Chương 47: The Fall of Fueki-kyō 不易京

I drew in a slow breath, and as I exhaled, the air surrounding me began to crackle with Raiki. I moved, my vision blurring, before I stopped nearly instantly having crossed about twenty-five ken and stood just ten paces away from a practice pillar of solid stone. As I extended my arm and leveled two fingers at the stone, a bead of azure light condensed at my fingertips with a hum." Raigeki," I invoked.

Antecedent to a clap of thunder, a beam of Raiki lanced from my fingers to race above the sand of the pavilion, leaving a trail of glass in its wake, the impact pulverizing the stone, shattering it into a cloud of dust.

"Good control." My grandfather, Kongō, nodded his approval.

"Not bad," Takeshi, my father, called out, stepping forward to inspect the dust.

"Now, push on further. Show me your Anki," Father challenged. I drew upon the Dark Ki within my Tanden with all my might. A roar escaping my lungs, I dragged the stubborn energy through my Keiraku before electricity arced between my outstretched palms, the ground convulsing around me. My goal, to lace my Raiki with Anki. I knew I was scowling as chunks of the earth rose into the air around me, the force of my struggle rupturing the ground.

As the black energy coiled around my lightning, it bled into the bolts, transforming them from azure to ruby. My scowl must have deepened, as I felt my neck straining, my arms shaking as I directed the current. The crimson lightning crackled erratically, striking the ground as I struggled to maintain control. With a groan, sweat streaming down my face, I thrust my fingers forward once more and fired the Yami no Raigeki! With a crack, the energy dissipated, and I slumped forward, my hands trembling.

"... I cannot hold it," I gasped, looking at the puddle of sweat resting on the glass beneath my feet.

"That is because you view Anki as an ideal rather than a tool. It is no different from Doki, or a hammer for that matter." My grandfather nodded. I did not think he was quite right; I knew Anki was not the same as the profane arts. It was simply much heavier than the other Ki.

"The blood of the 'Mystics' runs strong in you…" he was saying before trailing off, snapping his head about, as his eyes darted around the garden. While he was scanning for threats, I was wondering what Mystic referred to. Then I heard the sound of a wet crunch followed by a coughing gurgle. I turned to see Father looking down as blood spilled from his nose and the corner of his mouth, an armored hand protruding from his chest, holding his still-beating heart.

A man clad in black armor stood behind my father, a tinny chuckle resounding from under his helmet.

"Defend the keep!" Grandfather roared, as he dashed toward his son, my father. Ripping Chichi-ue's heart out through his back, the armored man tore his hand free as my father's body crumpled into a puddle of blood, muscle, and bone. Dropping the organ onto the corpse with a squelch that made me flinch, he stepped over it to meet my grandfather's charge, the air around his polished black steel shimmering like a heat mirage.

"Stand aside, relic," the assailant's voice echoed from within that dark steel helmet in a language I did not know then, but have since come to understand.

"The boy is a vessel, squandered in your care." To my shock, Ojii-ue shouted back in the same language.

"You will not lay a hand on him, Grahk!" As a tan and blue aura flared across his skin, Grandfather lunged. He closed the distance in a single stride, driving a hook toward the helmet, but Grahk simply pivoted his leading foot, slipping inside the arc of the punch. The invader then raised his forearm, deflecting the blow with a metallic crack. I turned and stumbled to my father before falling to my knees beside him." Ch—Chichi-ue?

"I stammered, shaking him by the shoulder." Chichi-ue, tatte kure. Tatte kure, Chichi-ue!" I yelled. My father, he—he had to get up, he couldn't be gone. My father, the strong and noble Nodaichi Takeshi, Shogun of Yamato no Daichi. He was invincible, having never before lost in war or single combat. Yet, my blood-covered hands slipped on his heart as I attempted to put it back in his chest, where it belonged.

In his duel with Grahk, Ojii-ue held his footing, dropped his center of gravity, and dragged his back leg in a low sweep aimed at the steel joints of the armor. But, after stepping over the sweeping heel, the armored man shifted his weight, driving a knee toward Grandfather's ribs as he stood up from the spin. With an open palm, my grandfather caught the blow, absorbing the impact before twisting his hips and retaliating with a jab from his left.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Then, as if he were dealing with small children, Grahk stepped forward into Grandfather's guard, swatting the fist aside. He speared my grandfather through the chest with his other hand, the black gauntlet punching through skin and muscle, spraying blood as the armored fingers erupted from Grandfather's back." Ojii-ue!" I called out. Tripping over my own feet as I tried to rush forward, I fell face first in the sand.

