Listen, Pengin─this Decapitation Cycle you mentioned. In the Aioi tradition, we called that ninpo Gored Alive─”

“G-Gored alive?”30

“And now, as part of my non-ninpo, I call it─Endlessly Unsparing.”

“Gah!”

Pengin was no dimwit31 youngster. He may have had weak nerves, but his mind outstripped any of the adults.32

Now─he had heard enough.

Everything was clear.

“It’s funny, Hohoh,” said Emonzaemon. “You’re a fine ninja─so fine that even as the other bosses die away,33 the Maniwa remains formidable, as long as you’re around. But make no mistake─I cannot lose against you.”

“…”

“Because you are me.”

Life Line.

Alongside the Decapitation Cycle, this ninja move could well be called synonymous with Hohoh Maniwa. Using this ninjutsu, he could take on the moves of others─by slicing off their body parts and grafting them onto his body.

To wit, the left arm he was using had previously been the left arm of Kawauso Maniwa, another of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa, enabling Hohoh to employ Kawauso’s Infovac, a move similar to psychometry.

If the Decapitation Cycle was originally the move of Emonzaemon Soda─and the same move as “Gored Alive” and “Endlessly Unsparing”─then no wonder Hohoh was unable to deploy it.

For knowing an advanced move inheres a comprehension of its shortcomings.

Indeed.

This is why Hohoh had said there was no way this man was him when Pengin asked if he and Emonzaemon were acquaintances─the Life Line necessitates that you kill off your opponent, as a preliminary condition!

…

But in that case, how was it possible that Emonzaemon Soda was here now, and alive?

“I died once,” declared Emonzaemon, as if answering this question. “Matters of the flesh aside, you killed my spirit. But I was rescued by my liege, who negated this death on my behalf─which is why I will devote my soul entire34 to the execution of whatever order I receive from her.”

“Negated? I suppose that means your liege─is the Princess?”

“Took you long enough.”

“Hah.”

Though hearing Emonzaemon out─or rather, letting his words in one ear and out the other, Hohoh Maniwa showed absolutely no signs of agitation.

Or bravado.35

An acquaintance whom he had taken for dead─whom he had thought he killed by his own hand, had materialized before his very eyes, but Hohoh seemed rather unimpressed.

“Sure, Emonzaemon, but this door swings both ways─if you are me, then I am you. Which means that if we keep this up, I may not win, but I won’t be losing to you either.”

“Perhaps,” said Emonzaemon.

Speaking─as the two of them fought on.

It would seem they had both exhausted their supply of shuriken and other secret weapons, so that the fight between Hohoh Maniwa and Emonzaemon Soda became a matter of hand-to-hand combat.

Close range─and a close contest.

From a certain angle, it almost looked as if the two of them were carrying out a choreographed performance. Such was the precision of their movements─evenly matched to boot.

Achieving a graceful equilibrium that seemed to shun any outside assistance.

If Pengin were, in fact, to leap into the fray, they should be able to tip the balance against Emonzaemon, since there were two of them and one of him─Pengin realized this (albeit after the fact) but was unable to act on it (having realized after the fact).

Had he leapt into the fray and messed things up, however, he could have tipped the scales unfavorably for him and Hohoh.

Such was the balance of their equilibrium.

Hence, no clincher came from either side.

─He’s basically as powerful as me.

Pengin was reminded of these words from Hohoh.

This fight was serious as they come, but to Pengin it appeared they were exchanging only token blows36 because their lives hung in the balance.

─Which is why.

Which is why Pengin believed that the longer things were drawn out─the greater Hohoh’s chance of being defeated. This went beyond Pengin being innately pessimistic; it was a fundamental truth.

Consider Nanami Yasuri.

The move, if you could even call it that, called Watch and Learn, which was her genius manifest, had something in common with the Life Line─as Hohoh had admitted once himself.

But with a crucial difference.

She needed not kill her adversary or graft on one of their body parts. She simply watched. Watch a move once, and she would learn the ins and outs; watch twice and she would make the move her own. This was what made the Watch and Learn so terrifying─Nanami could come away wielding a move so masterfully that she surpassed the person she had learned it from.

She was a genius.

While Hohoh Maniwa may have been a fine ninja, he was unfortunately not a genius.

Since he had yet to grow accustomed to the arm of Kawauso, or for that matter his ninpo, which still felt somewhat foreign, Hohoh could not yet claim a mastery of the Infovac.

Though it was unclear when─Hohoh Maniwa must have stolen the Decapitation Cycle from Emonzaemon Soda quite some time ago.

By now he must have developed some degree of mastery.

And yet─it was doubtful that his mastery surpassed that of its original practitioner, Emonzaemon Soda.

Of course, by now Hohoh Maniwa had used his Life Line to acquire not only the Decapitation Cycle and the Infovac─there was no counting all the moves his body housed.

Surely there were plenty of moves that Pengin did not know about.

And yet─Hohoh seemed to lack any opportunity to use them.

Emonzaemon would not give him the chance.

It would seem he understood not just the Decapitation Cycle─but had a seasoned understanding of exactly how to fend off “The Divine Phoenix,” Hohoh Maniwa.

Emonzaemon fought less like someone who had prepared the right strategy, than like someone who had known it all along.

The bond of old acquaintances.

The bond of stolen ninpo.

The bond of a killer and the killed.

Which is why─though it may look as if they had achieved an equilibrium, there was no way they could keep this up forever. Because Hohoh was fighting someone he assumed to have been dead for ages, while Emonzaemon was not.

Surely Hohoh had been wondering about this since their encounter at Izu─but he must not have been certain.

He could not possibly have understood all that had happened.

In the meantime─Emonzaemon had understood it all along, with obdurate37 endurance!38

He understood both past and present!

“H-Hohoh! Hohoh─use this!”

In that instant.

Pengin Maniwa─made a mistake of judgment.

Considering the circumstances, it was the worst mistake imaginable.

Of course, when Pengin made this mistake, he had no idea his judgment was mistaken─in fact, he thought this was the only way to break the equilibrium at play between Hohoh and Emonzaemon.

And so.

Pengin─flung Dokuto the Basilisk, sheath and all, which Hohoh had instructed him to hold, sending it spinning toward his back.

One of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki.

Venom stronger than any other─despotically toxic.

While spinning through the air, the sword slipped from its sheath. The scabbard fell by the wayside─but the katana flew straight ahead.

There was something meaningful about its rectilinearity─as it flew in a straight line toward Hohoh.

A sword does not choose who to kill.

But a sword will choose its owner.

Exactly as the saying goes─as if choosing its owner, it flew toward Hohoh.

What follows is what Pengin thought would happen.

A juvenile way of seeing things.

The Mutant Blades of legendary swordsmith Kiki Shikizaki─which influenced the power balance of the Age of Warring States so immensely that the number of swords owned by a state was a direct indication of its power.

Among which were the masterworks, boasting a level of perfection far above the rest.

And among these was Dokuto the Basilisk, whose venom was the strongest of them all.

If he used this─Pengin believed that Hohoh could break through the symmetry that had been formed, at least as far as he could see, between him and Emonzaemon.

If Hohoh Maniwa used Dokuto the Basilisk.

Then surely, he could topple Emonzaemon─or so Pengin thought.

The thought itself was worthy of consideration.

But acting on it was an error.

To say the least─a strategist like Togame the Schemer or a tactician like Princess Negative, even on the worst of days, would never think of opting for such a move.

Hohoh had strictly forbidden the unsheathing of the Basilisk. As a result, when Pengin threw the sword and saw it slip free from its scabbard, he laid eyes on its blade for the first time.

The katana─was pitch black.

Dokuto the Basilisk─a black blade with an obsidian sheen.39

Blacker than night, it had a sinister air.

Just shy of five feet long.

Lacking a handguard, the sword had a pronounced curve.

“Uh!”

For his part, Hohoh Maniwa might have realized Pengin’s mistake already.

