It was the dead of night. Ujimasa had finally sounded the retreat from Mt. Nikkou
, and his troop of vehicles was climbing the wending roads of Iroha Hill. Cradled in his arm was the Tsutsuga Mirror. His destination: Futarasan Shrine’s Chuuguushi at the Chuuzenji Lake-shore.
(Saburou...)
His mind revolved around a single thought: to kill Kagetora. His greatest enemy was not Takeda or Oda, but his own younger brother. And an enemy, kin or not, could not be allowed to live. How many generals before him had fallen to treachery by their own flesh and blood, assassinated in their sleep because they had been blinded by affection?
(You are Houjou’s seed of calamity.)
He could not be allowed to live. The ties of blood between them made Saburou all the more dangerous. Affection for family could all too easily backfire, as Ujiteru had learned.
(Wait for me, Saburou. If I can’t destroy you, I will seal you into this mirror for the rest of time.)
They hit Akechi Plateau and began descending toward Lake Chuuzenji without slowing.
The wind carried the late-night autumnal chill down Mt. Nantai and across the lake at its feet.
All was quiet once more at Chuuguushi, which Ayako and company had recaptured from the Houjou hours before. It was almost three in the morning, and frigid.
Takaya awaited his brother Ujimasa’s arrival, standing before the tightly-shut gates as if he would hold any and all intruders at bay. He glared into the middle distance, his expression closed and cold; even Ayako dared not approach.
The road below them was nearly devoid of traffic, the night so quiet that the silence itself felt painful. The dark lake lay just beyond them with a whole sky-full of stars glittering on its surface.
They heard cars approaching from Iroha Hill. Takaya began walking toward the hill road when he saw the headlights. A black BMW slid to a stop before Chuuguushi’s Ootorii Hall, followed by several more cars out of which stepped armed men.
Last to emerge was a tall middle-aged man clad in priestly robes. He walked slowly to a mound in front of the wide-spread company. Takaya stood facing it, waiting. Though it was dark, Takaya could see Ujimasa clearly.
“Aniue...”
“...”
His robes fluttering in the breeze, Ujimasa glowered at Takaya.
“We meet at last, Saburou,” he responded bitingly, and raised his right hand toward his men in a gesture of dismissal. “All would have been well if you had remained in the mirror, but you insisted on escaping... Did the idea of becoming Hakone’s offering displease you so? If you had not acted so foolishly, you would even now have been made Houjou’s god of war.”
“...”
“Have you sold your soul to Uesugi?”
Takaya glared up at Ujimasa with an effort that felt as if he were pushing back against a strong wind. Ujimasa continued coldly, “Four hundred years ago you would not have turned such an expression on your brother. I suppose it was a mistake to give you over to the Uesugi after all.”
“Aniue...”
“So. Our bright, clever, docile Saburou is no more. It was your duty to remain a Houjou. Your mission was to work for the benefit of the Houjou always, even in Echigo. Have you forgotten that, Saburou?”
“...”
“Taking Echigo was within your capacity. You were sent there because you were entrusted with making that domain ours. To succeed Kenshin and make Echigo a Houjou domain. I trusted you, Saburou.”
“How dare you say that to me...” Takaya retorted in a stifled voice. “When you abandoned me so quickly... When you broke the alliance despite knowing that your brother was a hostage. How dare you talk about your expectations...”
“I would have expected you to understand the deeper implications. I did not abandon you. You were not Echigo’s hostage; you were a Houjou operative sent to Echigo in the guise of a hostage.”
“It’s too late to try to excuse your own selfishness!” Takaya—Saburou Kagetora blazed. Ujimasa raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t mind being a hostage if it served my clan! I would have given my life! No matter how painful the situation, I kept my brothers in my heart just as I believed you kept me in yours! That’s why, even at the moment of my death in Echigo... No, from that moment until now. I believed it, and told myself not to hate any of those who drove me to my death—because hatred would only hollow me out and leave me empty... Nonetheless!” Takaya clenched his fists. “This time—this time I will not forgive you!”
Ujimasa closed his eyes, his expression still.
“In the mirror I saw the truth—saw clearly that Saburou was a tool to you. That we are nothing more than pawns to be used and tossed away.”
“...”
“I am not your tool!”
Ujimasa opened his eyes to a slit, unmoved by Takaya’s passionate fury. “Is that all you have to say, Saburou?”
“...!”
