Rise of the Kyojin-Okami

 

        Ayaka walked through the palace gardens. The cold, ashen-cast skies that had plagued the city were gone today, and the midmorning sun shined among only a few scattered clouds. With the first days of autumn, certain trees in the gardens had begun the transformation to auriferous, honeyed hues, most notable the gingko and maple. Missa Nightingale had invited Ayaka to the teahouse by the large pond in the middle of the gardens. A tea ceremony accompanied with music was to be held for a company of daiymo. Ayaka hadn’t planned on attending, however she changed her mind upon seeing what a fine day had visited Shenobi. Before leaving she combed her hair and changed into a white kimono with floral emerald designs; and, for the first time in over a year, put on a pair of earrings and applied rice powder makeup, along with a touch of rouge to her lips.

            It was good to take respite from the tension gripping the city since the army had marched to battle. The atmosphere had never been so subdued as in the past days. People went to shrines to pray for the warriors that protected them. There were those who looked emaciated with worry. Surely insomnia had grown to epidemic proportions. And heaped atop peoples' apprehension was a sense of abandonment. With so many men gone off to fight, the overwhelming percentage of citizens that had stayed behind were women. The imbalance had been arrived at gradually over the course of the last seasons; the contrast was never as marked as now though.

            With the final battle set in motion, people in Shenobi could do nothing but hope and wait. Ayaka wished she could dream again. Even if her dreams were lies, she could find refuge in them. Though her visions had long abandoned her, there were moments in which she could surrender to the uncertainty; as she did now, and transiently forget. This opened a breadth for a glitter of peace, hope, and appreciation of life.

            The gold-leaf painted teahouse reflected the sun like a house of celestials. The porch and interior gazed upon the wide sapphire pond, with its ducks and swans. The geishas were beautifully painted, and arrayed in rakuen kimonos as bright as the scaled colors of the koi fish, and viridian green and cerulean, all sparkling with woven patterns. There were just under twenty daiymo present. Among them was Kodai-Otosan's youngest daughter, several Kasainotora uncles and aunts, and a second cousin of Daisuken's who had been wounded in battle. The daiymo all sat seiza fashion on the polished wood floor, while the tea master prepared the green matcha powder. They received Ayaka with reverence, as if despite everything she had become the princess of their city. The tea master used a long handled ladle to also serve them green and jasmine tea from the water pot. Together Ayaka and the daiymo drank from small ceramic bowls, and ate namagashi cakes of petal, plum, and green tea flavors. The strings of a shamisen and koto played in the background, carried by the gentle voice of a bamboo flute. The notes drifted over the pond, and through the gardens.

            “I’m so glad you could come,” Missa Nightingale said to Ayaka.

            Not for a long time had Ayaka seen the renowned geisha so content. Indeed, all the guests at the teahouse seemed to forget, to live un-tethered, at least a brief while.

            Later, after everyone’s cups were filled to the brim with sake instead of tea, one daiymo raised his vessel. “For the Kasainotora family, the Phoenix, Shenobi, and for victory and glory, …and, may fate smile upon us, …to long life, health, and happiness.”

            Further rounds of sake were served as the afternoon unfolded. Then, with the music playing, Missa Nightingale took the center of the teahouse floor and sang Memory of Lilies, a song about remembering one’s homeland and the people there. When the aria concluded the daymo forewent custom and clapped profusely. Performances from other geisha followed.

            In between presentations, the daiymo, geisha, and maiko chatted, speaking of lighthearted things, plans for the future even, their own, and the city, such as what should be done for the New Years’ celebration and the Spring Festival. They talked as if the war had already been won, or had never happened in the first place.

            Missa Nightingale must have noticed Ayaka was glum compared to the rest. This melancholic mood had become perpetual for Ayaka. Aside, the geisha asked of her state, and Ayaka confided in about the things that had broken her.

            "I also feel, that maybe I am to blame for my kingdom's downfall," Ayaka said quietly, when they reached the subject. "And there still hasn't been any word from my uncle Tayori. Perhaps I have lost everything. Even if I have learned to live with that, I can never accept the same for others."

            Missa looked compassionately into Ayaka's eyes. "There are many things beyond our control. Karma is a river and many streams, all flowing to the same ocean. We cannot change that. We can only learn to stay above the current, and let the waters carry us to our destination."

            Ayaka nodded, quietly reflecting on the words.

            "And you must do anything that helps express your emotions," said the geisha. "Your feelings will flow into your art, coloring your work, and your voice, when you sing again one day, as I know you shall. And that day you will create and sing as one who has known both love and loss, but carries love inside always."