But given that an unsheathed katana was flying at him from behind─even a ninja of his caliber had no choice but to catch it.

Especially in the throes of his fight against Emonzaemon.

He could not jump away.

Or rather, even if he jumped away, he would not get away with it─for jumping away was tantamount to handing Dokuto the Basilisk to Emonzaemon, left standing in his place.

Which is why.

Hohoh Maniwa reached out his left hand─and without turning around, seized the grip of Dokuto the Basilisk as if his life depended on it.40

So simple, and yet so painful for Pengin Maniwa to recall.

Point being, when Hohoh Maniwa caught Dokuto the Basilisk.

He cut down Emonzaemon Soda.

And backhanding it,41 cut down Pengin Maniwa.

Carrying the bare blade, paying no mind to the scabbard flung down by the wayside─he turned about and left that place behind.

Hence how Hohoh Maniwa, one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa, went berserk.

At Mansion Negative─abode of the Inspector General of the Yanari Shogunate─within one room of which.

Princess Negative, as usual, stood alone.

Not lighting any lamps─nor sitting down.

Metal fan in hand.

Standing.

“…”

But things were not as usual.

There was something different about the tableau.

In the hand not holding her metal fan, the woman with blond hair and dazzling blue eyes held a one-page letter.

Sent by her confidant─Emonzaemon Soda, from the field.

Freshly delivered─a report.

And what did this report have to say?

“Togame the Schemer…”

Princess Negative muttered to herself with a melancholic air─and in a languid tone.

“Oh, Togame─how I sincerely loathe you. I despise you from the bottom of my heart. Here I am, so confident in how I feel, that I would crush you even if you were a nobody, even if you were not plotting anything at all─I thought that we were enemies, and in a way that goes beyond my function as Inspector General. I thought we had something, a bizarre kind of bond, something that would last─this is the last straw.”

She crumpled up the letter in her hand.

As if that piece of paper were the most repulsive thing imaginable.

Crumpling the paper─as if rejecting its existence.

“I never wanted things to end this way,” she said. “It’s such a shame─Schemer. Your carelessness revolts me to no end…hmph.”

Princess Negative tossed the letter, which had been crumpled in a messy ball, into the corner of the room─and set her gaze beyond the chamber.

“At this point, I hope you’ll at least carry out your final duty─where was it, Iga? Maniwa Village? You must be nearly there. By now I bet you’re on the Tokaido Highway.1 I hope you’re ready for a challenge. I can’t claim to understand the extent of the Kyotoryu, but my ancestor is as tough as they come, I tell you what. I mean, he had abilities that never made it down to me. At the very least,” said Princess Negative, “I hope you sign off with a flourish.”

“If we stop in Owari, I am professionally obligated to pay a visit to the castle─and meet with Princess Negative to boot. Costing us a day or two, which right now is more than we can spare. Besides, visiting the castle is all about fanning egos. What could be more boring than extending pleasantries with the high and mighty?”

If they had time and energy to waste on that sort of thing, Togame reasoned that they may as well spend it on their journey, to get themselves to Iga even one day faster.

“Hey, Togame.”

They had traversed more than half of the Tokaido Highway on foot, putting them well past Owari─when Shichika brought it up.

“Crazy, right…like it was right under our noses this whole time.2 We got this far with no idea where to find New Maniwa, and it’s in Iga, of all places.”

Iga, of course, being home to the headquarters of the Onmitsu, the group of ninjas in the service of the bakufu.

Shichika had learned this earlier in the Sword Hunt. If the bakufu had failed to realize the New Maniwa had chosen Iga as the site of their new settlement, they had made quite the oversight.

“After the New Maniwa went rogue, the Onmitsu lost a considerable degree of clout within the bakufu─this must have been their way of using that against them. If word got out, the Onmitsu are liable to fall even further toward the ground. Or may even go underground, at this rate.”

“What? Is that why we’re not stopping at Owari? So you don’t have to tell them?”

“Don’t be silly. Why on earth would I feel obligated to cover for the Onmitsu? I merely felt that a report like that would serve us little, given the task at hand. Last thing we need is the Onmitsu catching wind and making a big stink.”

“Iga, huh… We’ve been all kinds of places on this Sword Hunt, but oddly enough I think this is our first time in Kansai.3 Strange how things worked out…but I guess we stayed in Kyoto for a little while at the start of it?”

“Let’s see.”

Prompted by Shichika, Togame counted on her fingers.

“We started off on your home turf on Haphazard Island…then Inaba, Izumo, Ganryu Island, Satsuma, Ezo, Tosa, Dewa, Mutsu…right? And now Iga. If you factor in the stops we made along the way, we’ve made a loop around Japan. Though I suppose we’ve skirted the Hokuriku area.”4

“Yeah.”

“When the Sword Hunt is over,” Togame said, “it might be fun to take a little trip there, just the two of us.”

“Huh?”

“Then I can produce a map of the whole country and sell copies. You know how I’m real good at drawing maps? There’s plenty of charts out there with suspect proportions, but come to think of it no one has made a definitive5 map of Japan since this country was founded─I’ll make a killing.”

“Uh, um.”

Shichika was distraught.

As far as he could recall anyway, this was the first time that Togame had mentioned what they would do after the Sword Hunt was over─at least in terms of concrete plans.

Up until now, she had diligently avoided any such discussion.

When Shichika had brought it up, she had responded in the vaguest terms.

And yet.

“So Hohoh Maniwa has gone berserk,” Togame changed the subject before Shichika could sort himself out. “Hard to say if this is good news or bad news. What do you think?”

“Yeah, uh, not too sure.”

Knowing there was no going back when talking with Togame, he went ahead and answered her question.

“I gotta admit, I’m lost about this whole berserk thing. What would make Hohoh Maniwa behave like that?”

“Confused? And yet you nodded sagely6 the whole time Pengin spoke… What am I going to do with you?” Togame sighed dramatically. “Clearly, he has been poisoned by the venom of his Shikizaki blade.”

“The venom─of his Shikizaki blade?”

The turn of phrase sounded almost nostalgic to Shichika.

“I suppose for quite some time,” Togame said, “our rivals have shown no signs of being stricken with the venom of the Shikizaki blades─especially with Rinne Higaki and Seito the Garland, and with Zanki Kiguchi and Oto the Cured, but also with Nanami Yasuri and Akuto the Eel. Her genius gobbled the venom up. And don’t forget Konayuki Itezora, who only had Soto the Twin for a short while. Which means the last time we were up against someone noticeably affected by the venom was way back with Kanara Azekura.”

“Wow…and Azekura was a pirate, not a swordsman.”

Aside from Zanki Kiguchi and Oto the Cured, the last time Shichika had fought an owner of a Shikizaki blade who was actually a swordsman was on Ganryu Island, versus Hakuhei Sabi.

Dokuto the Basilisk.

Venom stronger than any of the Twelve Possessed─

“Now that you mention it, though,” inquired Shichika, “Hohoh Maniwa isn’t a swordsman either, right? No matter how strong the venom of this sword is, could it really be so crazy that it poisoned him the second that he grabbed it?”

“Hohoh Maniwa is not a swordsman, I’ll give you that.”

Togame raised her left arm, as if showing it to Shichika.

“But his left arm being what it is─”

“Left arm?”

Of course─Hohoh’s left arm had originally belonged to Kawauso Maniwa.

Pengin Maniwa had mentioned this.

The Life Line─

When they first encountered Hohoh Maniwa in Satsuma, he had cut off his own arm, in negotiating his alliance with Togame the Schemer. The next month, when they crossed paths with him again atop Mt. Odori in Ezo, Hohoh Maniwa had a left arm alright, when he should have been without.

This had to do with the Life Line.

The left arm he had seemingly grown back must have been from one of the dead pirates found in Satsuma─but at present, his left arm used to belong to Kawauso Maniwa.

According to Pengin Maniwa.

The logic was already too convoluted for Shichika’s brain to process, but if he took some time, perhaps he could wrap his head around it.

But what exactly was she getting at?

