Sakura
Yoshida Suketake tried to dodge the oni’s blow, but felt it connect and peel off his armour’s shoulder piece. The oni followed by waving its kanabō again in a wide arc, as Yoshida expected, and he put his knee on the ground, stabbing with his wakizashi through the beast’s armpit. With a twist, Yoshida simply had to use the demon’s own movement to have it cut almost in half.
Yoshida ignored the crumbling oni’s form and assessed the battle. Usually nothing escaped his keen eye, honed by years in battle, but one did not need to be a veteran to see it: they were losing. And fast.
The battlefield was strewn with samurai bodies, and too few oni. Yoshida sighed. Nobody said it would be easy. When their daimyō, Muramatsu Yushio, had died attacked by the demonic oni, his samurai, now rōnin, Yoshida among them, had sworn to kill the oni or die trying.
It looked like they were being more successful dying trying that actually killing them. Bushido code only demanded of them to fight bravely and with honour; and that was beyond doubt. Still. Still.
Yoshida sighed. It was at times like this that a strange calm overtook him, and as he touched the omamori he always carried round his neck he recited the old prayer. As always, the battle raging around him seemed to fade, its sounds muffled, the screams dissolving within the wind.
Time slowed.
Yoshida stared. He could see three of his comrades in arms caught in the act of dying. One oni was being beheaded, a katana slicing his neck.
Blood. Blood everywhere. Splattering on armour plates. Dripping from blades. Oozing from gashes in human and oni flesh. Pooling underneath the feet of the warriors, mixed with mud.
But Yoshida also gazed in the distance, and beyond the battle, he saw green grass and blue skies, and the pink of sakura over a hill.
Yoshida marched, katana and wakizashi ready, the world outside of him still moving slowly. An oni came at him, but he simply stepped aside and carved a path in the air with one sword, stabbing with the other at the same time. The demon fell as he swung out, catching another one while it was charging.
A beast that was crouched over the body of a samurai, its horns impaled on the man’s chest. Yoshida swirled towards it and carved a path in the oni’s back. The monster fell over the dead man.
He felt a sharp pain in his back and, for a moment, lost his concentration. There was a blur of movement and his ears, nose and mouth flooded with sensations. Then Yoshida regained his composure and listened. There, the harsh breathing behind. The stench of the creature’s foul breath. He stabbed backwards in a quick movement, then retired his blade.
Without pausing, he kept moving left and right, slashing his way through the oni ranks. One way or another, this would be Yoshida Suketake’s last battle.
+++
Yoshida faltered. He was the last one standing on a field of dead bodies, both human and demonic. As the spell dissipated, he felt dizzy. But still Muramatsu’s colours waved in the wind.
Yoshida dropped his katana. His wakizashi protruded from the gouged eye of the last oni that had opposed him. His left arm limped by his side. Painfully he walked, towards the nearby hill and the sakura trees.
Sakura. Samurai, like sakura, tended to have short lives. Yoshida kneeled under the trees, surrounded by flowers, and smiled. This was appropriate for his last task as samurai. He unsheathed his tantō, the dagger he carefully had avoided using in battle.
Seppuku was his final honour, now that the death of his daimyō was avenged and he no longer had a lord to serve.
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This is my accompanying entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: October 17–23, 2016 on the Writer’s Discussion Group in Google+. I am responsible for creating the prompts for the Exercise, so I don’t take part, but I still like to write a story each week.
Truth be told, with the image prompt being what it is, what else could I write but a story set in Japan? I have to admit, however, that I’ve done the bare minimum of a research; I hope I’ve been respectful enough to the Japanese culture. On top of all that, this is fantasy; there are no real oni or samurai with magic powers.
