Fortunately, Kulani did not pummel Yama’s helicopter into the ocean with one of those tendrils. Unfortunately, such mercy revealed the full extent of the yacht that Kulani had commandeered, the sliver of black and silver reaching halfway across the pink-orange horizon. Several smaller docking bays lined the bottom like udders for jet-skis and speedboats to refuel and rearm, and the decks themselves were fitted with mounted guns and artillery pieces. Maybe that was why Yama hadn’t been shot down yet. Maybe the defenders were seeing how close a 450-millimeter cannon was still accurate. Regardless, Heidi’s soldiers had already dropped into the ocean, leaving Yama to board the yacht from above, alone.
A bubble surrounded the yacht, from which several of Kulani’s tendrils grew, opening and closing to allow entry. A hole opened along the top as Yama approached, and welded his eyes shut and braced for the inevitable impact of artillery. When none came, Yama peeked one eye open, not entirely convinced that he wasn’t in some post-death dream.
Kulani had conjured another tendril from the bubble and pointed it like a finger into the hole. Yama could feel the rest of the ship’s guns eyeing him like a piece of meat, or perhaps a nagging fly. This little welcome, Yama figured, was the only mercy Kulani was going to give him.
Kulani’s jacket billowed in the wind, revealing heavy ceramic plates below. Even from above, his ring glowed, as did the necklace wrapped around his other hand. Yama’s blood boiled at seeing it. That was his friend.
Ito’s white suit was more hopeful. As Yama drew closer, that hope was thrown overboard by the fabric’s luster; steel threads woven to stop bullet and blade. There goes any chance of negotiations, Yama thought as he stepped from the helicopter, his own armor feeling suffocatingly heavy. So he had three opponents tonight. Fucking great.
“Need me?” the specter asked, having set up his campfire a few paces behind Ito
“I could use a marshmallow,” Yama mumbled. If nothing else, he’d die with a sweet taste on his tongue.
The specter grinned before pulling a golden morsel from his stick and lobbing it at Yama. “I’ll be on standby.”
Yama didn’t argue as he caught the marshmallow. “How fortunate I must be,” Yama said, “to be on calm seas when all of Mau is in a storm.”
That got a smile out of Kulani. Oh yea, he was looking for a verse from the Saint, or perhaps a dance with the devil. “Just for you, Kikuchi. Ito figured they’d send you. Were the diplomats not enough for—“
Ito held up his hand. “Go check the princes.” Like a dog, Kulani swallowed down the gulp in his throat before descending the nearby stairs.
Ito looked Yama up and down before he scoffed. “So, Ishimura sent a boy to do a man’s work. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, he never could let go, Saito.” Ito smiled thinly. “Or, I suppose you call him Shokuto.”
“I know who he was, and about Rei and the rest of you,” Yama said, causing Ito to flinch but quickly straighten himself. Old habits, it seemed, didn’t die in Ni.
“And did he tell you about the night when the four of us, him, Ieyasu, myself, and Ikari tried to assassinate her? Did he tell you that he had her on the ground, disarmed? Had he not pulled his punches, we’d have won!” Ito yelled. “We’d have won and Hanabi would be alive, Danzo would have his eye, and Zero would have his body!”
“She was a god, Ito, Izan—“
Ito waved his hand. “Bah! That’s his excuse? She was a powerful alterist, yes, but she wasn’t some goddess of death. Even if she was, he had a blade, and she didn’t.”
Yama shook his head. “I didn’t come to adjudicate the past, Ito. I came to end this. Hand over the princes and come with me. We can still defeat her, you, me, Ishimasa, but we have to do it right, not by arming every little group in mid-space!”
Ito shook his head. “No,” he said, grinding the word into the ground like he might have done for his three-petaled banner. “I’ll have a drink with him, maybe, but I’m not working with him, not after last time.” He turned one of his rings to face his palm. “I’ll give you the opportunity to fly back to the Atlasian camp and when you get there, you tell Ishimura this. I don’t wear ghosts, not his, not hers, and if I have to kill you Yama, I won’t wear yours either. He can change his name, but that doesn’t change who he is or what needs to be done.”
Yama gripped Kamiyari tight, clinging to the cold steel like the last mast of a ship headed toward black waters. “Is that why your dex password is still Hanabi? You’re not a ghost, Ito, you’re a hologram.” Come on Ito, Yama thought, hopeful that the daimyo he had looked up to was still in there, some small part of him. I’ll catch you.
Ito’s eyes darkened, heavy as a storm, and his lips curled into a manic sneer, corners sharp like daggers. “Bringing up my wife? I guess I’ll have to tell Ishimura myself!” Ito yelled before sprinting at Yama, activating his holographic katana as he went, along with a shield in his other hand.