“Stay with me, Shichika…”

This time, Togame sighed for real.

“We learned about the Infovac when we met Kawauso Maniwa in Ezo. It allows access, upon contact, to the memory of inanimate objects─in a word, psychometry. And now─Hohoh is able to use this very ninpo. By grafting the left arm of Kawauso onto his body, Hohoh can run the Infovac─which is how the Maniwa discovered Dokuto the Basilisk.”

“Makes sense.”

“And with that left arm, Hohoh Maniwa was unfortunate enough to make contact with Dokuto the Basilisk. Sending the venom coursing through his veins.”

“Whoa─”

From the sound of it, the Life Line and the Infovac had backfired.

The venom of the blade coursed through his veins.

From the tip of his toes to the top of his head.

Hohoh went berserk─turning his sword against both friend and foe and heading for Iga.

“Wow. When you put it that way, that ninpo sure does have its pros and cons.7 On the one hand, you get to have this ridiculous ability to take on any challenge imaginable, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay a price.”

“That isn’t exclusive to his ninpo. Your sister’s Watch and Learn has its fair share of commonalities with the Life Line.”

“Sure it does… Well, I guess this means that Dokuto the Basilisk actually does have as much venom as he said it does.”

“We’ll have a hard enough time capturing that sword from Hohoh, now that he’s gone berserk, but we’ll have to take extra precautions not to touch it. At least we already have the scabbard─”

Hohoh Maniwa had run off with the unsheathed sword. Meaning, the scabbard had been left flung by the wayside. Currently it was stuffed into the luggage Shichika was shouldering.

“─Since neither of us can use the Infovac, I doubt that bumping into it would do us any harm, but just in case.”

“Oh.”

Shichika remembered something.

Their practical discussion of capturing the sword─that is, wresting it from the berserk Hohoh Maniwa, jogged his memory.

“After everything that Pengin told us, we still don’t know a thing about this other ninpo Hohoh Maniwa can do─the Decapitation Cycle.”

“Fool,” Togame brushed this off unceremoniously. “Why would he tell us such a thing? That boy may not look like much, but he’s one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa─any ninpo employed by the leader8 of his organization is top-secret information.”

“Suppose so.”

“Although we are not without some intelligence─specifically, we know that the Decapitation Cycle is the same move as Endlessly Unsparing, one of the non-ninpo practiced by Emonzaemon. Very, very interesting.”

“Wow.”

Endlessly Unsparing.

The non-ninpo formerly known as Gored Alive.

“So it started off as Aioi Ninpo, huh? I mean, we still don’t have a clue what it involves though, right?”

“That is correct. And as a former ninja, Emonzaemon would never offer up those details─hey, about Emonzaemon…”

Emonzaemon─cut down by Hohoh Maniwa.

And yet, his body was not laying in the road.

Which means─though Hohoh Maniwa cut him down, he had survived and escaped.

What a performance, thought Shichika, genuinely impressed.

If he was able to get up, his injuries must have been far less serious than Pengin’s.

“You think─he went back to Owari?”

“Perhaps─I suppose this means that Princess Negative’s directive to assassinate Hohoh Maniwa went awry? Although, I guess the Princess ordered Emonzaemon to assassinate Hohoh after those two guys picked up Dokuto the Basilisk─”

“Hey, Togame.”

Shichika had a question.

“There’s something I can’t understand.”

“If there’s something you do actually understand, perhaps you should start there. Though I suppose you should get credit for speaking up when something falls outside your understanding. Well, what is it? Tell me what you’ve failed to understand.”

“In Hohoh Maniwa’s ninpo, he kills his enemy, cuts off part of their body, and grafts it onto his, allowing him to use their skills. Right? That’s what he did with Kawauso Maniwa─but what about Emonzaemon? At first glance, he isn’t missing any body parts. He obviously isn’t dead, and his arms and legs and body9 are all fine. He’s in perfect shape.”10

“Well, the fact that Emonzaemon is alive means that we’re wrong about the necessary conditions. The Life Line requires Hohoh to kill his enemy─or so it seems, but evidently there are cases where it can be performed without a kill.”

“Whoa.”

“Death of the spirit would suffice─perhaps that’s how it happened. Too late for us to hope to understand, but that would certainly explain things.”

“Gotcha. But…”

“But?”

“Yeah, but…if Emonzaemon’s arms and legs and body are all fine, meaning he’s able-bodied─how did Hohoh Maniwa steal the Decapitation Cycle, or whatever it was called when it was Emonzaemon’s move?”

“Because he’s not in perfect shape,” Togame said, pointing at her own face. “If Emonzaemon Soda has a reason for wearing a mask, and why he never takes it off─that alone gives you an answer to your question.”

“…”

For a moment, Shichika was in the dark─but in the next moment, he saw the light.

“You mean…he peeled his face off?”

“And pasted that face onto his own,” the Schemer said, gulping down11 her emotions.

Togame the Schemer had witnessed a great many brutalities in her day─but this particular fact was so horrific she could not bring herself to say a word more than she did.

“I can understand why he would wanna switch arms…but switching faces is too much. All for the Decapitation Cycle? Is that how bad he wanted to learn this move?”

“No─from what I gather, learning the move was something of a bonus,12 in that case.”

“Bonus?”

“Though I cannot say for sure when Hohoh Maniwa usurped the face of Emonzaemon Soda─I doubt it happened recently.”

“Hmm.”

Surely this had been before Emonzaemon was scooped up by Princess Negative─in which case, if what Togame said was true, it could not possibly have happened recently.

That being said, apparently not even Togame had a clear idea of how long Emonzaemon had been the confidant of Princess Negative.

One day, out of nowhere, Emonzaemon and the Princess were inseparable.

“By my estimation, this happened before Hohoh Maniwa was chosen to become one of the Twelve Bosses.”

“Why is that?”

“What Hohoh Maniwa wanted─was not the Aioi Ninpo known as Gored Alive or the Non-Ninpo Endlessly Unsparing. I daresay what he wanted was Emonzaemon’s personality.”

“P-Personality?”

“One of the main reasons why Hohoh Maniwa is effectively the leader of the entire ninja clan is his sociability─he said so himself, did he not?”

For the most part, the ninja belonging to the Maniwa Ninja Clan had some kind of a personality defect─to put it bluntly, they were broken.

A fact of which Shichika was uncomfortably aware.

Komori Maniwa. Kuizame Maniwa. Kyoken Maniwa.

He wasn’t sure about Kawauso or Pengin─but those three were so morally corrupt that in a certain sense, they were far worse than any of the owners of the Twelve Possessed.

Or so he thought.

“Hohoh Maniwa is the exception─right? So you’re saying that his personality…the sociable side of his personality, originally came from Emonzaemon?”

That must have been─what Hohoh wanted.

More than ninpo or anything else─he wanted sociability?

“It would seem so.” Togame nodded approvingly. “I’ve already mentioned how in this age of peace and order, the Maniwa have steadily been losing power. Remember that?”

“Yeah. That’s why those guys stabbed you in the back. When you put it that way, it almost sounds like you might feel a little sympathy for them.”

“I feel no sympathy.”

On that Togame was clear.

It would seem her grudge against the Maniwa was deeply rooted.

“You see, the biggest reason for their loss of power and their impending ruin─is that they lacked adequate leadership.”

“How is that even possible? I mean, don’t they have twelve bosses?”

“Having twelve people in charge is exactly what I call bad leadership…a vestige of the times of chaos. Sure, back then, it was a fine idea─actually, when they instituted the Twelve-Boss System, it was a revolutionary13 concept. As a matter of fact, soon after introducing the Twelve-Boss System, they finally destroyed the Aioi Clan, with whom they had been warring for generations.14 Without question, that arrangement makes the most of the band of social misfits that is the Maniwa. However─in these times of peace and order, it loses its efficacy.”

“So without a leader, the organization broke down?”

