“I don’t care if you kill me here and now. But my younger brother was just following me here. Take him north with you…please.” Sora bit his lip and begged to the soldiers in a desperate attempt to save his brother’s life.
“You don’t use the tongue of the north.” Tamuramaro crouched beside Sora.
That’s right. This man talked at length with Aterui. He knows what our tongue sounds like. Sora glowered at him, his eyes as fiery as the red lines drawn from his eyelids.
“Don’t glare like that. You’re only a small boy.” Tamuramaro stared at Sora with pity. When a soldier tried to pry the bow and arrow from Sora’s hands, he intervened. “Wait. Be careful. There must be fatal poison on the arrowhead.”
He knew full well how earnestly Sora had tried to kill him, yet he still pitied the boy.
“It’s no wonder that an Emishi would loathe me,” Tamuramaro said.
This man was incomprehensible.
“But, Commander, we all know how much you pleaded with the emperor to spare Aterui’s and More’s lives. The emperor was too determined not to ‘let the tiger go out in the wild,’ as he said, and he chose to kill them while they were still in our hands… How can a mere boy like him understand your pain, sir?”
For some reason, the young soldier who spoke had tears in his eyes.
“I gave them the promise. I was the one who couldn’t keep it. It’s only natural that they would despise me. Don’t kill him. He’s just a child.”
“No, sir, I can’t let him go! He tried to shoot you! Even if you may forgive him, our law does not!”
Could it be that this man is loved by the soldiers here, just as we once loved Aterui?
To Sora, his idea of the man who had tricked Aterui and put his head on display seemed completely incompatible with what he was hearing now.
“How can you tell anyone that your commander was nearly assassinated by a mere child?” said the man. “It’s a disgrace. We shouldn’t kill children. There’s so much they don’t understand yet.”
As he listened to Tamuramaro’s deep, calm voice, Sora heard Aterui’s words in his ear: “Do you all think I am so weak as to need the life of a young boy?”
“We are about to build another castle in the north,” said the soldier. “He may be a child, but anyone who draws an arrow on you now will surely plant the seeds of your ruin, Commander.”
Seeing that none of the soldiers were backing down, Tamuramaro heaved a sigh.
Apparently, the long years of violent conflict with the north had left both the northern people and the Imperial soldiers with resentment.
Sora realized that they both held a grudge against each other for the deaths of their kind. There was no other way: He would be killed, then and there. If someone had aimed an arrow at Aterui, none of his people would have let the culprit live, either.
“Just spare my little brother, please.”
Tamuramaro, still crouching, took Sora’s chin and lifted his face.
“Your little brother… You want us to bring him to the north, eh? Will there be anyone to take care of him there?” asked Tamuramaro, studying Sora thoughtfully.
“Yes. There are women waiting there. Please take him back north. I beg you.”
“Understood. I’ll grant your wish. We’ll take him.” Tamuramaro gave a stern order to the soldiers, who looked doubtful. He straightened up, took one last look at Sora’s face, and declared, “This child with the arrow not only speaks eloquently, but he is astoundingly beautiful. Offer him to the Imperial prince.”
“To Prince Ate, sir?”
“He enjoys his sensual pleasures—he even sleeps with his wife’s mother. He’ll likely take in anyone who’s beautiful. If the boy enters the Imperial Palace and gains the prince’s favor, he won’t be able to get out again. No likelihood of him returning to the north or coming after me.”
Tamuramaro spoke without hesitation, and Sora understood what he meant.
“Fuuka. Go with that man. Don’t worry about me.”
Sora smiled at his brother. Once Fuuka was gone, out of sight, he would bite his tongue and end his own life.
His precious, innocent brother, who’d tagged along behind him his whole life. He should have left Fuuka behind, but he’d made the mistake of bringing him here.
With a child’s purity, Fuuka believed in his brother above all else. Sora’s heart swelled to know that at least he could return home safe and sound.
Sora didn’t know when he and Fuuka had become so inseparable. Fuuka was a gentle, dutiful brother, sticking to Sora like his own shadow. That was why he was still there with him on such a dangerous mission, but now Sora was simply glad they could part ways.
