2. Hidekazu
2
Hidekazu
T
he
master
flicked
a
bolt of scorching ki at Hidekazu, sending him flying into the opposite wall. Hidekazu stifled a yelp when he collided with the wood and collapsed to the floor. He struggled into a bow, pressing his forehead to the tatami, daring not to raise his eyes again.
“You forget who you are, what you made yourself.” Barame loomed, hands folded as though he hadn’t struck his student across the room. “What is your new name?”
“Shi... Shizu Hidekazu.”
“Why?”
“I am dishonourable, unworthy of my father’s respected name.”
Electric energy hovered like a halo around Barame’s head. “You disappeared for over a month. My best Shadows could not find you.”
Dishonour. The consequence of trying to do good. But the mission that had sent Hidekazu, Masanori, and Aihi beyond the reaches of Seiryuu was not one Hidekazu could recount without sounding insane. He settled for sharing their goals before their journey went wrong, before his father exiled Hidekazu from the Genshu clan. Before he swore to redeem himself and reclaim his family name no matter the cost.
“We were investigating the Dragons Eye on Aihi’s behalf, travelling to Najadu.”
“I uncovered as much with Ijichi Kira’s testimony. And yet, you never made it that far. Where
did
you go?”
The library had, at first, seemed whimsical, filled with more books than Hidekazu could imagine. A library filled with lost warlock knowledge. It wasn’t supposed to exist. They, a group of oblivious humans, should have been the last to uncover its treasures. In the end, they deserved their punishment
The creatures of the dark had tried to eat him and his companions alive.
“We got lost.”
Energy rippled around Barame, and his razor-like hair flashed. The sting of ki whipped across Hidekazu’s back. He gritted his teeth. He forfeited his right to argue when he disobeyed not only his family but also Barame, to whom Hidekazu had sold his independence.
Genshu Dano’s terms to rejoin the Genshu clan were fair. Until Hidekazu proved his discipline by passing the Majyutsushi Exams and becoming a bushi, he was on his own. He was no one, nameless, worthless.
The whip of bladed hair came again, cutting Hidekazu’s shoulders. Leaving to unlock the secrets of the Dragon Eyes was the last time Shizu Hidekazu would disobey.
“I do not tolerate liars,” Barame said.
“I’m n-not lying. Not entirely.”
“We had an agreement, you and I.” Instead of striking Hidekazu again, Barame retrieved a bean-sized gold and green ball from his desk. “But Genshu Hidekazu does not exist anymore. Your own father believes you an undisciplined dog and sent you off for re-education.”
Hidekazu eyed the strange sphere. He’d never seen anything like it before, yet he understood that it was the manifestation of his and Barame’s en-bond. With the orb, the spiritual link between student and master came into focus. It didn’t appear, not quite, but the weight of their agreement hung between them like a physical presence, reverberating between them like the strings of an invisible lute.
“I will pay for my mistakes however I must,” Hidekazu said.
“You will.” Barame held the ball out. “You know what this is, do you not?”
“It is an en-maru. Proof that I”—
sold himself
—“agreed to the terms of our bond. It is both mediator and punisher.” This was a guess, at least, based on what he little knew of en-bonds.
“Correct. Take it.”
Translucent ki floated around the sphere, hot and dangerous, but Barame touched it without burning. Hidekazu would not be so fortunate. This device would enact whatever cruel will its master demanded. Yet, Barame waited for Hidekazu to claim the en-maru of his own free will. And, in doing so, intentionally harming himself in his obedience. He had no power to act against Meki Barame, not as a nameless person with no clan or status to protect him.
He mimicked Barame’s hands, and the ball glowed green. It zapped into Hidekazu’s palm, and he gasped with the sudden, immense pressure pushing on his fingers. The heat of ki lingered there, waiting for Barame’s command.
“The three rings on the en-maru indicate the status of our agreement. Once you accomplish your part, all of the gold will turn verdant, and you will be freed from my service.”
The rings were solid gold.
