"Lady of the Waste" by David Christopher Meredith

Today had been decidedly profitable, the fat merchant decided with a grin as he rolled bonelessly onto his back. His nearly hairless body was glistening in the faint fire light with the profuse sweat of his labors. His pounding heart and shallowed breathing refused to slow from the frenetic pace of his striving. As he ran thick, sausage fingers through his thinning gray hair, the fat man looked to the woman who lay on his left appraisingly.

Very profitable indeed.

She was beautiful. She could not have possibly been a day older than seventeen with large brown eyes and lustrous black hair that nearly drug on the floor. Now she lay beside her corpulent partner nearly as breathless herself. It could be argued however, that her seemingly quickened state was much more attributable to the crushing weight of the rich merchant's girth rather than any particular prowess on his part. Having been deprived of oxygen for several long minutes, she gulped the stale air of her moldering bedchambers greedily.

The balding, fat man of course, appreciated the pretty young woman's clearly breathless state smugly. He had an opinion of his abilities as a lover that were very nearly as over-inflated as his own bloated body and gave himself full kudos for a job well done. Of course, he honestly would not have been particularly concerned if she had appeared anything less than pleased with his efforts. This had been his just reward after all. Who cared about her opinion anyway? She owed him.

It had been no small inconvenience to take so much time in assisting the clearly distraught young Lady. He had met her weeping piteously on the roadside just the day before. Helping the silly strumpet had stripped him of at least a full day at market and the gods only knew what he would do with his New Year's tangerines now. They were just at their peak and the delay was sure to cause at least some of them to over-ripen. Helping her find her way home, deep in the Awareyama Waste no less, was definitely going to cost him.

The obese merchant could hardly complain about the quality of her mode of payment, he had to admit. Generally for a man like him to procure the favors of a pretty, young thing like her it would have cost a near fortune at the teahouses. That was of course assuming that such a beauty could have been had at all. He ran his lascivious gaze over the woman's still heaving body appreciatively once more. She was truly exquisite. Translucently white skin, youthfully lithesome firmness, while at the same time fully possessed of the gentle, soft curves of womanhood... Yes. Whatever this ended up costing him in spoiled fruit, the delay had been well worth it.

Her long black hair was disheveled now, as was her sumptuously embroidered, if sadly threadbare and faded kimono. In his lustful haste, the fat man had not bothered to undo her wide obi belt. Instead he had simply pulled the garment wide both above and below to reveal a more than enticing amount of soft, milky flesh.

As she lay exposed on the rumpled bedding, she turned her large brown eyes away from him dejectedly. She stared unseeing into the darkened depths of the deserted, near-ruined manor house. Her ample bosom, which had been heaving from passionate exertions before, began to shake less rhythmically. The pretty young woman miserably bit her full, pouty, lower lip as bitter tears began to leak from the corners her deep chocolate eyes.

Damn it.

He hated it when they cried.

Tears tended to make a woman's makeup run. It turned their eyes all red and made their noses all messy. He did not find it attractive in the least. It was not as if she had not understood the terms of the agreement, he thought irritably. The merchant had been quite clear that he was a successful, busy man and expected to be appropriately compensated for his valuable time. He cared not one wit that she came from a highborn House. It was obviously one fallen on hard times in any case, if the abandoned, deteriorated condition of the remote mountain manor was any indication.

No grooms had seen to his horses or helped him unhitch his wagon upon their arrival. No servants offered him any refreshment as he entered. There honestly did not appear to be another living soul in the place at all! Not that he could blame them really. The Awareyama Waste was ill-omened at best. It was certainly nowhere that he would have chosen to build an estate.

Oh well. Not his problem. To his way of thinking, birth was just a starting point anyway. Being of common birth himself, the prosperous merchant was fond of reciting his favorite proverb to anyone who would listen. "Anyone with too much pride in their ancestors is like a potato. The best part of him is buried". He would then generally follow this up with a bark of hearty laughter at his own cleverness.

If this girl was suffering whose fault was it but her own? She had no cause to act so high and mighty. It was not as if she had been unfairly violated in any way. He had stated his terms and she had accepted them. That was that, plain and simple.

It was not as if women were not all whores anyway, he thought uncharitably. Some just cost more than others. All women, whether orphaned peasant girl or the empress herself, traded sex for subsistence. Like any other commodity, those of greater worth could demand a higher price for the use of their bodies. Those of lesser value could demand less. Whether the price was marriage, land, titles, or just a few copper coins, all women had their price. The obese merchant nodded sagely at the thought and sighed as he wiped the sweat from between the rolls of fat at his enormous belly and breast. Her price had been assistance in finding her way back to this ramshackle estate in this gods forsaken, nearly abandoned corner of the Empire.

The girl had gotten lost in the surrounding woods and come upon the fat man and his wagon purely by chance, she said. His first impulse had been to leave the foolish trollop to her fate. She had cried so piteously however, and begged and pleaded so impassionedly that ultimately the merchant had relented, but for a price. He was a businessman after all, not some soft-hearted, soft-headed altruist by all the gods and ancestors! As irritating as they certainly were most of the time, he thought, women did have their uses.

She could have said no. He had certainly not forced her to accept. Like any other business deal, he thought with an unsympathetic grunt, even if you thought you had made a poor trade later on, it did little good to weep over it after the fact.

The fat man thought again about his spoiling tangerines with a grimace. She had not paid her bill in full yet by his estimation, not by a long shot! He meant to take her again, as many times as he could in fact before dawn. The deal had been for one night in her bed and he intended to make good use of it! But first... He was feeling a bit sleepy after all that unaccustomed exertion. Maybe... just a short rest would not be amiss... just a quick nap...

Before the fat man's eyes fluttered closed he again caught sight of the woman’s stricken gaze. Tears were pouring down her cheeks in earnest and she released an audible sob. The merchant huffed again, rolled his eyes, and turned over, shaking his all but neckless head again in irritation. No good to cry after the fact.

Stupid bitch.

He closed his eyes.

Suddenly all of the wind was driven from the obese tradesman’s lungs. He felt something heavy drop crushingly down upon his blubbery chest and belly. It pinned his bloated body to the floor, firmly immobile. The fat man found it difficult to breathe. He tried to move. He struggled this way and that as he attempted to twist the mountainous weight off of him to no avail. The merchant opened his tiny, piggy eyes wide.

Two blood red orbs gazed back soullessly.

"Very good my slave," the creature rumbled savagely.

Its voice was full of menace. It was gravelly, dark, and as deep as the sea. The nightmare vision smiled wickedly exposing several rows of long, razor sharp teeth.

The young woman again sobbed loudly at the harsh praise while the fat man simply stared in horror. She buried her face in her pillow to block out the sight of what she knew would come next… what always came next.

The evilly hissing creature ran a forked tongue over cracked, black lips hungrily and slowly raised a wickedly clawed hand.

"I do soooo like the fat ones," it murmured viciously, running a long forked tongue hungrily over its dagger-like teeth. "So juicy… So tender..."

The merchant screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and...

***

Takano Yuta was riding full tilt down the empty country lane. It felt good to get away from the cramped and crowded city for a while. On this abandoned stretch of rural highway he was taking full advantage of the additional space. He gave his horse full reign as she thundered down the wide, dirt path.

Tanpopo for her part seemed to be enjoying the exercise as well. She had been cooped up far too long through the long snowy months of winter. The gray mare's muscles bunched and stretched almost frantically as she pounded down the dusty road beneath her hooves.

The sun beat down from a clear blue sky warmly, but not uncomfortably. A gentle spring breeze softly tousled the slowly greening boughs of the flowering cherry trees that lined the road and the air was heavy with the fragrance of the delicate pink blossoms. Here and there more than a few sakura divested themselves of their soft, downy petals. They fell all around horse and rider like a warm, pink snow.

It was very nearly like something out of a dream, a day positively picturesque in glorious perfection. Yuta laughed out loud for the shear joy of it. There was nothing quite like a good ride on a clear spring day with a spry horse beneath you. That was particularly true given how cooped up he himself had felt all winter, he thought.

The young man was bound no place in particular. He had simply decided that he had to get out of the city upon arising early this morning at his father's house. Even then, in the lightening gloom of dawn, he had perceived the makings of this perfect day. Now he reveled in it.

Young Lord Takano was not technically what was commonly referred to as the ‘leisure class’, but he was nobly born. Incidentally, he also seemed to have a great deal of leisure time of late. The Takano family had long served the Morimoto Clan, which at one time had not only controlled the crowded city, but all of the surrounding countryside besides. They had fallen on hard times recently however, and were currently out of favor with the emperor. Because of this unfortunate turn of events, they had also been forced to cut back on everything from manors and holdings to staff. This had of course included their bonded warriors as well. Suddenly, the Takanos had found themselves to be samurai without a Clan to serve.

This could have been disastrous. It had already proven so for a number of other Morimoto samurai families. Luckily however, Yuta’s father had long ago rightly predicted which way the wind was blowing. Unlike so many of their former allies, the Takano Clan had not been unprepared.

The elder Takano had used most of his modest fortune to purchase a great deal of his former employer’s enormous debt. This effectively kept the money flowing in the form of interest payments that otherwise would have been cut off when the Morimotos no longer required his services. He then took this new inflow of cash to start another whole slue of other business ventures.

Effectively, and Yuta himself thought rather ironically, the Morimoto Clan had financed the rise of Clan Takano infinitely more fastidiously in their decline than they ever had under service. In any case, the Takanos were enjoying a new affluence that honestly rivaled that of their former masters at their peak. This then allowed young Yuta a not insignificant monthly allotment for his own personal expenses as well as a great deal of free time in which to spend it.

On a glorious day like today, Tanpopo, a beautiful, gray two year old that his father had bought for him, would have run of her own accord until she dropped from exhaustion. Yuta hardly wanted that for the promising, even-tempered mare. With a bit more training and a significantly lighter rider he had visions of her winning derbies back at the city. It would hardly do for him to run the beast lame on the very first day he took her out.

The young samurai reined Tanpopo to an easy canter, though she strained against the bit impatiently. After a few more short furlongs Yuta pulled the little gray to a halt beside a peaceful looking lily pond just to the side of the roadbed. It looked like a perfect spot to stop and eat his lunch.