“Yep. In fact, because the Onmitsu have such strong leadership, they remain prosperous up to the present day─strictly speaking, at the present moment, they have fallen out of favor with the bakufu, their employer, but only because they were dragged down by the Maniwa.”

The Maniwa, that band of miscreants.

Whose personalities were broken as their organization.

Perhaps that was par for the course.

A case of having no one but themselves to blame.

“Thing is, Hohoh Maniwa sought to prevent this─which drove him to acquire an unbroken personality. And Emonzaemon Soda paid the toll.”15

“…”

To be sure.

Bearing in mind─the personalities of Hohoh Maniwa and Emonzaemon Soda.

These two men were much of a muchness. So much so, though not to the extent of Rinne Higaki, the hermit magus they had met last month─it was almost as if one were the reflection of the other, in a mirror.

“The Princess made it sound like Hohoh Maniwa and Emonzaemon had some kind of a history,” Shichika said. “This must be what she meant. I guess it goes beyond the feud between the Maniwa and the Aioi.”

“Sure…but whether the Princess knows the entire story is unclear. Just goes to show you how slovenly and negligent a personality she has─she could care less about the past of Emonzaemon. That said, this doesn’t necessarily explain the grudge Emonzaemon has against the Maniwa.”

“Why not?”

“If Emonzaemon was apt to hold a grudge like that, Hohoh would not have desired his personality. Which must have been exactly what inclined the Princess to make Emonzaemon her confidant, regardless of his past. Well, then,” Togame made it sound like they were finished. “It feels like we’ve been traveling for quite some time─but from the looks of it, we have a decent ways to go before arriving in Iga. It could take three days, maybe four.”

“Okay. No way of knowing how long Hohoh will stay put. We better hurry.”

“Hmph─based on what we heard from Pengin, I see no cause for alarm…but there’s two sides to every coin,16 Shichika. This goes back to what I told you earlier. Depending on the interpretation,17 Hohoh going berserk might be a good thing for us after all.”

“You sure? I doubt it’s gonna be as bad as when a swordsman has one of the swords, but from what I can remember about Komori Maniwa, the combo of a ninja and a Shikizaki blade…is not a good thing, any way you look at it.”

“Yes, but now that he’s been poisoned by the venom, he no longer has access to the personality he stole from Emonzaemon.”

This was how the Schemer viewed the situation.

“If there’s anything I find scary about Hohoh Maniwa, it’s something about his personality. His way of being so at ease, despite being a member of the Maniwa, is what made him so menacing. But now that he lacks this menace─fighting him should be a walk in the park. Granted,” Togame admitted, “you’re the one who has to fight him. We were bound to have a showdown with the Maniwa sooner or later. This isn’t such an awful way to have to go about it. We can take down Hohoh Maniwa and capture Dokuto the Basilisk at the same time.”

“Dokuto the Basilisk…” Shichika spoke with an air of emotion. “Here we are, at the eleventh sword. When we were starting out, every time we got another sword, I felt anxious about the next─but at this point, it feels like the journey’s almost over. Not like it’ll be smooth sailing here on out,18 but still.”

“I see your point.”

Thus far, whenever Shichika let slip an optimistic comment such as this, Togame chided him or worse─and part of Shichika expected her to do so now, but things were different.

“You’re right. Our Sword Hunt is coming to an end.”

“Huh?”

Even though this was essentially what Shichika had said, Togame’s response was so uncharacteristic that he stopped dead in his tracks. Togame realized this a few steps down the road and turned around.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“No, nothing─it just startled me, hearing you say the journey’s almost over─you’ve mentioned that a couple times now. Like at the inn.”

“Hm? Oh, now that you mention it, I suppose I did. But it’s the honest truth─there’s no use getting worked up about it. Once we’ve laid hands on Dokuto the Basilisk, the Sword Hunt is as good as done.”

“Whoa, whoa. Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration? What about the twelfth and final sword, Ento the Bead? We still don’t know where it is or who actually has it.”

In an unlikely reversal, Shichika found himself the one berating Togame for getting ahead of the game. However─

“Wrong,” Togame negated his remark. “I think it’s safe to guess where we can find Ento the Bead.”

“Huh?”

“Likewise its owner.”

After speaking thus, Togame turned herself straight ahead and started walking─leaving Shichika to hurry up and take his place alongside her.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Safe to assume that Princess Negative has claimed Ento the Bead.” Togame said this facing straight ahead. “Or to be precise, she’s sharing it with Emonzaemon Soda─see?”

“Wha… Those two? They never let on like they had it.”

“Because they have no reason to… Honestly, Shichika, you need to learn to doubt people a little more.”

“And you need to learn to trust people a little more, Togame.”

Togame glared at Shichika, mildly peeved19 at this rare rejoinder, but she declined to make a comment, and instead changed the subject.

“Remember what the Princess said, last time we saw her in Owari? How Emonzaemon Soda put an end to Umigame Maniwa.”

“Yeah,” acknowledged Shichika. “Sure, I remember that. You were talking about how the Maniwacs are dropping left and right,20 behind our backs.”

Since as a general rule, Togame the Schemer did not believe a single word that Princess Negative uttered, she had not swallowed this particular statement whole; but in light of what Pengin Maniwa had told them, her information had not been contradictory.

At this point, it may as well be viewed as fact.

“I can understand Oshidori Maniwa. She stood between Emonzaemon and his directive from the Princess to assassinate Hohoh Maniwa─but not so for Umigame Maniwa. According to Pengin, Umigame was killed before the assassination was ordained.”

“The Maniwa Ninjas didn’t just betray you. Aren’t they considered traitors by the entire bakufu? I don’t see anything too crazy about a bakufu person like Emonzaemon killing off Umigame Maniwa.”

“Emonzaemon may work under Princess Negative, but I would hesitate to call him bakufu personnel─hence what makes him her confidant. Barring explicit orders from the Princess, he will not act gratuitously.”

Therefore.

There must be a reason that killing Umigame was not gratuitous.21

“So you’re saying this wasn’t about Emonzaemon…so much as Princess Negative? You mean…the Princess had some kind of a reason for killing Umigame Maniwa?”

“Correct. There was a specific reason, particular to Umigame Maniwa, among the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa…that made killing him imperative. We could also say: having killed off Umigame Maniwa, the Princess found it necessary to kill off Hohoh Maniwa as well.”

“And you think her reason for killing Umigame Maniwa…involved Ento the Bead?”

“Of course.”

“Sure─I remember now. After making their agreement with us, the Maniwa went after Seito the Garland, Dokuto the Basilisk, and Ento the Bead. Hohoh and Pengin were in charge of capturing the Basilisk…while Oshidori and Umigame were each in charge of one of the other swords, right? I guess Umigame must have been trying to find the Bead─wait. Do you think that Emonzaemon attacked Umigame after he found it?”

“That’s how it looks to me,” agreed Togame. “If you think about it, the Princess has been aggressive about this Sword Hunt all along─it would not remotely surprise me if her plan was to claim at least one of the swords as her own. In fact, perhaps she felt that one of the swords─would be more than enough.”

“…”

“At this point, it would be difficult to imagine any reason she would want to kill one of the Maniwa that did not somehow involve the Sword Hunt─all the more so if Emonzaemon is the one doing the killing. Thus…it stands to reason that Princess Negative has Ento the Bead.”

In actuality, Togame’s evaluation differed from reality significantly.

Umigame Maniwa was killed by Emonzaemon Soda before the boss could reach Ento the Bead─for Emonzaemon Soda had acquired it long before he killed Umigame.

That said, though her evaluation had its flaws─Togame was essentially correct about the current owners of Ento the Bead.

“Alright…but why would the Princess hide that from us? If she has it, why not say so?”

“Your head is such a simple, pleasant place. As long as she has one of the Twelve Possessed, she maintains the potential to negotiate with us─and if she plays her cards right, she could steal all of the credit for herself. Her strategy is identical to that taken by the Maniwa. Though I suspect that the Princess is after more than just the credit─she may well be plotting to destroy me in the process.”