“If only Lord Aterui were still here…,” murmured Sora. He had no regrets now, and the words escaped him as he felt his own death drawing near.
Perhaps the people of the north were on their way to building a peaceful, stable life. But Sora wasn’t satisfied. Such a life was only possible with Aterui’s genuine justice. But that honest leader had been beheaded, and to rub salt in the wound, his head had been left out here like that of a common criminal.
Sora could never forgive someone who broke a promise. Even if he died, even if he bit his own tongue, even if his soul was torn into shreds, he would keep his eyes wide-open and spend eternity seeking to mete out punishment.
“His virtue and justice were a beacon as bright as the sun itself. I’ll never forgive those who betrayed him.”
As Sora prepared himself to die, all he desired was justice.
“Brother?”
Tamuramaro was already gone, walking back to his steed. “He’ll live,” one of the soldiers was telling Fuuka. “Don’t you worry.”
“Then I’m going with you, Brother.”
“No! Fuuka, you can’t!!” For the first time in his life, Sora scolded his brother sharply.
“Why?”
“Your big brother’s going to be a diversion for the Imperial prince. Be grateful he can keep his life.”
“He isn’t grateful. I can see it in his eyes.” Fuuka suddenly drew a sword from the sheath on the soldier’s waist. “It’s going to kill his soul. He hates that his justice is dead. You’re all liars.”
With those words, Fuuka’s eyes blazed a fiery vermilion red. He flung his arm without a moment’s hesitation and slashed open the man’s throat with the tip of the blade.
“…!”
“Fuuka…?”
He must have nicked a major blood vessel—Fuuka’s white silk robe and skin were quickly drenched crimson. And when the next soldier rushed to stop him, not even a sigh or a hint of doubt escaped Fuuka as he thrust his sword into him.
“You little…!”
Now that two of their number were dead, all the soldiers readied their weapons.
Fuuka moved like the wind, dodging blades and striking back, discarding his own sword as soon as it dulled and taking up another from a dead soldier, until twenty men had been slaughtered. Fuuka himself only had slight cuts on his skin.
“What’s going on?!”
When he heard Tamuramaro’s voice from a distance, Sora became aware that all the soldiers who had been holding him down were dead.
It was as if a roaring flame were swirling, a flame that would not be extinguished for days on end, consuming everything it touched. Fuuka fought like a wildfire that slashed instead of burned.
The fierce fire raged on, as though fed by the wind, and it never wavered as it razed almost everyone around him to the ground. Only some of the men on horseback managed to escape.
It was only a fire burning—and burning was a fire’s nature.
Before Tamuramaro could reach them, Fuuka had massacred another ten, then twenty, cutting them down as if it was as easy as breathing, sometimes picking up a spear to run his opponents through. While Sora held his breath, Fuuka was getting stained in blood before a growing mound of corpses.
“Are you all right, Brother?”
A fire didn’t feel anything—it only burned.
When he saw that Sora was getting to his feet, Fuuka beamed, not a hint of brutality on his face.
Sora thought about his little brother, who had never even punched someone before.
“My men… It can’t be. Just this one child?”
By the time Tamuramaro pushed his way through the corpses, they were long dead.
“Fuuka.”
Before he had a chance to think, Sora clasped Fuuka’s arm and started running. Fuuka had just been a fire, but his hand wasn’t hot at all.
“So can we go back north, Brother? Together?”
Fuuka smiled artlessly, happy to hold hands with his brother again.
He was so innocent. There was not a trace of menace in Fuuka. Even though he had neither menace nor murderous intent, he slaughtered all those people as easy as breathing or drinking water.
Sora ran up the hill to the east. It was steep, but for the brothers, who had grown up in the narrow, craggy mountains and fields of the north, that was nothing.
“Fuuka.”
They had played together in fields and mountains from when they were little, learning the art of archery and swordplay. They did everything together. The conflict with the Imperial Court had begun before they were born, but as far as Sora knew, they had never thought about killing anyone with their own hands as they were growing up.
“What is it, Sora?”
Sora, at least, had never imagined taking another person’s life until Aterui’s death. After that, he had considered murder for the first time.