Perspective: The Stranger (Dio)

  After leaving the tavern owner writhing in silence, I mounted his horse. Moving toward Edo was a slow torture. My new body, this soft fleshy shell, screamed with every jolt. My thighs burned from friction against the saddle, and my back muscles ached just from sitting upright. The horse sensed my weakness. It neighed petulantly, trying to rebel, as if knowing the rider atop it was nothing but a child in a man's body. And my stomach... that small black hole, was contracting and making embarrassing, painful noises, demanding constant fuel.

  As I wrestled with this body, I wondered. Why do I feel this fire in my chest? The traitress is dead. It is over. But the fire did not subside. Instead, it became cold, constant, and heavy as a stone pressing on my lungs. Even though my body is different, my voice soft, and my face beautiful... the "malice" transferred with me. The distorted soul inhabited the perfect body.

  Rustle. They appeared suddenly from among the trees. Bandits. Filthy faces, rotten teeth, and eyes shining with greed and lust. Their leader stepped forward, waving a rusty sword, a yellow smile on his face: "Hey beautiful little one... you are carrying something heavier than you on your horse. How about you hand it over to us? And maybe... we hand you over too."

  I looked at Shakujo tied behind me. Then I looked at them. I smiled. It was a gentle, innocent, and sweet smile to the point it confused them for a moment. "Certainly." I got off the horse lightly, like a dancer. "I see... obedient boy," the leader said, reaching out to touch my face.

  In a fraction of a second. I formed a blade of ice in my hand. Just a sharp shard of concentrated cold. Schlick. One lightning-fast movement. The leader's hand stopped in the air. Then his head slid slowly off his neck, and fell into the mud with a muffled thud, before his body realized it was dead. I looked at the ice sword starting to melt and drip cold water on my hand. "Not as sharp as I expected."

  The others froze. They were looking at my angelic face stained with drops of hot blood, and at the severed head at my feet, unable to comprehend the contradiction. "Good," I said in a calm and gentle voice. "I needed to ease the fire." I pounced on them. A savage dance in a butterfly's body. I moved lightly, cutting, stabbing, tearing. And a "Soul Echo" message refused a soul entry to memories moving with the movement of my sword.

  I kept only one of them. He was crawling on his back, terror pushing him away from me, screaming hysterically: "Oni!! Stay away from me! Monster! Monster!" I stopped. I wiped the blood off my cheek with the back of my soft hand. "Oni?" I approached him slowly, my shadow covering him. "Even though my body is different... and I became beautiful... this title still haunts me. Why? I don't understand." I plunged the ice blade into his thigh slowly. He screamed a scream that tore the silence of the forest. "Answer me!" I pressed harder, enjoying the tearing of flesh. "Why did you call me Oni?" He gasped between his tears: "Because you... because you kill without mercy! Your eye... your eye is dead!"

  "Don't you kill without mercy too?" I asked with genuine curiosity. "Why am I an Oni and you are not?" He didn't answer, only continued sobbing. "It seems you are useless." I sighed with disappointment. "Fine, at least I will ease the burning in my heart." I began. Piece... by piece. I was searching for relief in his screaming, in dissecting his fear. But when I reached the climax, his heart stopped. He died of terror. "This trash..." I kicked the lifeless corpse with my small foot. "They always ruin the fun in the end."

  Finally, Edo loomed on the horizon. The city of sin and glory. I entered it, ignoring people's stares at my strange beauty and the dried blood on my clothes. I passed by the old man's tavern, Morito's friend. It was ruins. Half burnt, half demolished. The smell of burnt wood still hung in the air. "Stability is a lie," I muttered.

  I reached the Shogun's castle. A young guard stood there, his armor gleaming arrogantly, blocking my way with his spear. "Hey kid! Where do you think you're going? This is not a place to play." I looked at him from atop the horse. "I will forgive you for your insolence because I am busy." He burst out laughing: "Forgive me? Yes, Mr. Shogun! You whorish slave, go find your mother!"

  I turned slowly. I stared into his eyes with my mismatched ones; blue and violet. "Do you want to be killed by me? I am a Samurai under the Shogun personally. (Dio The Angel)." The guard bent over laughing, almost dropping his spear: "You? Dio the Angel? Rumors say he is a monster, not a pretty child like you! Go before I..."

  I didn't let him finish. I released "The Will." Pure killing intent, heavy and black, emanated from my small body like an invisible flood. The guard's face went pale. His spear fell with a loud clatter. He backed away, eyes bulging, as if seeing a demon wearing a child's skin. The other Samurai gathered, hands on their swords, but when they saw me, and when they felt that familiar and terrifying aura, they froze. "We apologize, sir!" their leader screamed, kneeling, sweat pouring from his forehead. I left the horse and Shakujo. "Keep this safe. Your life for its life." "Yes sir!"

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  I asked as I entered: "Is the Shogun available?" "Yes. He has been waiting for your arrival for three months." My foot stopped in the air. "Three months?" I turned to him sharply. "Has it been three months since the forest battle?" "Yes, sir."

  Three months... Mystery still shrouds what happened... after Morito cut off my head. So... that period I thought was moments of slumber, was ninety days in the real world. I was dead. Or I was growing like a demonic seed in the soil of that burning forest for three months. "What a long nap," I muttered, and continued my way.

