Abstinence Education

A little update at the end of this post to explain a possibly obscure reference. I'm not getting the impression that a lot of readers are confused by the occasional Japanese term (I usually try to make these clear or at least redundant in context, like saying "short wakizashi" or "tsuba guard") but here's the link to the big overall glossary, which I haven't updated for a while now...
http://madame-manga.livejournal.com/62557.html#cutid1


The characters and universe of Blade of the Immortal/Mugen no Junin are copyright by Hiroaki Samura and do not belong to me. Not one sen will come into my hands in consequence of this story.

Warnings for sex in various forms, including quasi-incestuous themes and a sixteen-year-old female paired with an adult male. (Yeah, this also applies to future chapters!) Violence and dismemberment are legally required in any BotI fic... and you get an additional caution for harm to animals.

Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga

Part Forty (continued)


“You never told me why we went this way. Instead of what Anotsu suggested...?”

Manji twitched the lead rope that tethered her mount to his and stepped up the pace downhill. The bounty hunter’s big horse moved with a long easy stride under his direction, towing along Anotsu’s horse with Rin clinging to its back. She held the saddle bow and made no attempt to guide the animal, letting Manji determine their route and speed. “Anotsu don’t know everything.”

“Well, of course not, but...”

“You recollect the money that bitch claimed she had? Saved it up from spreading her legs?” Manji seemed much more willing to talk now that they had separate mounts and were moving quickly, though he sounded less cheerful than simply determined. Rin creased her brow, and Manji glanced briefly over his shoulder. “Fifteen ryo in gold.”

That gold. Gold that O-Hama had offered to the bandits if they would assault Rin where her yojimbo had to watch. Rin’s face flashed hot. If Manji had only said it straight out, she might have felt a little less shame at the memory. Nothing but an unfulfilled threat, but somehow a taint lingered around her. Body and spirit smirched by such a close brush with a woman's worst possible dishonor, though she remained untouched... sort of. She remembered Manji’s queer look when she had admitted stripping to distract the bandit’s boy and take back her sword. Rin hugged a forearm over her breasts and hunched her shoulders.

“See, I figure she’s too sharp to leave that much cash behind. No way she wouldn’t tell her boy-toy they had to go pick it up before they blew the han.” Rin tightened her grip on the saddle, growing queasy from the rapid trot. “She’d stashed it a few hours’ journey from that clearing, she said, and you might also recollect that she had it with her when the little creep grabbed her from her owner.”

“That gossipy merchant? Didn’t he say so?”

“Bingo.” Manji raised himself a little in his saddle and re-adjusted the bloodstained pad of old clothes he sat on. “Which means she hid it somewhere along their route before they got to the same damn town we did. Good reason not to carry it with them, if they were planning to cut deals with scumbags like those. They’d have got their throats cut instead.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense... but then they were going to take you back to Edo afterwards?”

“Yeah, I guess the little twerp actually meant to turn me in... maybe in a barrel, if he’d finished hacking me up like his lady wanted.” Manji’s quick meal off the hunter’s supplies seemed to have done his body some good; his right arm had full play now and he could use his hand to help control the reins, though his grip was still too weak to allow him to wield a weapon. “So they had to figure they were going to pass that way again soon, but she hadn’t picked up the money on the journey out that morning. That narrows it way down.”

“Oh, my goodness — that’s right!” Rin put a hand to her stomach. So Manji hadn’t let his thoughts fall into a muddle like hers, or dwelt all this time on irrelevancies. Even through the pain he still suffered, he’d kept his mind in focus and trained on their real goal. “You f-figured out where it was?”

“I don’t need to know where it was, though I’d wager it was a temple. All I need to know is that they had to strike back east a ways before they could head northwest to the border.” Manji pointed to his right, then ahead. “So I draw the third side of the triangle north, and then follow the riverbank. Naturally most of the best fords have at least a few teahouses nearby, if not a whole village. The river’s gone down some. Even so, it’s still running high enough that they’ll be skulking the banks for a good while before they find a spot to cross unobserved. Fifty-fifty at least, we’ll get there first.” His air of cool analysis gave way. “Just wait... till I observe ‘em.”

Rin gave him a smile tinged both with anticipation and a touch of fear.

