The Sacred

Part One:

Guardian

For the love of the blade I watched death, no more the child that I may have seemed. I watched the snowfall, tiny frozen tears painted a pale and broken face. My hand was steady, my mind was set and then he was gone. Just like that. I don’t know what I expected as I saw, and conquered within the blink of an eye, what I expected to feel but whatever it was never came that day and I have been waiting for it since. The cold never seems to hurt anymore, never seems to bite and scold all at once as it did long ago. Bitter is a word used seldom in these my most trivial of thoughts, not at least to describe this world which I simply exist within. The mortal coil that was once there is dead and indeed so am I. It is such a strange thing, that death should kill the living beyond repair, wouldn’t you agree? I am broken, I am of no use anymore and the thought lingers even though I, myself, the sanity that I once knew and the boundaries that kept me forever in fear and safety do not exist anymore. I am dead on the inside and broken on the outside even when I recapture what you would call ‘sane’ in my own two hands. When I remember as I do now, that fateful winter’s night where I held out and sacrificed myself to the wind, the earth, and the cold. When the snow falls onto my hands as it did many years ago I pray for resolution, I pray for release but most of all I pray those tears are mine the next time someone falls at my feet…

Let us begin in the courtyard. The year is 1871; the place is the Mitisui Gardens in Tokyo, Japan. It is half past seven and I feel my own icy breath fall upon bare hands as I clutch them to my chest. I breathe slowly in, then out…in ... out…in… out…

“ If we must do this then let’s do it swiftly.”

My heart skips a beat. I turn and face my adversary. Our eyes meet between the skeletal remains of apple blossoms and whispering sleet and he appears little more than a faded dream to me, a nightmare cloaked in black velvet drawn all the way up over his chin and nose, smothering then both so that only a pair of shining grey eyes are visible painted onto a canvas of pale skin almost frozen to perfection and pinched with cold. For the first time I feel apprehension, in stark contrast to the blazing anger I experienced when tearing through the city looking for him. I wish very much that he had not shown me those eyes, those glittering beautiful pools awash with sadness all of the joy drained out of them, but clearly not the passion as he slowly unsheathes Japanese steel from inside his cloak. I force a smile, try to look cool, disdainful almost carefree yet respectful.

All in a days work…

Honour. All of this is for the honour of my kinsmen and I must hold fast that thought so as to survive whatever blows this battle may deal to me tonight. Nodding curtly I too reveal a Katana, rich with exuberant red and gold symbols. The handle is black and a small ribbon is entwined around a black cord, which in turn clings to the curved neck of the sword itself: My own personal weapon of choice and a favourite among many samurai. I look at him. He looks at me. My hand is eager to be done to with this task but my heart wishes to seek redemption.

“ Tell me, Han, why is it you wish this?”

He looks side-on at me, with obvious confusion filtering through his stern brow. I know I have him thinking, querying these allusions of his that I made him my enemy by choice. There is a moments silence, in which he steps back and draws himself up to his full height and plants both feet firmly together, arms tense but still quite at ease by his sides, the long gloved fingers elegantly wrapped around a glistening blade with no handle. I see the blood run free from the cold flesh behind the material, weeping into the virginal snow beneath our feet: A penance for those who have died at the end of this weapon. I know from memory his palms are tainted with deep scars and severed nerve endings, such pain which I can only imagine. It is little wonder he can still hold it after so long. If not for the damage already done, he would not wear the gloves.

“ I do not wish this any more than you, Gui,” He says it so casually, the words fall from his lips, velvet and just, his fixed stare always upon me. “ But the damage is done. The Emperor is dead.”

I feel the faintest smile upon my lips and I close my eyes. Images of the old boy are still there, along with some of my fondest of memories. How easy it had been, how simple it was to watch the blade slide through the old man’s robe, how the blood had seeped through my fingers as I pressed one hand onto his chest, the other sliding the sword through the soft skin, almost as though it were butter. No pain, no sound escaped his lips. Instant death. Beautiful. Only now when I look at Han’s face, I feel sick.

“ Do you wish to join him? Follow your beloved to his hell, a hell that only he knows, a hell that…”

“Enough!”

We both glare into each other’s eyes, predatory instincts gleaming in each and I see my own paralysed reflection in his for the first time, his sword against the skin of my throat: Almost but not quite. My left foot is dead to me, numb against the tracks of my shoes in the snow, broken by my own hasty retreat as he lunged at me. I see myself a child, cowering beneath his age and experience as we cloud ourselves with each other’s icy breath. Now I see his resolve is steady as his grasp upon that double edged Katana of his with which the golden ribbon brushes against my bare hands, having caught the impending blade between both palms. I see myself in his eyes, in him. And I hate it.