Yama flicked Kamiyari to life in time to catch Ito’s blade along the hard-light shaft. The giant shoved Ito and filled the space with a kick that Ito spun away from, light sparring. “Don’t tell me you’re already tired with kicks like that,” Ito said before he hacked at Yama with a flurry of slashes.
Ito shuffled his feet with each strike that Yama blocked, deflected, or dodged, buying distance before stomping Kamiyari into the wood floor. Yama’s eyes widened, but Ito was already running up the shaft and swiping at Yama’s neck. Hurriedly, Yama shoved Ito away.
Yama’s chest was suddenly warm from the cut along his clavicle, an inch below his throat. He’s carving me like a piñata! Yama thought before sending his fist into Ito’s face, the tide of knuckles resisted only briefly by the cartilage of Ito’s nose.
With dexterity belying his suit’s steel, Ito backflipped away from Yama before flicking the blood from his nose, pocket change. “Good to see someone doesn’t pull punches,” he said with a grin, his voice only slightly choked by the breaths he was gulping down. “You, me, Kulani, we can put her down without Ishimura. Sigmund won’t be coming, and by the time the other kings come, Yarvin and Thurston will be too battered for war. Things will calm down like they were supposed to.”
“You’re gambling on four northern kings knowing peace!” Yama yelled.
“I’m gambling on history,” Ito said through his teeth. “Sigmund didn’t put her down, and he did nothing when Temujin nearly burnt the western edge. All of this”—Ito waved his hand around—“is on him, a third graveyard.”
“No, Ito, this is your graveyard.”
Ito flexed a finger and another ring glowed. “A pity that I don’t care for ghosts anymore,” he said before disappearing.
A blue ribbon trailed through the air as Ito sprinted across the deck, his blade a microsecond behind. Warmth exploded along Yama’s leg as the trail of blue ran across it, leaving a thin line of grey in its wake.
As fast as Ito was, the cut was just a micron too shallow to take out Yama’s leg, only bringing him closer to hell. Yama hopped back as best he could before thrusting Kamiyari blindly forward. Yama landed clumsily on his wounded leg, but through sheer grit, he forced himself to stand. He could repair all of this on the helicopter. He just had to make it there.
Ito flinched as the blade passed by his cheek, little more than the kiss of a lover long gone. Knowing he wouldn’t get another chance, Yama shot into a flurry of his own, arms moving at their mechanical limits, feet on rails as he filled the space. The two blades of Kamiyari danced with the shaft between them, two elegant dancers with their eyes on Ito’s heart, balls, or any exposed flesh they could find.
Ito caught a downward strike with his shield and made his legs heavy. Kamiyari’s descent slowed and stopped before it began to reverse. With a guttural roar, Ito pushed the yoke off of him before disappearing again.
A speed implant, Yama reasoned. The giant’s mind immediately swapped places with Ito. What would he do with such fancy toys? Yama knew instantly.
Reaching back, Yama smiled when his elbow rolled across Ito’s nose and tilted it 15 degrees, stopping only briefly to crack it and add another 10. Ito spiraled out of his implant-enhanced dash, rolling twice along the deck before finding his feet. No sooner than he stopped, Ito fired three bolts of red light at Yama from another ring. The first ate into the wood behind Yama, the second dying on Yama’s spear, but the third sailed by and scorched Yama in the groove between his neck and shoulder.
A million tiny hooks thread themselves into Yama’s skin and yanked themselves violently out. His blood bubbled as it made contact with the air, and Yama grit his teeth as he fired his own pistol blindly. The boom of gunpowder gobbled up the fizzing of lasers, but no pained cry from Ito joined the percussive symphony. No more lasers joined either, and Yama supposed that was a victory of sorts. Parts of his chest plate had begun to oxidize and crumble, and what plate he did have would have to last. “Going to take more than a laser to put me in,” Yama said, his heaving chest choking his words. He hoped Ito didn’t notice.
“Stop talking!” the specter barked from behind Yama, his voice laced with frothing spit. “Swing! Swing!”
Ito had the beginning of a grin on his face. “Don’t I know it. Pity that you had to come for me rather than one of the others. You are a great warrior Yama, better than Ishimura and myself in time. You still can be,” he said with a heavy breath, “but only if you bury the hatchet now.”
Yama pointed lazily to Ito’s still glowing rings. “Holograms first, then steel,” he said. Behind him, the specter sighed, too tired to bark at the idiot.
Ito smiled thinly. “You’re still in no position to be giving me orders, Kikuchi.”
“Ito,” Yama said icily, no longer a Nimese samurai but instead a cold giant of myth that heralded the apocalypse, “put them down or else orders will be the last thing I’m giving.” The Storm Saint hoped that his words would freeze Ito to be easily moved, but if they didn’t, he was ready to smash him to pieces.
“Only thing you’re ordering, is a casket,” Ito said before another ring glowed and he disappeared again.