“She sure has tricked you plenty of times already.”

“What, all of that? What you have seen so far is child’s play for her─when that woman gets down to business,22 it will be nothing like the games you’ve seen so far. Same goes for me, of course─in any case, if our final enemy is Princess Negative, that’d be just the usual for me.”

“Just the usual?”

“Indeed.” Togame grinned slightly and continued, “Hence why I said the journey of our Sword Hunt is nearly over.”

“Over23─huh.”

“As long as Emonzaemon and the Princess have Ento the Bead, it must be in Owari, which means that Iga will be our final venue on the road. But don’t worry, on top of New Maniwa, Iga has all kinds of things to offer. It’s a great place for us to round things off.”

“Yeah…”

Shichika did his best to go along with it.

She hardly sounded like the usual Togame, but if she was correct, and Ento the Bead had already been captured by the bakufu (albeit by her political rival), Dokuto the Basilisk would essentially be their final sword. Which would explain her sounding out of character, mused Shichika─but her next line knocked the wind right out of him.

“Hey, Shichika. Once this journey is over, would you be inclined to stay with me?”

There it was. Togame said it.

“Unlike Princess Negative, I’ve never had a confidant or right-hand man for an extended span of time─I have people working under me in the Military Directorate, but no one I can trust. Developing that kind of confidence would only interfere with my ambitions.”

“…”

“I’ve made a habit of sabotaging any professional or personal relationships before they go too far─which includes my several attempts to defeat24 the Princess, in the name of self-preservation25─but I never want to do the same to you.”

After she spoke.

Togame stopped midstride.

Shichika gazed at her expression─as if conscious of his scrutiny, she spun away.

But she continued.

“At first, I planned for you to be my partner only for the Sword Hunt─but now that I no longer have the Maniwa or Hakuhei Sabi, I need your strength. To help me in my rise to prominence.”26

“Togame─”

“Though the Sword Hunt is coming to an end─my battles are far from over. Depending on how things turn out, it may be even harder once we’ve captured all the swords─I’m going to need your strength. And I’m going to need the reassurance that I feel, being around you. Therefore, Shichika Yasuri─” Togame said, still turned away. “I want you to become my confidant.”

“I dunno…”

Shichika stammered, faced with this unexpected development, and this unexpected assertion from Togame.

When Togame had finished the Sword Hunt, what was she planning to do?

Specifically─when the Sword Hunt was over, what would she do with Shichika?

This question had been bothering Shichika for as long as he could remember.

“I am the son of Mutsue Yasuri.”

“Right.”

“Mutsue Yasuri─who killed your father.”

“Right,” Togame answered perfunctorily. “So what?” she asked. “It’s not like you’re the one who killed him. The second that Mutsue Yasuri died, he purged my animosity for the Kyotoryu.”

“…”

“Especially considering how you killed Mutsue with your bare hands…but regardless, what reason would I have to hold a grudge against you? Please, don’t tell me you’ve been hung up on something so absurd─”

Togame snickered, turning her body toward Shichika.

To get an eyeful of him.

Because of their difference in height, this meant looking up at him from below.

“So what will it be?”

“It’s not like I have a home to return to. My sister is dead…why would I want to go back to Haphazard Island? If you still want to retain27 me, I can’t think of anything better.”

“Then we’re set.”

Togame said this almost casually.

She turned ahead and started walking─and Shichika followed.

Suddenly.

Togame held her hand out for Shichika to take.

And when he scratched his head, she frowned.

“What are you doing, you nincompoop?” she asked. “When a confidant is walking with his master, he holds her hand.”

“Oh, really? I can’t imagine Emonzaemon and Princess Negative doing that.”

“Those two are the exception. They won’t even face each other.”

“Okay.”

Though Togame had not entirely cleared things up for Shichika, he did as he was told and took her hand.

And so they walked off, hand in hand.

If anyone was the exception─it was the two of them; no matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t the usual arrangement for a master and her confidant─but this was beyond Shichika.

“I gotta admit, I definitely wasn’t expecting you to say that out of nowhere. I figured you would wait until the very end, so that we wouldn’t lose our sense of urgency28 or focus.”

“Just think how much you’ve changed in the past year,” Togame said. “You’ve learned of people and the world, gained knowledge and a purpose. You’ve grown a lot. And I’m going through some changes too, after a year of traveling, though not as much as you. This trip has given me the chance to do a lot of things I’ve never done before. Just last month, we met a hermit magus!”

He may have learned of people and the world─but he had no way of knowing.

He may have gained knowledge and a purpose, and he may have grown─but he had no way of knowing.

As has been the case for all travelers throughout history─he had no way of knowing that when the journey ends, it brings an end to everything.

The figure spoke.

Looking like Hohoh Maniwa─sounding like Hohoh Maniwa.

The figure spoke.

“Quicker than I thought─I really hoped to kill him. He must barely be injured. It only took a few hundred years, but I guess we have decent warriors now─thank goodness.”

And with the eyes of Hohoh Maniwa─

The figure gazed upon the prostrate body of Pengin Maniwa.

As if gazing upon something truly disagreeable.

“Then again…not everybody here’s a decent warrior. Well…I suppose it’s for the best? After all, I hoped to kill him too. Hey, bucko─can you hear me?”

There was no reply.

Forget the gash across his chest─this was pure fear.

Pengin was terrified─physically incapable of summoning his voice.

“You stay put, on the ground─I’m sure someone will come and help you soon. And whoever it is, you can tell them─I’ll be waiting in Iga.”

With that─

The figure swung1 the sword, to shake the blood away2─and with a single swing, the blood of Pengin that was clinging to the blade went flying.

The black blade.

Dokuto the Basilisk.

The figure rested the bare blade upon a shoulder.

“I’ll be waiting there to test my sword out3─haha. The Maniwa Clan, that band of expert assassins. I never would have thought that oddities like them, an accident of history, would last this long─evidently the Aioi Clan met their ruin first. I have to admit, they’ve done quite well for themselves. In any case…”

Looking like Hohoh Maniwa.

Sounding like Hohoh Maniwa.

This thing─spoke.

“Perfect for testing out my sword.”

“Ho-Hohoh!”

“Hohoh? I’m not Hohoh.”

Said the figure.

“The name is Kiki Shikizaki.”

Back at the inn, on the outskirts of Dewa.

In a room on the second floor─Pengin Maniwa sat up, shrieking wildly.

“Oh, oh oh…n-nightmares,” he murmured─in a shaky voice.

Murmuring as his entire body shook─although in actuality, this was no dream.

Not a dream─exaggerated as it may have been, this was reality.

Although only a memory.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…ugh.”

Realizing he was drenched with sweat, he used the tenugui resting by his futon to wipe his face and neck.

Nightmares4 every time he slept.

Being awake was hard enough─but being asleep was even worse. What’s more, his body needed rest so badly he could only stay awake each day for a short time─but somehow, he had begun showing signs of recovery.

“…”

Pengin tossed aside the counterpane5 and scanned the room.

No one there.

The Schemer─and the Kyotoryu had left the inn several days before. Slinking away while Pengin was asleep.

Not like they owed him a goodbye; after all, they were enemies─asking the two of them for help could potentially be seen as an act of treason against the Maniwa.

Perhaps he would be denounced by his fallen comrades.

And yet.

The order came from Hohoh Maniwa─

No, not from Hohoh Maniwa.

For Hohoh Maniwa─had gone berserk.

He had no obligation to fulfill such an order.

However─

“The Schemer?”

Upon leaving the inn, Togame handed the innkeeper a sack of money, asking them to look after Pengin, allowing him to continue his recuperation even after they had gone─

─Togame the Schemer.

─This isn’t like her.

“I can understand why you would save me, in exchange for information…clearly I posed no threat to you, cut down by that katana. Still…why didn’t you kill me?”

He stood and stashed the folded futon in the closet.

Though he had yet to make a full recovery─he could not stick around this place and convalesce forever.

