Maru felt his thoughts returning to him as something dragged him across the ground. His eyes fluttered open and were blinded by the sharp glare of the skies. He squinted against the throbbing in his head and the bright light of the sun as he felt himself pulled along the ground. Something was grunting and had him by the ankles. It dropped his legs and his heels slammed against the ground, and he felt something or someone come up beside him and felt them squat down more than he saw them.

"Well, well! You're alive! Imagine that..." Maru forced his eyes open against the glare, still keeping them squinted, and saw and older man squatting over him. His weather-worn face stared down at Maru as he squatted there next to him, and he patted Maru's chest with a shake of his head, "Son, when I pulled you out of that river, I was sure that you were dead. Thank the Kami you made it through that. Waters have been nasty this time of year."

"Did you see a demon?" Maru shot up and asked as his foggy thoughts suddenly reminded him of Namikionna.

The man stared at him as he stepped back slightly to accommodate Maru's furious jump up. "Calm down, son! There was no demon. You're safe now." He moved back and rested on hand on Maru's shoulder. "My name is Otsuki. I work for Lord Kubara. Come on. I'll fix you something to eat and get you some warm clothes."

Maru felt his body move on its own as he tried his best to process exactly what he had seen. Better yet, he tried to wrap his soaked mind around the fact that Ran had been killed and that he was lucky to have been alive. Namikionna was disgustingly powerful, and both he and Ran had been woefully unprepared for her. He looked over at Otsuki. The man was short in stature, but built like a man who had been swimming his whole life. He wasn't sure exactly what he did, but his arms were as hard as steel. A fisherman, maybe, if Maru had to take a guess. His face was creased with lines more from weather than age, and his hair was a steely grey that had streaks of white black and silver all running through it in equal measure. The hair itself seemed weathered and dry from being outdoors, and Maru noted that the colors woven into the hair on his head found themselves duplicated in the stubbled on the man's cheeks, over his lip, and chin. The man's brown eyes kept flicking back and forth between Maru's face and the road, seeming to size him up as they plodded along.

"Got a name, son?"

"...Maru," Maru hesitated a minute before he spoke, but Otsuki seemed decent enough. His first instinct hadn't been to rummage through Maru's body for valuables, so his motives seemed to have been in some part altruistic. "Who was your employer?"

"Kubara," Otsuki spoke with thinly veiled contempt. Maru could hear it plain as day in his voice.  He wracked his brain for the surname, and when Otsuki looked at him, he heard the older man chuckle, "Don't try to figure it out. He is a freshly minted lord, that one. Just got given the region when the last lord and his family got exiled. Heard they're scampering off to Kyushu to get some help from a cousin on the wife's side."

All roads seemed to be leading that direction, Maru noted silently as he nodded.

"He's a bastard, but... Well, I'll let you see that for yourself."

The old man half-carried him to an old hut on the outskirts of a town. The inside was sparse, the floor only half covered with cheap wood with only a stove and some scattered pieces of rundown furniture to serve as places of respite. There was no sign of anyone else, however. It seemed, from the single old futon and the few pieces of furniture that he could spot, that the man lived alone. Maru watched him scoop some millet out from a pot and pass it to him.

"Sorry," Otsuki settled down onto the floor and gestured for Maru to join him. "I only have this. My fishing attempts have been unsuccessful lately. I think there's something scaring the fish away."

"A yokai?"

"Most likely. The war has them all startled."

"What exactly do you do for Kubara?"

"What does it look like? I fish. Or try to, anyway." Otsuki grunted and looked down into his bowl of millet. Maru saw him wrinkle his nose and set it aside. "I also try to hunt, but the yokai have been messing that up, too."

"If you have coin, I can help." Maru looked up and winced as a sharp pain rolled through his shoulder blade. He must have struck a rock when he got launched.

Otsuki eyeballed him before he grunted again, "Sayonakidori, right?"

"What gave it away?"

"Commoners don't own swords like that," the old man jerked his chin to the blade still hanging from Maru's hip. "And you don't have two blades, so I am guessing that you're no samurai. The mask, the kusarigama - you're a yokai hunter."

He was smarter than he looked. Maru cocked one corner of his mouth up in a smile, "Good eye."

Otsuki laughed, "I have my moments! If you are really looking for work... Kubara has a little yokai problem in his castle. I'll take you up there first thing in the morning."