The pond was surrounded by more of the same flowering cherry trees that had also lined the road. These in particular were positively loaded with small, pink blossoms. The quiet pool itself was full to bursting with brilliantly blooming lily pads and birds chirped happily in the surrounding cotton candy boughs. Contributing to the natural serenade were also literally hundreds of tiny green frogs croaking contentedly in the cool water below. It was poetically picturesque in Yuta’s opinion as he tied Tanpopo to a tree before stretching himself languidly on the soft, cool grass.

The young Takano could have been an easy man to hate for his unmitigated good fortune. Certainly Bishamon, god of luck, had smiled on him and his family. Yuta was exceptionally wealthy by any standard. His voluminous, pleated hakama pants and loose-fitting haori shirt were of the finest quality, sumptuously embroidered silk. The tack and saddle that Tanpopo was outfitted in were elaborately tooled in gold and silver. The blades he bore were of positively decadent high quality, and he himself was none too painful to look at either.

The young noble was broad of shoulder but delicate of feature nearly to the point of femininity. His dark brown eyes were piercing and serious and his high, finely chiseled cheekbones and impeccable bearing gave him a regal appearance. He untied his long black hair and shook it out to fall luxuriously about his muscular shoulders. Then he kicked off his rice-straw traveling sandals and sock-like zori slippers before removing a carefully tied bundle of rice and steamed fish from his saddlebags. He took a large, quick bite but then set the food to the side to remove his sword belt whereon hung his long, curved katana, slightly shorter wakazashi, and keen tanto dagger. As leisurely as this frivolous excursion was intended to be, luck favored the prepared after all.

Yuta lay back on the soft grass around the pond to stare up through the gently swaying, pink cherry branches to the brilliantly blue, cloudless sky beyond. Certainly this was a day to be cherished! He thought to himself lazily, thoroughly exulting in the perfect weather and beautiful surroundings. A poem came to his mind unbidden.

Azure field above,

Sweet pink blossoms and birdsong,

A glorious day!

It was not his best work, by any stretch of the imagination. Today however, it seemed perfect, just like everything else. Once again the rich young man congratulated himself for picking such a magnificent day for this outing.

He must have dozed after that, because Tanpopo’s nervous stumping and snorting woke him with a start. The little mare stamped nervously and pulled against the reins where she was tied. Yuta sat bolt upright. He looked around frantically for some sign of what had spooked the animal, but detected nothing. He saw only the same gently swaying cherries and placid waters of the frog pond. All the same, the young samurai hurriedly packed up his belongings and strapped his sword belt back around his waist. Something had unnerved Tanpopo. That in turn, unnerved him.

In trying times like these, one could not be too careful in the rural wilds outside the city. A number of men neither as insightful nor as honorable as his father had turned to thievery in the absence of honest employment. Of course, poverty and misery could drive even an honorable man to desperation, and there was plenty of both to go around these days.

Hence Yuta’s heavily armed state even on this, a mere pleasure ride. The threat of ronin, rogue samurai turned bandit, in the area was very real to say nothing of wild animals like bears and wolves that might be lurking about. There were a great many dangers of which one could run afoul if one was not extremely careful.

Yuta strained his ears, listening carefully for anything at all that might be out of the ordinary. All he could detect however was the soft jingling of Tanpopo’s harness, the gentle croaking of frogs, and the merry singing of birds among the cherry blossoms. There was a faint plop as one of the unseen amphibians hopped from a lily pad into the still, clean water of the pond. He heard nothing more. Perhaps he was simply imagining things.

But no… No.

It was faint, but the young warrior’s keen ears definitely picked up something strange, something out of place. It was coming from further up the road and he could not quite make it out. Yuta crept a bit closer until he could discern exactly what it was that had caught his attention. As he drew nearer he realized that what he had heard were voices.

"… you?" a gruff male voice growled as the young Takano moved slowly nearer. "I think I’ll just help myself!"

Several other harsh voices followed this with loud barks of rough laughter, before the first speaker continued.

"So whatcha think boys?" it hissed nastily. "It has been a while, ain’t it?" A chorus of enthusiastic agreement met the man’s suggestion.

The brush and foliage was very thick and Yuta had to proceed carefully to remain silent. The young Takano crept nearer still, trying vainly to see what was going on. Pampered youth though he might have been, he was starting to get an idea of what he would see already. The idea enraged him and he felt his hackles rise. His blood began to pound in his ears at the mere thought of what he had apparently arrived in the middle of.

Almost as if in answer to his dark suspicions, a musical female voice spoke up in answer to the rough masculine growl. Her tone was pleading, fearful, and only helped to confirm what the young samurai already supposed. With a low growl of his own his hand strayed slowly to the red, silk-wrapped pommel of his long katana blade.

"Please sir," the almost painfully sweet voice begged quietly. It was nearly too soft to be heard at all. "I have lost my way in these woods and have been wandering for hours. If you would but help me find my way back to my father’s house, I’ll give you anything you want! If you could just…"

"Look here deary," the rough voice interrupted the young woman inelegantly. "I ain’t taken’ you nowhere unless I ‘take you’ right here, if you know what I mean." The man’s boorish companions laughed uproariously at his suggestive pun and he went on. "I sure as Hell ain’t takin’ you nowhere in the Waste! If you’ve gone and got yourself lost I reckon that’s your own damned problem."

Yuta finally moved to where he had a good view of the speakers. Five people were standing together in what appeared to be a crossroads. There were four shabbily dressed, rough-looking men and a young woman who Yuta could only describe as breathtakingly beautiful. The men looked to be peasants by their garb, but the weapons they carried, katana of at least middling quality it appeared at first glance, belied their filthy, soiled clothing.

They were all unwashed and unshaven. They all had a hungry glint in their eyes that reminded the young warrior forcibly of starved wolves. Even though it was only just barely past noon, the reek of cheap alcohol as well as the stink of their filthy bodies hung cloyingly in the warm spring air.

By contrast, the young woman whom they were accosting only served to make the four ruffians’ appearance seem that much more unkempt and disheveled. She appeared to be a Lady of some refinement. Her bearing was regal and although the clothes she wore were long out of style, threadbare, and liberally decorated with dead leaves and odd twigs, the cut was still obviously of very high quality.

She was very small, barely reaching the middle of the bandit leader’s chest, but was generously well-endowed. Her facial features were delicately striking, as well. She had a tiny nose, full red lips, and large brown eyes that seemed nearly the color of copper. Her translucently fair skin made milk look dark by comparison and her long, silken hair, though obviously disheveled by trudging through the woods, was nearly the color of jet.

The biggest of the four men who had been doing all of the talking had one lecherous arm draped loutishly around the woman’s slender waist while his other coarsely pawed at her breasts. He flashed a nearly toothless smile as he drawled contemptuously.

"As for whatever we want..." the bandit asserted himself even closer against the young woman. His lascivious eyes ran all over her body like licentious fingers. "We generally just take that."

In a single lightening fast motion the thuggish highwayman gripped the two halves of the young Lady's kimono and jerked them apart viciously. The harsh sound of ripping fabric echoed through the clearing mingling with a reflexive, startled squeak from the woman as she hastily threw up delicate, porcelain hands.

Despite her hurried attempt to cover herself, the violent act still exposed a substantial portion of large, white breast. The much bigger man took the opportunity to seize both of her wrists and twist them painfully behind her back with practiced ease. He stood behind her and wrenched her arm viciously as he bit down hard on her left earlobe. She cried out in pain as he drew blood.

"Now you’ll just have to behave yourself and do what we say, missy," he drawled huskily. "Maybe, then we won't have to hurt you too bad..."

He looked over at his leering fellows, gazing hungrily at the small woman held immobile before them. They grinned wickedly as they fixedly stared at her delicate, exposed flesh, while the young lady herself gazed shamefacedly at the ground. The big man holding her began to pull the lower half of her kimono up above her waist from the back as he addressed his practically salivating companions.

"I'll be a nice guy," he murmured suggestively. "I'll hold her first... Which one of you wanna soften her up for me?"

Yuta had seen enough.

In one fluid motion he leapt from his hiding spot and drew his sword. With a bellow of fury he cut down the closest of the leering bandits from behind. He followed up that blow with a vicious slash to the throat of the fallen bandit's nearest companion. The strike was powerful enough that it nearly separated the man's head from his shoulders. Both bodies dropped to the ground like heavy sacks of rice, spurting a crimson rain of blood as they fell. The remaining would-be rapists, caught thoroughly off guard, whirled awkwardly to meet Yuta's furious onslaught.

The young samurai had the advantage of surprise, however. Before the bandit leader's last living companion got his sword halfway out of his sheath, Yuta's stabbing blade sank deeply into his gut. He gurgled horribly as the young Takano warrior jerked the weapon free. The brigand slumped slowly to the ground to lay beside his fellows writhing in agony as he tried futilely to hold his sundered bowls inside of his dying body. Yuta affected not to notice at all as he rounded on the bandit leader.

The coarse highwayman snarled furiously and viciously thrust the now nearly fully disrobed young woman away from him. Despite Yuta’s speed, the bigger man managed to draw his own sword, raise it to defensive position, and neatly parry the younger man’s furiously slashing blade. The two men regarded each other coldly.

Yuta spared a glance for the young noblewoman. She lay weeping in a quivering heap on the ground clutching her torn garment together miserably with one hand. Her visibly distraught condition only served to fuel his rage. He roared a wordless, bestial challenge as he charged toward the bandit leader.

The thuggish warrior again easily turned the blow and nimbly whirled away.

"An interesting sense of honor you have samurai." the filthy brigand snarled derisively through gritted teeth. "That you cut down three men from behind without so much as a challenge? Coward..."

"Those without honor should expect none," countered the young warrior defiantly as black gore dripped from his naked blade. He colored his words with as much contempt and disdain as he could muster. "Should I warn a rabid dog before I strike it down? Merely touching a woman of noble birth by a common cur like you carries a sentence of death, let alone what you intended. Consider it an execution."

"You're a fool boy," sneered the elder, bigger man. "I think you'll find me a difficult fellow to execute. Save your self-righteous bravado. It bores me."