            "Thank you, Missa-san." Ayaka nodded, with a light smile.

            For the time being, Ayaka allowed herself to believe in the carefree semblance of the gathering. It is beautiful here. And after all, they needn’t be slave to circumstance every hour. Perhaps there was a joy that could rise above any oppression. Ayaka hoped this was a lesson life had yet teach. The guests were happy, and she found herself laughing along with them more than once.

            Hours later, when the sun reached the meridian, Ayaka stood up. She felt lighter than before, and her smile stayed with her. She didn’t want to leave, but had promised Akemi they’d go to Oki market together and then to the Oaken Tavern. She had to look after Akemi. Her friend was having a lot of difficulty dealing with the times allotted them.

            Before Ayaka left, Missa Nightingale, still sitting, held Ayaka's hand. She spoke with affection disclosed in the spur of the moment, “Remember Ayaka-san, wherever you go, keep love always inside. I promise it will not leave you, not ever. It will bloom again.”

            “Thank you so much Missa-san. I wish you the same. I wish it for everyone.”

            As she walked back through the gardens Ayaka knew it hadn’t merely been the sake that made the geisha speak thus. No one could say what awaited in the near future. People spoke from the heart more freely when they didn’t know how much longer they had in this world.

            Ayaka and Akemi had agreed to meet on a street by the Sukai River, right where the channel flowed close to the palace. To arrive, she followed a winding path through the gardens, by a stream that murmured under arbors of maple and cedar. The leaves rustled in a brisk gust and several lonely tufts of cloud quickened. She held her arms close to her body for warmth, slipping her hands into the opposing sleeves of the kimono.

            A young man sped up the path in her direction. He was a city guardsmen, and he ran with such speed that Ayaka stepped out of the way, afraid he would collide with her. As he barreled past, she noticed he was sweating as if he’d run across the entire city. Their eyes met for a flash, but he said nothing and was gone. Poor man, by the looks of him he seemed to be in some kind of a serious fix.

            When Ayaka approached the fringe of the gardens, she heard the faint echo of what sounded like shouting. Who could be arguing? She neared the edge of the gardens. The voices were strained, not by anger, but an emotion of a different, more alarming timbre; fear. She emerged from the garden’s flora and stood on the periphery of a wide open walk. Citizens strode with haste, some breaking into a run, while there were those that grouped together and conversed in grave manner, a few raising their voices and moving their arms in agitation.

            “Come, we can’t stay here!” a mother yelled at her straggling children, “Hurry!”

            Ayaka stepped on the white-washed stone street and looked around. More people were out and about near the palace than she’d seen in a months. Something was amiss. Beyond the widespread shouts of urgency, wails were loosened, stark with grief. Ayaka’s heart thumped and her blood rushed. People hustled hither and thither. Has the city gone mad? What in Heaven and Earth was going on? Ayaka mumbled prayers even as a plunging queasiness whirled in her, setting the inner birds of prescience to flap frantically. The commotion she witnessed in the streets was the effect she imagined a massive earthquake or some other disaster would engender, how the eruption of a volcano might send everyone into disarray as they tried to figure out which way to flee from the debris and engulfing smoke.

            Hearing the cries and footfalls of presses of citizens up and down the streets, Ayaka came to a stop, eyes like frozen glass. It surged back to her. The recurring nightmares. Those dark misted forests from whence the bestial horses charged forth to crush the world in their mad stampede.

            Ayaka treaded slowly, as if she were stepping on precarious ground, making her way further into the expansive street until she stood in the middle of it, between the flank of the looming palace and the channel of the Sukai River. The tumultuous clamor grew, spreading like a contagious insanity. She asked a couple of people what was happening. They glanced at her and pushed on.

            One daiymo man recognized her however, and stopped. “Denka, haven’t you heard?” he took a deep breath. “Shenobi's army has fallen!”

            Ayaka looked at him as if had babbled the greatest incongruence ever.

            “They lost the battle!” He seemed on the verge of grabbing her kimono by the lapel so he could bawl the words into her face. “Nearly every division was obliterated! It was a trap! We're doomed!”

            She leveled a hard stare at him. “How do you know this? How can anyone know?”

