A blackened figure emerged from the rice store. Her eyebrows were burnt off and her clothes singed, but otherwise she appeared alive and unhurt. Everyone gasped in astonishment at her miraculous survival. Despite the pain in his chest, Yuudai ran to meet her. But before he could get halfway, a musket shot blasted out.

Yuudai stumbled and fell to the ground. Neko gave a strangled cry. Jack and the others searched for the source of the shot as the villagers scattered for cover.

‘Up there!’ cried Miyuki, pointing to the top of the watchtower.

Behind the protective screen, Kurochi was loading another round.

Neko took one look at Yuudai writhing helpless on the ground and ran away.

Jack and Saburo sprinted across the square to drag Yuudai to safety, but he was heavy. They were still pulling him towards the cover of a building, when Kurochi took aim once more.

But suddenly the watchtower swayed.

Neko was furiously hacking at one of the supporting pillars with the axe she’d taken from the woodpile. Kurochi screamed as the structure keeled over into the still-burning moat. Fuelled by the bandit’s gunpowder, the watchtower exploded in a ball of flame … taking Kurochi the Snake with it.

59 Tears and Celebration

59

TEARS AND CELEBRATION

Snow fell across the Okayama Plain like the tears of a thousand angels. The patches of blood, so stark and red, gradually disappeared beneath a fresh blanket of white. Even the moat scorched black by the fire lost its colour and faded from view. All around, the land was healing itself from the previous days and nights of battle.

And so too were the farmers and young warriors.

The villagers gathered quietly in the square to honour and bury their dead, while upon the rise overlooking the village Yori made the final preparations for a funeral pyre.

As Jack crossed the square with Miyuki and Saburo, he spotted a glint of steel in the snow. A red cloth fluttered in the breeze. Bending down, he picked up Akuma’s abandoned hachimaki. The blood-red bandanna was all that was left of the mountain bandit. But even this seemed to harbour evil – a grim reminder of all the pain, suffering and death that Black Moon had once caused.

Asking his friends to wait, Jack made his way over to the pond. Standing upon the bank, he threw the hachimaki into the ice hole and watched it sink without trace.

The three of them then climbed the rise and joined Yori beside the funeral pyre. Yori was wafting incense over Hayato’s body and quietly chanting a sutra. Hayato had been laid carefully upon the stacked wood, his arms crossed over his chest, his bow and quiver by his side, a white hachimaki tied round his head. He looked like a true warrior at peace with himself.

‘Is there anything more we can do?’ asked Jack, when Yori had ceased chanting.