~~~

Just a few more steps…

Miho blew out what little was left of his existing breath and sucked in a fraction of what he needed to replace it. He blocked out the complaints from his arms and his legs, that they weren’t built for this kind of work and would soon collapse. His eyes watered from the effort of keeping his head straight enough to see the end of the path ahead.

‘A few more ste-…’

His right leg buckled, followed by the left, leaving his body - plus the unconscious samurai on his back - with no choice but to drop like decapitated meerkats into a large pothole.

Luckily, it hadn’t been raining so the pothole was dry, but that was scant consolation for Miho.

‘Wah, it’s like carrying a bronze shrine,’ he muttered, crawling out from under the dormant weight and looking back at how far they’d come.

Shit.

About fifty metres, give or take ten metres. Take, more likely.

He could still make out the top of the slope where the demon woman had come down, and the beginning of the path that had led him into this huge open mess in the first place.

Kuso…

Why didn’t I just take the main road, he wondered, even though he knew wondering wouldn’t change a thing. Follow those salt merchants back up to Uedara, talk about the salt trade, borrow leftover salt from their salt sacks…

Kicking a random stone in frustration, he watched with horror as it hit a larger rock and bounced back, striking the samurai on the small of his back. He moaned in response, forcing Miho into panic mode: he leapt back to his feet and shouted vaguely to the left, telling the demon to stop flinging rocks at his friend.

‘Demon…’ slurred Akira, managing to twist his head round and face the direction from which the stone had struck him.

‘It’s okay, meijin, she’s not here.’

‘The road…’ Akira rotated further, squinting at the path behind them. ‘That slope…’

‘Yeah, we’re making progress.’

‘Where?’

‘Actually, meijin, you’re heavier than you look. I think it’s the dōbuku you’re wearing, looks quite weighty, maybe the katana too. But…never mind, now that you’re awake, you can help me.’

Miho paused, wondering if he should add another meijin…then decided two was probably enough; any more than that and he’d have to use it every time he spoke, and no meijin would appreciate that degree of pedantry. At least, he knew he wouldn’t. If he ever got to that level.

‘The demon, where is it?’ asked Akira again, trying and failing to grab the collar of Miho’s kosode.

‘Don’t worry, she’s gone. Turned into that weird purple mist and blew back over the slope. Blew? Is that the right word? I don’t know. I’m still not sure it really happened, to tell the truth. The whole thing feels like a bizarre dream.’

The samurai ran shaky eyes over Miho’s physique. ‘You defeated her?’

‘Err…not really. Like I said, she just blew away. Also said we were dead men for not letting her eat us. Which reminds me…’ He gestured at the path ahead, the tree line slowly narrowing on both sides. ‘You want me to lift you again, or are you okay by yourself?’

‘Which direction…is that?’ asked Akira, rubbing his head.

‘Generally, it goes to Suwa, so I was told…but there’s a ryokan a few kilometres ahead. That’s where I was planning on taking you.’

‘Not to Shingen…’

‘The daimyō?’

Akira groaned, changing from rubbing to hitting his head.

‘Is that your master? Shingen?’

‘Was.’

Miho frowned, triple-checking the man’s dōbuku design to make sure he was really a samurai. Crooked tree, red sun, seemed legitimate enough, as did the katana he’d picked out of the path dirt and tucked in the man’s belt, but his answer was still odd. Unless Shingen had been killed and he hadn’t heard about it yet?

Dusting off his dōbuku, Akira put both palms flat on the ground and pushed himself up. The effort was far too swift for his current state and as soon as he was vertical, he began to wobble.

‘Hey, watch out…’ said Miho, darting forward and grabbing Akira’s sleeve, just enough for it to rip and the man himself to drop back towards the ground.

‘Kuso…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-…’ Miho held the little chunk of torn sleeve in his hand, basically apologising to it.

‘Too weak,’ whispered Akira, rolling onto his back. ‘My head…throat…’

‘Right. You need food, water.’ Miho checked his pockets, pulling out the only thing he could feel inside and instantly regretting it. ‘Err…apparently, this is a chicken bun. Kumamoto style. Not sure if you wanna eat it.’

Akira raised a hand and grabbed it, shoving it into his mouth. Clearly unused to Kumamoto style, the samurai lasted about five seconds before it came shooting back out, some of the soggier, greyer bits landing on Miho’s foot.

‘I had a similar reaction,’ the young man replied, wiping it off on a nearby rock.

Sensing food, a trail of ants marched out of the grass to the side of the path, crawling over the chicken remains. To the ant palate it must’ve tasted okay as they stayed there a while.

‘The ryokan…’ mumbled Akira, his eyes starting to close.

‘Yes, with both of us walking, shouldn’t take too long.’

‘Not Shingen…’

‘You are going to stand up, aren’t you?’

Akira gave the softest possible ‘yes’ and then returned koala-like to an unconscious state. Which meant he probably wasn’t going to stand up.

That was Miho’s deduction anyway.

And it was a fair one.

Especially now he could see drool sneaking out the edge of the samurai’s mouth.

‘Six kilometres,’ he said to himself as he bent down and got a firm grip on the ashigaru’s armpits. ‘Carrying someone whose name I don’t even know.’

Storing up as much breath as he could hold in one go, he lifted the samurai and manoeuvred him into a diagonal slant against his shoulders. Then, letting out the breath and probably sucking the same particles right back in, he shifted round the side and placed the man’s arms around his neck.

After a few tentative steps, he made the mistake of looking ahead, tripped on a dirt-covered rock and almost fell over again. Somehow, his calves took the strain, he managed to steady himself and, after a few dozen awkward shuffles, his feet settled into some kind of rhythm.

Walk a few steps. Stop. Walk a few steps. Stop.

It was just about tolerable.

Even with the samurai drooling on his shoulder…and swinging his arm up every few minutes or so, clipping his ear.

Ah, just think of the ryokan, Miho told himself. The scenic, serene, mountain-side ryokan where your arms won’t hurt anymore and the chicken might actually look like chicken.