They left the road for the forest as the sun rose higher. The sky remained hazy, filtering the sunlight as if through a thin cloth, but Rin could see no individual clouds. The forest was sandy-floored and a little sparse, dotted with more scrawny pines in between thicker clumps of maples and chestnuts that still retained their turning leaves. The air felt quiet yet oddly itchy, with autumn cicadas droning and the smells of smoke and pine pitch saturating the faint breeze. This far from Edo the villages were scarce, and the mushroom-gatherers and charcoal-burners gave Manji and Rin wary looks as they rode by. The river glinted through the trees a bowshot’s distance to the left and a little below them. Every so often they had to skirt around stream heads recently flooded and still deep in muck and debris.

“Shh.” Manji turned in the saddle and held up a hand. Rin’s horse followed his towards the edge of a small forested bluff; Manji took in an arm’s length of the lead rope and leaned closer to her. A horse was moving along the riverbank below. Someone spoke in a high-pitched voice, just discernible over the sound of water. Another voice replied, and Rin suppressed a gasp. Manji twitched his mouth. “Was I right or was I right?” She nodded with fingers over her lips. “Stay here. I’ll be back.” Manji untied the rope and handed her the end.

“Stay? Why?”

He threw her a sideways glance. “Thought you were feeling squeamish today.”

Rin pulled in her lips and felt her nostrils flare. “...No.”

Manji tied the lead rope to his saddle again and urged his horse. Rin’s horse trotted obediently behind. Manji shaded his vision with one hand as they approached the edge of the bluff. The sun was at their backs, still hovering midway in the eastern sky short of noon, but the contrast of open sky with forest shade was enough to make them blink. Rin shaded her eyes as well and followed Manji’s gaze. Below, she saw two people mounted on one horse, apparently testing the depth at the river’s brink. The rider in the saddle, not tall and oddly square in outline, pointed over the water. Sitting sidesaddle behind him, an even smaller figure in loose men’s clothing.

At the closer bank the water looked quiet and dark past a shallow shelving. A stretch of rapids reached from midstream to the opposite shore, the river running fast over cobbles. Rin took it all in at a glance and stared only at the riders, her heart beating like a war drum. Sunlight danced on the flashing ripples with incongruous gaiety.

Below Manji’s horse’s front hooves, the loose sandy slope of the bluff descended by three times a man’s height. Clumps of rushes grew on the soggy and ponded flats between the bluff and the river, straggled with water weed. Distinct lines of flood deposit between the clumps marked the water’s gradual retreat. Rin smelled damp earth and rotting vegetation steaming in the sun.

“Well, it ain’t exactly Ichi-no-Tani,” muttered Manji. “But I’m gonna head straight down, so hang on.”

Manji began to pull out a shido with his left hand, then seemed to reconsider. He replaced the weapon and drew his katana instead. That was his longest blade, and the one he kept in best polish. The hazy sun struck the flat at an angle and reflected into Rin’s eyes, tracing blurring spots across her vision. Manji slapped the reins on his horse’s neck and spurred its sides with his heels. The big horse willingly started down, but Rin’s horse pulled at the lead rope and locked its legs. Without looking behind him, Manji spun the sword and slashed the rope. His mount gave a great bound and charged down the slope towards the river.

Rin tried to urge her horse to follow, but it shied and backed away from the edge. Obviously it knew perfectly well that she had no idea how to control it. She lost sight of Manji and bounced up and down the saddle with frustration. She was going to miss everything!

Out by the river, a woman screamed. Just once. Gibbering and whimpering: a boy’s pathetic cries rose and continued. Ryonosuke sounded nearly unhinged with terror. Nothing else over the water’s noise except for the muffled smack of galloping hooves.

Rin slid from her recalcitrant horse, yanked it over to a tree to tether it and ran out to the edge of the bluff again. A big splash in the shallows beyond the flats— Ryonosuke had fallen off the horse and taken O-Hama with him. They floundered in the river, making smaller splashes. Manji’s mount tore into the water, flinging high brownish waves to each side. O-Hama got up first, her long loose hair streaming wet, and tried to catch Ryonosuke’s horse. Manji headed straight for her, his katana spiraling high.

