Chapter 8: The Naked Crow

Masaaki picked a spot on the dark wooden floor in the center of the largest room and knelt, then sat on his ankles in seiza.

Taking a deep breath, he picked up his tantō from where it lay beside his leg and carefully set it out in front of him. He had known, the moment she told him to go back into the house, that she would take the opportunity to flee. She was young, untrained, and he’d scared her. He’d been so desperate to swear his service to this honorable creature of the night—the first one he’d met in almost seven hundred years—that his passions had overwhelmed his control and she’d triggered the hikari for the first time in as long as he could remember. Twice.

So many times, strapped to his captors’ cruel devices, Masaaki had wished for the hikari to rise within him, so he could at least give them a taste of the pain that they delighted in giving him. Yet for centuries, nothing. No matter his anger, or his fear, the ensorcelled steel kept it at bay.

Then, twice in one night, the hikari had risen despite the constraints of the collar, and he had scared and hurt the one who had freed him. The ancestors were playing a cruel joke, offering him this new life to repair his honor, then yanking away his control so he frightened her away.

Ducking his head, hands on his thighs, Masaaki looked down at his tantō. It would be difficult for a yatagarasu to seppuku, but the vampires’ house had been filled with heavy black curtains and he had picked a dark spot on the floor, where the light of the sun should not penetrate. Dying, then, would only be a matter of time. Time, and honor. Whether he would be able to keep himself from crawling out of the darkness to greet the dawn, however, was a nagging worry that Masaaki had been dreading since becoming samurai.

For others, once that first thrust was made, the cold steel entering the stomach, slicing against the spine, there was no going back. From that point, they would either die with honor, or without it. For Masaaki, all he had to do to survive was find a source of light. The temptation to survive disturbed him. All those centuries, he had wanted to live. One of the very core tenants of Bushido—the true warrior’s purpose was to die for his master, and, as such, had no need or desire to live. To choose life, Bushido taught, was the way of a coward.

And Masaaki had begged for life. Many times.

Yes, it would have to be the jūmonji giri. The cross-shaped cut. With his latest daimyō abandoning him, nothing less would ease that shame.

Masaaki waited until the light of dawn had just begun to rise on the horizon, his knees going numb on the hardwood floor. The longer he waited, the more he cursed his decision to make a woman—a mere girl—his daimyō. Women did not have the resilience of mind necessary to properly understand the finer aspects of honor and respect, courage or loyalty. Four of the seven core virtues of Bushido, so core to a daimyō’s existence, and yet so impossible for a woman to understand. He had been such a fool to hope. He had seen in this vampire queen that one shining, breathtaking virtue—benevolence—and had forgot all else. But of course a woman was benevolent. It was the feminine nature. Any woman would have freed him in her place. He had sworn the oath of fealty to a woman simply because she was a woman. That disturbed him greatly.

He had tried to make a woman a daimyō. It was ridiculous. That she had run from him, at the very least, should have told him she didn’t have the courage to be commander and killer of men. Yet he had done it anyway, out of desperation to not be rōnin, to regain some of the honor he had lost. Yet, in doing so, he had only made it worse. She had abandoned him. Shunned his service. Left him without a master.

Then, knowing that the vampire queen was certainly not coming back with the sunlight, Masaaki reached for the tantō. He would not be able to write his death poem, but as an abandoned rōnin kneeling in a vampire’s home, he doubted anyone would read it, anyway.

He had just unsheathed the tantō when he heard a sound on the front steps. He hesitated, frowning. Footsteps, crossing the deck. A moment later, he heard a latch click and the front door slid open.

The vampire stepped almost timidly into the room, the pupils of her yellow eyes dilating until all he could see was black. When she located him, kneeling on the floor, she bit her lip and pushed the door shut behind her. “Uh,” she said, looking down at the handful of tools she carried with her. “I went out to the shop and got some stuff to try. I forgot to bring an extension cord, though, so we’ll have to do this over by a wall.”