---

Castle towns, Maru found, were all remarkably alike. Kubara's was different in that when samurai rode by, the people seemed anxious. Michizane was one place where Maru knew that the people loved their warriors without reservation. They had good lords, and it showed in how they would greet them like lauded heroes whenever they made an appearance in town. Here, however...

Otsuki must have noticed the concerned crease of his brow and leaned in close as they walked, "After he threw out the old lord and his family, Kubara and his men took over with an iron fist." He paused as they passed by a store with its door flung open as two heavily armored men exited carrying what looked like a coin box. A man and woman ran screaming after them, begging and pleading, and Maru saw Otsuki set his jaw. "Lord Osafune would not have done any of this."

"How did he get kicked out?"

"Collusion, according to the Ashikaga. A gyoubu from the capital carried out the sentencing. They claimed that they colluded with a known traitor to the throne," Otsuki shoved Maru past the sobbing couple as one of the armed men backhanded the husband to keep him away from their horses. "I don't believe a word of it."

"What happened to the samurai?" Maru asked as he forced himself to ignore the sobs of the woman behind him.

"Some joined Kubara. Most of them refused to accept him and left or lost their station," Otsuki replied as they wove their way between people on the street. "We've been stuck with him ever since."

Maru watched people part for Otsuki, and one thing in particular caught his eye. They showed him a surprising amount of deference for him being a fisherman. He had a thought, but decided against saying it. If the old man hadn't revealed the details by now, he highly doubted that he would at any point.

"Any advice for how to handle Kubara?" Maru asked as he looked again at Otsuki as they neared the palace proper.

"Just one piece," Otsuki chuckled darkly as he turned to Maru with a smirk, "and that is not to trust a single word that comes out of that bastard's mouth."

The first thing that Maru noticed when they finally made it within the walls of the compound was that the men all seemed surprisingly undisciplined for being the house guards of a powerful nobleman. They were standing around talking loudly in messed up clothes or in dirty looking armor without so much as an actual watchful one of them in sight. Maybe Atsumori had been unique in that regard, but Maru couldn't say he was impressed by Kubara's men in the slightest. Samurai were supposed to instill a sense of awe, not stand around guffawing like common thugs. Then again, he had to wonder if these men were even actual samurai. He cast a quick silent look at Otsuki and saw the man looking rather annoyed as he too seemed to scan the courtyard.

"Who do you have there, old man?" One of the guards called over with a familiarity that seemed to annoy Otsuki.

"One of those Nightingales. Lord Kubara wanted to hire one and I just so happened to pull one out of the river."

"Careful when you go in," another called. "He's got a guest. Some lady warrior he knows."

That caught Maru's attention.

Otsuki led him into the castle and to the main audience chamber where they were let in to find Kubara in the midst of what seemed to be a failing negotiation with a woman in a full set of beautifully made armor. The sword that hung at her hip was gorgeous, and framed against the deep blue of her wave patterned jinbaori, she cut an impressive figure with her silver hair tied low past her shoulder blades. Maru could only see her back and part of her side as she was half-turned away from Kubara, but her head turned to face him upon hearing the door open. Sharp wolf-like eyes on a sharp face greeted him. "Shodagimi," Maru saw Kubara lean forward. His face reeked of desperation, "You can do better than that drunkard of a husband!"

"If all you did was come courting for a marriage, then you've been barking up the wrong tree," the woman turned her attention back to Kubara and frowned. "I am an onna-bugeisha and the wife of a samurai. I would rather bite my own tongue off than even consider marrying a toad like you." As she spoke, she fully turned from him and began to stride from the room.

"Shoda..." Maru stepped to the side to let her pass as Kubara stood up and practically begged her with her name.

"Take it up with an unmarried woman who cares, Kubara," the onna-bugeisha looked at Maru and frowned as she passed him. "I'd suggest finding another employer, Nightingale. This one is cheap."

"Coin is coin, my lady."

The woman snorted, "Spoken like a right sellout. Good luck. You'll need it."

She slammed the door behind her as Maru heard Otsuki snicker softly beside him. Kubara threw himself back down into his seat, obviously fuming as he took a long drink from his cup and slammed it back down onto his table. "That obstinate bitch!"

"Onna-buegisha are prideful my lord," Otsuki spoke with a bow. "Shodagimi just has the skill to back up her pride."

"I'd say that any woman in that position has earned the right to be prideful," Maru added with a bow of his own as Kubara watched them both.

"True enough, and Shodagimi is a rare prize wasted on her bumbling idiot of a husband," the lord sighed and gestured for them to take a seat. "Otsuki, is this the Sayonakidori I heard rumblings of?"

