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  “I am” and she smiled at him. She sat down her cup and the smile disappeared from her face.

  “We have a slight problem. It would appear that Emperor Antoku has been blessed and sanctioned by the Dragon God Ryūjin himself.”

  Lord Ishikawa swore loudly. “How?” he asked.

  “I am not sure. But to sway the Dragon God it would involve a lot of offerings. Being in possession of the sacred sword Kusanagi helped. I am guessing that it was not beneath Kiyomori’s skill set to liberate the sword for a few hours. Draw a little blood from his grandson with it. Prayers and offerings at Ryūjin’s temple Itsukushima, the demonstration of the blood bond with the sword. It would be enough to sway the great dragon. He has been ignored of late by the imperial family. And blood magic is strong.”

  Lord Ishikawa stood up. “Have you heard about the attack on Nara?”

  Takiyasha-hime reluctantly shook her head.

  Ishikawa strode over to the other side of the room and retrieved a scroll from his table there and brought it back to her.

  “The Taira have taken revenge for what happened at Uji. The entire temple complexes of Kōfuku-ji and Tōdai-ji have been burnt to the ground.”

  Takiyasha-hime scanned the scroll quickly and then gasped. “The Vairocana Buddha has melted!”

  “Yes, they estimate over 3000 men dead, and the flames so intense they actually caused the great statue to bubble and melt. War is officially here, everything we wanted is so close, & yet to find out the dragon God himself may oppose us.” He swore again.

  It took a moment to recognize the sound coming out of Takiyasha-hime, and another moment to realize that the laughter was not hysterical but genuine joy.

  “Oh but don’t you see Ishikawa no Koremora! The Taira have just evened the score! What stupid men to not just attack a temple, but to burn down the Vairocana Buddha. The kami’s of such a great temple will be strong, and they will not be happy. The will revoke any support of the Taira.”

  She clapped her hands again.

  “The water god is very strong, but his reach on land is limited.” Then she frowned.

  “What is it?” Ishikawa asked.

  “We still have Riku. He is a wonderful weapon. But we still need Sutoku. We have both made pledges to him. Having him locked up inside Riku is not an option. He wants revenge, and he has power among the Oni and Tengu. They will want to know what has happened to him.”

  “Do you propose we drop your wall and let him eat his way to the capital? Let him decapitate the Taira in a blood rage? Then pray that he stops once he has killed Go-Shirakawa and everyone at court? Allowing us to walk in there and take over?”

  “No, not really.” she said. “But it is not such a terrible idea.”

  Ishikawa looked at her in disbelief.

  “I need to establish a way to drop the wall and bring it back up again myself. It won’t be easy. But it is what I will focus on.”

  She looked at Ishikawa again. “And you are responsible for convincing him of our side and the strategy for the fight to the capital.”

  Chapter 8

  Shinji felt his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach as he read the scroll about Naira. He looked over at Haruhisa.

  Haruhisa nodded and said: “This is what happens from violence. Conflict leads to conflict which erupts in war. So much lost. So many lives squandered. This will feed the collective pain. Everything is being whipped up into a frenzy of pain and rage. We must stop this from continuing Shinji.”

  “I agree, I am not so sure we may agree on the hows.”

  Once again Haruhisa nodded. “I can not condone violence. Even having your young samurai here feels like I am violating everything this sacred ground stands for. We are on the side of peace.”

  “So are we Haruhisa”

  Haruhisa held his hand up “Shinji we are wasting valuable time. Unless you can agree to lay down your arms and commit to a peaceful path right now I do not want to discuss it any further. We have agreed to disagree in the past, but this latest destruction…..”

  Harushia’s voice trailed off and tears filled his eyes. He looked Shinji direct in the eyes and continued. “More than 3000 dead. This is what violence does. It breeds more and greater. Retaliation upon retaliation. All of this destruction over games of power for the imperial throne. Taira no Kiyomori striking back not just at the Minamoto who dared to support a rival prince’s claim to the throne, but at the monks who dared to shelter and hide them in their temple. This is what vengeance does. What do you think of the kami of that temple? Do you think they will be happy peaceful creatures? No they will be angry too, start making mischief at best and out and out trouble at worst.”

  He swept his hands around the temple garden where he had interrupted Shinji’s morning meditation to bring him the scroll with the devastating news of the total destruction of the Nara monastery complex.

  “I stand for peace, the kami here know that I support the cycles of nature but I never interfere with them. I worship the balance of life not the angry destructive aspect that will tilt rapidly into an engulfing blackness!”

