The Witches' Curse

Amidst all of the chaos of fighting Turushno, fending off sword and flame, the detail of his own cracked blade slipped through. Arata stared at Sawatari, caught off guard with a question he hadn't thought of an answer to. Witch hunters were meant to report damage to their weapons to prevent this situation, it wasn't like him to go against that

“It was from the other witch, the one in the manor house.” It was the only explanation he could come up with. He didn’t think he drew his sword since then, especially not in Sawatari’s presence. "After everything that happened with Koseki and Kajiwara, I must have forgotten."

The far side of her face had been hidden by the hood until she turned, it was only then that he saw the damage Turushno had done to her. Cracks of scars traced a hand print over her eye, like her face was broken pottery mended with skin. She must have seen his reaction but she didn’t respond.

“You said that witch didn’t have a knife.”

"What’s this about?" He tried a different angle. "It cracked when I cut through a support beam, why does it matter?"

Her remaining eye looked down on Arata, despite the height difference counter to it. “Really?” She left the answer hanging in the air, before turning away. "Well, now I know that you think she fact I was the only one in the house with a sword didn't matter." He wanted to object, obviously that's not what he meant, but the misunderstanding took attention away from the truth. He let it slide through gritted teeth. “We’re going to be late if we don’t go now, can’t have an execution without an executioner.”

The rain diminished as they walked. Soon passersby thickened into crowds with street vendors selling grilled meats, and sweet stands drawing children like flies. Lanterns, ribbons, the whole town came alive, all concentrated around a moment of death. It was the closest the town came to a festival.

Rarely did they have to push their way through, people saw the witch hunter coats and if they didn’t normally step aside, that day of all days, they did. Entrances to the square were marked like a temple, ornate stone arches carved with dragons killing oni. Arata could understand why. This is a holy site, where humans were sacrificed for the good of the city. This was not murder. This was necessity.

Already the raised edges of the square were filled by knots of families on the flagstone. The witch hunters maintained a safe perimeter around the centre, whilst the daimyo, his wife, and their retainers sat regal underneath a red tarpaulin. Arata joined the middle whilst Sawatari split off to speak with the daimyo. Of course she needed his permission to kill a citizen, he was the city made manifest. In the corner of his eye, Tsukishiba was pulled through the opposite gate to the one they entered, dragged by her arms. Her leg was still wrapped with a splint and the limp was magnified by the ropes around her legs. Conversations stilled, people stopped jostling for space, and all eyes fixed on the woman.

The first jeers came from the back and from there flooded across the square. If there was ever a moment all of the city united, from the criminals to the nobles, it was in cursing the one guilty of colluding with witches. Arata almost wanted to join in, to lose himself and his second thoughts in the uproar, but he couldn’t. The witch hunters were there as a barrier, the physical front line between Giseizawa and those that wanted it to burn. If they joined in with the crowd, there would be nothing stopping the masses from using everything they had to beat Tsukishiba until she was bleeding out onto the stone. And that was not the daiyo's wishes.

The guilty woman knelt down in the middle, the jailers clasping both wrists with chains to the ground, and stepped back to the witch hunter line. Sawatari stood two steps towards Tsukishiba, the closest out of all of them, and shucked the bow from her shoulder. As she notched an arrow, the two looked at each other. Tsukishiba didn’t have any last words. She didn’t cry. She stared death in the eye, all of her spirit channeled into pure hatred. If her life ended only as a lesson to others, she didn't want to go screaming. The quiet spoke for itself.

Arata was glad for Tsukishiba’s sake Turushno had destroyed only Sawatari’s right eye. She used her left eye to shoot. If there was ever an art to war, it was the way Sawatari used a bow. The string drew back, Sawatari took aim with a lock of her shoulders, and then let loose. It was over before anyone had a chance to notice. The arrow embedded itself in the point between Tsukishiba’s nose and her eyes, the tip dripping with blood jutting from the base of her skull. She slumped forward.

No one breathed in the square. Everyone watched the body. The line of witch hunters pressed into the crowd. Arata thought the same as everyone else: did she actually collude with witches?

Then the body convulsed once, rolled over, and exploded into demon fire. In a moment, the square filled with blue light and a roar like a thousand men sentenced to death. Spectators ducked low, arms raised to protect themselves from the charcoal comets raining down. Each piece was once part of the woman known as Tsukishiba, turned to ash by rage, but it proved what Arata needed to see. This was the witches' curse, proof she was guilty.

He looked across the square to the daimyo’s tent and his eyes met Sawatari’s, holding on for a second before she looked away, her expression unreadable. With the execution over, the audience drifted to the exits. A familiar face caught his attention, Uesugi, the madame of the House of Red Blossoms, dressed in a mourning kimono, and Arata felt a compulsion to approach her. He didn’t know what he would say, condolences felt in bad taste, so to was a reassurance that what happened was for the good of the city. An apology? Before he could approach, someone else he recognised blocked his path, and he was as happy to see them as Uesugi would have been to see him.

“Terrible what happened isn’t it?” Kawaragi shook his head, speaking to Arata but looking over to Uesugi. “First her husband croaks and now one of her most popular girls blows up in front of the whole city, bad week for her.”

One of those things Arata didn’t already know. “Her husband died?”

Kawaragi nodded his head solemnly like a junior actor hoping exaggeration would make up for lack of skill. “Swamp flu, I’ve heard, hence the black outfit. But you know this city’s grown enough as it is, better some of the older generation know when it’s time to go.” He finally looked to Arata, no longer pretending the encounter was some coincidental happenstance. “As we're speaking of sudden exits, I would have hoped Utsubo had been dealt with by now.”

Arata was already turning away. “If you stop asking, maybe I’d find the time to do it.” He heard Kawaragi shout after him but the words became lost through the crowd. There was a month ahead of him to find another witch colluder and he wanted a confession early. Arata made his way home, not waiting for Sawatari, he didn’t need any more interrogations.

As he walked, the sun showed itself through breaks in the clouds for the first time almost a week. He didn’t have time to admire. Turning a street into the central ward then another to his house, he looked up to the screen leading to the room where Shinutcha was captive—a habit he picked up only out of paranoia. Without the sun, he wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary, but now knife-edges of light cut through the paper. It turned the screen transparent. Beyond it, he saw movement.

It was faint, only the silhouette of a body, but he knew in an instant what that meant. Shinutcha was free.