“ Get off me you parasite!”

Rage takes over and my true strength is found within it. Leaping up and pounding his chest with the souls of my feet, he flies backward, yet so strong that my efforts have merely the slightest impact on him, and he stays standing, if not a little winded. Again I land, my left leg splayed out to the back of me, one knee bent, still on both feet, one hand soaking up the cold wet snow as it plays in between my bare fingers. I quickly retrieve my sword with the other and smile impishly as I spy the empty space where Han was stood only moments ago, now occupied only by a fallen velvet cloak. The dance has begun.

I cry out, dodging the impact of Han’s weapon and jump nimbly to my feet. A warning shot.

“ This shall be the end of you, my child. In the name of our father!”

We cross swords overhead, my back to him. A fierce duel ensues, my opponent blocking every move I throw at him, swiftly and with ease although a little fatigue. Manic thoughts race through my mind as I attack him and all I wish now is to kill everything I ever wanted to be as I glare at him. No fear. No pain. As is the way of our people and I have forever kept that rule as it had been since the Dark Ages. Only one thing stands in the way of my clan and our people. We kill indiscriminately: for cold, hard cash.

We dance around the courtyard, our sandaled feet silent upon the fallen snow, only the cries of combat, muffled by stealth to be heard behind the clash of steel. Neither one touches the other as a way of ritual. The dance is beautiful to watch, the two twisting and twirling bodies, the swift fluid motions of the Samurai sword, the Katana the gleaming blades against a backdrop of deadly nightshade and skeletal trees, a shower of heavenly glacial tears to greet the duel in full force. To be a part of such a dance is hell itself.

“ Argh!”

A cry of frustration from both and we shatter each other’s energies with a contrasting push to the other. We are both thrown from the fight, again to opposite ends of the courtyard; time to reflect as we regard each other with both caution and familiar hatred but also bitter regret. I watch as he paces the yard slowly, one arm outstretched, pacing sideways across the yard from me. I follow suit and drink in the image of him, alive, this one last time. His hair, usually tied with a crude leather band at the nape of his neck is loose and flowing just beyond his shoulders, golden and righteous, as it should be. His large grey eyes narrowed into slits as he waits for me to make the next move, the deep grooves where his perfectly sculptured cheekbones lie beautifully pale with cold. His face is indeed calm as it always has been, a soft narrow mouth, curved to perfection, not unlike my own, the deep furrows in his brow heightening his beauty yet far exceeds his age. He is a tall man, with a slender yet masculine appearance clothed entirely in black, same as I, having discarded the long velvet cloak which I again now, just a little way behind him. Back where we began.

“ Farewell.”

He rushes toward me with such speed as I have never seen before, my heart races and I meet him halfway, such instinct taking over my whole being, the samurai defeating the man. Silence. Falling against my shoulder, he rests his head, his body yet taught and unmoving against me. I feel the cold of his cheek upon my own, his steady breath falling upon my flesh. Something happens, what is this I feel? Remorse? I feel something trickling down my face, too warm to be snow, too real to melt. Gently I turn to look at him and he does the same and for a brief moment we regard each other again, his lips slightly parted, eyes dazed and confused, red liquid at the corners of his mouth. I feel his hand on my shoulder, I cry into his softly. I withdraw the Katana from the open wound in his chest and he falls beside me. I breathe in then out….in…out…in….out. One last breath…

Brother…

Stop.

I leave you there now, sweet child, with the image of this horrible sin of mine which for years after I have felt nothing. It was I who vanquished my own brother, Hantaki Mitisui, in his own home, I who had the gal to seek him out when it was he himself who should have sought his revenge against me. Yet he did not hunt me down; chase me like the wild animal I had proven myself to be when I slew his charge, the Emperor, for a measly sum of money: He who had built his life around protecting this man, this man that I had killed instantly, this innocent. Perhaps it is a hidden agony of mine that I wished to find Han, wished my older brother, the Emperor’s personal bodyguard to kill me. Alas I had come to far in the ways of the renegade samurai to fall to him as easily as I had fallen two years previous when he had spared me after a small group of our clan stole into the palace: Thieves in the night. No, Han himself had slain each of my comrades in front of my very eyes and simply tossed me aside when I charged at him. He warned me never again to cross paths with him, ever the forgiving sibling and yet there I was, dying beside him, a corpse whose blood stained my entire existence forever…