Was he just going to behead her on the run? Rin gasped — he’d said nothing about what happened after they caught the fugitives. Instant death the only penalty he had ever considered? O-Hama let go of the horse’s bridle and darted around the animal’s body to avoid Manji’s charge. She struggled upstream, the muddy river bottom and her clinging wet clothes hampering her. Although Manji’s weapon couldn’t have touched her yet, she went down again, perhaps tripped or bumped by the horse. The katana flashed; Ryonosuke’s horse reared with a loud neigh and plunged into the deep water. It swam for midstream taking the musket and long tachi with it, both sheathed behind its saddle.

Manji turned his mount towards O-Hama. Before he completed the move, Ryonosuke heaved partway out of the water, coughing and spluttering. He still had on his old-fashioned silk-laced armor; with its cords soaked, it must have weighed nearly as much as the wearer. He half-swam to O-Hama’s side on all fours and flung out his arms in a meager shield. Manji laughed out loud, clearly audible through the river's low roar.

Rin scurried back to her own horse to retrieve her sword. She worked her way backwards down the crumbling bluff and looked for the combatants again. Could you describe a hunter taking his prey as a combat?

O-Hama thrashed her way to dry land while Ryonosuke headed off Manji’s horse. She paused with her back to Rin and drew a small dagger from her sash. Manji dismounted, left his horse standing in the river and splashed towards Ryonosuke in the calf-deep water, sword held low. O-Hama’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. She braced the dagger against her chest and ran at Manji from behind.

Rin shouted in warning. Swinging her sword, she galloped through the rushes. Manji looked around and brought up the katana’s point at O-Hama. At the same moment, Ryonosuke somehow mastered the burdened armor he wore and heaved all the way to his feet. Again he flung himself between Manji and his lover. Probably mostly by accident, he grazed Manji’s sword with his chest and pushed it aside. It wasn’t likely that he’d been hurt, not while wearing full armor, but he yelped and backed up towards O-Hama, yanking out his short wakizashi.

Manji stalked limping towards both of them while Rin ran across the flats from the opposite direction, jumping puddles and dodging stands of rushes. She would reach their quarry a little after he did, and by then, it might all be over. Ryonosuke screamed and struck out at Manji; Rin could barely follow the swift upward flick of Manji’s sword, but the wakizashi flew over Ryonosuke’s head. It arced towards Rin and landed in a puddle, point first and quivering. Ryonosuke turned and grabbed O-Hama in both his arms, either to shield her again or to prevent her from attacking Manji directly. Rin was very close to them now, too close to see the endpoint of Manji’s lunge. A dull, grating impact of steel cleaving flesh and bone; her bodyguard pulled out his backswing with his blade flinging a red streak into the sunlight. Ryonosuke screamed again, and the young couple collapsed almost at Rin’s feet.

For a moment she thought that Manji had run them both through as they stood embraced. A fitting end to this?

Rin skidded to a halt, holding her sword out in front of her in balked disappointment. Nothing for her to do? At least she had wanted to tell them off! Show them what it was like to be in someone else’s power, to be hunted and attacked and captive and maybe a little bit abused — she wasn’t sure what would have come next. At least they had suffered a good shock when Manji so unexpectedly attacked. What a nightmare vision her yojimbo must have looked to the guilty fugitives: mounted and dark-clad with the sun at his back, an immortal avenger in unfailing pursuit!

Then she realized that both of the lovers were still breathing. Blood spurted and stained the damp earth. Trying to single out its source, Rin spotted a foot in tabi and a sandal. It was still attached to a length of shin, but it lay at a peculiar angle and too far away. Rin stared at the leg. Slim, small footed — but a man’s, not a woman’s. Had Manji missed his aim again?

O-Hama struggled out from under Ryonosuke, who lay retching and gray-faced. She still had her dagger in hand, and tried to lunge at Manji from her knees. He held his weapon out to the side and kicked her in the jaw. She fell into the mud and dropped her dagger. Manji hooked it with the point of his katana and flung it away.

O-Hama clutched her throat and rolled over, her eyes staring wide and filled with tears of pain. Manji stood over her, Ryonosuke’s blood staining her wet clothes, and tapped her under the chin with the flat of his blade.

Rin looked into Manji’s face while he looked into O-Hama’s. His expression was almost neutral, but a sickening association rose to distort her vision, like steam wavering from dark earth. The assassin Shira, mutilating a prostitute on the road outside Naito Shinjuku. The memory was almost too awful to call up; Rin had lived through even worse sights, but only just. The woman’s foot slashed off, her hands pinned with a knife, her breast sawed deep — and Shira had meant to keep going. Rin had realized in magnifying horror that he had indulged this hideous taste many times before. His greatest pleasures lay in someone else’s pain. Manji had stopped him that time — but what did Manji mean to do now?