Yama’s mind ran the numbers and traced the possible arcs. Math was never his strong suit, and Ito smashed his pencil between his knee and Yama’s chin.
Yama’s world reeled around him, hands and feet everywhere and nowhere and not doing him a damn bit of good. A heavy kick slammed into Yama’s shin, sending Yama to the ground.
Yama searched frantically for Ito’s blade, catching it deep in his palm. Mercurial blood ran down his wrist, hot like molten lead, and Yama swept Kamiyari along the ground, forcing Ito to hop back. Ito’s face was knit tight with new muscle from his fifth ring, and his nose had already set itself back into place. He could regenerate far more than Yama could without using the potions in his pocket, and those he had been saving for Kulani. He would need to end this now.
Yama wove Kamiyari through the air like an orange needle, beating Ito’s shield until he activated another ring to cover his suit in a blue field. Beneath it, Ito swallowed a bead of sweat, no doubt hoping the energy therein would bring him the day.
Ito’s position on his blade was clumsy and tight under Yama’s torrent, affording him no angle. With a simple flex, he deactivated the katana and flared another ring beside it, covering his hand in lightning. Ito swung at Yama, catching him first in the stones, driving them up into his stomach, and second into his stomach, driving it towards Yama’s heart
The Storm Saint stumbled back again, utterly deprived of any wind with which to battle. Ito reignited his katana like Yama may have done Tsagaan Bayar as he drew closer, steps slow and arrogant. This wasn’t a battle, this was an execution. There was a way to things, a certain pageantry that had to be obeyed, certain sacred steps that had to be followed.
“Need me?” the specter asked from behind Ito.
Yama growled at the spectator. “I only need you to watch,” he said through his teeth before pushing up again. Ito’s showboating on his friend’s show boat had given Yama a bit of breath to work with, his fourth most powerful weapon, behind swords, guns, and overwhelming mass. He swung again Kamiyari’s heavy shaft into Ito’s shin, chopping him down.
Ito scurried to his feet and thrust at Yama. Rather than dodge it and give Ito space, Yama caught it in his armpit like Kano had done in his fight with Lee, sacrificing one of his many tendons and inches of skin for an angle. Blood rolled down Yama’s side, but with the hard-light blade firmly in his armpit, Yama spun and sent mass to his free elbow. It punched past Ito’s shield, drawing a line of grey blood across is brow. When his rotation came to an end, Yama grabbed the hand that held the holo-katana and crushed it.
Ito’s fingers spasmed and his skin shield fizzled out. “Do it before he uses another damned ring!” the specter hissed from behind Yama. Before Ito could use anything on his limply hanging hand, Yama shoved three feet of Kamiyari through Ito’s suit, just an inch from the abdominal aorta. Yama could practically feel the specter drooling onto his neck. “Come on! All the way through!”
No, Yama thought as he stilled his hand. Ito was still in there, just with a spear in his guts. “It’s over, Ito,” Yama said as grabbed Ito’s wrist and twisted back a finger. Ito wouldn’t bleed out until Kamiyari was removed, and even if he did, his muscle amplifying ring would seal the cut. Yama was counting on it.
Ito’s breathing was ragged. Yama had just missed his aorta, and at the same time, he had nailed his target to the micron. Ito held his head high and sucked down another breath. “Good hit.” He coughed up a mouthful of grey blood. “Damn good hit.”
“It’s over Ito!” Yama yelled as he wrapped the finger with the turned-over katana ring in his hand, choking Ito’s grey flesh with his own, before lifting it toward him. “Ito,” Yama said through bated breaths, ready to pull another finger off. “Pull yourself off this spear and end this. Come home Ito, I’m begging you.”
Ito shook his head. “No, Yama, you don’t get to kill me, to take my symbols into yours and wear me like a ghost.” He pulled himself closer to Yama, grinning with each inch. “You don’t get to kill me, because I’ll do it myself, like a samurai should. I’ll do what your father couldn’t, and end this the first time.”
Before Yama could pull his spear back, Ito had thrown his aorta onto the blade, staining even the black buttons of his suit a metallic grey. Ito managed one last step before his body was level with Yama. “I am Masukazu”—he managed one last breath—“Ito,” he whispered before his head fell into Yama’s chest.
Yama pent hours there, Ito slobbering drunkenly against his chest. Yes, that was what the dripping was, spent beer trickling from a bottle. Ito would be in bed soon enough and the sun would rise to usher in the next day. Ito would have a new white suit, and Yama would turn to his faceless lover and finally have that tea he had thirsted for for so long.