The bandit leader lunged forward in a rush that caught Yuta by surprise. He was only just able to turn the grizzled older man's blade from a path that would have disemboweled him as he spun nimbly out of the way. The velocity of the brigand's charge was such that he hurtled past the young samurai, nearly falling himself. Yuta was too off balance to take advantage of the opening with any sort of counter, but was able to find and set his own feet. The other man rounded on him again.

"You're going to have to do better than that little hero," the highwayman taunted him contemptuously as he readjusted his fighting stance.

His first attack had been a two handed attempt to end the melee quickly. Now he shifted his long curved katana to his right hand and drew a wicked looking dagger with his left.

"Do you know how many little slugs like you I've crushed under my heel, boy?" he hissed viciously and began to circle slowly looking for an opening. He smiled unpleasantly. "If you do, let me know. I've lost count myself."

He lunged forward again.

Yuta drew his own shorter wakazashi blade just in time to meet a flurry of blows hailed down upon him by his adversary. As rough looking as the other man certainly appeared, he was obviously no stranger to the use of a blade. He moved with the fluid grace of a fully trained warrior and a practiced dexterity that Yuta knew could only come from years of experience. In fact his speed and ferocity were such that Yuta began to think that perhaps he had bitten off more than he could chew. It was all he could do to deflect the torrent of blows the other man rained down upon him.

"So tell me, brigand," the young Takano taunted with as much contempt coloring his words as he could muster as the two combatants again spun apart. "Why did your master release you? Did you show his wife similar attentions as you intended for this Lady. Or perhaps his children? Perhaps you fled your duty like a craven worm. Or maybe he was just offended by your smell…"

The older man roared in rage and charged Yuta again. The smaller Takano ducked under the bandit’s attempt to decapitate him and countered with a slash across the man’s ribs. He struck flesh, but managed only a shallow gash with his short wakazashi blade. Rather than incapacitate his enemy in any perceivable way the blow simply seemed to enrage him. The two spun away from each other with blades raised defensively and resumed their slow circling.

"You don’t know the first thing about it, fop," growled the former samurai angrily. "Nothing I do in these lands is severe enough to repay the depths of that betrayal. You couldn’t possibly understand the very first thing about it. You are young fool and you are about to become a dead fool."

He lunged again and Yuta raised his sword to block, but it was only a feint. The man’s dagger stabbed low penetrating the flesh of his adversary’s abdomen deeply. The young samurai sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and his eyes widened in surprise. The blow had totally taken him off his guard and Yuta dropped his wakazashi blade to the ground at the shock of the unsuspected pain. It had not been a well-aimed strike, however. It missed his vitals, only skewering the skin and fat of his left side. Still, it hurt.

Yuta spun away hastily, grasping the wound with his left hand while holding his katana defensively in his right. In a matter of seconds his side was a bloody mess. He felt the dark viscous fluid seeping between his fingers and trickling down his leg to drip onto the uneven ground beneath him. The bandit laughed derisively.

"I could have killed you, you know?" he taunted cruelly. "But I think I’m just beginning to enjoy myself. I think I’d like to play with you a while longer before you die."

The young Takano warrior roared in frustration and pain. In a lightening fast, fluid motion he drew his dagger and sent it hurtling end over end toward the gloating highwayman. The bandit simply batted it away with his sword unconcernedly.

"Now, now boy!" he laughed in dark amusement at the ineffective assault. "You’re losing your temper! It makes you sloppy. Why don’t I show you how that’s done..?

If Yuta’s previous attack had been lightening, the other man’s answering throw sped with the swiftness of thought. He reached into his belt and sent a tiny star shaped dart streaking toward the young samurai. The bandit moved so quickly in fact that Yuta did not see the barb at all until it was standing out from his right shoulder painfully.

This strike was more precise than the one that had wounded him previously. The hateful missile pierced his flesh deeply right on the shoulder joint. Yuta drew another shuddering breath, as all feeling seemed to flee his sword arm. His long katana clattered to the ground beside him uselessly as it slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers.

His shoulder felt like it was on fire and his vision was swimming. The young Lord took a staggering, reflexive step backwards at the impact of the bandit’s flung blade, but the hot blood dribbling down his leg had made footing treacherous on the slick grass. He slid in his own accumulated gore and toppled backwards inelegantly.

The bandit approached him slowly, but confidently and hefted his blade casually across his shoulders. This was finished he knew. The contemptuous grin splayed across his grizzled face enraged Yuta further with its maddening arrogance. Desperately the younger man fumbled for his wakazashi blade lying tantalizingly near him on the bloody ground. The older man kicked it away with a laugh.

"I had thought to draw this out a bit longer," he drawled languidly. He had Yuta right where he wanted him and meant to enjoy himself. "It’s been a long time since I had anything like competition with a blade. Oh well, maybe next time right?"

He stabbed his katana downward viciously and Yuta groaned in pain. Rather than end him however. The highwayman simply pierced the fleshy part of the wounded samurai’s right thigh. The keen point penetrated all the way through skin and sinew to jab several inches into the loamy soil beneath.

"That’s for Kou-kun." He hissed viciously and planted a heavy foot in the center of Yuta’s chest. "And this…" the cruel bandit twisted the blade mercilessly eliciting another agonized scream from his prone victim. "Is for Taka and Jun…

"I didn’t really like them much…" he cocked his head to the side in mock thoughtfulness with another contemptuous grin. "Just the principle of the thing really…" He jerked the blade free violently and Yuta released another loud groan.

"But this," he hissed menacingly as he raised his blade for the final, fatal blow. Yuta watched numbly as the glittering blade, already liberally smeared with his own blood, rose slowly above him. He stared at the ronin defiantly even though he seemed to have a great deal of trouble focusing on his enemy.

"This," the bandit hissed with a smile. "This one is for…"

Abruptly the rogue samurai made a strangled sound and the bigger man’s blade clattered to the ground from suddenly limp fingers. The bandit wore an expression of profound incredulity. He looked down at his chest where inexplicably, a sharp metal point protruded just below his sternum. He spun unsteadily and Yuta could clearly see the pommel of his own discarded wakazashi sunk halfway to its haft in the older man’s back. Behind the mortally wounded ronin, stood the beautiful young woman.

She clutched her ruined kimono closed with both hands and her eyes were filled with fear as she stared at the man. He staggered toward her with arms outstretched and mouth gaping wordlessly. She took a stumbling step backwards but tripped over a root and fell to the ground heavily. She stared up at her attacker in mute horror.

Yuta summoned up what scant reserves of strength he had left and with a savage roar threw himself forward to kick the bigger man’s legs out from under him. The bandit toppled over backwards at the young samurai’s blow. As he struck the hard ground, the force of the fall drove the blade embedded in his back in even further. It erupted with enough force that it splattered the terrified Lady’s face with a fine mist of blood. The ronin convulsed once on the sanguine forest floor and then moved no more, eyes wide and sightlessly staring at the clear blue sky above.

Yuta groaned in pain and relief and rolled to his side where he lay panting breathlessly. He felt dizzy and more than a bit drowsy. He just needed to rest for a bit. Now that the brief battle was apparently over he felt suddenly, unendurably sleepy. Maybe he would just close his eyes for a second. Just a short nap…

"No!" he exclaimed out loud and forced his battered body into a sitting position. Just one look at the slippery ground was enough to tell him that he had lost a lot of blood. If he slept now, he knew, he might never awaken.

"My Lady," he croaked softly as he dragged himself over to lean against the nearest tree trunk laboriously. It felt almost as if he was swimming through honey, so arduous was the motion. "Please…"

The young woman seemed almost paralyzed. She had not moved from where she had fallen. Instead she simply sat staring uncomprehendingly at the dead man, disbelieving what she had just done.

"My Lady, I need your help…" wheezed Yuta again. "I need you to help me bandage… my wounds… If I don’t stop the bleeding…"

Still the woman did not respond.

"My Lady!" exclaimed the wounded samurai with as much forcefulness as he could muster.

Something in the urgency of his tone seemed to finally get through to the traumatized young woman. She shook herself slightly and slowly stood on unsteady legs. Silently she crept over to where Yuta lay. The beautiful Lady hesitantly knelt beside him. Her eyes still seemed a bit glassy however, and when she spoke her words seemed breathy and distracted.

"I’m sorry" she murmured quietly to Yuta, but her gaze was still fixed on the dead man. "I should thank you… I’m lost… Then those men came up and… I didn’t want to, but… I was just so frightened… I… Oh dear… Oh dear… I didn’t know what else to do! I just had to do something didn’t I? I couldn’t just let him…"

"You’ve never killed before…" soothed Yuta as gently as he could through his own pain. It was not a question. "It’s a hard thing to take another man’s life, but comfort yourself with the fact that he most likely would have… assaulted you and killed us both had you not acted. I was defeated. He had won. If you had not struck, I would now be dead. I am grateful to you…"

The young woman continued staring at the body another moment then shook her head as if to clear it.

"I’m… I’m sorry…" she apologized shakily. "You… You need my help… I’m being… I’m being silly… I’ve seen death before… many, many times before… I just…" She trailed off again.

"No." the young noblewoman stated almost as firmly as Yuta had. She took a deep, steadying breath. "Here. Let me bandage those for you." She began tearing strips of cloth from the hem of her already torn and sullied kimono.

"No, my Lady," protested Yuta. It broke his heart to see such a fine Lady further defacing her clothing for him. "Do not destroy your clothes on my account…"

"Be still," she instructed gently. "It’s all we have to work with and this dress is well beyond worn out. It is nothing at all to me and your need is clearly greater than mine."

The quiet music of her delicate voice nearly made him want to weep for its beauty. Even as disheveled as she was, the girl was, in a word, exquisite. It seemed to sooth a great deal of his pain away as she spoke.

"I should thank you in some way," the Lady went on as she began to bandage Yuta’s injuries. "As you might have guessed, my family is destitute… I… I really have only… only one thing that I can… I can offer you to repay your kindness." She met his eyes seriously, "if you want it, that is…" She looked away blushing furiously.

His body responded to her before he could make his mind fully grasp what it was that she was proposing. Despite his nearly debilitating injuries, Yuta’s first reaction was an uncontrollable urge to cheer out loud. The vision before him was a woman men would kill to possess and he himself could not wholely deny his own desire for her. Then he caught sight of her deep, brown eyes. There was a profound sadness, an inexplicably weighty hopelessness there that made his soul want to weep.