‘I know what most kenshi would have done to a girl like you...’

Even farther into the past, as Manji’s expression hardened. A young outlaw with a cruel and desperate look, a murderer who hesitated at nothing. Who wore a web of scars that flaunted his ferocity, a garment he would never cast off as long as he lived. Frozen in time and in aspect, detached from humanity itself. Would anyone ever believe that he could long to redeem so many deaths? Why should they?

Manji pulled a slow, triumphant grin that could have been prelude to almost anything. “Thought you’d shake me, bitch?” His captive met his gaze, lying flat with her breast heaving. “Heh, heh. Bet you didn’t realize you’d as good as drawn me a map.”

“Killer... of a hundred.” O-Hama stared at him, looming over her like a temple carving depicting the horrors of damnation. Her voice broke. “Demon... in a m-man’s shape...”

“Works for me.” He stepped back a pace and looked up. “Okay, Rin. Got her for ya.”

“Eh?”

Manji gave O-Hama a sour glance, whirled his katana to reverse the point and sheathed the sword on his left hip. “I wish every crazy whore could use a blade like that other crazy whore of my acquaintance, because then we might be able to keep this nice and simple. No such luck.”

“Manji-san...?”

“Bandits, hunters, little twerps who think they’re samurai; big deal.” He vented a disgusted sigh and kicked Ryonosuke’s severed leg out of his way. “What am I going to do with a damn broad? Don’t think it’d be a real hot idea to try to collect on the reward!” Ryonosuke moaned; O-Hama slowly sat up and looked at him, then at Manji. “G’wan, slut, fix up your boyfriend if you want. Makes no difference to me.” Her eyes dilated.

“B-b-but I thought you wanted revenge on her! Because she tortured you! Cut out your tongue!”

“Revenge?” Manji looked at his bandaged arm. “I had that coming.”

“You had it... coming?”

“Weren’t you paying attention? Who did I leave behind that tavern three years ago?”

“Uh... well, yes...”

“That’s family business. Family duty. It don’t come any more serious than a father and an elder brother. So even if she’d sliced off my parts and made me swallow ‘em raw...” Manji gave Rin a dark smirk and flicked a thumb along the long hilt of his sword. “Well, shit. Could have done me a sort of favor, hey?”

Rin bent over with a hand to her mouth, the other clutching her sword hilt against her roiling stomach. O-Hama finished tying a sash around the stump of Ryonosuke’s severed leg. She laid a slender hand on his forehead and smoothed the hair back from his temples while he shivered and moaned. His topknot had come undone; with his hair loose across her lap, he looked very young even though his pate was fully shaved. Probably he’d had his boyhood forelock cut only a year or so ago.

“Shee-it. Thought you knew better than that. I did the crime and I said I’d take my punishment. As long as she was the one to dish it out, I didn’t have any reason to call it unfair.” He grinned at Ryonosuke and held up his right hand again. “Quit crying, you little shit-drip. I took your leg a hell of a lot quicker than I should have... but I’m kinda soft-hearted that way.”

Rin struggled for breath. “Sh-she planned the whole attack! You suffered so m-much — and you don’t hold it against her? I don’t believe it!”

“Come on, it’s the principle of the thing. She’s got her just rights, but using an innocent to punish the guilty party crossed the line. Even if she had still believed you were my little sister.” He gave a satiric chuckle. “The whole family pays for the crimes of one, but she ain’t the bakufu.”

Rin put a hand to her breast. “You kept going — you rode all night, you swore you’d never quit — and now you’ve been wounded again! Just to get revenge for me?”

“Hell, woman, it’s my job.” Manji curled his lip. “Yojimbo.”

She met his level gaze; he meant this just how it sounded. Duty, personal honor, a limb for a limb — but who would carry out this revenge he had pursued so hard? “I've done what I came for. Now, she’s got it coming to her.” Manji drew a thumb across the base of his throat.

“You aren’t telling me — that I ought to k-ki-kill — ” Rin pointed a shaking finger.