“A persecution complex such as yours would never have survived the Sengoku Era. It was a time when the weak played their parts faithfully and devoted their lives to the strong in order to stay alive. Saburou, your life belonged to the Houjou. That was your true mission.”
“I stopped being a Houjou the moment Lord Kenshin bequeathed Houjou Saburou with his own name. You no longer have the right to command me.”
“I will say it once more: Saburou, obey your brother. Houjou blood runs in you, and you belong to us until the day you die. No, even beyond.”
“Not a drop of that ancient blood runs through this body!” A glorious aura sprang up around Takaya. “You’re just a phantom! You don’t exist anywhere but in the past, Aniue!”
“Don’t...Saburou!”
“You don’t belong here!”
Takaya crossed his arms and shot a «nenpa» at Ujimasa, who stopped it with his right hand before launching his will sharply outward. The asphalt broke apart around them. Ujimasa’s retainers took that as a signal to begin their own attack.
“Ugh...!”
Takaya stretched a «goshinha» around himself against the rain of will.
“Haruie!”
“Got it!” Ayako rushed forward, whistling loudly with her fingers against her lips.
The gates of the main sanctuary opened, and Katakura led the Date to the attack. They had possessed the riot police, whom the Date spirits had snatched from the Houjou «nue».
Waaaaaargh!
Now they fell upon the Houjou with enraged battle cries, and a great psychic battle began. Ujimasa’s aides de camp immediately began crumbling to the ground around him, unable to withstand Ayako’s «choubuku». The riot police surged into the gap. Ujimasa whirled away from the chaos, his robe’s sleeves snapping, and began running with the Tsutsuga Mirror still in his arms toward the lake.
“Aniue!”
Takaya sprinted after him in hot pursuit. Ujimasa descended the slope and nimbly vaulted onto the road below, racing away to the west. Takaya shot «nenpa» after «nenpa» at him as he gave desperate chase.
A car suddenly appeared out of the darkness, heading straight for them. It braked sharply, blasting its horn. Without stopping, Ujimasa leapt high into the air and over the vehicle as it swerved into the guardrail, just missing Takaya. Takaya recovered and resumed the chase. Ujimasa had already reached the esplanade along the lake shore, and now lead Takaya further into the darkness. Takaya would follow Ujimasa to the end, wherever it lead.
He didn’t know how long they ran. Ujimasa descended to the water’s edge and turned. Panting, Takaya followed determinedly.
Silence descended on the lake shore once more as the brothers glared at each other.
“This is where you die, Saburou.”
“...”
“No one will disturb us here. You will surely bring catastrophe to the Houjou unless I destroy you so thoroughly that you can never perform kanshou again. You should thank me for personally seeing to your death!”
With the Tsutsuga Mirror still in his hand, Ujimasa shook his sleeves wide. A swarm of butterflies flew out of them to converge on Takaya, the dust from their wings piercing into him. With a moment’s focus and a strong push of will, Takaya set the insects on fire. They dropped in ashy clumps to the ground.
“That won’t work on me!” Takaya yelled. He pointed, and flames blazed toward Ujimasa’s face from his fingertips. Ujimasa swept his sleeves in front of him, violently extinguishing the bursts of fire.
Counterattacking with a stream of «nenpa», he remarked, “Saburou, Kenshin has spoiled you.”
“What?”
“One can hardly tell you were adopted!”
“...!”
Eyes lifting in anger, Takaya hurled a mass of pure will at his brother. Ujimasa shielded himself with a «goshinha» and retaliated with another swarm of butterflies.
“You were once the prettiest child in the Kantou. A man Kenshin might have been...yet I suppose he visited your room every night? How could you not have secured Echigo after seducing him?”
“Shut up!”
The earth beneath Ujimasa’s feet exploded, and the lake rippled. Ujimasa attacked again from his new position standing on the water. Takaya held him off with a «wall».
“Lord Kenshin was never that kind of man! He was pure, his integrity spotless! If you dare slander him, I will seal your lips for you!”
“I’ve heard the stories, Saburou. Of the countless men who lost their lives because of their desire for you. Tell me, Saburou, how many did you spread your legs for in Echigo? Did you find them more virile than the men in Sagami? How many did you take into yourself?”
“...!”
Trembling with rage, Takaya threw a mass of will at Ujimasa in lieu of a response, sending him flying over the water. His eyes were wide and savage.
“How dare you... say such things...”
“You, out of all our brothers, were the most dangerous: you, who were capable of igniting even men’s passions if they did not ward themselves against you. You might change your body, but you can never change those tiger’s eyes. Within you lives that demonic temptation which drives men into madness.”
