Kaikushi of the Water

[Degorram]

Man, this is the first thing I've written here since my application! I'm not beeing much of an initiate. Sorry guys. Anyway, I have a desperate need to write something sad, and none of the novels I am currently working on, numerous as the choices are, have the scene I need. So here is something I'm going to make up off the top of my scalp (ok, ok, so I wrote some it last night. Sheesh!)

 

 

It was bitterly cold. The snow flakes floated from the sky gracefully. The wind blew his hair away from his face with a nipping, chilly breath. His sad eyes watched the grey land in wonder. He had never been able to call anywhere his home. But the only place he could say was his were these wildernesses that he stood in. His name was Kaikushi. He was the only lone Samurai in all the mainland of Japan.

 

His robes fluttered in the wind like desperate birds trying to escape the winter's breath. His pale skin accepted the snowflakes as its brother. Kaikushi turned away from the cliff he stood on and turned back to his horse, his only companion. Stroking his black fur, he mounted. "Come, Ikuru. Let us go."

 

Kaikushi rode slowly through the snow, head bowed against the wind. His horse whickered softly to him. The Samurai looked down at his horse. "I do not know, nisan. Perhaps we can find work somewhere in the north."

The horse whickered again.

"Do kanaj," he replied. "The south cannot offer us anything more."

 

Ikuru stopped walking and lifted his head to smell the wind. He neighed harshly.

"What is it nisan?" Kaikushu asked, patting the horse's neck.

Ikuru turned himself around and faced south, pawing the ground. He tossed his wild mane and snorted stubbornly.

Kaikushi paused and stared at the south. "But why?" he asked softly. "What do you see there?"

Ikuru started walking, haltingly at first as Kaikushi looked back over his shoulder in doubt, then more exzuberantly. His smooth and musical voice whispered into Kaikushi's mind slowly. Trust me.

 

I do nisan...... Kaikushi thought back, bowing his head once more against the frigid torrent of snow.

 

That is why you must trust me.

 

They rode on through the growing snow storm, leaning away from the wind that blew from the north. Often Kaikushi had to dismount and help Ikuru through the drifts. Even more often they had to stop to let the Samurai stand against the wind in remembrance. At these times Ikuru stood next to his friend, letting the winds blow his mane away from his face.

 

The sun set, drowing out what little light the weak winter orb had been able to give. The temperature dropped and so did Kaikushi's morale. Ikuru pushed them on, further and further south. Sometime in the middle of the night they broke out of the rocky terrain of the mountains and faced the plains. The wind tore at them like knives, the snow turning into hail. They were forced to stop as the night grew cold, Ikuru guarding Kaikushi's body from the dagger-like drops of ice.

Could you not turn the snow aside? Ikuru asked, voice peppered with little strained noises as the ice pelted his sides and back.

 

Kaikushi raised a hand and the hail drops shifted around them, like a river goes around a boulder. He grabbed a few and pressed them between his palms. They melted quickly. The samurai pulled his hands apart and let the water slip between his fingers as he contorted its shape into that of a horse. He blew on it and it froze immidiately. A miniature, crystaline horse stood proudly on his hand.

 

The sun rose, a fiery red color. The two friends rose, shaking the snow that had piled up around them. The storm was over. A breeze from the south brushed their faces. Kaikushi smelled salt. We've never been far from the sea, he thought. It is as if it haunts me.

 

The day grew steadily warmer as they traveled across the open plains. The snows around them began to melt, trickling into burbling rivlettes. The frost bitten grasses turned into lush mosses and ferns. Ikuru had to raised his hooves high and hard to pull them from the sucking mud that was building up. Trees began to appear around them, one at a time, then in clumps. They had entered the swamps.

We will be home soon! Ikuru said, tossing his head in anticipation.

 

Kaikushi did not reply. Home. The word meant nothing to him. It never had.

 

(oh dear! the piggies call, and I must cut this off. Enoy ending the story yourselves through imagination. I know you all have it, else you wouldnt be in this very imaginative forum)

Edited September 19, 2006 by Degorram

[Wyvern]

Ikuru continued to toss his head back and forth as they passed through the low mire and hanging limbs of dead trees. The branches seemed to be reaching out to Kaikushi, but fell short with each slow motion forward. At the speed they were progressing, the trees seemed completely apathetic to their travels. Kaikushi turned his head upwards to breath the hints of fresh air that drafted through the cracks in the fog pines above. He shut his eyes and pretended to dream, as if someone was paying attention to him and he wanted to escape. Ikuru was moving very slowly, but the excitement in his whinnies was still apparent.