~~~

‘Poison!’

A dish with an onigiri attached sailed through the air, missing the staff girl’s head by a millimetre, and crashed into the ryokan wall. As said wall wasn’t made of sponge, the dish broke instantly and dropped in scattered pieces onto the tatami floor, while most of the onigiri defied physics and clung on.

‘Incompetent child, you were supposed to catch it,’ roared a stocky ashigaru on the other side of the lobby, his eyebrows not only meeting in the middle but setting up a small civilisation there.

‘Reflexes of a dead bear,’ said the other ashigaru beside him on the futon sofa, scratching a blue piece of cloth tied loosely round his wrist.

The girl in question – tall, scruffily dressed in ryokan-issue tan robes, no more than nineteen – kept her back to them and watched the remains of the onigiri she’d just presented to them slide slowly down the lobby wall.

‘Hey, servant wretch, we’re talking to you,’ said the eyebrow ashigaru, picking up his friend’s dish.

‘Answer him,’ ordered his friend, swiftly taking it back.

‘Why didn’t you catch it?’

‘Or even try to catch it.’

‘Exactly, she didn’t even raise her hand.’

‘Pathetic reflexes.’

‘I am not your servant,’ the girl replied, her tone skating close to the edge of the volcano but not diving in.

‘The hell you’re not!’ shouted the eyebrow ashigaru, kicking the table leg in front of him and advancing into the cleared space.

‘Stop talking back and pick up the mess.’

The girl looked at the entrance to the kitchen, only a few steps away. Then back at the pieces of dish and onigiri decorating the floor right by her feet. Then into the lava. ‘I am not responsible for cleaning up after drunks.’

The eyebrow ashigaru’s face almost exploded, his eyes scrambling for something to throw, while his friend made a poor attempt at a whistle.

‘You dare call us drunks?’

‘Well, you’re clearly not sober.’

‘Pick up the mess. Now.’

To add urgency to the command, the eyebrow ashigaru drew his katana and advanced, the tip of his blade reaching out and down towards her knees.

‘Right now,’ he repeated, the sudden movements he’d just made making his breath ragged.

‘No stabbing,’ said his friend, not moving from the futon.

‘Move.’

Keeping the blade in peripheral view, the girl put her hand behind her back and dug nails into her palm.

Apologise, pick up the onigiri. Apologise, pick up the onigiri. Apologise, hit him with the onigiri. Stab his foot with a broken shard of dish. Hide in the kitchen. Stab anyone who follows.

She looked left, at the painting of Mount Kaikoma.

Not tranquil enough.

Shifting right, she focused on Lake Suwa, hanging on the opposite side of the ryokan lobby.

Better.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ said the eyebrow ashigaru, making a swiping motion with his katana. ‘Pick up the mess.’

The girl closed her eyes, taking a meditation breath.

‘Don’t go to sleep. Obey me. Move.’

‘What’s going on here?’ shouted a voice from the direction of the entrance.

All three actors in the little drama turned round and glared at the middle-aged woman standing by the open door panel, wearing the same tan yukata as the girl. In her hand, was a strangled chicken, and on her face, specks of blood, either from the chicken itself or its friends and familiars.

‘Your servant girl is broken,’ said the eyebrow ashigaru, lowering his blade to the floor.

‘She refuses to do her job,’ added his friend, scratching the blue cloth on his wrist again.

‘Is that true, Aya?’

The girl, apparently called Aya, looked as pointedly as she could at the eyebrow ashigaru’s katana short of actually walking over and prodding it with her face. ‘This man…threw a dish at me.’