  Shinji stood up angry, knowing he would never win this fight, also knowing that Harushia was wrong and that they had to fight against the violence least it overwhelm them. But it was a long standing wedge between them, his belief in the importance of being able to defend and Harushia’s of total non violence.

  “We do not have time for this fighting amongst ourselves. You are right in that the violence will engulf us if we do not stop it. So what do you propose to do, stay here and pray?”

  Harushia flushed at the tone in Shinji’s voice, but before responding he reminded himself that this was exactly what he meant. Being around Shinji had him ready to fight at a moment’s notice with words and wrapped up with an angry nine tailed fox. He was mad for ever agreeing to allow Shinji to hide his acolyte here all those months ago. The acolyte was never found, turned demon anyway, and now he had brought violence and anger to his very door. To the peaceful men who expect him to protect them. And he was ready to fight with Shinji, verbally if not physically.

  He felt a sigh escape instead of the angry words he had intended. “I intend to go to Abe no Tanetadai and beg him to see me. From there we will discuss how to stop the onslaught of terror that Kiyomori no Taira is carrying out in the emperor’s name. I will reveal the nature of Riku and warn him of what Koremura no Ishikawa has in that young man, and how we have no idea what we can expect from him. I imagine he will put the destruction of Riku as number one on his list. It will be about balance. Obviously what has happened with him has upset the balance in this world. I am sorry.”

  Shinji nodded. “I hope it does not come to having to kill Riku. But if that is what is required, that is what I am ready to go through with. Let me approach Abe no Taneadai in your name.”

  Harushia shook his head. “I can not trust you anymore Shinji. You and your kind are corrupted. Violence begets violence. It is time that this horrific onslaught ends. I will go myself, and I would ask you to leave and to take Kazuki Nagatoki with you.”

  Shinji shook his head. “I think you are making a big mistake thinking that fighting back is wrong, or that targeting Riku is not fighting back. But I will leave. It is time I do something anyway, this has been my greatest flaw. I think myself into corners, it is time I just take action.”

  “What do you plan to do?” Harushia asked.

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself with” Shinji replied.

  Chapter 9

  Riku was in the courtyard practicing his kata’s with his sword. The movements came with a natural fluidity. And this was the problem. It was tempting to lose himself in those movements, but when he did a roar would begin in his head that would threaten to consume his consciousness. At that moment the boundary that the witch princess had set up in his head would slam down and he would fall to his knees.

  “A fantastic way to ensure my final moments are of grace and beauty before I fall and allow someone
to detach my head from my shoulders” he muttered to himself as he brought the sword down and froze, feeling the movements beckon him in and yet knowing full well what waited for him on that other side.

  He heard clapping and turned to see the witch princess herself standing there clapping.

  “Would you walk with me Riku-sama?” Takiyasha-hime asked.

  He bowed stiffly and not overly deeply to her and fell into place at her side.

  “Why the honorifics instead of the giggles and insults today princess?” he asked.

  “You do not think very highly of me do you?” she asked.

  Riku thought about if he should answer and then chose not to.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  “Your a witch” he sputtered out.

  “That too, but before I was a witch, do you know who I was?”

  He shook his head in response.

  “Do you know who Masakado no Taira was?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “Of course” Riku answered. “He was Japan’s first samurai. Thanks to him we not only have the samurai as a dedicated force of warriors ready to defend japan, but he actually was a fantastic man that we should all strive to emulate.”

  Takiyasha-hime gave him a wry smile. “A fantastic man we should all strive to emulate?” she repeated. “He was a traitor to the emperor and had his head cut off for his efforts. Which part would you like to emulate?”

  Riku scowled. “It was wrong what he did, to declare himself emperor in place of the true emperor, that is true. However, his reasons were pure. He did not fight for wealth but because the court was corrupt. The peasants living in abject poverty while the court lived in decadence. He wanted a fairer system. One where the farmers were farmers and were allowed to live from their crops. Not grow the food that let the court get fat while they themselves starved. And he wanted, and achieved, the samurai system. Where men who wanted to fight could be trained properly and to devote their lives to the study of warfare. Again, not forcing half starved farmers to die faster deaths than that pushed upon them by starvation every time their Lord had a dispute with his neighbour.”

  “And where did you learn all about this, who taught you such a viewpoint. It is a dangerous one. One that could have got you killed long before now.”

  “I was raised in a temple by monks. They considered themselves outside the imperial system. They stood for protecting the peace of Japan, not that of the court” here Riku found himself backing up a little. “Although they were not against the court, they were worried about the direction the country was going.”