As much as he certainly wanted her, as much as his flesh cried out for him to take her for his own right this moment, his honor would not allow it. She was obviously in dire straights. Something decidedly terrible had just happened to her. If he took her now, it felt to Yuta like he would be taking advantage of the poor girl. At length he shook his head.

"As much as I would like that, my Lady," he said slowly, brushing the back of his hand across her ivory cheek as she bent forward to bandage his injured shoulder. At touching her soft, perfect skin, he nearly lost his resolve, but steeled himself ruthlessly. "As much as I wish it, it would not be right. If at some point you can offer me this wonderful thing out of love rather than duty or obligation, I will accept it, but not before. Besides," he finished with a warm smile in spite of his aching shoulder and leg. "You saved my life as well! I suppose at the very least that makes us even. You owe me nothing."

She searched his face carefully for a moment, surprise briefly perplexing her delicate features, but she quickly bowed gratefully in return.

"That is a very sweet and honorable answer," she murmured demurely with a polite bow. "I thank you again."

"But if I might ask one thing…" Yuta pressed gently.

"What is it?" the girl asked in return, suspicion slightly coloring her words.

"Might I…" began Yuta before trailing off nervously. "Might I… Ask your name?"

The young Lady glanced at him hesitantly. Uncertainty was clearly written across her pretty face. Strangely, she felt reluctant to answer.

What was it? Why did it seem so hard to formulate such a brief reply to such a simple question? Maybe because it had been so long since anyone had asked it. How long had it been anyway? She could barely remember. The thought nearly made her want to cry. Such a simple thing, yet so important... Her name...

Yuta’s question took her totally by surprise... No one she had encountered in a long, long while had ever had any concern whatsoever for such a courteous triviality. Did she even remember it herself? After everything that had occurred?

It took a moment, but yes. Yes. She knew the answer to his question.

"My... My name is Murasaki," she whispered quietly. Then, even more hesitantly, "My... My friends... They call me Saki-chan... I... I would be honored if you did the same..."

"Saki-chan," he murmured the name as if seeing what it tasted like. Yuta smiled as well as he could in the face of the exceptional pain in his leg and shoulder. "Well then Saki-chan, my name is Takano Yuta. Well met... It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"And mine," she bowed demurely, but the preposterous nature of this cordial interaction on this bloody field of battle in the face of everything that had just happened was not lost on her in the least. Her tone became suddenly business-like. "Could you roll to the left a bit? I can't quite get to your shoulder."

Yuta complied obediently, and Murasaki continued to wrap his injuries in the soft, faded silk of her shredded garments. It was difficult for the young warrior to concentrate on anything but her with her sitting so near. The flowery scent of her hair filled his nostrils and made his head swim. The touch of her soft, porcelain fingers on his skin made him feel intoxicated.

When she had finished his shoulder, she lifted his haori to similarly wrap his middle and then turned her attention to his skewered leg. If her touch on his shoulder had been distracting, the feel of her hands against his bare belly and thigh drove him nearly mad with desire. Still, if with difficulty, he maintained his dignity and honored his promise to her. In what seemed like a cruelly short amount of time, Murasaki straightened and declared her work completed.

"There you go," she whispered quietly. "I cannot claim any great skill at healing, but I think that this should see you recover well enough. Some of your cuts are deep, but none of them look really serious as long as you keep them clean and change the bandages regularly." She bit her lower lip and regarded him with a concerned, doe-eyed gaze. "Does it hurt much?"

Yuta flexed his shoulder experimentally, and grimaced. The limb felt as if it was on fire. His side was not a great deal better and his leg throbbed in steady, pulsing, red-hot bursts of fiery pain. He forced himself to smile bravely.

"I think I shall survive," Yuta replied shortly. "It is nothing that I cannot bear, I think… But what of you?"

He pushed himself a bit straighter against the tree trunk behind him, doing his best not to whimper at the screaming agony the act caused to shoot all through his shoulder and side. He smiled at Murasaki again.

"I understand that you have lost your way?" he went on. "If I may, I would like to see you home safely."

Murasaki seemed to stiffen at the suggestion. Her face was abruptly troubled.

"No, no…" she managed to reply at last with a very stiff bow. She sounded more than a little agitated. "That won’t be necessary really. I actually live all the way out in the Waste, so I really wouldn’t want to bother you. Actually I… I’m so silly, you see… I… I… I just thought I was lost. Now that I think about it I think I do remember my way home perfectly well. I really am hopeless. I think I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached sometimes!" she giggled nervously and totally without mirth. "I think I’ll be just fine actually, so there is no need to trouble yourself. Really."

"My Lady," countered Yuta severely with a slightly confused, raised eyebrow. "I could not allow that. These lands are not safe for a young woman alone, and the Waste? There might be other ronin lurking nearby. That is then to say nothing of wolves or bears or other dangerous creatures that might be around. I would feel just terrible if, after escaping such a dreadful episode as you have just done, you fell afoul of some other peril, simply because I did not escort you the rest of your way. My honor simply won’t allow it. I’m afraid that I am going to have to insist."

"But… But…" stammered Murasaki breathlessly. "Your injuries… You’re hurt. I could hardly expect you to walk me all the way back to my home in your condition… I wouldn’t think of it. I…"

"Oh, don’t worry about that," countered Yuta swiftly with a dismissive laugh. "We won’t have to walk."

He gave a short piercing whistle and Tanpopo quickly trotted into the clearing where they sat together. She walked obediently over to Yuta and lowered her head so he could reach her bridal. Painfully, he pulled himself up with his left hand, retrieved his weapons, then laboriously clambered onto Tanpopo’s back. Still smiling broadly in his attempt to hide his severe discomfort, he reached his hand down to Murasaki. Still seemingly at a loss for something else to say and looking decidedly unsettled, she took it and allowed Yuta to pull her up in front of him.

"So which way shall we go?" Yuta asked pleasantly enough, although Murasaki’s obviously agitated state left him feeling a little uneasy himself. She seemed almost frightened.

"It’s already getting on in the afternoon," he went on casually. "I should probably get you home before dark."

She stiffened again at the last word and licked her lips nervously before once more firmly biting down on her lower lip.

"Take the right fork," she murmured shortly, then added hurriedly, "but there’s no need to hurry!"

Yuta smiled at that. Indeed, he was not particularly motivated to hurry himself. Murasaki’s slender shoulders were pressed snuggly against his broad chest. He slender form seemed to fit perfectly between his thick arms where he gripped the reins. He liked the slight, rhythmic rubbing of his hips against hers as Tanpopo walked. The smell of her hair as it gently tickled his nose threatened to make him forget every other thought in his head. This was not an embrace that he was in any hurry to end.

"No need to hurry at all…" he murmured into her ear with another smile.

Yuta kicked gently at Tanpopo’s ribs, and leaving the dead bandits where they were, they set out. At first Murasaki felt stiff and anxious against him, but as little grey mare continued trotting down the road at the same easy, rhythmic pace, Yuta felt the young Lady’s body relax against his. She leaned back against him a little more heavily. She let him cradle her in his arms just a little bit more. Holding this beautiful woman so close against him, Yuta felt all of the pain and weariness of the day bleed out his muscles, leaving only a warm feeling of contentment.

After they had gone a furlong or two, Murasaki ventured conversation shyly.

"So Yuta," she murmured at almost a whisper. "Tell me a bit about you. I know so little and… I feel like… I feel like I can actually… I don’t know… talk to you. It’s been a long while since I’ve really ever been able to do that with anyone… I think it would be nice. Where do you come from? What brings you out into these deserted wilds?"

"Me?" he replied a bit surprised, but not at all displeased by her interest. "There’s not much to tell really. I live in the city with my family. I’m the eldest. As to why I’m out here, I honestly just felt like getting away for a while. I like the city, but life can be a bit… I don’t know… I suppose, stifling sometimes. Sometimes it seems like there are people everywhere. It’s nice to go off by myself once in a while."

"I’m glad you did," whispered Murasaki softly, nestling closer against Yuta’s chest. "Tell me about your family…"

Yuta told her. It was actually very pleasant really. Murasaki continued to ask questions and Yuta continued to answer them. She asked about his bothers and sisters, his home, his city, every detail of his daily life and interactions with other people. All the while she listened carefully with rapt attention. Tanpopo continued her gently rhythmic, plodding gait and the magnificent spring day seemed to regain much of its original charm.

The road got rougher and weedier as they crossed into the Awareyama Waste. Had Yuta been paying any attention at all he would have noticed that the path they took was singularly disused. In places the underbrush was waist high and the path often faded to nearly nonexistent. Here and there young saplings as thick as Yuta’s forearm popped up right in the middle of the road itself.

It was quiet here too, eerily so. No birds sang in the bare boughs of the ominously brooding trees on either side of the path. No small animals scurried through the underbrush at Tanpopo’s feet upon their approach. The gloomy forest seemed to close about them threateningly. Here and there along their way, rather than charming pools like the one where Yuta had eaten his noon repast, there were only stagnant black ponds of putrid smelling water.

The young samurai noticed none of it, however. He only had eyes only for Murasaki. He felt only her slender, warm body pressed tightly against his. He smelled only the flowery scent of her long, silky hair. He heard only the gentle music of her shy, soothing voice.

Yuta was not exactly sure how long they traveled this way together, but it was long enough that the sun, which had just passed its zenith when they first met, was beginning to slip slowly away behind the distant hills. The shadows began to lengthen with the approach of evening. Just when he was about to ask about how much farther away the young lady’s home was, Murasaki stiffened abruptly. Her breath quickened and she suddenly hopped down from Tanpopo’s back. It took Yuta by surprise.

"I’m sorry! I’m sorry!" she apologized profusely. Murasaki repeatedly bowed her nose low to the ground as her feet hit the road. She began to back away. "I’ve kept you too long! I… I think I can make it the rest of the way on my own. Thank you ever so much for your help! I have really and truly enjoyed our chat. I hope we meet again some time. If you hurry, you can get back to the clearing before dark! I really must go now!"

"Wha…What?" stammered Yuta in confusion, hopping down from the little mare’s back himself. "I’ve seen you this far. I might as well see you the rest of the way, especially if your home is near…"

"No!" exclaimed Murasaki with wild eyes. She honestly seemed near panic all of a sudden and Yuta had no idea at all why.