Very slowly, Masaaki put the tantō down. Uncomprehending, he eyed her armful of equipment warily. “Do what, exactly?”

She glanced at him and swallowed. “Um. One of these should probably do it. It’s probably gonna hurt like hell, though. It looks pretty tight.” She gestured in his direction.

Masaaki turned to figure out what she was looking at. “What’s tight?”

“That…uh…collar.”

Instantly, Masaaki’s heart took a startled leap. “I thought you were afraid to remove it.”

“Yeah, well, Odin hates a coward.” She took a few steps toward him, then, with a moment of hesitation, stepped past him, setting down her burdens down at the wall. Masaaki got slowly out of his seiza and stared at her, stunned.

She picked up something with a disc of stone on one end. “This should probably do it. But like I said. It’s probably gonna hurt. That much friction…things get red-hot, and I’ll have to be really careful not to break through the metal and hit your neck. That would be…uh…the end of your neck.”

Masaaki’s heart was beginning to pound like a drum. “Anything. I can endure anything to get it off.” He padded up to her and knelt beside her, soaking in every aspect of the thing that was about to be his freedom.

“Okay, uh.” She swallowed and pulled a grease-stained rag from the jumbled mess. “I need you to tuck that between your neck at the collar, if you can.”

With shaking fingers, Masaaki took the cloth and did as he was asked, tightening the metal uncomfortably against his neck.

“Okay. Um. Can you, um, lie down? With the side with the cloth facing me?”

Numbly, feeling like his chest was going to explode, Masaaki did as he was bid, on his back, chin up.

“All right, now I’m gonna plug this thing in and it’s gonna spin and make a lot of noise and don’t panic, okay?”

“I won’t panic,” Masaaki whispered up at her.

“You’re crying.”

“I’m not panicking.”

She met his eyes for a moment, then grunted. “Okay. Here goes.” She took a cable from one end of the device and plugged it into a three small holes in the wall. Then she squeezed a button and his whole body tensed at the strange whirring sound.

Then she leaned over him and lowered it to his throat. Immediately, Masaaki felt the pressure against the cloth as the thing started howling at the enchanted steel, kicking hot sparks down along his body. Masaaki flinched, but did not complain. He would endure anything to have it off. Anything.

“It’s working!” she called, obviously excited. “It’s gonna take a few minutes, but I’m getting it.”

Because he couldn’t find the words to respond, Masaaki only nodded, fisting his hands on the walnut beneath him.

Indeed, it took several minutes, but eventually, the metal roar changed pitches and she straightened above him. “Okay, we need to wait for that to cool, then pull out the cloth and move it to the other side so I can make another cut. Give it like…ten minutes?”

Masaaki reached up for the cloth.

“Wait!” she cried, reaching for his hand. “It’s going to be—”

He yanked the cloth out, twisted the steel around until the superheated metal was searing the back of his neck, then tucked the cloth back into it. “Cut it.”

“—hot.” Blinking down at him as if he’d just grown horns, she said, “It wasn’t hot?”

“It’s blistering my skin. Cut it.”

It was a good thing that she switched the device back on, because at that moment, Masaaki would have taken it from her and done it himself. When she lowered it back to the ensorcelled steel, he felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks. He endured the heat in the back of his neck and the sharp bite of the sparks as if they were happening in a memory. All he felt was the pressure against his neck, the way the collar was vibrating against his skin.

Then the tool punctured through. Before she had shut off the device, Masaaki reached up, grabbed the metal on either side of the collar, and tugged it apart, then hurled it across the room.

As soon as it left his skin, he felt the power of his hikari return in a flood. Like an ocean of living dust, pulsing, bouncing, all awaiting his redistribution.

For her part, the vampire was shying away from him, hunching closer to the floor.