Indulging in the graces of the Schemer went against his pride as one of the Twelve Bosses─he couldn’t let the Schemer and the Kyotoryu save Hohoh on their own.6

Not when he was finally able to move around.

Which meant that he should make a move.

He had to catch up with those two.

“Berserk─that’s what I call berserk!”

Though his nervous tendencies persisted when he was alone─his voice stopped shaking when he was talking to himself.

Pengin murmured in a robust tone.

As if sorting out his thoughts.

“That she-devil─sure is opportunistic.”7

Frankly, Pengin had been ready.

After giving his account of Hohoh Maniwa, Dokuto the Basilisk, and Emonzaemon Soda, thus exhausting his usefulness to the Schemer─he was certain they would kill him.

He did his best to prevent this from happening─clinging to a great deal of the vital information─but he was sure that in the end, he could not prevent them from killing him.

And he was fine with that.

If it meant rescuing Hohoh─he could abide.

And yet.

The Schemer declined to so much as scratch Pengin.

Tending to his wounds and asking for the others to look after him.

This went beyond letting the enemy regroup8─she had underwritten the enemy’s recuperation.9

Even if she had been reluctant to take his life, she would have done well to break one of his arms or lop off a leg, rendering him unfit for battle, but she did not.

The old Schemer─would have done so.

The Schemer that Pengin knew─back in her honeymoon10 phase with the Maniwa Ninja Clan, would have done so in a heartbeat. He was sure of it.

Komori Maniwa had touched upon this once.

“That woman─is rotten to the core.11 Everything she does is calculated, from her demeanor to her choice of words. To her, the Maniwa are just another part of the equation. It’s truly no laughing matter.”

This was coming from Komori Maniwa, the ninja with whom Togame the Schemer had worked together most.

As far as Pengin was concerned, his word was credible.

Besides, in view of all the Schemer’s other strategies to date─the thought of letting Pengin Maniwa live to see another day was unbelievable.

It could only mean one thing.

“Has the Kyotoryu…transformed the Schemer?”

Most of his dialogue had been with the Schemer.

As a result, Pengin had barely exchanged words with the Kyotoryu─though from their brief exchanges, he had gleaned a certain understanding.

Remember, Pengin was a ninja.

Able to sense─the personality of the Kyotoryu.

“Whatever…at this point, no use fixating on the Schemer. Any way you look at it, I gotta chase them down,” Pengin told himself, as he changed from his nightclothes into his ninja garb. “I gotta head back to Maniwa.”

New Maniwa.

Their new home base in Iga, to which the bosses had made a pact12 not to return until the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki were theirs─but now Pengin would have to break his vow.

Especially since Hohoh, the one who had proposed the pact─was already physically present in the very place to which they vowed not to return.

Pengin reached for the fusuma.

But before his hand could reach it─the fusuma flew open.

Someone had opened it from the hallway.

It had to be an inn worker.

Coming up to check on Pengin─but this would never do. He had planned to leave the inn in secret, but his timing had been off─and yet.

His guess was wrong.

Beyond the open fusuma, he beheld no worker.

“─Impasse.”13

But a bemasked gentleman, standing in the doorway─

Emonzaemon Soda, speaking in a voice Pengin had heard before, and could never forget.

Pengin Maniwa─shrieked once again.

Though this time, shrieking at the present situation, neither a memory nor an embellishment thereof─he flew across the room and pressed his back against the wall.

Showing little interest in the way Pengin responded, the bemasked gentleman─Emonzaemon Soda made his way into the room, closing the fusuma soundlessly behind him.

The words “NON-NINJA” scrawled across his mask.

Making his face impossible to read.

Nay─if the Decapitation Cycle had indeed originally been his ninpo, then there should be no face behind the mask at all.

How could there be?

Since Emonzaemon appeared to be in perfect shape, what body part could Hohoh have stolen from him─other than his face?

In any case, it was a horrific thought.14

Not Hohoh stealing his face.

In that moment.

The moment when Hohoh finally went berserk.

His manner toward the one who stole his face─the way Emonzaemon Soda comported himself faced with Hohoh, was what seemed exceedingly horrifying.

He was so exceedingly calm.

Most people─would display scorn or hatred, or perhaps despair.

Why not he?

“Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh…………………………………………………………………”

Pengin was moaning─but true to his profession,15 and one of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa, he made a rapid observation of his foe.

Noting any differences from the last time.

The shoulder of his suit jacket─had been slashed.

Exposing the skin of his shoulder─wounded by the katana.

The wound Hohoh Maniwa had given him with Dokuto the Basilisk.

Pengin had a similar gash across his chest─but the wound suffered by Emonzaemon was superficial.

When he took the blow, it looked like he was spraying blood─but Emonzaemon must have narrowly16 evaded a more serious injury.

And on his hip─was no pair of swords.

He must not have had the chance to recover the two blades that he had willfully flung by the wayside. Based on the fact he had not bothered to procure new swords─

He could not be a swordsman.

The man called himself a former ninja, but if you asked Pengin, he was as fine a ninja as they came─down to his fleetfooted escape.

“Undiscovered.”

Emonzaemon craned his neck and looked around the room, as if having no interest in Pengin whatsoever─then spoke quietly.

“No sign of the Schemer or the Kyotoryu─we must have missed each other. Too bad─but no matter. The two of them are walking. If I run, I’ll catch up with them in no time─”

“Uh, uh, uh.”

“─Either way, assuming you’ve provided them with all of the essential information, like New Maniwa being in Iga, and Hohoh Maniwa having gone berserk and fled there on account of Dokuto the Basilisk─I suppose I can sit back and do nothing.”

“It-It─”

Pengin spoke in a shaky voice─though nevertheless resolute.

“It-It-It’s your fault that Hohoh─”

“My fault? I suppose you’re right.”

Pengin was about to blow, but Emonzaemon viewed him with equanimity.

“Though you can hardly disparage me for that─when you and I are enemies.”

“…”

“As an agent of the Owari Bakufu, and as an agent of the Aioi Clan, I regard the Maniwa as enemies. Not to say I hold some kind of grudge against the Maniwa─” Emonzaemon added. “Both as a ninja, and as a former ninja─I have no personal agenda toward any of you. I have only a directive.”

“Wh-Where…h-have y-you been?”

Strange it had taken him so long to discover that Pengin was recuperating at the inn─showing up now, at this juncture, Emonzaemon was a little late.

“Did I not mention my main and actual mission?” asked Emonzaemon, by way of a response to Pengin’s question. “The way things are, assassinating Hohoh Maniwa is too much to ask17 of me…or more than should be asked. As Hohoh somehow felt the need to say himself, our powers are so equitable as to make rivalry impossible. Perhaps assassinating Hohoh Maniwa was too much for me from the beginning─”

“Equitable…”18

“As I was saying, I have decided to let the Schemer and the Kyotoryu deal with Hohoh Maniwa and Dokuto the Basilisk. Giving me a chance to focus on my main and actual mission. Though if you ask Princess Negative, it’s no more than an incidental errand.”

The main, actual mission─was an incidental errand?

What was this about?

While Pengin had his blinds spots about Togame the Schemer─he was in the dark when it came to Emonzaemon’s master, Princess Negative.

Her very personality.

Was beyond his ken─

But even if he knew more, there were other things to think about.

“And now that my errand has been taken care of, and I’m heading home, I thought that I might pay you a visit─since, incidentally, it was on the way.”

“In-Incidentally? O-On the way?”

“Listen, Pengin Maniwa,” said Emonzaemon. “Since you are just a child, some might say I should show some sympathy and let you go─but I would disagree.”

When Emonzaemon spoke these words, Pengin remembered how the Schemer had behaved. Had she shown him sympathy and let him go─because he was a child?

Hard to say.

He could not say; and yet the man before him.

Emonzaemon Soda─had made it clear that he was not inclined to do so.

This man─

Planned to take out Pengin incidentally─as if running an errand19 on the way home.