            He looked around, disoriented, jaw slack as he panted. “Lord Kodai-Otosan is yet to announce it, but the messenger Ekio rode in less than an hour ago, blowing his horn and shouting through the streets so everyone would have time to evacuate”

            Ayaka opened her mouth to ask why no carrier pigeons arrived to warn instead; yet she knew that the last bird had likely already been destroyed by the Shogun's hawks; and she hadn't heard the horn because she'd been at the teahouse at the time. Ekio was well known as general Masuro's main courier and herald. If he had come, then it must be true. 

            The man shook his head in pity. “It's over, Denka. We've lost.”

            Ayaka gazed at the ground as people streamed past. Impossible. Less than a week ago she beheld eighty thousand strong, well equipped, brave warriors march down Hanibara Street and through the Jade Gates. Now those men were gone too? Had the ocean swallowed them all up? A dark magic must to be at work. She winced at the thought of disaster of such a horrific magnitude. How could the gods ever have allowed this?

            “Don’t just stand there, Denka,” said the man. “We have to leave. Don’t you understand? The Shogun is coming! The noble families are finished! We all have to get as faraway as we can!”

            The daiymo man left and Ayaka stood in place for what must’ve been a long time. Eventually she directed herself towards one of the palace entrances, to learn what she could. She could not approach the entrance. On the wide stairs hundreds of people had gathered, their voices a clamor. One of the palace official's was at the threshold, raising his hands, addressing the crowds, perhaps trying to calm them. Ayaka had still reserved a small hope there might be some huge mistake, but the expression on the official's face told her otherwise. Soon enough, from the crowds gathered there, she learned that royal family had recently announced the defeat at Saigo no Teiko, and the impending threat to the city itself.

            So it is true. The last great army of the Kyojin Phoenix was no more. Tens of thousands of lives had been devoured in death's nameless night. If she were not so shocked, Ayaka would have wept.

            She asked about, wanting to know if any of the lords had survived. She was thinking of Masuro, Keisuke, Hidetsugu, and the captains Ryoma and Takaneda. No one knew for certain if they'd escaped, been captured, or were all dead. She tried to learn more, but the panic was spreading like a blaze and it was hard to know what the details were for certain and what was being twisted by fear.

            "The Shogun is coming!" A woman shouted over and over, advancing down the street as if she were a prophet of ruination.

            "The Akuma are real!" proclaimed an elderly man, his eyes blurred with tears. "That's why our brave sons fell! That starseers warned us! Akuma hordes slaughtered our army, and now they're coming here!"

            Cries of - "The Akuma are coming!" - were echoed by others.

            “What are we going to do?” an adolescent daughter pleaded to her mother.

            “Abandon the city!” bellowed another man with arms raised as if to drive the people out like cattle. “Abandon the city! The Kyojin Wolf marches upon us!”

            Ayaka could scarcely blink. The army's defeat was catastrophic in of itself, yet it also signified that every single person still in Shenobi, was alone. No one could protect them. The roof of their mighty kingdom had been torn asunder, and through the shattered walls a menacing harbinger wind blew. Ayaka saw the terror painted on their faces. Today was the death of a nation, a history, and an entire people.

            The Akuma-samurai were coming. The Shogun himself. He is a demon. A lord of murder.

            A frightening vision intruded upon Ayaka's mind’s eye. She sensed Kage-waru’s advance. He was a black-armored giant, a god of war, so huge that the top of his devil-horned helmet could be seen over the other side of the Ko-joryoku Mountains. Flames crackled between grating plates of armor, scorching the sky, vaporizing clouds. Every step this akuma titan took cracked and quaked the earth for many ri. In his vast gauntleted hand was a monstrous sword he used to devastate villages and bring entire cities crashing into chasms of rubble.

            Whether or not Kage-waru wielded supernatural powers as was rumored, the undeniable truth was that under his black wolven banner, legions of hundreds of thousands of trained and ruthless murderers marched against the city. The citizens of Shenobi were as utterly defenseless against this threat as a lost child in the trajectory of a furious typhoon.

            Not knowing what to do or where to go, Ayaka wandered, eyes glossed. The masses rushed and exclaimed their terror.

            I'm so sorry, Daisuken-sama.

            Their dream of the new dawn was dead and gone.

            Unthinking, Ayaka's feet carried her across the street, until she reached the balustrade overlooking the river. There she stood, staring into the swishing rush of waters, but not really seeing anything. Maybe it would be better to throw herself into the waters while she still had a chance. 

            “Ayaka!”

            Akemi came running and threw her arms around Ayaka. Her friend was petrified and pale. Unfortunately, in Ayaka's state, it was difficult for her to comfort Akemi as she would have wanted.

            “Thank the gods I found you!” Akemi looked up to her for support. “Have you heard what happened? What are we going to do now?”