"Saki-chan," he murmured gently. "If I have done something to offend…"

"No, Yuta-kun," she interrupted quickly, stepping back towards him and taking his hands firmly in her own. She squeezed them fiercely, taking him a bit aback with the forcefulness of her responce. "No, no, please no… Never think that. Never ever think that! The time I’ve spent with you today… It has been wonderful. It’s been so long… It’s felt so… so normal… I could almost pretend… I could almost forget…"

"Murasaki-chan," pressed Yuta at a loss himself. "What are you talking about? I don’t know what you mean! Please, tell me what’s wrong. What’s the ma…"

"I have to go, Yuta," she interrupted shaking her head and again slowly backing away down the road. Her hands were clinched in front of her tightly enough that it turned her knuckles white. "You must go before it’s too late. Ride as fast as you can! You must go before…"

A strange, strangled cry tore through the late afternoon gloom. It echoed starkly through the trees as it bounced among the silent hills in the otherwise tomb-like stillness. It was not the call of any bird or beast that Yuta was familiar with. It sounded something like a crow, but deeper, darker, more sinister.

Murasaki’s eyes grew wider still, approaching saucer-like proportions. She bit her lower lip almost hard enough to draw blood. Her face was white and pale and she glanced at the sky nervously.

"Please, Yuta," she begged piteously squeezing his hands tightly in desperation. Frustrated tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. "Please, please, please, go. Go before he…"

The call came again. Again Murasaki looked toward the sky.

"Oh no…" she breathed almost too quietly to be heard at all.

Then she did the last thing the decidedly perplexed samurai would have expected. She wrapped her slender arms around his waist, pulled him close, and pushing herself up on the balls of her toes, kissed him deeply. Her tongue explored the inside of his mouth urgently and he could do nothing but return her suddenly passionate kiss in answer.

She tasted almost painfully sweet. He lifted the tiny woman from the ground and held her against him tightly despite the miserable pain it sent screaming all through his damaged flesh. The call came again, fainter than before, then again, then all returned to silence.

After another few moments Murasaki gently pushed herself away from the young warrior. Tears streamed from her eyed in rivers.

"He’s seen us now…" she sobbed brokenly. "Now it’s too late… he knows you’re with me… he knows I’ve brought you but," her eyes hardened and she clenched her fists in determination. "I don’t care what he does to me… I won’t take you to him… I can’t… I…"

"Murasaki!" exclaimed Yuta in frustration. "What are you talking about! What in the name of Kannon’s Mercy is going on! Tell me what’s wrong!"

"I can’t…" she whispered quietly closing her eyes and shaking her head firmly.

"What do you mean, ‘you can’t’?!" exploded Yuta. "Just tell me! Maybe I can help…"

"There’s nothing you can do," she rejoined coldly. Then she turned away. "There’s nothing anyone can do, and I can’t tell you because… because…" her shoulders began shaking slightly.

"Because what?!"

"Because if I tell you," she sobbed bitterly. "Because if you know what I’ve done… what I was going to do… You’ll hate me, Yuta! You’ll hate me! And I just couldn’t bear that… It’s been so long since someone treated me like a person. It’s been so long since… I just can’t! That’s all."

"Saki-chan," he murmured softly as he took her shoulder and turned the weeping young lady back towards him. "I could never hate you. And don’t be so sure that I can’t help," he continued confidently. "I’d at least like the opportunity to try. Just tell…"

"I’m a whore!" she screamed in his face. "I’m a murderous, filthy whore! Is that what you wanted me to say? Is that what you wanted to hear? How can you save me from that? There’s nothing you can do!"

"Saki-chan," he whispered again, concern and sympathy shone in his eyes. He tried to pull her close again, but she resisted. "Don’t say such terrible things about yourself. You know that’s not true. Just…"

"It is true!" she spat back miserably. "It is true…"

With that she seemed to deflate like a balloon. She collapsed against Yuta’s strong chest, weeping uncontrollably. When she got herself somewhat under control again she met the young warrior’s eyes miserably.

"Yuta-kun," she began desolately. "You’re a good man… A fine man, and… and I like you very much, but you don’t understand… You don’t know what a terrible person I am… What I’ve done…"

Murasaki found that she could not go on. Again she buried her face in Yuta’s chest and just let him hold her.

"I don’t understand," breathed Yuta quietly. "You’re right. I don’t… But I would if you would just tell me. What is it that you think you have done that is so awful, and who is ‘he’? You keep talking about ‘he’ but I don’t know who you mean… Please?"

"Alright," Murasaki sighed at last in defeat. "I’ll tell you. I suppose I owe you at least that much for all you’ve tried to do for me."

She took a deep breath before going on.

"I’m a whore and a murderer, Yuta," she whispered in a tiny voice. "I let men use my body and then they die… Oh… So, so many men…"

"I don’t understand…"

"Those men today even," she shook her head ruefully and pointedly met his incredulous gaze. "Even had you not saved me, Yuta, they would have died. I would have found a way to lure them to their deaths. You can usually depend on a man’s lust and always on his greed. Even if they had beaten and raped me there in the middle of the road, I would have found a way.

Yuta could not find any reply. The frank admission stole away any words he might have uttered. It shocked him to his very core that such a delicate little thing could be responsible for such a terrible act. He shook his head slowly in disbelief as she continued.

"I would have promised them anything," she went on. "The ‘riches’ of my home, gold, jewels, other women, whatever they wanted to hear… They would have come. They always do… Then they would have died, screaming, crying, agonizing, choking on their own blood from their sundered bowels… I’ve done it before… Too many times to count really…

"No," muttered Yuta in horror, shaking his head vigorously in disbelief. "No. I don’t believe you!"

"See?" she smiled at him sadly. "I’m nobody you want to associate with, Yuta-kun. I’m nothing but a murdering slut, a filthy, cowardly whore… You don’t want anything to do with the likes of me… You’re too good… Now, just go!"

Yuta was horrified, but at the same time, something in her brutally frank admission did not make sense to him. It felt like something was missing. He did his best to calm his abhorrence and revulsion at what she had just told him to address the pretty young Lady before him calmly again.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" queried Yuta softly.

"Because you asked!" exclaimed Murasaki in irritation. "You drug it out of me! It’s not like I wanted you to know!"

"But you could have lied to me," countered Yuta stubbornly. "You said you were ready to lie to the ronin, after all. You could have told me anything and I would have believed it. And how do you explain the way you acted after you stabbed the bandit leader? I know the look on a person’s face who kills for the first time. That was no act or ruse, I am certain! There’s something else you’re not telling me. Why are you so insistent that I leave?"

Again the tiny woman bit her lip and stared dejectedly at the ground. It seemed that she could not make herself answer.

"Saki-chan," Yuta pressed her intensely, gripping both her shoulders. He turned her chin upward to look at him and stared deeply into her eyes. "Who… is…‘he’?"

Murasaki tried to hide her face again, but Yuta was unrelenting. He held her gaze fiercely. His eyes demanded answers.

"He is Zetsubo," Murasaki whispered weakly at last. "He is my master.

"Once, long ago," she continued softly. "I don’t remember how long… Every day feels like a thousand years now… My father got into some… trouble. He was a samurai, and a prouder, nobler man I’ve never known. Anyway, the clan he served fell on hard times. They released him from their service. He tried to offer his sword to others, but could find no one who would hire him. The house fell into ruin. The servants left… He prayed and prayed to Master Kannon, but all to no avail. Finally, he went to a well on a mountain some days ride from here. There, he had heard, long ago a priest had sealed a terrible, powerful akuma demon. My father decided to bargain with it. He promised to free the demon if he would give him a way to save our family.

"Of course the horrible thing agreed, and for eight years life was wonderful!" Murasaki paused in her telling, bit her lip, and looked down at the ground. "But then Zetsubo came back. He said that he had given Father eight years of plenty. That was of far greater worth than just his release. He demanded my father serve him.

"Father, of course, refused," she went on. "He said that their contract had been concluded and demanded that Zetsubo leave. I was there, a mere child of fourteen at the time. When Zetsubo heard my father’s words, he flew into a rage. He stole the man’s very flesh! That was what he wanted after all. After so long down in that well, the physical body he used had grown old. If it died, Zetsubo would have been cast back into the Abyss…

"We all watched in horror as he fully possessed my father’s body," she continued reluctantly. "Twisting it, warping it… Then he went mad! He began tearing the servants and guards to pieces where they stood. There was blood everywhere! Oh, how they screamed! Those screams still haunt my nightmares! And it just went on and on and on… like he was enjoying himself! Then the horrid monster feasted on their bodies right before my eyes, with my poor father’s own lips!

"I fainted. When I woke up I was all alone. Zetsubo sat over me, staring at me with those horrible red, glowing eyes. His belly was so full of the flesh of the people of my household that he could hardly move. He held my little sister under his arm.

"’If you serve my will and bring me meat’ he said. ‘I will let you live and this other creature with you… If you do not…’ I remembered he smiled at me then. His teeth were long and sharp and still stained with blood. He lay his claws on poor little Tsumeko’s throat. Then he said ‘if you do not serve me, then you will suffer the fate of your people… after this little one…’ I didn’t know what else to do, so I agreed."

Murasaki began pacing and ringing her hands.

"It would have been better if we had both died that day," she murmured sadly. "The next day he sent me out for the first time. I met some men, but none of them would come back with me. When I returned empty handed he gave me a fearful beating then he…"

She very nearly lost her composure. Bitter tears came to her eyes and her voice shook with barely contained sorrow at the painful memory.

"Then he… he did… he did terrible things to my sister!" she sobbed. "For hours he made her shriek and cry. For hours he made me watch. He said that was the kind of bait I should use to bring men back. He made me… offer them… give them… give them my… my body… Oh, it made me feel so dirty! But I knew that if I didn’t he… he… he would do… do that to my sister again!"

"Why didn’t you try to escape," asked Yuta perplexedly in morbid fascination. "Why didn’t you take your sister and get away?"

"We tried," Murasaki answered faintly. "After Kannon knows how many years and how many men, I decided I just couldn’t take it anymore. One day as the sun was just coming up, I took Tsumeko and we ran away. Zetsubo doesn’t like the sun, you see… We ran for three days. We thought we had finally gotten away. We found this little farm house. The people there were so nice and said that we could stay with them. We were so happy!