  Takiyasha-hime nodded again. “Taira no Masakado was a very great man. The best I have ever met, but many girls feel that way about their fathers. I was lucky enough to have my belief to also be true.”

  Riku’s eyes flared wide at her revelation.

  “Why do you think I sought out these powers?” she asked.

  “But Masakado was killed in battle in 940, even if you were sired before battle, you would be 140 years old!”

  Takiyasha-hime sat at the garden pool and ran her hand in the water. A small frog hopped out onto hand and sat there. Breathing in and out and staring at her.

  “Kaeru” she whispered, kissing it on its head and releasing it back into the pond.

  “I am indeed his daughter, and I was almost 20 at his death, myself and my brother escaped the initial attack on my father where they ruthlessly cut off his dead.” Takiyasha-hime’s voice changed, cracking with bitterness.

  “We escaped to the mountains, and one day my brother came to me saying he had met a wizard in the woods. The wizard promised to help us, but he wanted both of us, not just my brother.”

  Takiyasha-hime stopped again, Riku had never seen her visibly upset before. This was not the witch princess he knew.

  “The wizard, he was lonely, he did not like men. But he did keep his promise. He taught me frog magic, and before we left gifted me with a scroll to summon an entire yokai army. We should have been unstoppable.”

  But somehow the warrior Ōya no Tarō Mitsukuni knew about us. Perhaps one of the Abe clan told him. Or perhaps he was much more powerful practitioner of onmyōdō than I had anticipated and knew himself. I was able to summon a Gashadokuro, his giant bones rising out of the ground, but not before Ōya no Tarō Mitsukuni killed my brother. Oh the pain of that Riku, I do not know if you will ever know such pain to lose everything and then have your last shred of attachment to this life murdered in front of you.”

  Riku felt his throat close with the emotion of knowing exactly what she was talking about but chose to say nothing.

  Takiyasha-hime eyed him carefully. “Beware of pain Riku. Learn to separate it from the present moment or suffer the ultimate as I did. I waived for just a moment, just a moment. Nothing more. But that was all Mitsukuni needed. He had his sword blessed by a Shinto priest. He ran at it chanting prayers, he never hesitated for even a second, just killed my brother and in the next moment pulled out a new sword, the Gashadokuro, it knew, it shrieked but all I could see, all I could feel, was my brother’s death in front of me. And then the bones fell and he was coming for me. He would’ve had me too, if it wasn’t for my familiar Kaeru appearing and taking me back to Tsuki with him.”

  She looked down at her hands again. “It cost him a lot to appear without my summons. He almost died. It was over a 100 years before I could return” her voice turned venomous and she looked directly at Riku. “And I have been swearing revenge against my clan ever since. And when Sutoku was looking for help, I pledged my services to him. Understand Riku, I want you to work with that demon trapped in your body. But I want you to control it. I want to destroy the Taira and everything they stand for, and I want you to help.”

  “How can I help? This transformation was supposed to help. Lord Ishikawa said that I could help turn the tide. All I have done is kill and now all I do is pass out. ” It was Riku’s turn for poison to fill his words and taint his voice.

  “I know who can help you control the demon. So that you can be the weapon that Lord Ishikawa wanted you to be. I just need to know that you will accept it and I will go ask for the help.”

  Riku looked at her quizzingly.

  Takiyasha-hime took a deep breathe. “The same person who gave me my magic in the first place. The man whose name I will not say as it brings his gaze to you. The wizard of Mount Tsukuba.”

  Chapter 10

  The giant toad landed heavily in front of the dilapidated shrine. Takiyasha-hime hopped down off of him, kissed him gently on the check and dismissed him. He turned to her before accepting the dismal and asked “are you sure about this?”

  She smiled at the giant toad, this very creature that had started their journey together very much bound to her against its will but had come over to open affection with time.

  “I do know the dangers Kaeru. I am doing what I have to do” she answered back. She saw the doubt in the amphibians eyes but she smiled again and dismissed the beast again. This time it left it without a fight.

  In fact, she wasn’t sure about this course of action at all. And that caused anxiety to dance along her back. Coming back to Mount Tsukuba was no small risk. Her brother had been lost to this mountain and the dark secrets of the shrine. And the dark wizard Nikushisen may or may not be in the mood to see her.

  “There is no other option” she told herself. “You have done everything you could on your own, and it is not enough. Riku is either an uncontrollable and dangerous beast, or he is a an unknown element. Sutoku needs his revenge, you have a sworn and bound duty to Sutoku and more importantly, to see the Taira pay. All other paths lead to failure. This is your only option. If it also ends in failure, so be it.”