“...Shut up!”
“Your kind destroys homes and families. You are the source of the Houjou’s misfortune!”
Light stretched between Ujimasa’s hands and solidified into a sword.
“I will end the threat you pose once and for all!”
Ujimasa leapt high into the air. Takaya concentrated his will on his «goshinheki». The lake flashed and then glowed violently as sword clashed against «wall»—
“Gwaaaah...!”
—and bit into Takaya’s right shoulder even as his mind-strike flung Ujimasa back. Takaya tumbled to the ground, curling into himself against the pain. Ujimasa climbed to his feet and willed the sword again to his hand.
“My next blow will not miss!”
Takaya’s eyes jerked up as Ujimasa’s sword swung down. He caught the blade between his hands mid-descent. Lightning shot out from his fingers and traveled up the blade toward Ujimasa’s arms, sending him somersaulting backwards with a scream. But again he rose, this time to envelope Takaya within a massive cloud of butterflies. Their dust covered Takaya’s shoulder wound and burned into him.
Takaya swayed, still crouched on the ground, as blinding pain drove into his head. Ujimasa approached once more and wrapped his hand crushingly around Takaya’s temples.
“Uungh...”
“Their poison finds entrance into the body through wounds.”
One hand still clenched against Takaya’s head, he pinned Takaya down with the other. Takaya struggled, but could not move: his «power» had been blocked by the hand against his head.
“Oh, my poor Saburou. This is the end.”
Ujimasa drew the short sword at his waist. The sharp blade glinted in the darkness.
“Don’t...!” But his scream could not seem to reach Ujimasa. A murderous arm swung the knife down toward the tiger’s throat.
And suddenly stopped dead before it could touch him.
“What!” Ujimasa groaned. He couldn’t move. Strong arms held him pinioned from behind. He turned his head. “Ujiteru!” he gasped, stunned.
The ghostly form of Ujiteru pinned him in place. Astonished and terrified, Ujimasa yelled, “Thou’rt alive! What meanst thou by this? Release me!”
A silent Ujiteru held on. Ujimasa struggled violently, but could not move. The hand clenched against Takaya’s temples fell away, and Takaya saw his other brother.
“Ujiteru-ani...”
“Release me! Release me this instant, Ujiteru!”
Ujimasa attempted to tear himself violently free, but there was no slackening of Ujiteru’s iron grip. He returned Takaya’s gaze gravely.
«Act now, Saburou. Hurry.» he urged. «Exorcise us both.»
So Naoe had not been able to exorcise him after all. Staring in disbelief, Takaya shook his head a little as if to say “I cannot do it.”
«Saburou!» Ujiteru insisted, at once chiding and imploring.
“Let me go, I say! Wouldst thou betray me, Ujiteru?! Art thou not my ally, prepared to follow me until the very end?” Ujimasa yelled, his voice growing ever more deranged. Ujiteru held him more tightly still.
«Hurry, Saburou!»
“Ujiteru-ani...!”
«Do not hesitate! Do it while I can still hold him!»
“I can’t kill you, Ujiteru-ani!”
«If thou dost not, our brother will surely kill thee!»
“I can’t, Ujiteru-ani!”
«Hurry—! Saburou!»
Takaya’s shoulders shivered like that of an upbraided child. Ujiteru looked at Takaya once more with all his heartbreaking sincerity. He murmured slowly, thoughtfully, «This time, at least, I wish to save thee.»
“Ujiteru-ani...”
«Do it now!»
Takaya bit his lip and shut his eyes tightly in pain, holding back his tears. He cut off his emotions and and formed Bishamonten’s ritual gesture.
“ (Bai)!”
Ujimasa convulsed. The «outer bind» froze both Houjou brothers in place. Ujimasa resisted fiercely, but with his power sealed by both Ujiteru and Takaya, he could not move.
“Noumakusamanda bodanan baishiramandaya sowaka...”
Light flared within Takaya’s fists. It grew brighter and brighter, illuminating the silent lake.
«Stop, Saburou! Stop! Stop this now! We can talk this over, Saburou. Stop this, Saburou!»
“For this demon subjugation...! Lend me...thy...power...” His voice faded as he hesitated, eyes closed and power gathered like a miniature sun in his hands. He could not pronounce the final verse of the incantation.
As Takaya trembled in pain, Ujiteru urged, «Do not falter. Thou must finish this...»
Takaya clenched his teeth at the sound of his beloved brother’s voice.
