Hiroshi's Dream. Chapter Two.

  
Near the general headquarters of the King's army, at the edge of the King's Garden, lay a small round lake with an oddly shaped tree standing in its middle. Its leaves were black, and its trunks reached down into the depths of the water. On the banks of that lake, upon a little hill that looked out over the castles of the First King, Hiroshi sat gazing at the reflection of his face in the water. He closed his eyes and lifted his head slowly, and a fresh morning wind blew in with a touch of cold. Hiroshi drew the air in deeply, trying to settle himself. Then the words Traydor had spoken to him a few hours earlier rose in his mind.

A peaceful world, is it. Wrong, you fool. All I want is a peaceful end for this world.

He sighed from the depths of his chest as he stared into that grey sky, his breath curling out like smoke in the cold. "Looks like it'll snow soon," he said.

He rose then and tipped his head back, watching from the corner of his eye the forest behind him. "Whoever you are back there, you can come out. Don't worry, I'm completely alone here."

From among the shrubs, someone came walking with his sword resting on his shoulder. He stopped in front of Hiroshi, a man dressed in a traditional kimono of solid black, his left hand set on the empty sheath at his hip, his second sword still in his grip. His short black hair was tied at the back, with one short strand left standing out from the crown of his head. His sharp black eyes and that wide, unnerving smile completed the stock image of a samurai from the age of the shogunate. He gave his blade a light flick to shake off the traces of blood that still ran along its edge, then slid the sword back into its sheath.

All the while, Hiroshi's tension mounted with every move the man made. Even so, he showed no reaction, so as not to let his fear show. Then he spoke with confidence, a faint laugh in his voice.

"I was wondering what fool would trespass on the army's grounds. Who would have guessed he was nothing but a thief among the followers of the king of despair."

When the swordsman heard those words, he burst out laughing.

"I don't think I'm famous to that degree, but never mind. You would certainly be well informed, being the King's Minister after all. Still, don't you think it's rather rude of you to accuse a man you've only just met of theft?"

Hiroshi knew there was no escaping a fight, so he laid his hand on his sword, ready for any moment, and answered him. "Since you're here for that book, that doesn't change the fact that you're a thief."

"Well, you're right about that. But it seems you've misunderstood the matter. I won't be taking it from you. You are the one who will hand it to me."

As he spoke those words, his right eye gave up its dark black colour and took on a blue one, forming into something new. A black ring formed around the pupil, which had turned white as snow. The blue began to spread as though it would spill out of the eyeball itself, until symbols in the shape of a distorted kanji started to surface in blue beyond his eye, reaching all the way to the top of his forehead.

"Hand me the book and die, or I take it off your corpse. You have ten seconds to decide."

In those few seconds, the pressure and the tension kept Hiroshi from thinking clearly about anything beyond moving. It was only natural for him to fear what he did not understand. In other words, he was working out which way he was going to die.

It's a Yang after all. Damn it.

Before Hiroshi realised it, the ten seconds had already run out. In that instant, all he saw before him was blood scattering through the air, and he quickly grasped that it was his own. He looked down at his chest to be sure of it. There was a deep wound running the length of his chest all the way to his left shoulder.

"Huh, what is this? What happened? When did I take that hit? No, when did he even move from his spot?"

He turned his gaze back quickly to the samurai in front of him, squeezing his wound hard. The man was standing exactly where he had been.

This is impossible. He hasn't drawn his sword yet, so when did he move? No, I need to calm down a little. I'm dealing with a man with superhuman powers, and there's no way I can predict how he fights in this battle. I have to work out his ability before I try to attack.

Hiroshi broke into a run towards the forest, meaning to hide behind the trees. The moment he entered it, he heard the sound of a sword being drawn.

"I don't much like games of chase, so I've no time to hunt you between the trees. Let's make this flat ground instead."

As the sword came free of its sheath, a sharp sound rang out, like the shriek of metal meeting a storm. A single moment was enough to change the air around him. It grew heavier, as though the earth itself had held its breath, waiting for what would come. He raised the blade with an inhuman ease, then swept it through in one swift arc.