"But he found us," she went on darkly. "He killed the farmers and then poor little Tsume-chan. He spent hours and hours doing it, too and again made me watch! Then he tortured me until I begged him to kill me. I begged and begged and begged! I promised him everything I could think of to make him stop, but he wouldn’t! Nor would he let me die. He swore to me that if I ever disobeyed him again he would do worse… far worse… He promised to keep me alive and torture me forever! And I believed him… On that day, my soul died. I barely thought about what I was doing anymore. I didn’t care about the men. I didn’t care about myself. I didn’t care about anything… until you." She added the last quietly.

"Now, I care," Murasaki went on. "You’re the first person to show me kindness in so, so long. Whatever happens, I can’t lead you back to him… Whatever he does to me… I just can’t hurt anyone else like that anymore… I’m so tired, Yuta… So very tired…"

"This evil is not of your making, Murasaki," Yuta declared heatedly. "Such evil should not be allowed to remain in this world! Whatever you have done… been forced to do… It was not of your own volition. Truly, Saki-chan, you are blameless! On my honor, I will help you. I swear it!"

"But there’s nothing you can do, Yuta-kun!" she protested hopelessly. "Zetsubo is too strong and if we run he will find us…"

"Then we must not run…" the samurai replied thoughtfully. "Tell me. Why did you kiss me just now?"

"To protect you," she murmured hesitantly. "He flew over us. He saw us, I’m sure. I had to make him think that I had… that you were… just like the others…"

"Then he suspects nothing at all amiss," Yuta said to himself thoughtfully. "We will have the element of surprise to our advantage! If this creature eats and drinks and breathes then he can also be killed! I have an idea, I think, but I will need your help…"

Yuta briefly outlined his plan. Initially Murasaki was reluctant. Again she protested that he should just get back on his horse and ride away as fast as he could, but the young Takano Lord would not be swayed. At last the abused young Lady relented and began to venture the first, hesitant, hint of hopefulness that she had felt in a very long time. It was risky certainly, but finally she agreed to help Yuta try.

Hand in hand, they reached the ruined manor house just as full dark was falling. It stood atop a low hill in the middle of the Waste. Even at a distance, Yuta could tell that it was barely a skeleton of what it had once been. The wooden walls had collapsed in places and there was no front gate at all anymore. Even though evening was quickly approaching there were no lights on the walls or in the outbuildings. Had Yuta not known that this was the young Lady’s home, he would have assumed it to be decades abandoned to rot and ruin.

Murasaki lit a lamp in the shattered gate house, then guided Yuta and Tanpopo to the stables. The courtyard was eerily silent. No stock lowed and jostled in the barn. There was no creak of armor or leather from a watch on the walls. No one called out the evening greetings that would have wound down the day of any other home in the Empire. It was apparent that the crumbling estate was deserted. There was also an inexplicable feeling of wrongness about it that, though Yuta could not exactly put his finger on what it was, set his heart to racing even as he tried to force himself to be calm.

Yuta put Tanpopo in the stable, but noting the copious number of animal bones liberally littering the dusty floor, he did not tie her. He removed her saddle and brushed her as leisurely as he could force himself to do. Everything had to appear to be occurring just as usual. Nothing he did could tip off his demonic prey or all would be lost. He made a valiant effort to smile easily at Murasaki. Again he kissed her deeply before taking her hand and following her into the dilapidated manor house.

It was immediately clear that the building had both once been a structure of some finery and also seen much better days. The thatch on the roof was years in need of replacement. The hardwood floors of the corridors were warped and sunken. The tatami straw-matted flooring was frayed and mildewed from where the leaks in the ceiling had let the rain in. Many rooms that he passed even had standing water in them. Once opulent tapestries hung rotted and stained in darkened alcoves. The paper in most of the shoji sliding doors was gone when the door itself was still set in place at all. The house reeked of dampness and advanced decay. It was not a wholesome place in the least and it rent his heart to think of poor Murasaki having to live here all alone with only Zetsubo for company.

When they reached the end of the hall they stopped at a set of paper doors. They were yellowed, faded, darkly stained, and the paint itself was slowly flecking away. Thereupon, however, Yuta could still make out a fanciful painting of dancing, smiling young girls gaily dressed in summer kimonos.

"This is my room," murmured Murasaki shyly, kissing Yuta’s neck to punctuate the announcement. "Would you… like to come in?"

Yuta found it difficult to concentrate suddenly. He knew the beautiful young woman was just playing her part in his plan, but still the subtle suggestiveness of her simple words, what exactly they implied about what they would do once he accepted her invitation, left his heart racing. He nodded his assent but could summon no words in reply.

Murasaki took his hand and met his eyes. Almost too briefly to discern she glanced up at the ceiling, before meeting Yuta’s eyes again seriously. The young samurai nodded his comprehension. Then the young woman smiled bravely in response and led him inside.

Her room was not quite as badly decomposed as the rest of the house, but it was still hardly a place fit for a Lady of her station. There was a small fire pit in its center with only a very tiny blaze, which left the room feeling more than just a little chill. It also provided only dim lighting and failed to illuminate the high ceiling above.

Much about the room served as a testament to a childhood cut abruptly, unfairly short. A few moldering dolls still stood in broken cases at odd corners of the room. Murasaki’s futon, which was out, was faded and thin. It bore a now faint pattern of smiling, pink bunnies and was far too short for a grown woman. The young Lady settled herself upon it daintily and began loosening her clothes.

"Come," she said simply, patting a spot on the futon beside her. "Sit with me?"

Again Yuta found it difficult to speak. His heart was in his throat. Murasaki’s kimono gaped about her creamy, white shoulders revealing a great deal of cleavage as well. He hurriedly complied, but at least had the presence of mind to remove his sword belt. When he sank down next to the gorgeous young woman, as unobtrusively as he could, he slid the short tanto dagger from its sheath and slipped it beneath the futon where he sat.

Murasaki leaned towards him and kissed him again. Her soft, cool fingers slipped inside the folds of his haori and found bare flesh beneath. Yuta sucked in a surprised breath and stiffened reflexively.

"Just like always," she whispered softly into his ear. Then she playfully bit it. "Remember?"

Murasaki insinuated herself against him, gently coaxing Yuta to lie back. That was more than invitation enough. He pulled her close in a sudden surge of passion. He returned her deep kisses urgently as he fumbled with the ties of his own clothes. Very shortly the vigorous sounds of their love-making resonated through the otherwise silent manor. Their hands worked frantically as they explored each other. They kissed long and deeply, reveling in the closeness of the other’s warm body. Yuta did not forget his purpose however. Even as their bodies strove together on the thin mat beneath them, he scanned the high ceiling urgently for any sign of Zetsubo.

Then he saw it. Or rather he did not. Instead, he began to detect a darker hole in the indiscernible blackness above him. Yuta narrowed his eyes and slipped his right hand from Murasaki’s perfect, ivory hip to grip the handle of his dagger beneath the futon.

The young woman atop him gave a final exclamation of pleasure, then collapsed bonelessly against him. Her soft warm lips were once again next to Yuta’s ear.

"Are you… ready?" she whispered breathlessly, heart still pounding against Yuta’s chest from the vigor of her efforts.

Yuta nodded.

Murasaki kissed his cheek softly then rolled off of him still panting. For the barest of instants Yuta saw two pinpricks of red in the darkness above. Then the hole in the blackness was descending towards him at a frightening speed.

Yuta reacted quickly. He drew the blade from beneath the futon and thrust it straight up above him. Unable to stop his meteor descent, Zetsubo landed squarely atop Yuta’s blade. The horrid akuma shrieked in pain as the dagger sank deeply into its stomach, just below his sternum.

The impact of the great creature shivered Yuta’s arm and nearly wrenched the tanto from his hand. He felt the creature’s hot, black blood spill across his fingers making the pommel slippery, but the young samurai held on for dear life. Zetsubo practically spasmed in his urgency to push away from his determined attacker. He thrashed this way and that in fury and pain. His long, sharp claws slashed sightlessly as he raged against the burning agony in his gut, tearing long gashes across the walls and floor and shredding blankets and bedding. Murasaki had to scuttle frantically away from the sudden melee and into one corner of the room to avoid the wildly flailing claws.

Yuta twisted the blade ruthlessly and Zetsubo roared again in response. Again he thrashed and slashed mindlessly, but this time the demon’s furor was such that the young warrior could no longer maintain his grip. The akuma struck the young warrior a glancing blow across the face with the back of his hand. Yuta went sliding across the floor and felt blood erupt from his nostrils at the impact. As quickly as he could, he regained his feet and grabbed up his sword belt. Drawing his long katana urgently with his left hand he tossed the remaining wakazashi to the side and squared off against the nightmare creature.

Zetsubo roared in fury as he regained his own bearings. For the first time, Yuta got a good look at the creature. In shape it was vaguely man-like, but grotesquely bent and twisted with great leathery wings on its back. It stood with a malformed posture, knees and elbows seeming to bend in all the wrong places. Its skin was pallid and grey like the decomposing flesh of a week old corpse. Its black lipped mouth was a forest of long, needle sharp fangs and its sharp, beady eyes glowed burning-coal red in its vengeful, hate-filled visage. With a long drawn out hiss, like steam erupting from a volcanic vent, Zetsubo painfully slid Yuta’s tanto free of his stomach. The beast licked the blade clean with a long forked tongue and snarled at the samurai.

"Fool," it growled savagely in a dark voice that very nearly shook the room and tossed the short blade away with a clatter. "Had you simply gone to your death quietly, I would have ended you quickly. Now, you will suffer for your insolence!"

"I suffer now," shot back Yuta determinedly. "And I will continue to suffer only so long as you live. I swear to you that will not be much longer!"

Zetsubo lunged at him with a swiftness that stole the young noble’s breath. He dove out of the way just in time and the demon’s slashing claws shredded the tatami matting where he had just been standing in a spectacular shower of straw and dust. Yuta grunted painfully as he struck the floor. The impact sent fresh waves of agony coursing through his already wounded shoulder and thigh, but as quickly as he could he rolled back to his feet and strode toward the demon.