«Hurry.»
“Aniue...”
«Lift thy head...»
Takaya obeyed, and recalled the power to his linked hands. The weakening light shone brightly forth once more.
«Now.»
Takaya opened his eyes wide as if in defiance of his pain. Gazing at his brothers, he completed the incantation with a piercing cry:
“«Choubuku»!”
Flash.
For a moment the dark Chuuzenji Lake-shore glowed bright as noon. The white explosion illuminated even the ridges of Mt. Nantai.
A scream pierced the air.
Violent «choubukuryoku» enveloped Ujimasa and Ujiteru. Ujimasa’s fierce cry echoed as he was destroyed within the white light. Ujiteru vanished into that enormous power in silent acceptance.
Thus did the brothers’ lives come to an end, storm-ridden. Unable to bear that last fading cry, Takaya screamed into the whirling light, his throat tearing against the desperate cry: “Aniueeeee—!”
Violent swells surged across the lake surface, driven to frenzy by the release of that devastating power. Hugging himself against the sudden squall, Takaya stared into the fragments of precious memories awakened by the fury of his «choubukuryoku».
Engulfed and drowning within the crushing waves.
Two souls vanished from the world. With their passing, a memory of looking out upon the wild surging waves of the Echigo Sea and hearing the whispers of a phantom Sagami Sea: “Come back to us...”
His beloved brother’s last words, swallowed now by the raging storm, gone forever from the world.
Time passed unacknowledged...
Stillness had returned to the Chuuzenji Lake-shore at last.
The man dressed in priestly garb collapsed along with the fading of the light.
Pain in his right shoulder finally pulled Takaya back to consciousness. He climbed to his feet and staggered to the man’s still form to extract a flat object from the robes at his chest: the female Tsutsuga Mirror, which had once been his prison.
“...”
Takaya hugged the demon mirror close, overcome with emotion. Then, having resolved himself, he focused his power at the tip of his fingers and thrust them at the mirror.
A crack ran across its surface.
The mirror broke apart. More and more cracks ran through the smaller pieces until they exploded, and the wind scattered glittering mirror-dust over the lake.
There was the sensation of sublime transformation, of a great many people liberated from their fetters and soaring free.
He recognized them a moment later as the formerly tree-bound souls on Mt. Nikkou and at Hakone Shrine.
The strength left his legs, and Takaya went to his knees.
It’s over, Takaya whispered to himself.
The wound at his right shoulder burned incessantly.
As he recovered his breath, Takaya dazedly rebuked and exhorted himself: he couldn’t just sink to the ground and close his eyes. There were still things he needed to do.
(I have to go look for Yuzuru...)
Yuzuru still needed him. Unless he intervened, Yuzuru would one day lose himself. He had already been awakened once. His power must be restrained—Takaya must restrain it: this was the mission Kenshin had given him.
(Isn’t that why I’m alive?) Takaya asked the memory of Kagetora within himself.
Kagetora had performed kanshou on this body because his soul had been given new life in this world. If Narita Yuzuru had not attained this flesh and been born seventeen years ago... Perhaps he would have thrown away everything and allowed ‘Kagetora’ to come to an end.
(I have to...)
A hollow wind swept through his body.
Takaya clenched his teeth against the tightening ache in his heart as he looked into the far distance.
He had to go...
To ‘him,’ his best friend, just as he had been then... Not his enemy this time, only someone who wanted to be near him, who understood him...
He bit his lips against the bitter memories stirring deep within.
He had to protect ‘him’...
The one who had attacked him and driven him to his death. The one he had hated more than any other as the hellfires surrounded him at Samegao Castle.
The one who had defeated him.
(Protect...)
“Unngh...!”
The pain in his shoulder pierced straight into his head. And he realized that the wound was not purely physical.
It heated and chilled by turns, eroding his strength. Something was wriggling into him, spreading a poison that ate into him from within. He collapsed to the ground, unable to remain upright any longer.
(Why...)
He struggled to raise himself, and failed. Failed again and again. All strength left his body.
“...Why can’t I get up?!”
Was he dying? He shivered in horror.
Something had entered his body through Ujimasa’s wound and was now steadily invading him. What had he said about the butterfly dust? Was that it?
Fear spiking at the strangeness of his own body, Takaya desperately clawed at the ground around him. He was drenched in cold sweat, and he began to shake.
(Why...!)
He floundered and thrashed. His body was going numb; it refused to obey him. He could feel the approach of death. He was going to die! He writhed in frenzied terror.