“You are now nameless, a consequence of your frequent disobedience,” Barame continued, “and by right, I may do with you what I please. What makes you deserving of my mentorship?”
“I... I am...”
“No. You are nothing.”
The ball flared, and a slight burning crept into Hidekazu’s palm. Nausea rose inside him, alongside a spinning white at the edge of his vision. “I will survive.”
“Recite page four hundred and sixteen, paragraph eight.”
Knocking sounded in Hidekazu’s head, but he pushed it aside and searched his garbled memories for the correct text from
Osoreru: Warlock Mythologies
to appease Barame. “The White Warlock granted no mercy, for there was no mercy for the fallen. In his hand, he took the cobalt scale of his Divine Mother and delivered her justice, a curse of madness to cure insolence.”
“Now in Ryuugo,” Barame said.
Hidekazu deflated. He’d memorized the section in Seiryan, but not in Ryuugo—the dragon’s tongue, or the Old Language once used by warlocks.
At his silence, the en-maru’s ki bled into his skin, his tendons, his bones. Burning. He lurched, unable to make a sound through the thickness of his shock. The orb wouldn’t fall from his hand, no matter how hard he tried to fling the ball away.
“You cannot toss away what you gave to me.”
White fog pressed in on Hidekazu from all sides, but though the sphere’s ki subsided, the white remained. An unnatural chill slithered in his head, the coiling dragon that kept his mind imprisoned. Naoji, the White Warlock, was Hidekazu’s warden in all places Barame could not monitor. Without Sayuri’s presence—Hidekazu’s tsukumogami companion—nothing held Naoji’s intrusion at bay.
“
Aw, and here I was, overjoyed at Meki Barame sharing a story about me,
” Naoji said. In Hidekazu’s mind, the words were difficult to distinguish from his own thoughts. “
They always get the bit about madness wrong; they should meet my beloved brother and sister. At least I’ve made no one mad but myself.
”
Barame circled. “Did I misjudge your ability?”
“No, Headmaster,” Hidekazu said.
“And yet you fail me, one time after another. Why?”
Hidekazu’s last words to his brother,
you better not come back,
made him suck in a breath. He held it, afraid that, if he let go, he would lose the hot air that kept him buoyed above the Nightmare’s terrors, and he would descend into that pit and never return.
“Look at me.”
Hidekazu hesitated, and then lifted his gaze to Barame’s. The older man scrutinized him as if the secret to Hidekazu’s dispassion would be hidden in plain sight. Perhaps Genshu Dano himself instilled a faulty belief that left Hidekazu defective.
If only it were so simple. Hidekazu’s deficiencies ran much deeper than that.
Beside the shoji leading to the terrace, the white collected into an ivory cloud. As soon as the vapour caught Hidekazu’s attention, and his pupils flicked away, the en-maru released a shock of searing energy. Needles jabbed his nerves, methodical in their path up his arm. A low whine resonated in his throat when, this time, the sensation didn’t subside.
“Your vision falters. Do you still wish to become a bushi? Did you ever?”
Hidekazu spluttered, and the calligraphy scrolls on the wall warped into wicked grins. His mind betrayed him. When the white smoke circled nearby, Naoji stepped from it and into the room. Bells jingled in his silver hair, and his matching haori billowed as he moved. He peered at Hidekazu with his one eye, the other side of his face wrapped with undyed silk.
“
You are better than this, Hidekazu
,” Naoji said. “
Why do you let this old man beat you when you could crush him like a dead cicada? As amusing as your suffering is... surely you do not love the floor that much
.”
Naoji knelt in clear view of Barame, and yet Barame never paid the warlock any mind. Both regarded Hidekazu instead as if
he
were the mad one. Naoji must not understand the definition of the word, for this, and everything Hidekazu had experienced in the last two months, redefined the term.
Sweat drenched Hidekazu’s forehead. His fingers popped under the pressure of the en-maru’s ki. He bit down on his tongue, the hot gush of blood enough to make him swallow instead of scream.
“You enjoy this misery. Is that it?” Barame said.
