Author's Games: Samurai

Task Five (Semi-finals): 援助を求める Enjo o motomeru

Fallen fall leaves littered the ground, preparing the way for the cold, dark winter ahead. Hideyoshi arrived at Mount Hiei, only to find it burned to the ground. The outer walls of the main castle had crumbled and were blackened from fire. Houses in the villages were nothing except piles of ashes. The only thing left untouched were two wells and the paths where the streets had once been.

Burned corpses littered the ground. The acrid, sickly sweet smell of burned flesh filled the air, making Hideyoshi gag. To his right as he walked deeper into the city was the blackened body of a little girl. Her head lay several feet away from the body, also burned, but her mouth was open in a silent scream, frozen at the moment of her death, preserving it for the rest of time.

"Mag—Magoichi-kun!" Hideyoshi's voice cracked as he darted through the streets, looking at every corpse, trying to find his best friend.

***

Magoichi blindly stumbled through the village, staring at every burned corpse. Man and woman, child or elder, it was unknown. They were just corpses, burned beyond all recognition.

When his eyes landed on a little boy who had been hung and burned alive, Magoichi collapsed on his knees. Beneath the boy lay two burned bodies with their heads on top of the bodies' chests.

His chest felt heavy, too difficult to draw breath. Raw agony enveloped him like a warm blanket, squeezing him too tightly. Nothing else reached through his blank state of mind, nothing except Pain and Agony, his two new closest companions.

***

Hideyoshi called for his best friend until his throat was raw. At last, he saw a single man standing in the center of the village, surrounded by destruction and death.

"Magoichi-kun," Hideyoshi murmured.

He didn't move.

"Mag—Magoichi..." Hideyoshi's voice trailed off, half relieved, half horrified.

"Oda did this." Magoichi spoke through gritted teeth and his voice was dangerously low, opposite of its normal, lighthearted, joking manner.

Hideyoshi swallowed deeply. "We...We don't know that for—for sure..."

"Enough defending him!" Magoichi-kun screamed. "My... My family is dead. My people are dead. All of them. Just because he saw this as a betrayal, when we're mercenaries. My family is dead because of his... brutality!"

Hideyoshi-kun flinched and reached out to him.

Magoichi whirled around on him and punched him in the face.

Hideyoshi collapsed on the ground as blood pooled from his lip.

Magoichi clenched his bow, aiming an arrow at Hideyoshi's heart.

"Do it." Hideyoshi stumbled to his feet, spitting out a tooth. He held out his hands in surrender, not moving for his yari.

Magoichi's hands trembled. "I—I can't." With a heavy sigh, he dropped the bow and collapsed on his knees. "You're... You're all I have left. M—my mother and father... My sister...they're all dead."

Then he did something Hideyoshi had never seen him do before.

Saika Magoichi, a man hardened by years of mercenary work, a man only focused on killing, drinking and sleeping with women, placed his hands on his face...

And cried.

***

Tear after ugly tear spilled down Magoichi's face as he cried and grieved for his dead family. His dead people.