            Ayaka stuttered, “I,…I don’t know”

            Akemi glanced at the growing turmoil in the streets and grimaced. “I don’t know either, but my father told me that if anything like this happened we would go to Ao-kuraudo, or Sogen no tani.” She looked at Ayaka straight on. “You must come with us! You with Noribuko and Harumi!”

            “When will you leave?”

            “I’m not sure, but very soon. The Shogun will reach Shenobi in a week at most. We’ll go no later than tomorrow.” Akemi looked jumpy, as if she might sprint away in any direction. “Oh no, I have to go see my father and mother! Come find me this evening, alright? If you don’t, I’ll look for you at the inn”

            Ayaka nodded even while she continued to absorb the shock of the South's downfall.

            “Then we can all leave together.” Akemi took their surroundings in, all so familiar after a lifetime spent in Shenobi. Her lips quivered, but there was no time for tears now. Her voice was choked. "And when it's over, we can all come back. Maybe next year, or in a few years, there will be another Spring Festival."

            Ayaka nodded and tried to smile. The truth was that she did no think there would ever be another festival here, perhaps not anywhere in the South.

            Shenobi's citizens hastened this way and that, bemoaning in despair. Ayaka embraced Akemi, holding her friend close so as to impart to her all the love and assurance she could.

            “Tell Noribuko and Harumi to get ready,” Akemi said. “We’re going somewhere safe. Everything will be alright, Aya-chan, you’ll see,…it has to be.”

            “I know it will,” said Ayaka. Even if she couldn't believe it herself, she wanted Akemi to believe in it.

            After Akemi departed, Ayaka sat down on a bench by one of the big white goyoumatsu bonsai pines. A chill gale blew in gray clouds which shrouded the sky. Nothing was ever going to be alright again. Everything she’d known had fallen to pieces, collapsing in chaos, and dragging untold thousands of lives into the abyss along with it.

            From what Ayaka could gather, the majority of the population intended to flee; nevertheless, she had hearkened more than a few scattered men as well as women that shouted at the rest of the people in a feeble attempt to embolden them.

            “We must not give up!” cried one. “Running will only make it worse! The city must be defended! We must stay and fight!”

            No one listened to these brave, stubborn individuals, and thus they appeared as lost madmen trying to command a roiling sea.

            Perhaps they should listen. There might be nowhere left to escape. Shenobi was a shrinking island; and since no birds had arrived to warn them before the rider, that meant they had even less time to flee. Ayaka didn’t think there was anywhere one could run from the enemy now. The Shogun seemed invincible. Surely, this was the end, for every last man, woman, and child of Shenobi. The Shogun had started with the South, but would only stop with all of Isodoro, perhaps the world entire.

            It is over. Never had Shenobi been such a sorrowful place. Ayaka gazed at the gardens across the street. She would have cried onto the floor if not the crippling fear and hopelessness that overpowered her. Ayaka resolved to just sit on the bench, and wait for the wave of destruction to arrive and drown her.

            Resigned to her fate, Ayaka had already closed her eyes when a hand touched her own. She looked up. It was Harumi. The little servant girl appeared to have been running.

            “Aya-chan,” Harumi said. "I was looking everywhere for you.”

            As she beheld the little girl, a part of Ayaka was revived from her slow drowning surrender to death.

            “Aunt Nori sent me to find you.” The little servant girl grew worried. “Come on, we can't stay here Aya-chan. We gotta go back to the Bathhouse.”

            Noribuko must be sick with worry about now. As Ayaka thought about her aunt and the little girl, her confusion and despair vanished. She couldn’t give up that easy. Noribuko and the Harumi must not remain in the city. They had to be saved. She must go to her aunt so they could be together and decide what to do.

            Ayaka rose and took Harumi's hand. Together they pushed through the crowds back, to the Bathhouse Inn.

Author's Note

Reviews

[C. Rose]

I'm so glad you gave Ayaka happiness before the traumatic climax. This makes her ability to persevere believable and gives the reader a break from the sadness. There are a few points where I felt the people in the streets were too knowledgeable about how the enemy laid out the trap.

I questioned why Harumi wouldn't go with her parents. In the next chapter you mention she is an orphan.

My annotations are hand-written. I'll transfer it into diigo a different night.

[Kuandio]

Thank you C Rose! I'm doing my best to pace the story by giving breaks like the one you mentioned. I'm one of those people who outline/structure like crazy

[C. Rose]

https://diigo.com/076uhx