Chapter 26:
The Melancholic Ashes Scatter Away
Dream Seclusion
“How are we doing on luck, Ichirō-san?” Kurogane whispered, the metallic click of his gun’s hammer echoing in the small space.
“If luck were a person, they’d be spitting in our faces right now,” Ichirō replied, his grip on his katana so tight his knuckles were white as bone. His mind was a storm of images—Kenichi’s ruined wrist, Tsuyoshi’s bubbling chest.
The sword is too slow. The world is getting too fast. The lead Executive laughed, a sound like dry leaves skittering on a grave. “Look at them. The last relics of a dead age, debating their survival. You’re not fighting a battle anymore; you’re fighting a clock. The Oyabun has already departed the lower levels. In less than fifteen minutes, he’ll be out of Takayama entirely, along with the shipments that will turn this country into a charcoal pit.”“Fifteen minutes,” Ichirō breathed. The weight of it was crushing. If Hades escaped, everything he came here for would mean nothing. The "House of Mirrors" would just be rebuilt elsewhere.
“You’re cornered, Kurogane,” the second Executive mocked. “Did you really think your little Arabesque tricks would work against the man who bought the factory?”
Ichirō’s eyes darted around. He was looking for an opening, a shadow, anything—but the barrels were fixed. The end felt clinical. It wasn't an honorable death in the field; it was an execution in a hallway.
Suddenly, a deafening roar erupted from the floor above the Executives.The two guards flanking the stairs were thrown forward as lead tore into their backs. From the shadows of the prison level, two figures emerged. One was the Ex-Executive, his gaunt face set in a mask of vengeful fury, wielding a captured musket with the practiced ease of a man reclaiming his soul. Beside him was the Cloaked Man, the one who had stood back-to-back with Ichirō. He didn't speak. He simply rained fire from a pair of pistols, his movements fluid and ghostly.
“Now!” Kurogane roared. The diversion was all Ichirō needed. He lunged upward, a blur of blue and silver. He didn't use a formal stance; he used raw, desperate speed. As the troops turned to face the new threat from the prisoners, Ichirō’s blade sang through the air. He took the first guard’s head in a clean, horizontal sweep, the blood spraying the stone walls.
Kurogane fired his own musket, the ball catching a rifleman in the throat. He didn't stop to reload. He swung the weapon like a mace, shattering a man’s ribs while Ichirō danced through the chaos, his katana a flickering tongue of death. They were a whirlwind of steel and lead, taking advantage of the panic.
The two Executives, seeing the tide turn, didn't stay to fight. They exchanged a look of pure cowardice and bolted toward a side exit.
“I’ll handle them!” Kurogane shouted, already giving chase. He stopped for a split second, grabbing Ichirō’s shoulder, his eyes burning. “Go, Ichirō! Go for the Oyabun! You have to take his head now—there won’t be a second chance! If he reaches the carriage, it’s over!”
The tension in the air was thick enough to choke on. Ichirō nodded, his face wet with sweat and the blood of his enemies. He turned and sprinted up the stairs, his lungs burning.
As he ran, the sounds of the other floors drifted up to him—a cacophony of tragedy.
On the third floor, Toshio was a statue of blood and silver. He stood in a circle of ten gunmen, his breath coming in slow, rhythmic pulses despite the three holes already punched through his side.
His vision began to blur, the grey stone of the bureau melting away into the golden light of a memory he had kept locked in the darkest corner of his heart.
He was seven years old. He was hiding under the floorboards of their shack, his hands pressed over his ears to drown out the sound of his father’s drunken, violent rage. But then, the silence came. His mother reached down, her hands trembling but her touch incredibly soft as she pulled him out. She sat him on the porch and began to run a small, chipped wooden comb through his tangled hair.
“Look at the sky, Toshio,” she whispered, her voice a fragile, beautiful thing despite the purple bruise blooming on her cheek. “It’s so quiet up there. No one hurts anyone in the clouds. Promise me... when you’re a man, you’ll find a way to make the world that quiet. Not with anger, but with a heart that knows when to stand still.”
Toshio looked at the five remaining gunmen raising their weapons. He felt a strange, profound peace. He had spent his life seeking order because he couldn't stand the chaos that had broken her. He lowered his sword to his side, his eyes clear and unfocused.
“I’m tired of the noise, Mama,” he whispered. “I’m coming to the quiet.”