‘Nonsense! I was passing it back to her. The onigiri did not look well-made.’

‘He’s lying, Himiko.’

The woman, Himiko, raised her hand, and the dead chicken along with it. ‘Enough. I will not have this kind of drama taking place in the lobby of my ryokan. Now, apologise to the two guests, and clean up the mess.’

‘But…’

‘That is the last time I’ll say it. Understand?’

Aya glanced down at the katana still not too far from her kneecaps, grumbled something under her breath then said out loud that she’d be right back with a cloth and tray.

‘And a well-made onigiri,’ shouted the eyebrow ashigaru.

‘Another decanter of sake, too,’ added his friend, raising the old one and not blinking in the slightest when drops of sake splashed out over the rim.

‘High quality sake..’

‘The best you have in stock.’

‘Of course,’ replied Aya, already building up the first molecules of spit she was going to add to both items.

‘Be quick about it too. I’m starving.’

After Aya had scuttled off to the kitchen, making throat hacking sounds as she went, Himiko approached the two guests, chicken still in hand, and told the eyebrow ashigaru to put his katana away.

‘No one tells a samurai what to do with his weapon.’

‘Obviously not. Though it will be hard for you to drink the complementary bottle of sake if it’s still in your hand.’

‘Complementary?’ asked the Eyebrow ashigaru, sheathing his katana.

‘Don’t try to buy our good will, ryokan lady,’ said the blue cloth ashigaru, gesturing to his friend to sit back down.

‘All I want is a peaceful environment here.’

‘If that is the case, then free sake is not going to be sufficient.’

Himiko looked out through the gaps in the shutters behind the seated ashigaru, her hand tightening its grip on the neck of the chicken. ‘What would you suggest?’

‘Two things come to mind.’

‘Go on.’

‘First, a new room. The place we currently have is small and has a poor view.’

‘I can arrange a new room.’

‘Not just any room,’ said the eyebrow ashigaru, moving towards the shutters and pulling the nearest one open. ‘That cabin up there.’

‘I’m sorry, that is already taken.’

‘Then make it untaken.’

‘I don’t think I can do that.’

‘You don’t think you can? Does that not imply that you could, if you desired to?’

A shadow filled the lobby, cloaking Himiko’s instinctive reaction, and prompting the eyebrow ashigaru to look at the open shutter in confusion. When he realised the afternoon sun blockage was coming from the entrance, from a person, the katana promptly came back out.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, aiming the tip of his blade at the man in the oddly green yukata blocking the entrance.

‘The co-owner of this establishment.’

‘Ah, finally, the real boss. Look, this woman here tells us we can’t have that cabin up there, the one on the slope. But I have a suspicion that’s not entirely true. ’

‘You may have the room,’ the man in the green yukata replied, monotone, not shifting an inch from the doorway.

‘They may?’ asked Himiko, switching the chicken to her left hand and using the other to touch the green necklace peeking out of the top of her robes.

‘It will be ready by six this evening.’

The eyebrow ashigaru raised the guard of his katana, stroking his chin with it. ‘Hmm, a bit long to wait…though it might be bearable with the free sake you’ve offered us.’

‘We apologise for the inconvenience,’ said the man in the green yukata, turning to leave.

‘Second condition,’ said the blue cloth ashigaru, tapping his empty cup against the edge of the table.

‘What?’

‘The girl who broke the dish. I wish her to spend the night with me. In the cabin.’

Himiko opened her mouth to answer, but was beaten to it by her colleague, his back still turned to the lobby. ‘She will be sent to you at nine.’

‘Good.’

‘Is that all?’

The blue cloth ashigaru turned his eyes to the kitchen entrance. ‘We are…satisfied.’

‘For the time being,’ added the eyebrow man, winking at Himiko. ‘Though it might be a bit more expedient if you were the face of the-…

The remaining words died on his lips as he realised the man in the green yukata had already left and taken the clouds with him.

‘If you need anything else, you can find me outside,’ said Himiko, putting the chicken back in her strangling hand.

‘Maybe after a few more glasses of sake,’ mumbled the eyebrow man, putting his katana back in it sheath.

A few moments later, when it was just the two ashigaru slumped on separate futon sofas, lost in their own fantasies of the coming night, Aya re-appeared with a tray of fresh onigiri [made by a very irritated Chef Amo] and a new decanter of spit-enhanced sake. As she placed it carefully down on the table, she noticed the ashigaru with the blue cloth on his wrist staring at her, and the fatter man smirking, but for some strange reason they didn’t bark any orders.

Or point their katanas at her kneecaps.

Or try to grope her ass again.

Odd, she thought, faking a smile and moving over to the mess on the floor. Whatever Himiko had said to pacify them, it definitely worked.