Manji’s face darkened further. “She told five dirty bastards to strip you in front of me, and it wasn’t any fault of hers that they didn’t go through with it.” He folded his arms; she recognized the hard glitter in his eye. “I seem to recall the bitch working her assets pretty hard to persuade Anotsu’s guys, and they almost fell for it. You’re samurai, and she knew damn well what that meant when she pulled her shit. You tell me — what the fuck do you think you should do?”

Sharp prickles weakened her thighs. If O-Hama had succeeded? Rin’s imagination could barely encompass the scene, or its aftermath. Indelible images of her mother’s violation supplied more genuine horror than she could have invented. Would she just have begged Manji to kill her when those men had finally thrown her ruined body aside? Would he have been glad to oblige?

“My lady...” Ryonosuke’s voice was barely audible, high and thin. “Give him... the money! The gold — beg for our — for your life!” O-Hama didn’t reply.

“C’mon, woman.” Manji flipped the hook-bladed knife into his hand. “There ain’t no point in thinkin’ it over too much.” He offered the knife to Rin; they looked at each other for a long moment. “It’s your deal all the way, but I’m still your bodyguard. I can back you up any way you like.” He nodded at Ryonosuke. “He won’t interfere.”

“No... no!” shrieked Ryonosuke in a whisper. He tried to embrace O-Hama around the waist. “How can you be so cruel — even you! To strip my lady of all remaining honor... you’re a monster! Even if she were still a courtesan — ”

“Haah?” Manji glared down at Ryonosuke, first in annoyance, then with a sudden rictus of fury. “You little fuckhole!” Rin jumped and squeaked; Ryonosuke shrank into his oversized armor. “Shut your motherfucking face! I wouldn’t ream that bitch’s reeking cunt with a — ” Manji glanced at Rin and stopped, his face pale. Then he flushed red and thrust the knife at her, handle foremost. Her fingers closed on it in automatic obedience. “Goddammit, get this shit over with!”

She wanted to run. Let them escape punishment, cross the border, get away completely free — as long as she escaped this herself. Manji would never let her go. He’d make her face her duty to cleanse her own honor, just as he had never let her falter in her duty to her parents. This was family duty, for the injury of one was the injury of all.

The knife’s plain wooden hilt was warm in her hand and still darkly stained with Manji’s own blood. So much blood on this weapon, and on so many others. She tried to control her ragged breathing and closed her eyes to gather her thoughts. She wasn’t up to this. She was going to cry and argue and fall apart, and then Manji would take back his weapon and do what he saw as his own duty. His job, which he could never quit.

“P-please, Manji-san — I... I just can’t — ”

“I would have done you a favor, killer of a hundred?” Rin looked at O-Hama in startlement when she spoke. She laid Ryonosuke’s head on a pad of rushes, smiling in an abstracted way. When she knelt and pushed her damp hair out of her face, the length of it nearly brushed the ground. “A strange favor, to cut out the root of a man’s desire... but I think I grasp your meaning.”

Manji remained silent for a moment. Then he cracked a grimace without turning his head. “Clever girl.”

“I wonder... if my fate might also be an ultimate favor.”

“Hah?”

“What great punishment can a woman inflict on another of her sex, if she is unwilling to kill? Or to use a man as proxy? I realize this girl would never order you to do what I threatened to have done to her. Even if she did give such an order, I know that you would never obey.” O-Hama’s great dark eyes veiled over; she smiled like a fox’s mask. “But she will realize her alternative... without a doubt. What else does a woman set beside life and honor?”

To her own horror, Rin could not keep the suggestion from taking form. Her gaze fell on Ryonosuke’s bandaged nose, then slowly, reluctantly, on O-Hama’s cherry-blossom cheeks. Such a beautiful girl...

“You see?” O-Hama sounded almost triumphant. “A woman knows a woman's instincts.” In consternation, Rin let the knife drop at her feet.

“What’s the matter, kid?” Manji’s brows twitched in a faint smile as he watched her. “Straight from the horse’s mouth... as you might say.”

Her own mouth fell open. He thought that would be justice? Could he be right?

“To steal my beauty with that blade... before time would have destroyed it anyway.” O-Hama dabbed light touches on the skin of her bruised jaw, fingertip by fingertip. “I already curse my mirror daily.... and my lord wears his wounds with courage. A strange, hard favor... perhaps.”

“What?” Rin boggled at her. Wouldn’t any woman dream of a face like that?

“You’ve seen the notices, I am sure. Didn’t you wonder why my former master is willing to pay so much to have me back?”