He attacked the beast with a berserker’s rage. He slashed with his long blade urgently, frenziedly in an attempt to hack through the creature’s guard and end the duel speedily. Especially wounded as he already was, he knew that he could not long endure the demon’s frightening, lightening-quick dexterity.

Deftly, Zetsubo parried each blow from Yuta’s frantic assault with his long adamant claws. Black gore continued to drip from the creature’s belly wound, but if it felt any ill effects of what should have been a mortal injury in any other foe Yuta had ever faced before, the young warrior could not tell. The demon caught Yuta’s sword high and slashed viciously across the samurai’s middle. The young man threw himself backwards desperately, but still felt Zetsubo’s sharp claws score rendingly across his ribs. Yuta fell backwards again, and would have been ended right there had the vicious creature not slipped in the accumulated gore at his own feet. Zetsubo lost his balance and fell heavily on his side.

Awkward as the blow was, Yuta lunged at the akuma. He scored a hit of his own as his blade bit deeply into the demon’s right bicep, but he was so off balance that he could not further capitalize on his adversary’s temporarily incapacitated state. Again Zetsubo screamed in his rage and pain as he leapt to his feet and spun around. He threw himself at Yuta recklessly. The young samurai slashed forcefully and felt his blow strike home, but it did not appear to slow the hurtling demon in the least. Zetsubo barreled into him, knocking him over, and crushing him to the floor. Struggle as he might, the beast’s onerous weight pinned his arms firmly at his sides.

The creature’s breath was hot against his face. It so reeked of sulfur and rancid meat that Yuta thought it might make him physically ill. The monster’s long, sharp claws dug painfully into his flesh. Suddenly immobile, the young man thrashed about violently, desperately trying to wrench his sword arm free. He tried to bash Zetsubo with his head. He even tried to bite the monster, all to no avail. Zetsubo laughed contemptuously at Yuta’s futile struggling.

"Now then," the creature mocked smugly, stinking tooth-filled maw mere inches from Yuta’s face. "Now you will die! But not quickly." He shook his fearsome head slowly, darkly chuckling to himself. "No, no, no indeed, not quickly…"

He raised a single razor sharp claw to hover threateningly just at Yuta’s left eye.

"I will devour you bit by bit," he continued, hissing evilly. "I mean to take my time enjoying your devastation, slowly, carefully luxuriating in the music of your screams... I will take you apart piece by piece while you shriek your agony to the Gods, while you beg them to save you! But they will not save you. Nothing can save you now…

Yuta screamed in anger and frustration. He redoubled his efforts to twist the horrible demon off of him. Zetsubo did not budge.

"Why do you struggle?" taunted the demon. "Why do you fight the inevitable? There is no hope for you. Give in! Resign yourself to your fate, for I am Zetsubo! I am Despair! And despair, you may now. You have no hope left… Only the hope of death to release you from the agony of my vengeance remains, and even that is but a fool's hope. I know how to keep you alive… Oh yes, I am very good at it. I could force your soul to cling to your tortured flesh for decades if I willed it, and be assured, little hero... I do... I promise you fool; You… will… suffer! But I grow weary of speaking. Now, I hunger!"

Just as the demon drew back his arm to pluck an eye from the nobleman’s head, he suddenly stiffened, threw back his own head, and roared anew his pain.

"I cannot allow this any longer!" cried Murasaki shakily, but passionately from behind Zetsubo. "I will not!"

Yuta turned his head as much as he could to catch a glimpse of the young Lady. Her kimono was yet undone and she exposed herself shamelessly. All of her attention seemed fatally focused on the demon. She stood in the center of the room, a glowing red poker from the fire pit held unsteadily in her shaking hands. It sizzled faintly and dripped black on the already sanguine tatami floor.

It was obvious that the Murasaki was frightened nearly to death, but she was also resolute. Her jaw was set in determination. The young Lady swallowed deeply and squared off against the much larger akuma.

"So you wish to suffer too, do you slave?" growled Zetsubo furiously through tightly clinched, dagger-like teeth. "That can be arranged… I will use your flesh myself until you think your sister lucky by comparison! Then I will teach you truly how to obey…"

"I don’t care what you do to me anymore!" screamed Murasaki rendingly. "I don’t care! I’m tired of death! I’m tired of blood! Whatever you do to me now I am done! I will help you in your evil no more! NO MORE!!!"

"You will care," Zetsubo snarled again. "Oh yes, little girl… You will!"

He leapt at the tiny young woman, apparently forgetting about his other prey in his rage. It was the chance Yuta had been waiting for. Just as vicious akuma threw himself at Murasaki, the young warrior rolled achingly to his own feet and charged after him.

The demon struck the girl a terrible blow that sent her flying across the room to smack wetly against the opposing wall. Almost simultaneously, the samurai aimed a mighty two-handed slash of his own at the monster’s legs. The sharp steel of Yuta’s katana swept clean through the creature’s right leg and bit deeply into the left. With a positively ear splitting howl Zetsubo toppled sideways to the ground spurting hot, black blood as he fell.

Yuta gave his foe no time to recover. His next blow neatly separated the demon’s head from his shoulders. It fell to the ground with a thud and rolled into a corner. The strike would have decisively ended any other duel that he had ever seen or been a part of, but the young samurai was taking no chances. He continued hacking the vile corpse until it was nothing but a mound of finely chopped, rancid meat and splintered bone shards. Still it was not enough to his mind. He savaged the body until he could not raise his arms for another blow.

When all of his vengeful fury was spend, Yuta sank wearily to the floor, leaning heavily on his sword for support. He hurt. He was battered and bleeding both from his new wounds and the old ones freshly opened. For a moment he simply sat staring at the gory carnage he had just wrought, breath sawing painfully in his chest. Then he remembered.

"Murasaki…" he murmured in sudden trepidation.

Yuta threw down his sword and lurched to the other side of the room where the beautiful young woman lay motionless. He dropped heavily beside her. Her eyes were closed. He lifted the tiny young woman up and cradled her gently against his chest, carefully rearranging her gaping kimono to cover her creamy, bare flesh. She felt boneless in his arms.

"Murasaki?" he ventured hesitantly. "Saki-chan?"

She did not answer. Reluctantly he lowered his face to hers. He did not feel her warm breath against his cheek. Her breast was still. Yuta grit his teeth. Then he threw back his head and screamed in his rage and frustration to the heavens. He clenched his eyes tightly closed and pulled her fiercely tight against him.

"I’m sorry, Saki-chan," he murmured into her fragrant, silky hair bitterly. "Again you have saved me. Again, I tried to help you but have only ended up in your debt once more. How shall I repay you now? I’m so, so sorry… I tried… I tried…"

He kissed her lips gently.

"Rest now, Saki-chan," he murmured quietly. "Sleep easy and deep. You are finally free…"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…"

The dark laughter immediately snapped the samurai out of his grief. Furiously he searched the room with his eyes to find the source of the infernal laughter. In the far corner of Murasaki’s ruined bed chambers, two glowing, red eyes regarded him cruelly from the shadows.

"What’s the matter samurai?" the decapitated head taunted contemptuously. "Break your toy? How sad… Shall you find another, I wonder? Or do you still desire this one? I can fix her you know… I can repair her flesh. I can give her to you. Perhaps you would bargain now?"

Yuta glowered in barely checked rage, but remained silent. He held Murasaki’s limp form even more tightly against him.

"You want her don’t you?" the head continued suggestively. "All men want her. You are strong. I can see that clearly now. Perhaps we would do better as allies than adversaries. What do you think? It is no mean feet to defeat me, even if you used treachery to do it. You could be of great use to me. I too will be of great use to you. You have witnessed but the smallest, meanest crumb of my power. If you will but follow me… If you will but do my bidding, I will give you all that you desire, starting with this woman.

"Think about it," Zetsubo crooned insidiously. "Think of taking her in your arms every night. Think of her warm lips on yours, her flesh pressed against you… You want this. You want her. I can tell. Let me give her to you!

"And look to your own flesh!" he went on. "You yourself are sorely wounded. You can barely even stand! How long will your strength last, I wonder, as you blood continues to pool ever more deeply at your feet? Even those hurts can I fix in but a moment, if you simply let me. Let me… help you…"

Yuta hung his head. He gave no thought for himself. Samurai lived but to die. He did not fear death, and this battle would certainly make his a worthy one. He owed this woman so much however, even his very life. Two times over in fact! If there was even a chance that he could save her now, should he not take it? Gently, he laid Murasaki back down on the tatami floor where she had fallen. He modestly arranged her kimono and folded her tiny hands across her immobile breast.

The young Takano Lord rose shakily and hesitantly crept over to the corner. He stopped in the center of the room next to the fire pit and stared down at the leering, ruined face of Zetsubo intently. It was like that of a man, but then again it was not. The skin was gray and sallow, black twisting veins starkly crisscrossing the tortured countenance. The scraggly, thin beard it wore appeared more wire than hair and the lips were withered and black.

"What would you want for this ‘help’?" Yuta queried huskily. "What would be your price? You say ‘follow you’, but what does that mean?"

He locked eyes with the demon intensely. Again he studied the face. Something seemed eerily familiar about it, but he could not quite put his finger on it.

"Just your service samurai," lilted Zetsubo soothingly. "Nothing but your service… Nothing more than any other contract between any other Lord and any other warrior in all the Empire, do I desire. Is that so terrible? I will give you back this woman’s life, your own life even, in exchange. Such a great return on such a small, such a common investment! Serve me and that plus a thousand-fold more will be yours!"

Again the young Lord studied the desiccated head at his feet and he suddenly remembered Murasaki’s story of how Zetsubo came to be here. Yuta sucked in an abhorrent, horrified breath as he finally understood why it seemed so familiar to him.

"Would it be the same service as Murasaki’s father, I wonder?"

Yuta drew himself up to his full height and sneered at the nightmare vision at his feet. As deformed and deteriorated as the face certainly was, he could still see the barest hint of resemblance to the beautiful woman in the corner.

"Promise me the world you filth!" he shouted defiantly. "Promise me the sun and the moon and the keys to the gates of Heaven and Hell! Still it would not be enough!"

Yuta reached down quickly and grabbed up his discarded katana. He raised it high over his head with two hands.

"You will not have me," he hissed viciously. "Your evil dies tonight!"