 

Soon, nisan, soon... Kaikushi reached out to pat Ikuru on the head, but eased away from it as the horse kicked its head back and let out another whinny. He smiled at Ikuru's enthusiasm, then breathed a quiet sigh at his own emptiness. He would never experience the joy of purpose, that solid comfort of servitude. These were the days of marionettes, where swordsman showdowns were relived through puppets on the dojo string. No place for the loner blade, with wars passed and friends perished. He smelled the precious air for no reason.

 

The red Sun had begun to recede to Winter night when they exited the swamp. Ikuru stepped slowly onto the Akido plains, continuing to rock his head back and forth in loud whinnies. The tall grass glistened in the fading sunlight, still wet with snow. Lights of Great Hakido lit the background like fireflies, and they felt the warm glow of Winter carnival nights. Staring over those lights, Kaikushi felt something that he had never felt before. He and Ikuru had crossed the entirety of Japan and come full circle, back to their point of origin. The season differed, but the sight still struck Kaikushi as... familiar. He had visited here before. He knew that there was an unagi merchant who sold meals at half-price at nightfall near the edge of Hakido. He knew that young lovers fondled one another near the Forked Keirno Well, a little ways East of the city. He knew that the people of Hakido viewed the sai and scyth as satanic weapons, and forbidded their presence. All was familiar to him. It was as if, suddenly, Japan had become a massive home. As if-

 

Nisan?!

 

Ikuru collpased over, sending Kaikushi flying off of his back and into a wet patch of still-melting snow. The lone samurai jumped back to his feet and stared down at his horse, shocked and bewildered. Swamp leeches covered Ikuru's legs and stomach, sucking away at them viciously, their pale white forms steadily growing red with blood. Ikuru continued to kick back his head and whinny, helpless. Kaikushi tried to speak. All the traveling he'd done with Ikuru, and the sound he had mistaken for excitement had been pain. He truly knew no one.

 

"Ikuru..."

 

A single tear trailed down Kaikushi's cheek as he unseathed his katana, stepping towards the writhing form of Ikuru in slow and steady steps. The red Sun burned the last of its embers under the Hakido hills.

 

Japan was his home, and it didn't mean a thing.

[Disco-neck Ted]

What is strength? Fading sunlight turned the glittering edge of the katana into a needle of flame. Kaikushi could hold the weapon thus over his head forever, until the night stars wheeled across the sky, until a forest grew beneath his feet, until an empress once again sat the throne of the forbidden city. Forever. But he had not the strength to let the blade fall.

 

The horse rolled and thrashed, churning the snow to mud. The dying light of day showed the leeches red and glistening, like wounds, or eyes, or deadly kisses. White froth blew from Ikuru’s lips and then he lay still, his sides heaving.

 

In a moment, the sword would travel as it must. It would simply be at its destination, and Ikuru would live no more. His death was already written in the wriggling red forms that dotted the landscape behind them, sated leeches that had dropped away, inching off to breed their filth elsewhere. Enough still clung to the horse that some would go unfulfilled even after the stallion ran dry of blood. They could not be removed without squeezing their venomous bodies, injecting the host with vile, paralytic toxins.

 

The lights of the city mocked Kaikushi from the corner of his eye. With fire, there would be hope. A hot needle to pierce the tiny vampires, to drive them away from their prey. Cleansing flame to keep the wounds from suppurating. But the clammy Akido plains offered nothing.

 

Ototo.

 

Kaikushi stiffened. Oldest tradition said the stroke must be sure, so the fallen did not dishonor themselves by crying out. He would take his own life after this, for failing his friend.

 

I am disgraced, Ikuru said. The enemy has taken my strength without a struggle.

 

The samurai said nothing. Thought was the foe, now. Driving his mind to stillness, to a single point of action that would send his machine-body into motion, Kaikushi closed his eyes and concentrated on the sound of his own breathing, the feel of cooling air as night approached, the smell of wet earth. Emptiness approached. If Ikuru spoke further, the message went unheard and there was only the blade whispering through the chill evening air…

 

Cold.

 

A wisp of black mane fell as the katana halted in mid-stroke.

 

Cold.

