Chains whirled furiously through the air, almost too fast to see. One wrapped around his arm, giving Izue the leverage she needed to strike him with the blade on the other. With a deft flick of her wrist the chain unraveled and she swung again, this time wrapping around his neck. She pulled and it tightened, choking him. Sou ducked as the blade of the sickle swung over his head, then yanked on the chain and using Izue’s own momentum threw her to the ground. He stood up, unwrapped the chain and cast it aside into the bushes.

“Good thing I always bring two, huh?” Izue smiled as she stood up, wiping a trickle of blood from her lip. Sou tensed as the chain spun in the air above her head, waiting for the pain of impact. He could feel the bruises on his arms and chest already, and the quick strikes she was getting in between were beginning to add up. His forearms felt like they were on fire, like being cut by a thousand reeds at once. She continued her flurry of strikes and cuts, relentless in her aggression and pushing him back. Defenseless and without a weapon, there was little Sou could do but take the hits and look for an opening.

His back pressed into a tree. There was nowhere else to go. The chain encircled his forearm as he tried to protect his face. The blade nicked his arm, his neck, his chest. It seemed to be everywhere at once, stinging him like some enraged wasp. He tried to pull on the chain to rip the weapon from her grasp again when he felt a sudden warmth spreading down his face. The blade had connected with his eyebrow, and blood was quickly pouring forth.

“Enough!” Sou lifted a leg and booted Izue in the stomach, sending her sprawling to the ground. As she tried to stand he yanked the kusarigama away. Rage flared up within him, the pain all over his body fueling his anger. He was tired of being played with like some cat’s toy. This had gone on more than long enough.

“Sorry for marking such a handsome face.” Izue smiled. She launched up with a foot, connecting with Sou’s throat and causing him to cough violently. In an instant he was on his knees, a kick to the back of the legs dropping him. Izue slid a slender arm around his neck, but he grabbed and flipped her, making her land roughly on her back. She quickly rolled to her feet and threw herself at him again, but Sou was ready and caught her by the neck. He slammed her against a nearby tree.

“I said enough!”

She laughed, the sound more of a rough choke.

“No more games!”

“That’s it.” She choked, smiling. “You feel it too, don’t you? The fire deep inside. The strength. The power.”

“All I feel is your neck about to be crushed.”

She tilted her head up, as though offering it to him. He squeezed harder and her face started to turn red. She coughed, but she was still smiling. Sou could feel the blood rushing to his own, the same rush he got whenever he was on the battlefield. The thrill of the kill. The power to end lives, to bend others to his own will.

Blood continued to run into Sou’s eye, forcing him to close it. The cuts all over his arms and neck were burning, like a thousand fire ants nipping at his skin. The blood loss was starting to make him feel woozy. He shook his head and squeezed harder.

“Surrender.”

“And if I don’t?” Izue choked.

“Then… then I have no use for you anymore. I will kill you. I will kill you and…” black dots swam before Sou’s eyes “… and I will burn every last one of your people to the ground.”

His grip began to slacken. He squeezed tighter again, but it was becoming more and more difficult to tell how much pressure he was applying. She just continued to smile that infuriating smile at him, like this was exactly what she wanted all along. Who knows, perhaps it was. The trees began to sway. Maybe it was just him. He couldn’t tell anymore.

“Join me,” she said again. “Give yourself to me and together we can conquer this wretched land.”

Conquer this wretched land… yes… He would be lying if he said he hadn’t considered it. Hadn’t they all? Even the most lowly of peasants must surely have at least once considered what it would be like to take power and unite the warring clans. The emperor had lost his power, weakened over hundreds of years of internal manipulation and treachery. The shogun had fared no better, with no money and thus no army nobody had no reason to fear or listen to him. He sat in his castle decrying all the clans fighting each other but had no real power to stop them. No, now the true power of the land lay in the hands of the daimyos. For many years now they had fought each other, trying to lay their claim as number one. Someone had to unite them. Someone with enough strength, enough power to bring them all under his heel.

“Oni of Miharu,” she whispered, bringing Sou’s attention back. He shook his head again, trying to focus. Blood landed on her face. It wasn’t an entirely unattractive look. “Think of what we could achieve together. This battle here, this is nothing. You’re wasting your men over nothing. You should be focusing your attention elsewhere.”

“Yeah? And where would that be?”

“With the Wada by your side… with me by your side… you could be unstoppable. You have the Bitou girl. Through your sister you have the Itami, and through the Itami the Arai. With such forces you could crush all that oppose you. But if you waste your men and time here, you will have nothing.”

Sou loosened his grip. Izue didn’t move.

“If there’s any man who can unite this land, it’s you, Yashiro Sou, Oni of Miharu, son of Ryobe, noble descendant of Prince Genji.”

It sounded kinda nice when she put it like that.

“The moment I saw you, I knew you would be the one. The one to finally bring an end to all this fighting. You have a strength this land hasn’t seen in hundreds of years, Sou.”

The way she said his name made his heart jump. Or perhaps it was the blood loss.

“Surrender. Send your men home. End this pointless battle and together let’s move on to the real fight.”

There it was again. That word. Surrender.

“Or how about you surrender to me, and I won’t burn all of your people to the ground, along with that impenetrable castle of yours?”

A noise nearby drew his attention. It sounded like a stick breaking. Someone was coming. Interrupting him before he had gotten what he truly wanted out of the woman.

“Looks like our time is up. Well this has been terribly fun,” Izue began, before she jabbed him in the neck with something. “But it would appear that someone has come to break up our little party.”

Sou’s hand went to his neck and he pulled out a tiny dart. He looked at Izue confused.

“Do think about what I said. Nighty night, dear.”

“Oh come on…”

The ground rushed to meet him before the world went black.