Ito’s legs gave out a minute later, and his body rotated over Kamiyari’s shaft. The sound dispelled Yama’s delusions like a rock in water, and he pulled the blade from Ito, letting him complete his fall. Yama found the muscle-amplifying ring and took it from Ito’s finger, along with the other rings that he put into the pouch on his side. The movements were automatic, thoughtless, just another thing to keep the dying dream alive. He tapped the muscle-amplifier several times against Ito’s wound to no success. When the ring remained dark and hollow after a minute, Yama added the other rings. Rings amplified each other, right? Yama figured that a muscle-amplifier would definitely be amplified by other rings, but after another minute, Fate—ever the bitch—rebuked him. Staring down at the cold metal in his hand, Yama pocketed them in a pouch on his side, along with any flesh and blood still clinging to them.
None of Kulani’s men had come to check on Ito, and Yama took the silence to move back to the helicopter he had flown in on. “Becker,” Yama said, hoping the line wasn’t jammed. Yama checked the tracking devices the retrieval crews had, and his stomach fell when he saw them still in the sea. “Becker, do you read me?”
“Yama?” Becker asked shakily. “Are you ok? Did you get Ito or Kulani? The princes?”
“Is Ishimasa there?” Yama asked quietly. He still needed back up, but he wasn’t going to relay the news if Ishimasa was there. He could deal with that when he was on solid ground, at least ground solid enough to swing a few hooks.
“He is with the Northmen. Yama, my trackers—“
“I know, they didn’t make it,” Yama said quickly. “Ito is dead, and Kulani went to guard the princes.”
“Do you need back up?” Becker asked nervously. “I can have a few hel—“
“No,” Yama said. “By the time they get here, this will be over, and if it isn’t, Kulani will swat them down,” Yama explained as he knit his skin back together. His gut felt like it had been doused in arcanoleum and forced through a tube, but Yama supposed that was better than feeling the injuries. There was still Kulani, and Yama knew he’d be going in with the last set of skin he could wear, at least until he actually ate and rested, whenever that was. But still, he had to do it, because…because he always did it? Who else, but him? “When he goes, this bubble will too.” Yama looked to the far-off storm clouds, “and I reason the sea isn’t going to get any calmer. I’ll need a quick rescue then, as many helicopters as you have.”
“It will be done,” Heidi said. “Go with the Ironclad, Yama, and be strong,” she said before the line went cold.
Yama cared a little for the Shade gods of Ni, and he cared less for Fried of Atlas. Even still, if Fried was with him, perhaps the fight with Kulani would go easier, as would the challenge across the deck. Ito’s body lay lifeless from Yama’s failed necromancy, undisturbed by even the rock of the ship. Yama hefted the elder samurai into his arms, finding him both light and heavy. “And so the student becomes the master,” Yama said in an imitation of Ito’s Nimese.
Yama had always supposed that if he ever was raised to the rank of samurai, Ishimasa, Ieyasu, or Ito would be the ones to christen it. Suppose that leaves just Lord Ishimasa now, Yama thought before he trudged to the edge of the ship. The giant supposed there was also Ama Ikari, but with the revelations of the past day, Yama was unsure if that was even her name.
Yama lifted Ito’s head so he could look upon the calm sea around the ship. They were, Yama noticed, facing west. Perhaps, if he got the stone from Kulani’s finger, he could swim home. Perhaps he’d spend some time with Rei and get her story, having never bothered to hear it while in court. She’ll take you, all of you, Kano had said back in Ulaan. Had he known? Certainly more than Yama.
“Rest easily, Masukazu Ito,” Yama began in Nimese, “for you have earned the eternal sleep that only the greatest warriors can know. Oh, soul that hungers for justice, stir not, for the living shall secure it. Oh soul that hungers for battle, stir not, for the living shall fight it. Oh, soul that hungers for blood, stir not, for the living shall spill it. Oh, soul that hungers for peace, stir not, and rest,” Yama finished, the same invocation that Ishimasa had said upon the mound of dirt when they landed beyond the western band. “Hopefully, Hanabi is there for you on the other side,” Yama said before dropping Ito’s body into the water. The glassy black waves swallowed him instantly, as if he was a guest returning to the abyss from an extended absence.
On the horizon, Yama thought he saw the black waters form a funnel. This endless battle will bring you to your knees, the phantom had said in the bathroom. How long had Ito been swimming in the sea of blood? How long until Yama forgot what land felt like at all?
“Are we done here?” the specter asked from behind Yama, lounging against the railing of the ship. He wore a ring on each finger, each of the gems a dull black. At his sides hung two katanas in black sheaths, closer to projections of the void than anything forged from steel. “Can we get going, or do you want to play with your dead men more?” He tapped one of the rings, and his muscles instantly became more vascular, lightning cascading his grey skin. “Or we can wait, that works too. That old fucker had some cool gear.”
Yama nodded. “We are,” he said as he strode past the phantom, feeling that two words were two more than the shitty specter deserved. For his small silence, Yama was treated only to more mocking laughter.