Yuta put all his weight and strength behind his stabbing blow. It pierced the demon’s eye with enough force that the blade erupted from the back of the creature’s skull. An addling shock surged up the samurai’s arm in response and he released the blade to stagger a few unsteady steps backwards.

"Fool," sneered Zetsubo with a terrible pain wracked expression plastered across his stolen face. "I would have made you great! I would have made you a power! Now, though I may go back to the Abyss. I will see you there with me!"

With that the room began shaking. Tendrils of dust streamed from the ceiling in thick runnels. A dull roar filled Yuta’s ears and began rising in volume until it rang like thunder. It was as if Zetsubo had summoned an earth quake to shake his foe into submission, but this was no natural shifting of the earth’s bones. The low smoldering blaze in the fire pit leapt up like a bonfire, all shot through with green and black like something otherworldly. Yuta felt the scorching heat of it sear his body as he was thrown to the floor by it’s concussion.

"You will perish in the very flames of Hell!" screamed the head wildly. "Then when they have consumed your soul I will have you! No worldly suffering you have ever seen or heard of or dreamed of in your most tormented nightmares will prepare you for the agony I have in store for you!"

Fighting to get to his feet, Yuta dragged himself up and threw himself towards Zetsubo. He gripped the pommel of his katana, which was still standing out of the fearful monster’s eye and gasped at the pain the act caused. The red, silk wrappings smoldered. The handle of his weapon was blazing. Sickeningly, he smelt the stink of his own burning flesh, but Yuta did not relax his grip. With all his strength he hurled the horrid apparition into the very center of the raging inferno.

The head of Zetsubo came to rest in the very middle of the low fire pit. It screamed as the grey skin began to blacken and crack in the heat. The akuma shrieked in pain and fury, the sound of which Yuta though might burst his eardrums. Still the shaking did not lessen. If anything it intensified. One of the doors into the room warped and burst in a shower of woodchips and rice paper shreds that open new gashes all across Yuta’s scorched and throbbing face. The ceiling began to sag visibly and the green flames licking the dry wooden structure started to spread.

Summoning the last of his failing strength and trying not to mind the pain, Yuta grabbed up Murasaki and slung her over his shoulder. Then he pumped his legs with all the speed he could muster and leapt through the blaze to the hallway beyond. His own clothes still smoldering, he fled back down the passage the way he had come in even as the floor began to buckle and splinter beneath his feet in stinging sprays of wood shards. There was a final great crack. The manor house gave a last fatal shudder. Then the roof collapsed, just as Yuta flung himself and his burden forward in a final desperate surge toward the courtyard.

Dust and smoke choked him as he went sprawling on the hard packed earth outside. The green flames consuming the manor house leapt towards the heavens and began spreading to the other outbuildings as well. Painfully, Yuta struggled to his feet and collected Murasaki. He glanced at his hand and nearly threw up at what he saw. There was nothing left of the appendage but a black-crusted, red, cooked stump. There did not appear to be a single inch of his flesh in fact that had wholly escaped the fury of Zetsubo’s flames.

Yuta staggered weakly and nearly fell. There did not seem to be any part of his battered body that did not burn and throb in agony. Though he looked around desperately and called at the top of his lungs, there was no sign at all of Tanpopo. How were they to escape now, without his horse? He screamed his own pain and frustration at the sky, feeling trapped inside an agonized prison of his own flesh.

Very nearly he despaired. Very nearly he dropped to the dusty ground again to wait for the inevitable, but with a single glance at the serenely beautiful face of the young woman laying in the dirt at his feet he steeled his own resolve. If he could not save her any other way, he could still take her away from this living Hell. She would be forced to stay here no longer. He owed Saki-chan that much at least, he thought.

Each movement a brutal misery, Yuta again lifted Murasaki onto his back and staggered out the broken gates of the blazing pyre the remote country mansion had become. He felt bone weary, like his battered and broken body could hardly take another anguished step further. Yuta did not slow his limping, lurching gait, however. He grit his teeth furiously against the pain and staggered weakly down the overgrown road they had come in on. Onward he stumbled, slowly but inexorably forward, until the blazing den of horrors behind them was far out of sight.

At last, Yuta could make his legs obey him no longer. With a groan he tumbled to the ground, Murasaki beside him. With the last vestiges of his quickly failing strength he pulled her close so that her head rested on his burning chest. His withered hand blazed at his side and his shoulder and leg throbbed in agony. Suddenly, he could not move so much as an eyelash. He felt so tired!

All Yuta could do was lay immobile and miserable in the dense underbrush, staring up at the clear night sky. Millions of stars twinkled like jewels in the sable firmament above him in the otherwise dark and moonless night. They seemed to soothe him somehow. A single tear came to his eye as he gazed up at them.

"So beautiful…" he croaked too softly to be heard even by he, himself. Then his world went black.

***

"Yuta."

The voice seemed to come to him as if across a very great distance.

"Yuta!" it called again.

He was not at all sure where he was. He still felt the bitter agony of his many wounds running roughshod through his tortured flesh, but it seemed distant and detached somehow. It was almost as if the pain belonged to someone else. Likewise, the ‘place’ in which he found himself felt distant too, ethereal. He found it difficult to qualify. Yuta could not really make out any features of it or any sound or scent about it. It seemed like a great void, but also as vast as the ocean and inexplicably intricate beyond imagining. It felt like he was but a small flask of dye, poured out in the sea, quickly dispersed, and all traces soon obliterated. Strangely however, it also felt safe.

The vague outlines of people seemed to pop up all around him, but their silhouettes were only barely recognizable as man-like. They glowed with a blindingly white, inner fire, the brilliance of which seemed to shine on the very darkest recesses of his soul. They seemed to be staring at him approvingly. In their gentle, watchful presence, he was suddenly overcome by an indescribable feeling of peace.

At that moment he wanted nothing more than to drift away from the pain. He wanted nothing more than to lose himself in the vastness around him and embrace his indefinite new surroundings until the man he had been was completely washed away and absorbed into the infinite, but the voice calling his name did not cease. It was compelling, warm, musical, and seemed to sooth all his many pains and hurts away. It called him back to himself.

"Yuta!" it called again insistently. "Yuta, come to me!"

It was then that the badly beaten samurai recognized the voice. He found that he knew the gentle, dulcet tones calling to him so determinedly.

"Murasaki?" he replied hesitantly. "Saki-chan?"

The world around him suddenly seemed even more brilliantly lit. He still could not see exactly, but he felt that the beautiful young woman was with him. He understood unequivocally that she was near, even if he could not see her.

"Is it really you?" he asked incredulously. "But I saw you fall! I felt no breath in you and your heart was stilled… You were… I saw you… I saw you…"

"I’m here, Yuta," Murasaki interrupted gently. "We’re both here because of you. I never thought… I never believed…"

She gave a happy sob and giggled to herself merrily before going on. Yuta had never heard her truly laugh before. If her voice had been music before, her legitimately joyful mirth was a symphony. He smiled in spite of himself.

"Oh, it’s so beautiful, Yuta!" she exclaimed gratefully. "So beautiful… You saved me. In every way that mattered, you saved me. How many long years was I forced to live that sham of a half-life? How many centuries did I suffer? Now I’m really here… We’re here! Now it’s finally all over at long, long last! Now I can rest!

"I had nothing at all to offer you for your kindness before," she went on softly. It felt to Yuta that she drew closer even though he still felt inexplicably disembodied.

"But now, Yuta," she murmured. "Now I do. I can offer you everything! I offer it now in love, just as you said to me! How could I not love the man who handed me my very soul back? And I do, Yuta! I love you! There is so much to see here! So much to do! I want to share all of this with you! Will you let me? Will you stay with me? Will you stay with me forever and ever? Don’t go back… They can send you back, but don’t go! Stay with me!"

Yuta thought about it. He still vaguely felt the blinding pain pulsing though his tortured flesh somewhere, but the feeling was almost as remote as a memory. Why would he even consider going back to that? But then what about his father, he recalled suddenly? What about his Mother? His brothers and sisters? His friends? What about his decadent life in the city? Could he give that up? Was he really ready to give up the feasting and hunting, the drinking and singing? Was he read to abandon the money, the beautiful clothes, and the fawning respect of lesser men? Did he not want that life, his life, back?

Then the young samurai perceived Murasaki. She waited expectantly for his answer. He still could not see her, but he imagined that she was biting her lower lip like she always did when she was thinking or nervous. The thought made him smile. Could he ever hope to find another as beautiful as she? His old life, the life he had had as recently as yesterday even, was still a life without her. Now that he had found such perfection, could he really give her up?

Ultimately the decision was easy.

At that instant, Yuta felt Murasaki all throughout his being. The clumsy physical coupling they had engaged in before seemed less intimate now than a shout across a crowded marketplace by comparison. Abruptly he knew Murasaki. As beautiful as her body had been, as alluring as her delicately featured face, or gentle musical voice had seemed, the real Murasaki that suddenly pulsed all through Yuta’s very essence like blood might have coursed through his veins, was lovely beyond words. The intimacy of their sudden bond very nearly made him weep with its intensity.

Murasaki was a warm, vigorous, loving presence twisting, and twining, and intertwining again all around and through the young Lord’s soul. It was difficult to see where he stopped and she ended and he felt the greatest sense of contentment and joy that he had ever known or hoped to know in his life before. There was no other choice to be made.

"Forever…" he breathed out softy.

He did not draw another.

***

The sun was coming up upon the lonely country road. Here and there a few birds sang experimentally in the bows of the newly budding trees to either side. A warm spring breeze tousled the branches playfully and seemed to blow the murk away. What had seemed gloomy and loathsome just the day before felt suddenly cool, green, and inviting. For the first time in many generations, true spring began to dawn and the putrid taint of Zetsubo faded from the Awareyama Waste in the cleansing light of day.

Some days later a group of curious peasants from an outlying village ventured into the Waste, perplexed by it’s sudden change. Beneath one of the freshly greening trees, they happened upon what appeared to be a mighty warrior and his Lady sleeping in the soft, cool grass beneath. The Lady held her hero tenderly and the warrior, though obviously afflicted by many grievous wounds, bore a wide, contented smile upon his handsome face. His sightless eyes stared fixedly at the clear, blue morning sky above as if gazing into eternity. They could only stop and stare in awe at what they witnessed, wondering at what it all possibly could have meant.

The End