It was not the blade that tore the forest apart, but the immense pressure born from the motion of his arm alone. A wave of compressed air burst out like a tornado, shooting from the sword to sweep across the ground, ripping up soil, splitting trunks and flinging aside everything in its path. In less than the blink of an eye, the trees split into two equal halves, a hundred metres of silent destruction before the echo of the blast reached the ears. Leaves scattered like flocks of startled birds, and the raging wind rebounded between the hills like the roar of a beast waking from its slumber.

As for Hiroshi, he had felt the strike from the very first moment his opponent's hand touched the sword's grip. An instinctive sense, close to a warning from death itself. His muscles moved on their own, and he threw his body to the ground in an effort to survive. But the pressure wave was faster than any thought, faster even than sound. It swept over his body the way a storm sweeps over a fragile leaf. When the flying dust cleared, he was standing with difficulty, blood running from the right side of his head like a red stream flooding his face. His blood-soaked hair clung to his forehead, and his unsteady gaze could not tell whether what stood before him was a man or a ghost carrying a sword.

"I misjudged this. It's true that thinking in logical solutions is no use against people like these. I was only lucky a moment ago that it ended with this scratch. If I turn my back to him again, I'll die before I even know how he cut me."

The samurai came forward slowly, carrying his sword while he rubbed his head with his other hand, boredom written across his face. "Just give me the book and let's be done with this. I don't want either of us to suffer through it."

Hiroshi smiled then, and said, "You're quite right. It isn't worth dying for."

He reached his hand behind his cloak and drew out something wrapped entirely in paper. Its shape was closer to that of a book. Then he threw it towards the samurai as he said, "Here you are."

The samurai raised his hand to catch the book and closed his grip on it. In the moment it touched his hand, the stiff paper turned red at tremendous speed, giving off a fierce heat, until the book exploded with force and sent flames roaring up towards the sky.

Hiroshi lay flat on the ground, shielding his head. The instant the curtain of fire lifted, he stood quickly and made for the cloud of smoke that had begun to thin. "Not yet. I can't lower my guard until I've made sure of his death myself."

Just then he saw a black shadow in the middle of the blast site.

"Just as I thought. It won't be that easy."

Hiroshi drew his sword, and as he neared the shadow before him, he struck it with the blade. Drops of blood flew up towards the sky, and among that blood was a grown man's hand, thrown into the air until it landed far from where it had happened.

"Right, I should have expected this. It's hard to believe you're out here alone without any preparation for incidents like this."

The smoke cleared completely then, laying bare the full picture of what had happened. A sword was piercing Hiroshi's flank, while his left hand had been severed by that attack. On the other side stood the samurai boy, without any reaction at all, only a look of boredom and fatigue. A traditional sixteenth-century samurai's suit of armour covered his right side, blue flames pouring out around it. The armour was like a spirit with no body.

Hiroshi stepped back, ignoring the fact that he was bleeding heavily from his flank, and stood with his sword raised for the fight. The samurai sighed and snapped his fingers. A complete suit of samurai armour emerged, floating in the air beside the man. It held in its hands two katana with long blades, and blue fire poured from the whole of the armour, wrapping around it.

"I would have preferred a fair duel. But since you've used a cheap trick like that, there's no longer any reason to respect you as a warrior, so..."

The samurai then took hold of his second sword and drew it from its sheath.

"Now then, can you guess which sword will cut off your head? I'll give you three seconds to think it over. Are you ready? Three. Two. One."

When he had finished counting, the samurai did not move from his place, nor did the armour floating at his side. Instead, a sword wreathed in red flame pierced Hiroshi's back and came out through his stomach.

When he turned his head to see the face of the one who had done it, it was an exact copy of the armour that had first formed beside the samurai. Only its colour was red, with red flames rising from it. Hiroshi laughed then, and smiled as he spat blood from his mouth.

"Heh. What a childish trick. You can't even face an ordinary man head on. Are you that afraid of me?"

The samurai ignored those words and carried on speaking. "Wrong answer, unfortunately!!"