Before she could get out of reach, Masaaki grabbed her silvery hand, pulled it out, and dipped his forehead to it. Still holding her slender fingers, he got to his knees, knelt in seiza, and bowed over her, touching her cool and sweaty fingers to his brow.

“Um,” she said, sounding timid, “I guess the shackles, next?”

Masaaki hadn’t realized he was weeping until he saw the puddle of tears under his face, staining the walnut. He took a shuddering breath, closed his eyes again, and let himself cry. So many good things had happened to him this day. So many wonderful, blessedly good things. “Please let this be true,” he said softly to her fingers. “Not a dream. Please not a dream.”

“Um…dude? You’re getting snot on my fingers.”

Masaaki laughed, despite himself, and released her hand. “I suppose I was.”

“Ewwww.” She scrunched he face at the liquids coating her skin, then started vigorously wiping it on a pant leg. “You gonna do that every time?”

Masaaki grinned at her. “No, wan-ko. That’s all I needed.” He then started down-forming into his crow-form, and the huge metal bands simply slid from his limbs to rattle on the floor. Free, Masaaki thought, still not believing it. I’m free.

“Okay,” she said, looking down at him as he hopped out of the metal rings and up onto her leg. “I gotta admit. That’s actually kinda cool.”

Masaaki spread his wings and launched himself out over the polished walnut floorboards, careened around the brass-filled room, then came to a fluttering halt on her shoulder, almost tipping over and spilling down her front. Yes, he was rusty as hell. But at least he hadn’t forgotten how.

The vampire reached up timidly to his feet with a hand, and Masaaki stepped out onto her knuckles obligingly. She pulled him out until they were looking at each other, at eye-level, and he watched her gaze shift to the red marking upon his chest. “Is that why they call you a three-legged crow?” she asked, reaching out to touch the brilliant crimson feathers that formed the shape of a pitchfork amidst the shimmery green-black of the rest of him. Masaaki grabbed her finger with a foot and climbed onto her other arm, making her giggle.

A little burst of happiness spread through him at the sound, and he suddenly felt compelled to play with her. He worked his way sideways up her arm, picked his way along her shoulder, across her back, over her other shoulder, then leaned forward and looked her in the eye in that all-too-intense look of a hungry bird, making her squeal with delight.

He then walked down her other arm to her fist, spread his wings and ducked in a bow.

“You’re cute,” she said, grinning.

Cute, eh? Wings spread, he hopped onto her head.

“Hey now,” she giggled. “My parents let me have a parrot, for awhile. I know what you guys do up there.”

Masaaki jumped down and upformed mid-fall, laughing. “Do you, now.”

Her smile disappeared as suddenly as it had come and Masaaki’s chest suddenly ached with a pang of disappointment. He had enjoyed her lack of fear of him. Apparently, his new daimyō found his bird-form less threatening. Instantly, Masaaki wanted to go back.

Clearing her throat, Shannon turned to inspect a few bits of metal-shavings that were dusting the floor. “We need to get you some clothes,” she said.

Masaaki glanced down at himself. He vaguely remembered codes of conduct regarding when and how to wear clothes, though he’d been unclothed for so long that his nakedness was no longer noticeable to him. “Does it bother you?”

She licked her lips. “Well, I think I saw a grand total of maybe fifteen naked guys before this, and it was when I did stupid stuff, like accidentally do a Google search without the filter on.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Or walked in on my parents.”

“Oh.” Masaaki would have happily downformed back to the Three-Legged-Crow to see that smile again. Unfortunately, he had no way to carry his daishō in bird-form, and while it was easy to make vampires scream with a strong hikari, it was easier to kill them by cutting off their heads. “I need a kimono,” he said.

“Um, no.”

He frowned at her. “No?”

“Uh. Around here, you wear stuff like T-shirts and blue-jeans. You wear a kimono and people are gonna look at you funny.”

“Let them,” Masaaki said. “I am samurai. I don’t concern myself with the expectations of the peasantry.”