“I thought because you made him lots of money?”

O-Hama floated a light, contemptuous laugh. “Perhaps you are as innocent as you look...”

When Rin appealed to him in confusion, Manji abruptly bent to retrieve the knife and scratched the back of his neck. Ryonosuke hid his face and sobbed. “Ehrr... your master...? Oh.” Rin flushed; she could hardly claim such ignorance now. “Is that why you ran away?”

Ryonosuke struggled to raise himself on one elbow. “That vile panderer... he meant to part us forever! He forbade me to cross his threshold again! I could not go on living without the heavenly embraces of my lady...” Rin felt a sudden pang.

“Didn’t like you screwing with his property, hah?” Manji laughed harshly, then almost snarled. “But he sure didn’t mind making a packet off guys like me. You really must have pissed him all to shit, hatamoto!”

“My master is a foolish, jealous man.” O-Hama faintly wrinkled her nose, as if smelling something unpleasant. “He could not stomach it when my lord declared his love.”

“Jealous of a whore?” Manji sneered. “Come on — a guy who owned your contract could’ve nailed you any day of the week. Don’t fucking flatter yourself.”

“Don’t display your ignorance, outlaw!” O-Hama narrowed her eyes at Manji. He snickered at her vehemence, but she raised her voice. “From the moment he saw my face, this man could not conceal his lust for me. He nearly bankrupted himself to outdo all offers from the best establishments. He failed to put my maidenhead up for bid, though he could have named his price. He shamelessly took me long before my official apprenticeship ended, and made no secret of his transgressions. And so he threw away all prospect of fees and gifts that I would have received on the occasion of my mizuage, and deprived me of a great opportunity to gain fame and rise in the courtesans’ ranks. I could have been the toast of the Yoshiwara — but this besotted man ruined me! If his wife had allowed it, he would even have shut me up as his private concubine. He calls it love — he begs me to reward his worship with the smallest of tokens. I despise such flattery!” O-Hama hid her lips with her sleeve and breathed hard.

Manji had no immediate reply to this tirade. He didn’t look away, but he chewed his jaw and frowned.

O-Hama lowered her hand to her throat. “The good sense of my master’s honored wife is the only reason he can stay ahead of his creditors. She insisted that I take paying clients like the other girls and strictly limited his visits, for which I will always be grateful. I know she resented his attentions to me... but she never blamed me for her husband’s lack of wisdom.”

“Her kindness is without bounds, my lady! She brought us together... she urged me to speak my heart to you. I repaid her poorly by stealing you!”

“My lord, you cannot blame yourself for a desperate act. The fault lies entirely at another’s feet.” Both of them looked at Manji.

“Gimme a break!” He seemed taken aback, practically defensive. “How the hell is THAT my doing?”

O-Hama no longer betrayed any fear of her captor; she flung her bitterness at him like arrows. “You gave him a cruel wound he couldn’t conceal! You spitefully broke his sword! Everyone knew he had fought a duel for my honor — his father Tsukue-sama withdrew his allowance and reprimanded him for creating a scandal. My master was furious at such proof of my lord’s devotion. He seized the excuse and banned him from the house. We could not meet at all except by the good graces of my master’s honored wife. We were forced to speak through the screens under cover of night, weeping for each other like the rain that soaked us in its merciless torrents! And now for his love’s sake, my lord is an outlaw. Like you!”

“Aw, ya poor kids.” Manji spat on the ground. “Breaks my fucking heart.”

“Oh, why didn’t you let me die with you, my lady? When we still owned our fates?” Ryonosuke dissolved in sobs again. O-Hama looked away.

Manji snorted. “Love suicide? Now if there ever were two ideas that go together like maggots on a dead horse...”

“He asked her to carry out a shinju?” Rin gasped. “Oh, my goodness!”

“Heh — I bet he planned to drown himself in the well and poison the water. Like some pissy girl getting back at her slave-driving mother-in-law.” Manji guffawed. “Priceless! Couldn’t even go through with a coward’s death?”

“My lord is no — coward!” O-Hama paled. She seemed to struggle with herself, as if true dignity resided in silence now that she had poured out her heart. “I... I persuaded him that he should not give up all idea of revenge so quickly. There would be another opportunity...” She lowered her face, her shoulders heaving.