On hands and knees, I scrambled toward Grandfather, gasping as a tackle slammed me back into the dirt. With a low chuckle from within his helmet, Grahk stepped backward into a swirling hole in the air, dragging my grandfather with him into the void beyond. When the hole vanished, a wave of black iron soldiers crashed down on the village. Screams clamored through the air alongside the sound of iron tearing flesh.

Sprinting from the main house, Haha-ue slammed her heel into the courtyard stones, ripping a jagged pillar of rock upward through a charging soldier's groin. The stone erupted from his collarbone, showering a geyser of arterial blood and shredded tissue over the wooden decking. I felt the urge to cheer for her, to call out, but I dare not distract her. She swept her arms in an arc, tore a slab of packed earth from the garden, and hurled the mass into two more invaders.

The weight of the compacted dirt crushing their armor into their bodies, a red stream leaking from the seams of their ruined plates. After vaulting the ruined earth, she locked eyes with me, and I knew I was safe. Stepping into her path, a towering vanguard swung a broadsword down to cleave her skull.

But Mother ducked the blade, stepping inside his reach as she drove her palm upward into his visor, a dense stone spike erupting from her skin, piercing through his lower jaw and punching out the top of his helmet, bone shards and gray matter splattering onto the ground. Shoving the convulsing body aside, she reached out to me, and I to her. Until my wrist was seized and pulled behind my back, and from the roofline, another soldier dropped, slamming a boot into the side of her knee with a crack I easily heard.

As her leg buckled, a spiked maul crashed between her shoulder blades, fracturing her bones, and Mother collapsed into the dirt, her face inches from my own. She writhed and struggled to get up, a thin line of blood spilling from her lips when another impact shuddered through the earth, driving the air from her lungs in a long wheeze. Mingling with the dust caught in her hair, the iron tang of blood hung in the narrow space between us, and individual grains of gravel clung to her pale cheek.

My sweet, unreproachable mother, just a few bu from me, and because of those foul soldiers, I couldn't even embrace her. A shadow fell over us as an iron boot settled onto Mother's head. It pressed down, pinning her skull against the ground, distorting her face against the earth." Mite wa… naranu…" she choked, begging me not to watch, the words mangled from the pressure on her jaw as tears streaked down her face, cutting clean tracks through the grime.

In blind obedience to my mother, I squeezed my eyes shut and ducked my head away. Pain exploded in my scalp when a rough gauntlet seized my hair, jerking my head back and popping my neck. The soldier pinning me forced me to look, the metal fingers clawing at my face and tearing into my skin, prying my eyelids open until the dry air stung.

While I nearly retched from the stench of sour milk and stale alcohol as the soldier's hot breath washed across my face, that revolting man shivered, his iron plates rattling, vibrating the gauntlet against my scalp.

"Keep them open," he whispered, his lips less than a finger width from my ear, making my skin prickle and crawl, his voice cracking into a breathless rasp. Pressing his chest plate against my spine, he shifted his weight, a wet giggle vibrating from his throat. With a snarl, I unleashed a torrent of Raiki sparking across my skin that surged through the soldier's metal armor, the current cooking the man. Smoke wafting from the seams of the iron plates, I shoved the dead weight aside, and began to rise.

Crashing down on me before I could fully stand, three more invaders pinned my limbs against the earth. They clamped an iron manacle around my wrist that instantly severed the flow of my Ki before more hands wrenched my head forward, locking my gaze onto my mother. Slowly, the iron boot of the vanguard compressed down against the side of Haha-ue's skull, the white sclera of her eye bulging outward against the mud as it webbed with the pink and red of burst vessels." Haha-ue! Haha-ue!"

I yelled, in my attempts to break free of their grasp. Forced to watch by the metal digits prying my eyelids open, I remained pinned down when a ragged sound began tearing from my throat, scraping my vocal cords. A sharp pop. Then the crunch of bone giving way, and the side of my mother's head caved in, pushing one eye out into the muck as the socket shattered, a pool of dark blood spilling into the dirt between us." Haha-ue!!!" Tasting blood, I realized I had been screaming this whole time.

My hearing distorted as a high-pitched ring drowned everything else out; the clamor of clashing iron and the cries of the villagers fading into that incessant ring. I thrashed under the soldiers' weight, kicking my feet against the dirt while the world narrowed to the blood seeping from my mother's crushed face, tears making hot tracks down my own. Something struck my cheek, a piece of her eye when a soldier stomped down on it just now. I froze. A piece of her eye. A piece of Mother's eye struck my cheek.

My vision blurred in a tunnel, dark around the edges. My breath caught. I needed air. I could not breathe. I couldn't breathe.