“Though I have not been ordered to destroy you─allowing a nervous ninja such as yourself to survive could only cause me trouble down the line.20 It is not in the best interests of the Princess. Now that Hohoh Maniwa has gone berserk─it’s time for the Maniwa Clan to meet its ruin. A decision resting solely on my shoulders though it may be.”

With these words, Emonzaemon Soda thrust both hands into his jacket, crossing one arm over the other.

And when his hands emerged─they gripped two21 lumps of metal.

Not like Pengin had any chance of knowing what they were.

A revolver.

And an automatic.

How could he comprehend these weapons, when they should not even exist in this era?

Look at them.

How could he have known these were the implements that killed Oshidori Maniwa?

“Just as you attempted to disturb the equilibrium between me and Hohoh using Dokuto the Basilisk, I had hoped to disturb the equilibrium between me and Hohoh using Ento the Bead─I never would have thought a kid like you would steal a march on me.”

“B-Bead?”

Ento the Bead.

One of the Twelve Possessed of Kiki Shikizaki.

A process of elimination─would not be necessary to confirm this was the Shikizaki blade that Umigame Maniwa had been after─

“I thought that Hohoh Maniwa had a more cautious personality─since we do have the same personality and all. Regardless, your intrusion was most unexpected, Pengin Maniwa. Which is why I am not holding back when it comes to you. Alright, let’s show you what the Bead can do─”

“H-H-Huh???”

Pengin Maniwa had no preconceptions regarding Ento the Bead.

Even if the meaning of “Bead” were to be unpacked for him, he would fail to understand the workings of this weapon.

He was perplexed and discombobulated.22

And without overlooking his bewilderment─Emonzaemon Soda activated23 Ento the Bead.

Activate being no exaggeration.

Barely moving─but to pull the triggers on these lumps of metal.

Bang.

Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang.

The tinny sounds─rang through the room.

The echo strangely hollow and enormous.

Unlike Oshidori Maniwa, shot from behind, Pengin had been staring at Ento the Bead the moment it was fired─and seeing it in action, its workings were so simple it was baffling.

While small and short in barrel─

These lumps of metal had the firepower of flintlocks.

Able to launch24 pellets25 using explosive powder.

But these weapons were far more diabolical than any flintlock.

For one thing, they were handy.26

And fired in rapid succession.

Every shot that Pengin Maniwa heard─meant one more bullet hurtling towards him.

What happened to be going through his mind was Mitsubachi Maniwa, another of the Twelve Bosses of the Maniwa, late of the Bug Unit, and his Blunderbuzz, a form of ninpo bearing comparison to a firearm─but this was on another level. What was it? How on earth had these small lumps of metal been invested with such power?

It was commendable for Pengin to comprehend so much in but a fraction of a moment─but even so, he lacked the time to act.

This was a scene of total despair.

Forget escape, he could not move a muscle─

“Whuh?”

He could not move.

And yet─not one of the seven bullets unloaded by Ento the Bead so much as grazed his skin.

All seven shots landed27 in the wall behind him.

“Whah?”

Emonzaemon Soda cried out with surprise─nay, with astonishment.

“I missed…or, did you make me miss?”

“No use,” said Pengin Maniwa. Though cowering─and shaking all over, his words were firm. “I’ve figured out what makes Ento the Bead tick… It doesn’t matter if this sword of yours can unload quicker and more precisely than the average28 flintlock. As long as it fires projectiles, it’s useless against me.”

“…”

“That’s one of my ninpo moves─the Fate Blaster.”29

Fate Blaster.

A move whose specialness30 set it apart from all the Maniwa Ninpo─and the reason Pengin Maniwa, a child of few years, had been chosen out of all the ninjas in the village to be one of the Twelve Bosses.

Its power neither offensive nor defensive.

In a word─it was vitality.31

As you may have guessed, Togame the Schemer and Princess Negative were among those who rejected predestination32─and while the Fate Blaster was based on this very notion, it served also, as the name suggests, to undermine the power of fate.

Pengin Maniwa─was plain lucky.

His luck was so incredible,33 it left a dichotomy like having “good” or “bad” luck in the dust.

Contravening theory and reason.

Thwarting all attempts at logic, he was perpetually under a lucky star.

Consider─Umigame Maniwa.

Who had been unfortunate enough to wind up seeking the Bead─and on the flip side, check out Pengin, whose good fortune it was to seek, in tandem with Hohoh, the Basilisk.

One might say his good fortune was essential to the Maniwa discovering it.

Pengin Maniwa’s powers of reconnaissance, unrivaled by Komori Maniwa or Kawauso Maniwa─were likewise founded in the resilience of his luck.

In another of the endless sampling of examples─when Hohoh Maniwa went berserk and laid into Pengin, hoping to take his life, and Pengin failed to block the cut in any way, he managed to survive─for no reason other than the strength of his luck.

Strong enough─to blast through fate.

Hence the name Ninpo Fate Blaster.

“Right. I think I get the picture,” said Emonzaemon.

Just as Pengin had instantaneously understood the workings of Ento the Bead, Emonzaemon was able to surmise the nature of the ninpo used by Pengin Maniwa from the phenomenon which just took place, the circumstances of their last encounter,34 and the nomenclature “Fate Blaster.”

Picture it all you want, thought Pengin. But once your fate is blasted, it will never be the same!

“Considering the deep resentment the Schemer harbors for the Maniwa Clan, it’s odd she let you live, especially in one whole piece─do we have the Fate Blaster to thank for that?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

Pengin took a defiant stance.

Though on the inside he was shaking uncontrollably as ever, he did his best to hide it.

This was the moment of truth.

If he was able to break through this impasse─not only would he be able to catch up with Hohoh in Iga: he could capture Ento the Bead from Emonzaemon Soda, however he had happened to become its owner.

Ento the Bead.

The ultimate souvenir for Hohoh Maniwa!

“What I will say is that no projectile, regardless of how much power is behind it, can get through to me. The bullets do the dodging for me.”

In a foreign folk tradition, there is a story of a king who sauntered proudly through a battlefield as arrows flew every which way around him─but the good fortune of Pengin Maniwa rivaled that of this fantastical king, in fact surpassing it.

Not even the most expert marksman35 in Maniwa Village could pin36 a shuriken on Pengin Maniwa. The Blunderbuzz of Mitsubachi Maniwa, which boasted one-hundred-percent accuracy, could not so much as graze his body. For Mitsubachi Maniwa, a bug who never missed his mark,37 he was without exception the sole exception─lo, Pengin Maniwa.

“But just projectiles, huh?” asked Emonzaemon. “I get the feeling that this ninpo─is not so almighty38 after all. If you have the power to blast through fate, how do you explain the mess you’re in? You never would have let Hohoh Maniwa go berserk, nor allowed him to cut you down with Dokuto the Basilisk.”

“…”

“For the record, even without projectiles─I have my ways of injuring you. In all your exultation,39 have you forgotten? Aside from Ento the Bead, I have what Hohoh has decided to call the Decapitation Cycle─which I personally refer to as Endlessly Unsparing.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Pengin reassured him. “But I have my own tricks up my sleeve─they call me ‘Pengin the Breeder’ for good reason. Can you guess why?”

“Does it involve cloning yourself?”40

“Not quite─but close.”

With that.

Pengin Maniwa pulled a weapon41 from his pocket. The Schemer and the Kyotoryu were kind enough42 to take leave of the inn without disarming him─

A black ellipsoid object.

Sized perfectly to fit into the palm of Pengin’s little hand.

It could not have been a blade─but neither could it be a shuriken.

Though certainly a weapon, it could only be described as a black ellipsoid object.

In fact, he held one in each hand─just as Emonzaemon wielded Ento the Bead.

“What the hell are those?”

“These are my Lucky Pucks.”43

“Lucky what? This is the first I’ve seen or heard of such a weapon… Do you toss those trinkets at your enemy?”

“You got it!”

By way of a response to this snide remark, Pengin simultaneously released both weapons─both the Lucky Pucks, chucking them at Emonzaemon.