“You told him who Manji really was.” Rin bit her lips as her mind churned. What was she going to do now? Cry for someone who had done them so much harm? Destroy a woman whose right to a just revenge was as good as her own? How could she satisfy her grievances, and Manji’s too, without crossing the line? Even an enemy could show a captive honorable restraint... like Anotsu had.

“I told him only... that my foul-mouthed client was the killer of a hundred.” O-Hama showed her face, but closed her eyes. “I thought my lord might challenge him again immediately if he learned my whole story, and then...” O-Hama reached down and touched Ryonosuke’s hand. “He is so young...”

“So you waited your time, and you got your chance. Hope it was worth it, samurai’s daughter.” Manji tossed the hooked knife high and caught it again. “C’mon, Rin. Make yer call.”

A glimpse of clarity. The mud settling at last in such troubled waters? “All right,” said Rin. “I will.”

O-Hama knelt with her palms on her thighs, staring straight ahead. Rin took a deep breath. “You... you were samurai. Before you, uh, sold yourself.” O-Hama’s smooth brow tightened. “You told us your feminine accomplishments brought a good price — I guess you mean tea ceremony and playing the koto, and writing tanka in nice calligraphy, and stuff like that. But how about samurai accomplishments?” O-Hama didn’t reply, and Rin prompted her. “My father headed a sword school. Yours was an Edo officer. I learned how to use a sword. I bet you did too.”

Manji’s expression changed. “Now wait a second — ”

“Manji-san! You just said it was up to me.”

“Well... yeah, but — ”

“It’s MY honor we’re talking about, right? So I’m going to settle it the way it should be settled — between samurai.” Rin gestured at O-Hama. “Give her a weapon.”

Obviously he understood this not at all. “A... weapon?” He lowered the knife.

“I will not cut a helpless person’s throat. I will not do what she did to you, even if she deserves it, and I don’t think anyone deserves what you went through.”

He rolled his eye. “Don’t be so goddamn sure about that — ”

“Look, Manji! Maybe you didn’t know — you’d fainted already — but when she cut out your tongue, she fell apart crying. It was too horrible even for her.” O-Hama’s expression remained frozen. “Maybe yesterday, right when it was happening, I might have tried to do the same to her. I’m glad this isn’t then. She hasn’t got a weapon, so loan her one of yours. Please.”

Manji stared at her for so long she almost repeated the request. “...You think she’s gonna go for it, do you?”

“I can’t challenge her until we both have swords in hand.”

“Naked blades? You realize somebody could get hurt. Like, permanently.”

“Of course! Otherwise it wouldn’t mean anything!” Rin stopped at the ironic quirk of Manji’s lips. “Um... that is...” He dismissed it with a gesture, but gave a strange mocking look to O-Hama. “Okay, maybe that’s stupid! Maybe it’s samurai idiocy! But M-Manji-san... you made me fight once before. You said I had to learn to face a real blade before I could call myself a kenshi. That was only a little while ago — what could be so different now?”

Manji took his pipe from his sleeve and put it between his lips unlit, biting on the bamboo stem. Ryonosuke’s horse had made it across to the opposite bank of the river and stopped in a meadow as if it meant to graze. The horse Manji had been riding stood in the shallow water by the near bank, drinking in deep gulps. It tossed its head and snorted water out of its nose. After some moments in silence, Manji took the pipe from his lips again and let the mouthpiece rest on his chin. “I got a bad feeling about this, Rin.” His voice sounded tense and clear, as if he shaped each word with care before it left his mouth. “It won’t end well.”

“I want to do my duty, Manji-san. What you’ve always told me I have to do, no matter about anything else. How it ends... or how it may hurt me... isn’t the point.” Manji looked back at her. “It hasn’t ever been the point, has it? I’ve made some pretty stupid decisions, but that’s the price you pay for making decisions at all. If I only thought about my own safety, I never would have left my family’s dojo. I never would have had the courage to look for you... or to risk asking for an outlaw’s help.” She lowered her gaze for a moment, then returned to him with an almost detached feeling of calm. Because she’d found the right path, or because she shared his presentiment and accepted it? “When you told me to prove that I meant to avenge my parents — really prove it... I would just have run away bawling... and left you to fish in peace.”

Manji’s body jolted slightly, as if from an internal blow. The immobile lid of his blind eye stayed half open while his other eye clenched shut. She had a sense of a sleepless sight in that blank orb, distinguishing only shadows in its eternal watch. How much pain such awareness must cost him...

