Author's Games: Samurai

Task Six (the Finals): Clan 3: Kairi Saito

They were dragged through stone hallway after stone hallway. Kairi's knees were scraped raw from the rough rock, and she left a trail of red behind her. Open wounds on her back flowed from when they had beaten her, and a gash on the side of her head filled her right ear with blood.

She felt none of it.

Her brother was alive.

The impossibility of it all swirled around in her mind. How? How is it possible? We saw his body--we burned it! Yet here he is, just as alive as I am. How? Is this some kind of magic?

She flitted her eyes to the side, where he was being dragged alongside her. He looked older than she remembered him, and there was a new sadness in his eyes, something that was almost never there before. Back then, it was always either the kindness of a smile, the humor of a joke, or the determination of a fight that she saw when she looked at him. Now, there was a weariness--a hopelessness--that could only be in the eyes of a man who had seen too much.

It pained her to see him in this state. His head was bowed to the ground, and his eyes were closed. Blood dripped from his nose onto the stone floor. His breaths were quick and ragged, and she heard a wetness in them that scared her.

She shifted her eyes again to the other side, where her other companion was being dragged. Benjiro. His posture was the exact opposite of her brother's. His head was up, and he stared forward with a fierce determination. There was no hopelessness in his eyes; just a fire, eternally burning in hatred for his captors. The blood that framed his face didn't make him look defeated, as it did to Tatsuoki. It made him look... dangerous, almost.

"Where are we going?" he asked suddenly, his voice hoarse.

"Silence," the guard holding him hissed.

"No, he has a right to know," the one holding Kairi said in a mock-friendly tone. He was the one who had held the knife to her throat, and she recognized him now. Niiro. "We are taking you to In'ei, of course. It is he who will decide your fate."

In'ei. Kairi had once almost relished the thought of meeting the man who had stolen her clan from her grasp. She had imagined herself strolling into his presence and challenging him to a duel to the death. She had thought with glee of the moment when she would cut him down, making him pay for all the suffering that he had caused. She had never imagined that she would be coming to meet him like this; weaponless, bleeding and battered, being dragged along by his guards like some kind of common criminal.

"What will he do to us?" Tatsuoki asked quietly, his voice laden with the same hopelessness she had seen in his eyes.

"That remains to be seen," Niiro answered. "You and Benjiro were simply pawns, used to bring Kairi to us. I imagine that your deaths will be quick and painless." Niiro turned his eyes to Kairi, and she swallowed. "For you, however, Saito-dono..." he said, softly and mockingly. "You were the daimyo's main target this entire time. I can promise you that your death will be very drawn out and painful."

She swallowed again, but lifted her chin and set her jaw, trying desperately not to show any fear. That will not happen, she told herself. Takaoka and his men will find us and free us.

As if echoing her thoughts, a resounding boom shook the floor of the fortress. "The rebels have attacked," the guard holding Tatsuoki said, a hint of fear whispering through his otherwise calm tone.

"That does not matter," Niiro said, waving a hand dismissively. "They will not reach the interior of this fortress."

Kairi inhaled nervously, a sliver of doubt growing in her mind. What if they aren't able to rescue us? What if the plan fails?