 

Inwardly, the samurai raged at his own weakness. A lone thought still whispered in his mind. All his energy had been required to push the past aside, the glorious times riding Ikuru into battle, and the sweet still hours of peace in between. The pain of burying those memories, even for an instant, was overwhelming. Beside that, how could the thought of cold have a hope of lingering?

 

And then he saw it. Emotion ebbed, leaving the crystalline construct of logic to lead the way. Not fire. Cold. When the heat left Ikuru’s body, the leeches would move away, seeking shelter in the waters of the swamp, or under leaves and mud until they could find their way home. They could tolerate freezing temperatures for a short time, but would seek warmth whenever possible.

 

Putting thought into motion, Kaikushi sheathed the long sword and quickly heaped handfuls of snow on Ikuru’s legs and flanks. Pulling off his gloves, he knelt next to his friend and scooped a hollow in the mud. Calling to the water in the soil, the moisture melting off the horse, the scant dampness in the air, he offered it a shape, that of a tiny pool. Slowly, the hole filled.

 

Full night fell, and nothing changed. Stars reflected from the minute pond, glittering like a scrap of sky thrown down by a careless god . Ikuru was scarcely breathing now. The leeches ignored the water-filled depression in the soil, and burrowed more closely into the horse’s flesh.

 

Kaikushi cursed and plunged his hands into the basin, willing the water to warm, to become inviting, to be more… watery. There! Had one of the damned bloodsuckers stirred?

 

With a cry, the samurai drew his wakizashi and slashed the blade across his palm. Dribbling his blood, his life, his warmth into the water. Yes! One by one, the leeches dropped away, retreating from the snow-crusted body and seeking the warmer bounty.

 

When the last had joined its brothers, Kaikushi blew out his breath, freezing the bloody water solid. Then, devoid of any sense besides hatred, he methodically ground the ice to slush beneath his heel. There was laughter in his head, and he reeled suddenly.

 

The laughter was not his own. Well done, ototo.

 

“For nothing gained, niisan. The healers are there—“ Kaikushi nodded towards the city lights—“while we are here.”

 

Go. I would live strong or die fast. Make a choice and go.

 

Trust me, the horse had said. Now he was putting his trust in Kaikushi, to find a way to make him strong again, or to—

 

“Yes,” Kaikushi whispered. “I will go.”

 

The pavilion was silk, bright and colorful as befitted a proud warrior going into battle. Disguises were for the shadow men, not samurai. Kaikushi erected the tent over the prone form of his friend. A bright beacon on the plain that would lead him back when he returned. A jewel in the drear Akido expanse that would attract the eye of every passing creature. It could not be helped.

 

He set out towards the city, his steps sure but slow in the darkness. Ikuru lying defenseless and alone was a pain that wrapped itself around the samurai’s heart. The wound in his hand was dressed and bound, but it throbbed in time with his pulse. He ignored it. Discomfort was the bane of the weak.

 

Brightness on the horizon promised a moon to light his way. Good. His mood lifted at the prospect of returning to the horse before the next sunset. But Kaikushi’s chest hurt even worse than before, a pain echoed throughout the whole left half of his body. Deliberately, he flexed his injured hand, driving spikes of agony through the cut. Pain was of no consequence, he insisted to himself. Then the ground rocked and tilted up to strike him in the face.

 

Almost of their own volition, his hands were suddenly scrabbling at his thigh, tearing at a leg that felt nothing. Cloth ripped, and the enormity of his unworthiness shone in the starlight. Leeches.

Edited September 19, 2006 by Disco-neck Ted

[Degorram]

Kaikushi dragged himself to his feet and kept walking, grimacing against the pain. If he could get to a physician in time, not only his life would be saved but his brother's. Trying the same technique he had used on Ikuru would not work.....he had too little strength left to call the water and too little time to try it. His body could sustain the greedy leaches for only so long.

 

His leg began to throb: the numbness turned to a sharp tingling. He gritted his teeth: he had to decide. He now knew that he would not make it to the city with leeches on his leg. He fell to his knees and clasped his hands together, pressing them into the ground. But as he feared, the water did not respond to him. He wavered.....and fell over. The day was ending: it was amazing how fast the time had gone. In one day it had all ended: he had failed in that both Ikuru and himself would die....and by leeches.

 

Three shadows gathered around him. As they reached out to touch him, he faded from conciousness.

 

 

Kaikushi woke slowly. Daylight shone from a window, falling across his face. He winced against the blinding light, but relished in the heat it cast upon his body. He was comfortable.....and the memory of that night on the plains came racing back to his brain.

