THE LAST SAMURAI

 

THE LAST SAMURAI

V

Five years later

Kamakura, Japan

Kamakura lay crouched between the mountains and the sea; a warrior city forged in iron and blood. Due to its altitude, it had been chosen for defenses: its steep forested hills at its back, the open bay before it, but now those same mountains seemed to close in, heavy with mist and the echo of war.

The low thatched huts were on fire and led a trail of smoke in the air scarring the violet sun cast sky. The streets were strewn with dead bodies leaving a strong pungent odor renting the air, it’s narrow carved and deliberate pathways coiled like a serpent to confuse its invaders. The sound of steel was constant: swords being drawn, tested, sheathed again not in ceremony but in an act of war.

In Kakamura the soil bled and war was imminent. As the saying goes: a man’s blade was an extension of its soul.

In the beginning, the city had been disciplined and proud, the seat of the shogunate, where the samurai ruled in the name of the order. But now insurgency and war wreaked havoc among the once peaceful village of Kakamura. Banners from rival clans were seen being carried and hung from the long poles announcing their arrival.

“Yasuke! Yasuke! Yasuke!” a maiden not more than the age of twenty and eight screamed from the top of her lungs as she watched her family being burnt alive by the rival clans.

The banners of the Kakamura once a shiny crest of a shield with roses were now torn and weather beaten. The shiny cobblestones were filled with blood and the scent of dead bodies lingered in the air. Stone walls scarred the outskirts, their surfaces chipped by arrows and scorched fire.

At the main gate, two samurai warriors stood watch, unmoving despite the rain soaking their armor. Their lacquered plates were cracked, cords frayed, crests barely visible beneath the grime and blood. The war had stripped the city of color. Everything was brown, black, or the dull red of dried of blood.

These were men who had lost their families but still tightened their swords for the sake of its people.

“Yasuke! Yasuke! Yasuke!” the maiden cried again.

The fire spread through the houses like a raging fire ball, slowly incinerating the people who lived in this peaceful village: the home of the samurais. The smell of smoke was stuck in the air like a permanent scent. Somewhere, a temple bell rang once, not for prayer, but for the dead.

Near the shore, salt hung in the air, mixing the stench of burned timber and old blood. Fishing boats lay abandoned, their owners pressed into service or buried beneath a hasty pile of stones. Black crows perched among the dead bodies eating the flesh of the dead surreptitiously, unafraid of men in armor. The world seemed to come to an end.

In the distant Yasuke was down on his knees breathing heavy, his armor had been torn and damaged. His plates wrapped his body like the scales of an ancient beast, each one bound with silk cords darkened by age, sweat and old blood.

His black skin covered in blood, his face mask of a dragon warrior known as a Menpo had been torn into half, partially hiding his face and his dried tears. It’s iron teeth-stained crimson, the mask shaped to frighten both man and spirit. His Kabuto sat heavy on his head, crowned with a beaten-up ridged crest.

His eyes burned through the narrow slits, calm and unblinking as if already resigned to death.

His hand slid to the katana, fingers closing around the Tsuka with practiced reverence. He felt the faint vibration of the blade resting in its saya, as if the steel itself had awakened at his touch. The Tsuba pressed against his palm, cold and familiar, engraved with a fading clan crest half-erased by time and war.

There he knelt on the cold cobblestones across a dead general. Wearing the colors of a rival clan with shades of black and grey rivalling his own red lacquered plates. A contrast that could be seen from a mile away. In the vicinity burned houses were up in flames, illuminating the dark alleys and pathways.

He sighed.