The volley was deafening. Five lead balls slammed into his torso at once. Toshio didn't fall; he leaned back against the stone, his eyes looking at a sky only he could see, as the light of the world finally went out.
A floor above, Shida was a dying titan. He was pinned against a heavy oak pillar, his massive blade notched and stained. He had taken two bullets—thigh, shoulder—but he still loomed over the troops, a terrifying mountain of a man.
In his vision, the master was there, standing in the waist-deep snow of the northern provinces. Shida was a teenager then, crying because his hands were too frostbitten to hold the training sword.
“The sword isn't in your hands, Shida,” the old master had said, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. “It’s the pillar that holds up the roof of the world. Look at that old shrine, boy. The wood is rotting, the paint is gone, but the pillar stands. If it fails, the gods have no home. You are a pillar. You do not move because you are tired. You move when the roof is safe.”
Shida felt the blood filling his boots. He looked at the gunmen, his teeth bared in a terrifying, bloody snarl. He lunged forward one last time, not to kill, but to be the shield. He caught a final volley on his lower hip, halting him entirely. His massive body absorbed the lead that would have otherwise hit the stairs. He passed out unconscious on his feet, his hand locked onto the hilt of his sword, a pillar that refused to fall even in the face of death.
On the landing near the exit, Saru was dragging his ruined leg, his breath hitching in wet, ragged gasps. He was the fastest man alive, but he couldn't outrun the lead in his side.
In his vision, he saw the fence behind the barracks. He saw Jinko, barely six years old, swinging his legs and watching Saru with eyes full of pure, unblemished worship.
“Hehe, you know how fast I am, right, Jinko-bou?!” Saru had laughed, leaning against the wood, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“The fastest! Faster than a bird!” Jinko cheered, jumping down.
Saru’s face had turned uncharacteristically serious for a moment. He knelt down, eye-level with the boy. “Listen, kid. The day I finally stop running... the day my legs give out for good... you gotta promise me something. You get yourself a horse. A real, fire-breathing stallion. And you name it Saru. That way, when you’re riding like the wind, I’m still out there with you. We’ll be the fastest in Japan, okay?”
“I promise, Saru-niisan! We’ll never stop!”
Saru looked up at the five guards blocking the final door. He gripped his small dagger, his vision tunneling into a single point of light.
“Jinko... there you go, buddy. Run for me,” he whispered. He exploded forward, a final, flickering spark of the speed that had defined his life. He took three bullets to the throat and chest, but he didn't stop until his blade was buried in the neck of the lead guard. "This is my final act of no room for cowardice, or so I hope."
He collapsed into the dark, his heart stopping as he felt the imaginary wind of a horse’s gallop against his face.
Ichirō was screaming. It wasn't a war cry; it was the sound of a soul being torn apart. He sprinted up the final flight, his face a mask of salt and blood. From every floor below, the dying roars of his brothers followed him, pushing him upward.
“GO ICHIRŌ-DONO! GOOOO!” Saru shouted in his dying breath.
“Take.. Take his head..!” Toshio sighed out.
“I’m sorry!” Ichirō wailed in the silence of his mind, the tears blinding him as he burst through the trapdoor of the general store. “I’m so sorry! Toshio! Shida! Saru! Forgive me!”
"I'm so sorry!" He cried.
"I failed you."
"I failed all of you."
"I don't deserve anything but to give my life away so you guys can have yours, yet I... I'm the one running, safe and sound."
"All.. all because of you.."
"I'm sorry!"
He stood in the middle of the store, the scent of expensive tea and cedar a sickening contrast to the iron and sulfur of the basement. He was panting, his katana trembling in a hand that was slick with the blood of his kin.
In the center of the room, Seiko Tenmichi was stirring, her eyes fluttering open as she sat up on a velvet settee. She looked confused, her hand going to her head.
But Ichirō’s eyes weren't on Seiko.
They were on the woman sitting beside her, the one who had been holding Seiko’s head in her lap. The "special guest" Hades had requested.
The woman stood up slowly. She was dressed in fine silks even though she looked hurt, bruised and dirted, her face possessed of a familiar beauty—a face Ichirō hadn't seen for a couple months, a face that haunted the very foundation of his exile.
“You're-,” the woman said, her voice like a silken cord tightening around his neck.
"You're him!"
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