“Manji?”

“Okay, okay... you got it.” Manji took a deep breath and searched under his clothing. Slowly he extracted a sheathed short sword. “Here, this one’s lightweight enough for a broad.” He gave the sword a careless toss; it landed in front of O-Hama, exactly perpendicular to her bent knees. O-Hama didn’t stir a hair. “What’s the matter, bitch? Smells of me?”

“Manji-san, please...”

Manji held up a hand and shut his mouth on his pipe.

Rin held up her own sword. “I... I challenge you, Hama-san. For threatening me — for hurting Manji-san. He might not say so himself, but you had no right to do that to... to MY yojimbo.” She glanced at Manji, whose gaze had returned to the far side of the river. Her hands were sweating, so she shifted her grip on the hilt and stiffened her voice. “I am Asano Rin no Takayoshi, heir to the Mutenichi-ryu! You’ve insulted me, my household and my family’s honor beyond bearing. Pick up that sword and face me!”

“I refuse.” O-Hama’s hands clenched on her thighs.

“...What?”

“A female of good family should not wield a sword in anger, except in the final defense of her household. It’s improper, unwomanly and disgraces her father’s name. I will not take up such a challenge.”

“You can’t refuse! If you don’t fight me, I’ll... uh...”

“What will you do, girl?” O-Hama’s pretty mouth stretched over her teeth. “You haven’t the stomach to exact a real revenge. Order your bodyguard to behead your prisoners and have done. I defy you, samurai’s daughter.”

“My lady! My beautiful darling! Beg her forgiveness — knock your forehead! Please — think of your — of our — ”

“My lord! Would you have me grovel before them?” O-Hama snapped her attention back to Rin. “There’s no shame for me in death. Why should I make such an exhibition?”

“Why? Because if you don’t, I’ll cut off your... your hair!” Rin stamped her foot.

O-Hama’s mouth opened; she barely stopped herself from protectively grasping at a lock. Ryonosuke let out a plaintive wail. “No! Oh, no!”

Rin brandished her sword. “Yeah, I’ll chop it all off right down to the scalp so you’re totally bald! That would be just a little bit humiliating for a girl as proud as you, wouldn’t it? I could cut off your clothes, too, and then make you walk along the road all naked with people watching, and — ” Manji was laughing with his teeth firmly clamped on his pipe stem, making a strangled sound. “How’s that for shame, samurai’s daughter?”

O-Hama made a gesture at Manji’s short sword before her, but stopped again. Her hand trembled in the air and her cheeks blotched pink.

“Oh yeah — I meant to tell you something! Manji-san cut your boyfriend’s nose for acting like a jerk. But he didn’t break his sword, or even duel him in the first place. That was ME!”

O-Hama’s eyes blazed. She swept up the sword and clapped it to her left side, gripping the scabbard just below the tsuba guard. “I accept your challenge!”

“An honor duel. With girls.” Manji spread his hands and reproached the heavens.

“And if I’m victorious?” O-Hama rose and drew in one motion. She whipped the blade over her head, then performed a fast, smooth short-sword kata. Head, torso, knee, throat. Rin’s eyes followed her, wide open. O-Hama thrust and cut from side to side in precise, showy flourishes. She spun on the ball of her foot and lowered the point to aim it at Manji. He pursed his lips, but showed no other reaction. “What then, killer of a hundred? If I draw first blood? If she surrenders and begs for her life? Do my lord and I go free?”

She flicked her wrists and switched to a guard position, the bright blade laid across her body. “Or... do we continue this to the death?”

“You want promises? See if you can even lay a mark on her, bitch.” Manji hawked and spat on the ground once more. “I trained her, see, and she might’ve learned one or two of her lessons.” He looked at Rin narrow-eyed. Unsmiling now, though his nose twitched. He could not quite hide a deep simmer of emotion under the cool nonchalance of a sensei’s pride. Rin wondered how far he could bear to stand back from such a sharp test of her irregular education. Her own heart beat high, as if she already labored to block the strokes of a swiftly wielded sword. “But I can tell... I’m gonna have to let her give you all the proof you can take.”

Continued...

Ichi-no-Tani: A famous battle that took place during the Gempei War, 1184. One of its most notable elements was a charge led down a steep bluff by the legendary commander Minamoto no Yoshitsune.