"Ikuru!" he cried out, bolting upright. He saw his leg, bandaged tightly, lifted by a piece of cloth that was hung from the ceiling. A man who had been sleeping in a chair beside him jumped and looked around.

 

"Ah," he said. "You are awake. At first I thought you wouldn't make it, but when the leeches came off of their own accord (not very common for our marsh leeches) I knew you would make it."

 

"Please," Kaikushi said desperately. "Where is Ikuru?"

 

The man opened his mouth and frowned. "I'm sorry?? A friend of yours?"

 

Kaikushi closed his eyes and tried to be calm. "A black horse," he said. "On the plains. He had leeches on him as well...." He calmed down as happy recognition filled the man's face.

 

"Ah!" he cried. "Yes, your horse! I didn't think he would make it either, but around the time your leeches came off, he began to come around. Very strange goings on.....very strange."

 

Kaikushi lay back. So everything was all right. He had failed yes, but now it would not result in his death. There was a reason he had been isolated from the other Samurai: it wasn't his way to kill needlessly, especially if there was hope that the failure could be ammended.

Edited September 19, 2006 by Degorram

[Disco-neck Ted]

Behind you, Ikuru whispered.

 

Kaikushi whirled and struck, but his opponent faded into the mist.

 

Again!

 

The samurai leaped, evading attack, and swung his weapon without looking. Contact. Kaikushi landed, feather-light, and twirled his stick in a two-handed grip. Stick? He stared at the leafy twig, then at the menacing figures emerging from the mist. At a gesture from one, the air itself held the samurai prisoner while the others closed in. Agony flared in his hand, his leg, his head as they struck again and again.

 

“Wake up!” A voice was shrieking in his ear. The clatter of someone falling clumsily came from Kaikushi’s left. His vision swam into focus, and he realized the healer and two others were holding him to the sick-bed.

 

“Cease, you will injure yourself,” the herbalist said. Behind him, four of his assistants stood well back, two sporting bruises on their faces and one rubbing his elbow. Kaikushi realized then that the men holding him were warriors, not the usual attendants. How long had he been fighting nightmares?

 

His eyes burned fever-hot, and his leg throbbed with pain. Ikuru must feel even worse, he thought. Ikuru?

 

“I must see my horse,” he said, with the urgency born of dreams.

 

“You are in no condition to walk, my friend. And your animal is in even worse shape.”

 

Kaikushi looked at the wrappings on his thigh and the heavy bandages around his ankle. He willed his leg to lift and truly it was made of lead. He shrugged. It would not do for a samurai to crawl but-- “Bring me canes.”

 

As if to belie his determination, his chest shook with coughs. His tongue tasted vile and strange. A strong smell, like hot iron, permeated the room, mingling with the odor of herbs and incense. The healer exchanged a glance with one of the men holding the patient. Then he nodded. “Take him to the stables by the southern gate. I will meet you there after looking in on another patient.”

 

The stables for Ikuru? For years, horse and samurai had travelled together, sharing fine accommodations or sleeping on the ground as fate offered. But why not the stables? In one corner of the room, a fire burned in a small metal oven. Some of the smoke had escaped to collect near the peak of the beamed ceiling. Straw covered the floor of the infirmary, and lanterns cast their yellow light. The horse keepers would also have fire, lanterns and straw. Not so different, then, and the air would be fresher.

 

Shrugging off the help of the two soldiers, the samurai limped through stone passageways that led to a courtyard. The stoneworks were old, and the spells that kept them strong against earthquakes must have been renewed a thousand times: Kaikushi could almost hear them speaking themselves now, out of habit. The chanting was drowned out by a sudden surge of joy. Through the stable window, he could see his great black steed standing motionless. “Ikuru!”

 

“You see?” The healer was at his elbow. “Nothing to worry about.”

 

Kaikushi turned away, his eyes stinging. “Thank you,” he said after a moment. His voice was rough. Eyes closed, he sent his thoughts to Ikuru. Why hadn’t his longtime companion greeted him? Suddenly, he was stricken again with the fact of his unworthiness. He had failed in life, in honor, and even in the moment of death. The horse was no longer his to call friend.

 

The samurai drew himself up and stared straight ahead. The final bushi he could claim would be to face his own shame. He looked through the stable window, staring at his unmoving steed for the last time. “Take me back to my bed.”