“
For once, I must agree with the Headmaster’s assessment.
” Naoji’s claw-like nails crept down Hidekazu’s cheek. “
Lacotl enjoys pain, too. In his anguish, he breathes in his immortality. Nothing makes him feel more powerful.
”
Naoji’s nail cut the corner of Hidekazu’s face, igniting the memory of a perfect book-shaped burn. The hot brand shrieked beneath Naoji’s touch, and Hidekazu wheezed. Burning fingers, burning face. He couldn’t take much more. Soon, he would crack. But not yet.
“
Masochists,
” Naoji scoffed.
Barame curled his fingers, controlling the flow of the en-maru’s ki. The next burst of energy burned Hidekazu’s hand raw. Finally, he screamed. The sound ripped from his lungs, ragged and miserable. When, at last, the fire receded, his fingers wouldn’t move.
No one, nameless, worthless. Hidekazu reminded himself of his status because he could think of nothing else. Were he still a Genshu, he would not experience such torture.
“Do you think I enjoy doing this to you? You hear, but you do not listen. You do this to yourself. Stand.”
The world spun when Hidekazu moved, but a palm settled on his scalp and kept him down.
“
You forget that you are his pet,
” Naoji said, leaning close. “
Dogs do not stand. Or have you decided to listen to me, not the whims of an old man?
”
A strand of ki pulsed between Barame and Hidekazu: the energy forming the en-bond. Hidekazu would not obey Naoji, even if that meant leveraging the link to Barame, which was designed to subdue Hidekazu’s independence at every turn. He grappled with the en-maru’s energy, and the orb sunk into his skin, leaving the three gold, metallic rings imprinted in his flesh. The surge of ki made him wobble, but it allowed him to stand.
He knocked Naoji’s hand aside, as though swatting an annoying fly. The en-bond wrapped tight around Hidekazu’s neck like a collar. He was Barame’s dog until their arrangement was over.
Barame gave a satisfied nod. “Now tell me: what changed from last we met?”
Hidekazu could not find the words to articulate a response worthy of the question and accurate to his true feelings.
Everything
had changed.
“Masanori left because of me.”
“Truly,
Shizu
Hidekazu, you lost the will to live because of your brother. Not because of your shame?”
“Masanori is my shame.”
“At least you are not so oblivious. Clan Leader Dano took your name because Masanori’s willfulness infected you.” Barame waved his hand, and the tome in front of him slammed shut. “I will stamp it out and create you anew. Assuming you survive.”
“I
will
survive.”
“
He will make you fit to serve,
” Naoji said. “
I will make you fit to
rule
. You must only listen to me.
”
“Yes, Headmaster.” Hidekazu flexed his hand without thinking, and threads of agony snaked through his arm. His fingers were still numb and inoperable from the en-maru, but now the orb also burned inside him, a constant, demented presence, a scratch he couldn’t itch.
This was nothing. Despite the physical torment he endured at Barame’s hand, Hidekazu feared nothing as much as the sadistic glint in Naoji’s eye. The punishment that would come if he pushed the malicious warlock too far. Still, Hidekazu would not become Lacotl or Aihi, who sought power at the expense of their sanity. He would not become Masanori, who abandoned his life because he could not attain the strength he longed for.
“Though I am not the White,” Barame said, “and see no sense in delivering a bushi crippled in mind or body into the Goddess’ service, I can do much worse than expel you. Let your temporary incapacitation serve as a reminder that your time here will otherwise be short. You are dismissed.”
Hidekazu backed away, maintaining a low bow, and swallowed thoughts of protest as he closed the fusuma.
Behind him, Naoji effused from the crack between the door. “
I was wrong about Meki Barame. Soon, he will understand how worthless you are. And when that happens, you will be mine. The Book of Inochi waits for us both.
”
Hidekazu lowered his head. He would obey and overcome the barriers set before him. He would become a bushi and, in doing so, reclaim his rightful Genshu name. And Hidekazu would do it without Naoji.