  I knocked on the door of the Shogun's room. "Enter." The voice was frail, like the rustling of autumn leaves. I entered. He was sitting there. He looked smaller than I remembered. His white hair covering his shoulders, and his face full of deep wrinkles that weren't there before. His Soul Gate was in utter chaos, energy leaking from him like unstoppable bleeding. He was dying.

  "I apologize, Master Shogun, I faced some obstacles." "Did these obstacles make you look this angelic?" he asked without opening his eyes, bitter mockery in his voice. "Yes. All this is because of Morito Ryu. He attacked me." He opened his eyes calmly. The violet color in them was faded, like a withering flower. "Morito came to me. He told me to stop chasing the Foxes." My anger flared. "What insolence! How dare he?!"

  He interrupted me with eerie calm: "Dio... you are crossing the line. You gossip like the palace women, and your appearance helps you with that." I swallowed my anger. "I apologize." "I told him I won't continue the revenge," he said, placing the teacup with a trembling hand. "But someone will continue for me. I wonder... is it the demon I used to see? Or the angel returned from the grave?"

  He stood slowly, the sound of his joints cracking in the silence. "Tomorrow will be the Day of Judgment. And the day chaos begins." "What do you mean?" He turned his back to me. "You will know tomorrow. Now leave." "If you please, my lord, may I make a request?" "Go ahead." "My lord... my sword has become huge for me. I need a blacksmith."

  He turned to me. He looked deep into my eyes, and I saw the reflection of my beautiful and cruel face in his dead pupils. "Dio... I see in your eyes lies, hypocrisy, and evil. But I see what is more important... Rage. Rage that burns the world." He walked with heavy steps toward a stand in the corner of the room. He picked up his sword. Yorishiro, the sword whose true name no one knows. The sword said to cut gods. The sword wielded by only two in history. He looked at it with tenderness and sadness, as if bidding a son farewell. "Tomorrow, Dio... I will hand the sword to you."

  I was shocked. "To me? But... what will you use, my lord?" He didn't answer. He returned the sword to its place, and signaled me to leave. I left, a strange feeling of dread and anticipation filling my chest.

  Perspective: The Blind Slave (Ieyasu)

  On the polished wood... a violet camellia flower blooms. Not from a branch, but from my hollow. I coughed. Drops of violet blood fell to the floor, heavy, sticky, like ink with which Fate wrote my end. I looked into the dim mirror. A lock of my white hair fell, like early snow on a deserted mountain peak. "Mother..." I whispered to the shadows dancing in the corners of the room. "The wine of sins has matured... and the time for the final intoxication has come."

  I wore my violet robe, the color of sad sunset, and the color of kings who died alone. I placed the small dagger (Tanto) in my belt. It was cold, like a farewell kiss of ice. I touched my sword, Pandora. "My silent companion..." I said to the iron. "You who carried the burden of my distorted dreams. Today, you will sleep in another sheath."

  I opened a tunnel of memories. I walked. Step... sound of a dry leaf falling. Step... sound of bones breaking under the weight. I reached the castle's dirt courtyard. Dawn was splitting the chest of the night with a dagger of light, and the sky was coloring with the color of doubt.

  I closed my blind eyes, and saw with a clarity I never knew when I had sight. I saw them. Souls like morning mist. Kinami, the flower of the forest I burned, standing there. Not smiling, not crying. Looking at me with eyes of dew. My Father, the mountain I demolished, standing silently, the wind playing with his clothes. And behind them... a sea of faces. Every soul I sent to nothingness returned to witness my sunset.

  I sat on my knees in the middle of the courtyard. I placed my sword Pandora before me, like an offering to an absent god. I felt the storm approaching. Not wind, but an entity. "The Two-Faced Angel."

  I screamed with a voice that didn't come from my throat, but from my tired soul: "Dio... Oh Flower of Death... step forward!" I heard the fall of his footsteps. Light, like sakura petals falling on stone. The smell of blood and beauty wafting from him.

  "From this day..." I said, words leaving like birds fleeing a cage. "...I hand over to you the name of Yorishiro. Carry the burden, and carry the sin." I felt his hand take the sword. The thread snapped. I remained alone. With the dagger. And with the sky.

  I drew the short blade. I saw my face in it. It was not the face of a child. It was a face as ugly as the ugliness of life. "This is the face of the Unifier of Nippon..." I smiled. A smile like a crack in an old wall. I tore the silk from my chest. I aimed the blade toward the heart that forgot how to beat with mercy. "Oh Life... you were a long and annoying dream."

  And with one movement... fast as the flutter of a butterfly's wing. Schlick. The iron sank into the flesh. A key opening the door.

  I fell on my back. The warm blood flowing, embracing the dust, writing my final poem on the earth. I opened my eyes upward. For the first time... I saw it. Not black. Not blind. It was blue... achingly blue. Clear as a child's eye. High as the hope I killed.

  "Ah..." The final exhale left with the soul. "A sky... I do not deserve to look at." "A sky... free."

  And like the morning dew evaporating with the first ray of sun... Vanished Ieyasu, the Unifier of Nippon, who was titled "The Future"... Ieyasu "The Blind Slave", the third of the Greats, and he who walked in the footsteps of the one before him; Jimmu, Son of Gods and Dragons.