 

The healer signaled the guards, and the injured warrior let them half drag, half carry him back to the infirmary. The attendant gave him a drink that smelled as rank as his tongue had tasted earlier. He swallowed it without care. Ikuru was lost to him, but at least the proud animal was being looked after. The vision of his horse standing in the torchlit stable danced in his mind as the drugs he had swallowed began to take effect. The flames had glistened off the dark night of Ikuru’s pelt and glinted from the harness around his neck. Wait. Harness? He had needed none to ride the intelligent horse… and the flames had flickered through the animal’s body. Illusion then, but why? Think! What else was false?

 

It would be impossible to know in this place. Kaikushi took stock of the only thing he could be certain of, his own body. The cut on his hand, the place on his thigh still covered by bandages. So why was his ankle wrapped?

 

The samurai swayed as he leaned towards the foot of the bed where the straps held his leg in traction. The thick bandages swaddled something. Something around his ankle. He felt through the silk wrappings, clumsily tracing out the shape of a manacle. He had been chained!

 

The drugs overcame his consciousness then, and as he passed into sleep he mumbled a single word: “Ikuru!”

[Degorram]

Ikuru's brain was wrapped in thick, soggy weariness. Faintly he felt himself being imprisoned.....faintly he heard Kaikushi, his brother and his friend, calling out to him. He tried to fight the guards on his heart; he tried to cry out to Kaikushi. But the fiery chains on his mind, body, and heart wighed down his limbs and his tongue.

 

Meanwhile, Kaikushi was trapped in the same prison of fog. He wandered through it, dragging the heavy manacle that was strapped to his ankle. He sensed Ikuru was nearby....but no matter how far he went, he could not find him.

 

Ikuru found himself lying on the ground, trapped by the weight of the leeches that suddenly were all over his body. He recognized the illusion with ease, but nothing could banish the blinding fear that came with the feeling of their slimy bodies, their sharp teeth, the poison seeping into his muscles and blood...... Kaikushi!!! he screamed, but no one answered. No one came.

 

Kaikushi heard the horse's scream from far, far away. He began to run, ignoring the pain in his leg. Ikuru! he cried back. There was no more sound and he ran on, faster and faster.

 

Ikuru tried to struggle, tried to escape. Then he stopped, as a man walked towards him. It was not Kaikushi, nor any person whom he recognized. The man was tall, robed in gauzy, flowing black robes. His face was shadowed by his long, black hair, but nothing hid the burning eyes that gazed out at him. The man reached to his waist and pulled out a katana. Therefore the beast dies before his master, he whispered, walking forward, deepening his hate and his sorrow and bringing me more pleasure.

 

Kaikushi broke from the mists into a small area of clear thought. Before him was a shadowed man, holding a long, silver blade. And on the ground, eyes wide in fear and desperation, was Ikuru. The horse screamed his name as he saw his friend. The man turned at his cry, eyes landing on Kaikushi.

 

You find me in your deepest dreams, where nothing comes to save you, he said smoothly, his poetic voice a meer whisper. I brandish steel and challenge thee, thy face a deathly hue...

 

Kaikushi leapt forward, snarling. But suddenly the manacle seemed to bite into the ground and he was trapped, like an animal chained for the sacrifice. The man continued forward, his maddening rhymes drilling into Kaikushi's head.

 

The fates and fortunes are too kind, to present me such a gift, that with swift and bloody execution, I may my spirits lift. He raised the blade to shoulder height and aimed it at Kaikushi's neck.

 

"Who are you?!?" Kaikushi bellowed, straining to get at the man.

 

The man chuckled softly. I dare not say, before thy time, for soon you will know, too. For when you die in my domain, you become one of my crew.

 

Kaikushi's mind snapped: he leapt forward in a rage, pulling the manacle clear out of the ground. Just as his elbow was about to crush the man's face, he glimpsed the burning eyes widen in surprise, and then he was gone, vanished. His voice still echoed around Kaikushi's head as the fogs faded and he came back to the real world. You have succeeded, that much is true, I can't deny that fact. But be forwarned, my fiersome friend, there's something dear you've lacked.

 

Kaikushi woke, sitting bolt upright. Had it all been a dream? The healers, the illusion, the man...... He looked around and realized that it was night. The bandage on his ankle was gone, as was the manacle. His leg felt strong and better than ever. But he knew that whoever or whatever had been casting his mind into illusions was powerful. He knew he would be back.

 

He had to find Ikuru: the real Ikuru.

Edited September 20, 2006 by Degorram