Someone...
Increasingly deranged horror and panic had taken control, and he begged for help. He struggled wildly, helplessly. Someone, anyone, please.
(Help me!)
His heart raced. He panted for breath. His body burned as his thoughts dimmed. A man’s face floated into the consciousness to which he clung with all his might.
(Come to me...)
The image of his broad back walking away from Takaya down the hotel corridor was seared into his memories, and he saw it again behind his closed eyelids. He called to it with the desperation of a prayer: Come to me. I don’t care about anything else. Just come to me! Nothing else matters, I need you at my side! Takaya screamed in his mind. Come now, or I’ll die. I’m dying!
(Just come to me...!)
He was dying. He didn’t want to die here. He didn’t want to die alone!
(Please, hurry...)
The fever ate into his body. He convulsed violently as cold sweat poured out. This was the butterfly poison Ujimasa had described. It hadn’t been an illusion. It was meant to injure and kill.
(Is this it...?) he wondered in anguish.
Then, suddenly, he sensed the presence of another.
“...Who...?” he reflexively raised his head.
“Don’t move, or the poison will spread.”
He focused. A man in late middle-age wearing the garments of a Shinto priest stood there in the darkness, though it was difficult to see him clearly.
“You’re...”
“...”
The man sat down next to him without responding. He pulled back the robe at Takaya’s right shoulder to expose the laceration there, now swollen and livid. Takaya let out an involuntary scream of anguish as the man dug a finger into the wound. He chanted an invocation of some kind, then drove in even deeper before finally scooping out a dark mass.
A caterpillar-like form writhed in the man’s hand. This poisonous parasite had burrowed into his body to infect him from the inside, and would have killed him within the day.
Fire flared in the man’s palm, burning the parasite to ash and then nothingness. The man briskly extracted a small gourd from his breast and pouring the liquid therein onto a piece of cloth which he applied to the wound.
“This is holy water from Hakone Shrine. It will heal your wound. Please keep pressure on it...there.”
A dazed Takaya submitted quietly to the man’s courteous treatment—then he abruptly realized who he was.
“You’re...are you...”
“...”
The man gazed down at Takaya in silence for a moment, his expression deeply moved. Then he told Takaya quietly, “How well I know that a dream is nothing more than a dream.”
“...”
“I must go. I have gazed on our clan’s fate with mine own eyes. My role is finished.”
“Wait!” Takaya rose, clinging to the man. “Wait, please! Please don’t go! There are so many things I want to talk to you about. So many things I want to tell you!”
“Saburou.”
“...I want to tell you everything. Everything I’ve lived through all these years, everything I’ve thought about...I want to talk to you about all of it, Great-Uncle!”
Houjou Gen’an, elder of the Houjou Clan, only shook his head gently at his adopted heir, whom he was meeting again for the first time in centuries. “We are not what we were. I am thine enemy. Thou must continue alone.”
“Great-Uncle.”
“Think of this as nothing more than a dream. Methinks I, too, have been dreaming.”
“Please don’t go! Stay, and tell me what path I should take! Great-Uncle!”
“Saburou.”
“Tell me what to do! Tell me how I must live! Please, Great-Uncle!”
Gen’an quietly extracted himself from Takaya’s grip and stood. He shook his head. “Thou hast nothing more to learn from me.”
“...”
“Go forth with thy head held high. Believe in thyself, for thou art not wrong. Thy path is righteous. These are our final words to thee.”
“Great-Uncle...”
He became aware then of a gigantic shadow behind Gen’an—a dragon soaring over the lake like something out of a dream. It looked in stillness down at Takaya with deep affection in its eyes.
...Oh... Takaya thought. Its gaze tugged at his aching heart. He needed no one to tell him the dragon’s true form.
(Father...)
Tears slipped unnoticed down Takaya’s cheeks.
Fog came drifting out of nothingness. Gen’an slipped softly out of his vessel, leaving it to fall soundlessly to the sand. The dragon and Gen’an’s spirit disappeared into the fog. It spread like a shroud across the beautiful lake, so quietly that it almost seemed nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
A motionless Takaya gazed after the two vanished figures, heedless of the tears streaming down his face.
His family was gone forever... He knew at long last what prayer he had clutched to himself across all these long years, and he whispered it before burying it again in the deepest part of his heart: “—I want to go home...”
The tranquil homeland in his heart had become his eternal Pure Land.
Ripples slowly spread across the deep lake. Its gentle waves lapped against Takaya’s feet— the one left behind.
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