Laura Rowland - The Iris Fan

General Otani bellowed with fury. His attempts to raise Hirata were like punches to the inside of a pillow. They jolted Hirata, but he couldn’t feel them. He moaned because Lord Ienobu was still shogun and General Otani was still inside him. Yanagisawa and Yoshisato moved to his side, keeping their distance, as if from a poisonous snake that they didn’t know for certain was incapacitated.

Get up! General Otani roared. Kill them, damn you!

Lifting his head, Hirata saw a blurry image of Lord Ienobu. Mental energy was all he had left. Aligning it was like trying to gather marbles while his panic scattered them and General Otani stormed in his head. Hirata trained his thoughts as best he could on Lord Ienobu. An energy burst flowed out from him like the faint light of a comet in the sky at dusk. Spent, Hirata dropped his head while General Otani raged.

* * *

Lord Ienobu uttered a shrill, ululating scream.

Sano, lying exhausted on the floor, panted as he raised himself on his elbow. He looked from Hirata’s prone figure to Lord Ienobu. Lord Ienobu’s body stiffened; his back arched. His face locked in a pop-eyed grimace. The scream choked off in his throat. His eyes rolled up, and he crumpled. The room was silent except for Hirata’s labored breathing and the sounds of combat outside coming closer. Yanagisawa cautiously nudged Lord Ienobu with his foot. Lord Ienobu lay motionless. His mouth was slack, drooling.

Yoshisato crouched and felt Lord Ienobu’s wrist. “No pulse.”

“He’s dead,” Yanagisawa said in a tone of wonder.

“So much for conquering the world,” Yoshisato said.

Lady Nobuko burst into sobs. “Thank the gods! Tsuruhime’s death is avenged!”

The physician timidly offered his professional opinion. “He must have had a stroke. The shock to his system…”

Sano knew better than to think Lord Ienobu had conveniently dropped dead. As he clambered to his feet, his breastplate, armor tunic, and shoulder guards fell off, the lacings cut by Hirata’s blade. He went to Hirata, knelt, and shook Hirata’s shoulder. “Hirata!”

“Sano- san .” Hirata’s voice was a rasp squeezed out of his inert body. His eyes cracked open, wet with tears. “… I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Sano said. “You’ve made everything right.” Hirata had not only slain Sano’s enemy, he’d saved Japan from Lord Ienobu’s foolhardy ambitions. Hirata, the onetime traitor, was a hero.

A sigh of relief issued from Hirata. “Do you forgive me?”

“I forgive you.” Sano truly did. “Where’s General Otani?”

“… Don’t worry … he can’t make any more trouble.”

Hirata could make a fresh start, Sano thought. “Let me help you up.”

“I can’t move.” Anguish squeezed Hirata’s voice tighter. “I’m paralyzed.”

Reiko gasped in dismay. Akiko said, “Can’t the doctor fix you?”

“… No.”

Sano was horrified by the cost of Hirata’s atonement. In his struggle to overcome the ghost, Hirata had sacrificed his own body. He was still alive, but in a state worse than death. Sano was filled with grief and pity for his old friend.

“You can be shogun now,” Yanagisawa said to Yoshisato. They laughed with exultation.

And here was the cost of Lord Ienobu’s death. Sano rose in protest as power changed hands for the last time.

Lady Nobuko revived, beheld Yanagisawa and Yoshisato with disgust and hatred, and stumbled to Lord Ienobu. She pounded his scrawny chest, shouting “Come back! Don’t let them take over!”

Lord Ienobu grunted, sat up, stretched his arms, and yawned.

Lady Nobuko shrieked, recoiling in fright. Sano, Reiko, Masahiro, and Akiko exclaimed. Yanagisawa and Yoshisato stared, shocked and aghast. Sano stated the obvious fact: “You’re not dead.”

Lord Ienobu wrinkled his brow. He suddenly resembled his uncle. He hesitantly raised his finger, as the shogun had often done when he wanted to ask a question he thought might be considered stupid.

“Speak,” Sano said, startled by the change in Lord Ienobu.

“Who are you?” Lord Ienobu glanced at the other people. “Who are they?”

“Don’t you know?” When Lord Ienobu didn’t answer, Sano realized he was waiting for permission. “You can talk to me.”

“No. I don’t know.” Lord Ienobu noticed the corpses of the shogun and the slain guards; he pursed his mouth. “What happened?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“No.” Lord Ienobu seemed only mildly worried. Hirata had tried to kill him, been too weak, and only damaged his brain, Sano thought. “Who am I?”

With the vexed air of a man saddled with unfinished business, Yanagisawa drew his sword and said, “You’re dead now.”

Running footsteps and excited shouts resounded. The partition between the shogun’s bedchamber and the corridor opened to reveal a squadron of Tokugawa troops. “Lord Ienobu, we’ve beat back the invasion,” the leader said. “The castle is secure.” His voice trailed off as he and his men took in the scene-the dead shogun, the strewn corpses, and Yanagisawa ready to slay Lord Ienobu. “Get away from him! Drop your weapon!”

Yanagisawa froze, let his sword fall, and stepped backward. His face was a picture of outrage because his fortunes had reversed yet again.

“You’re safe, Honorable Lord Ienobu,” the leader said. “We’ll get rid of this filth for you.” He and his troops advanced into the bedchamber.

Reiko and Akiko moved nearer to Sano. Glad that they cleaved to him no matter how Reiko felt about him, Sano couldn’t believe they’d come so far and gone through so much, and yet now all was lost.

Lord Ienobu looked to Sano. Sano spoke instinctively: “Tell them to back off.”

“Back off,” Lord Ienobu said.

The troops hesitated, confused. The leader said, “What?”

“Tell them that’s an order,” Sano said, “and they should leave us alone.”

“That’s an order,” Lord Ienobu repeated. “Leave them alone.”

His men gaped at one another, then backed away. Sano was stunned to discover that Lord Ienobu would do whatever he said. Everyone else looked just as stunned. Yanagisawa said, “Order them to tell their generals to surrender to my army.”

Lord Ienobu looked to Sano again. He was like a baby chick just hatched from the egg, thinking that the first live creature it noticed was its mother, instinctively accepting Sano’s direction. Thinking fast, Sano said, “Not surrender. Call a truce.”

“Call a truce,” Lord Ienobu said.

“You cast some kind of spell over him,” the leader accused Sano.

“Not I,” Sano said with a glance at Hirata.

“Do as I say, or I’ll have your heads,” Lord Ienobu said. He was apparently capable of phrasing his own sentences as well as parroting Sano’s.

Vacillating between fear of him and suspicion toward Sano, the men glanced at one another. Then they departed.

“Call them back!” Yanagisawa ordered Lord Ienobu.

“Touch your nose,” Sano said.

Lord Ienobu raised his finger and tapped his nose.

Yanagisawa went livid with anger as he comprehended that Sano had sole control over Lord Ienobu and therefore over the regime. “You’ve ruined everything. You always do.” His tone was as deadly as the sword he picked up from the floor as he advanced on Sano. “But this is the last time.”

Sano heard Reiko, Masahiro, and Akiko exclaim in alarm as he reached for his sword-which Hirata had shattered to pieces. “Wait.” He was acutely conscious that Yanagisawa wore full battle gear while his own head was bare and his body minus its armor. “We can work something out.”

Yanagisawa fumed through clenched teeth; he would have spit fire if he could. “Oh, no.” His eyes blazed under his helmet. “I won’t give you another chance to spoil things for me. I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago.”