The dictionary definition of projectiles.

Compared to the bullets fired by Ento the Bead, their speed was astronomically─slower.

Dodging these two missiles44 would be a cinch for Emonzaemon.

And yet.

“Whuh?”

The Lucky Pucks─homed in on Emonzaemon from behind.

Zooming past─and doubling back.

“Gah!”

Though it was not at all what you might call a cinch, Emonzaemon contorted himself and dodged them both─whereupon the Lucky Pucks came within inches of Pengin.

Blowing past him, and hitting the wall behind him─ricocheting.45

Not round like normal pucks, but ellipsoid.

Hence, they ricocheted in random directions.

Off the wall, the ceiling, the floor, the fusuma, the shoji─the pair of Lucky Pucks could not be stopped,46 boomeranging47 across the room.

Dazzling boomerangs.

Blinding─boomerangs.

“Hey, these things─”

They did not merely ricochet.

Normally, when we say ricochet, we mean an object expends energy and slows down every time it bounces off a surface─but every time these Lucky Pucks made contact, they bounced away with ever greater speed. They may have been a little slow at first, but at this point, they flew so wildly that calling them “high speed” was no exaggeration.

High speed, or even lightspeed.48

The Lucky Pucks were invested with unholy springiness.49

Whereby.

As if cloned repeatedly, the first two Lucky Pucks, by dancing left and right, manifested as a hundred, then two hundred.

Hence the origins of the sobriquet “Pengin the Breeder”!

“Ugh…are you─”

Obviously.

In their rampant traversals of the room, the Lucky Pucks were hitting Emonzaemon Soda. By now too fast for him to dodge─or even to block. Had they maintained the speed they had when Pengin chucked them, Emonzaemon might have been able to catch both Lucky Pucks; but catching an unknown enemy projectile barehanded would not have been a wise decision.

Although it would have been the right one.

At this point, the two Lucky Pucks─which, having multiplied, had become two hundred Lucky Pucks, were much too speedy for Emonzaemon to grasp. Soft and ellipsoid─they slapped him silly, endlessly colliding with his body.

Springy enough to bounce off even fusuma and shoji.

In their collisions with his body, they barely packed a punch.

And yet─Emonzaemon had been perfectly immobilized.

Besides, when all those little punches pile up─things change.

“Pengin Maniwa!”

Pengin, whom he addressed.

Stood amid the hurricane50 of ricocheting Lucky Pucks─not moving a muscle.

The Lucky Pucks not even skimming his body.

On its own, this ninpo─Ninpo Lucky Pucks, amounted to a suicide51 maneuver, to be used in only the direst of circumstances. Employed indoors, in a cramped space, to incapacitate both friend and foe and even its practitioner─essentially, this ninpo was a way of buying time.

It had some things in common with a smokescreen.

But though their impacts added up, there was no way that the interior of the space, things like the fusuma and shoji, was more resilient than the human body─and so, as dazzling as they may be, the Lucky Pucks could hardly be lethal.52

However.

In the hands of Pengin Maniwa, who at the same time practiced the Fate Blaster, things were different.

His Lucky Pucks not only dodged his body: their paths collided with the softer surfaces, like the fusuma and shoji─as infrequently as possible.

Whereby─in the hands of Pengin Maniwa, the Lucky Pucks were lethal after all!

Aimless as they may be─they yielded lethal results.

All thanks to Pengin Maniwa being lucky!

“Blending53 an innately passive tactic like the Fate Blaster with an innately evasive tactic like the Lucky Pucks─very menacing. I’m beginning to see why you were chosen to be one of the Twelve Bosses, despite your age.”

Emonzaemon had given up trying to deflect or otherwise impede the Lucky Pucks that ricocheted around the room─he stared at Pengin as they washed over him.

“Hate to break it to you, Pengin Maniwa─but you’re nothing special. Every generation has a handful of individuals loved by history─the darlings54 of their age─”

“Huh?”

“Take Nanami Yasuri. You’re basically the Nanami Yasuri of the Maniwa Ninja Clan─just the thought of that gives me goosebumps… Once I let my thoughts get the better of me,55 it really makes my skin crawl. These Lucky Pucks are one thing, but imagine what would have happened had Nanami Yasuri picked up your Fate Blaster using that Watch and Learn of hers─gives me the shivers. Still─”

Emonzaemon made no effort to evade the bouncing Lucky Pucks.

Why evade them─when he had Ento the Bead.

The revolver and the automatic.

He leveled them on Pengin Maniwa.

“No matter how beloved you are by the current era─are you certain that you’ll be loved by the world centuries hence?”

“Huh?”

“At the historical level─fate cannot be blasted through so easily.”

With that.

Emonzaemon Soda pulled the triggers on both firearms.

Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang.

Another seven shots, sending another flurry of bullets from the muzzles of the guns.

Even at their current speed, the Lucky Pucks were outstripped by the bullets─but Pengin knew it was in vain.

If the hurricane of Lucky Pucks did not so much as graze his skin.

Seven bullets had no chance.

This was a sorry act of desperation.

“Ugh!”

And yet.

The instant Pengin Maniwa assured himself of victory─he felt a blow from behind.

Nay─to say he “felt” the blow is too tame of a locution.

The blow had force, like something sharp had been thrust into him.

Such a blow─had struck him three times over.

“…Huh…?”

“Three shots out of seven─not bad at all.” Even amid these developments, Emonzaemon spoke without the slightest difference in tone. “Of course, I owe this stroke of genius to your Lucky Pucks. Just like these two projectiles─”

Glancing at the Lucky Pucks continuing to ricochet around the room─and making no attempt to prevent them from striking him, Emonzaemon continued.

“I figured that a ricocheting bullet stood a decent chance of hitting you.”

“R-Ricochet?”56

Baffled─Pengin spun around.

But he could not believe his eyes.

The Lucky Pucks were able to ricochet because of their extraordinary softness─whereas the bullets, surely made of iron or the like, could never possibly have bounced off of the walls, not at that speed.

Case in point, the first seven shots that Emonzaemon fired had all landed in the wall behind Pengin─

“…nkk, ahh!”

“Impasse.” Emonzaemon nodded, watching Pengin put it all together. “You got it. Jackpot.57 In this last fusillade, I was not aiming at you. Instead, I aimed at the seven bullets buried in the wall, after my first round58─iron bounces off of iron. As a result, three of these seven bullets nailed you in the back. If your favor was everlasting, the ricocheting bullets would have come straight for me…but alas, it would seem your luck will run out at some point in the next few hundred years─”

“Wh-Wh-Wh-What are you saying─”

“No need. You need not understand.”

With these words, Emonzaemon threw open the fusuma behind him─whereupon the two Lucky Pucks buzzing around the room flew out into the hallway. He promptly shut the fusuma to prevent the oval objects from reentering the room.

Pengin Maniwa.

Whose luck─had finally run out.

“Uh, uh, uh…”

Stood admirably upright─despite the sharp pains gnawing at his back.

Yet, unimpressed, Emonzaemon walked over to Pengin Maniwa.

“Since my bullets lost momentum in the ricochet, I doubt your wounds are fatal─I have to admit, you put up a good fight. Sit tight. I’ll finish the job.”

As promised, Emonzaemon shoved the muzzles59 of both handguns into a stunned Pengin Maniwa’s mouth.60

“I reckon your Fate Blaster is blasted out─but regardless, there’s no missing from a range like this. Well, Pengin Maniwa. If you have any last words, now’s your chance.”

“…”

Pengin Maniwa─

Shed a single tear from a dilated pupil.

“B-But…I don’t want to die,” he said. “I-I didn’t─even want to fight.”

Emonzaemon responded to these words with a huge sigh.

“Congratulations. You’re the first person in history to die after a sorry line like that.”

Enjoying the last word.

Emonzaemon pulled the trigger.

Merciless gunshots61 resounded62 through the room.

Had been reduced to one.

And that one boss─had gone berserk.