"He is."

Kubara clapped his hands with a raucous laugh, "Good!" Maru took the chance as he was being served to take a good long look at Kubara. He was a large man, heavily muscled and tall even when he was sitting down, with a bald head and scruffy unkempt facial hair. His clothes were askew despite their finery, and he sat slouched to one side with his elbow on an arm rest. Everything about him radiated the energy of a man who was more of a thug than a nobleman, and Maru knew that it meant that prior to tossing out Osafune, he more than likely was.  He watched the way he ate with his fingers and licked them clean and wondered what exactly he had managed to get himself into.

Nice one, Maru, he quietly chided himself as Kubara grinned at him. You managed to get employed by another dirt bag.

"I think that I have a hino-enma in my walls," Kubara grunted. "The problem is that I have absolutely no idea how to get her out where we can kill her."

Maru ran through what he knew about them. Hino-enma. Vampiric. Nocturnal. Women who underwent trauma in warfare or violence could turn into them under certain conditions, and the best way to lure them out was to lure them out with blood - specifically that of men. They primarily targeted males of any age and were considered extremely dangerous. Unless you caught one that was blood-starved, it was almost impossible to distinguish them from regular women. in such a state, their give away was black teeth and a tongue that looked like the color of fresh liver. They were becoming more and more common as the wars began to drag on.

"What makes you think it was a hino-enma?" Maru asked.

"I woke up one morning to find one of my guards looking like a dried corpse. All of his blood was completely gone," Kubara seemed more inconvenienced than he was angry. "Can't think of any yokai that can do that except those nasty demons."

At least he had an idea about what he was going to be getting himself into. It was better than some of the tips he got from clients. "Can you show me where you think she is? Where her last attack was?"

Maru didn't expect Kubara to stand up and gesture for him to follow as he strode from the room. Otsuki gave him a quick glance and Maru swore he saw him look almost apologetic. The old man didn't follow him as he followed Kubara from the room, and Maru had to pick up his own pace to keep up with the swiftly moving lord. He made a note of the different halls, windows, and exits as they passed them. You never knew when a hasty retreat would be needed.

Or when jumping out of a window was the only available option, of course.

Maru was lost in thought when Kubara's loud voice boomed through his hearing and made him turn to look at the bald man with an annoyed frown. "I usually hear her up here," Kubara gestured around them. The doors to the large balcony were opened and Maru realized that they had to have been up towards one of the top floors of the building when he looked out and saw nothing but blue skies and fluffy white clouds in the distance. "I'm slightly worried about that little fact because I have this... Well, this prize of mine I want to keep safe, you see."

"Prize?" Maru didn't really want to know. Usually he got shown some poor, terrified woman who didn't want to be there...

"Take a look at this," Kubara gestured to a room and pushed the door open to reveal a sight that Maru was... not expecting, to be frank.

Kubara's "prize" was a giant of a man unlike any Maru had ever seen. The gaikoku-jin was enormous with hair the color of gold thread and eyes the color of blue ink. His bare torso was covered in hair, and his skin looked to be tanned from the sun. He looked more inconvenienced than anything else. "Oh, wonderful. Please, keep bringing strangers in here to ogle me like I'm a piece of meat. I insist."

"What the...?" Maru tried to make sense of the bizarre language he spoke and whispered as Kubara walked over to the barred doors the man was kept behind and slapped them.

"We outfitted this room as a makeshift cell.  I was going to keep him in the cellars, but... Well, I plan to use him as a little present to the Shogun. His head should win me more than a few favors. Having him as hino-enma food defeats that purpose a little bit, eh?"

Something about it made Maru a little angry.

More than a little.

It made him furious.

There was no honor or glory in killing someone who had more than likely broken no law other than getting lost. Judging from the fact the man wasn't protesting, he guessed he couldn't speak their language at all. Fighting an enemy who could not even defend themselves with words was the move of a coward.

Or an idiot, Maru surmised from a quick look at how pleased Kubara was with himself.

"Heh, looks like the new guy thinks you're just as much of an idiot as I do, you prick," the large man snickered from the corner and Kubara shot him a dirty glare.

"I can't understand a word of what the beast says," Kubara shook his head and turned back to Maru. "So, back to business. What do you say to the contract?"

Maru looked back to the man before he looked back to Kubara, took a deep breath, and said exactly what he thought about the contract.

---

Maru found himself sitting in the little inn in a small corner table. He could barely believe the sheer audacity of Kubara's request. He'd deal with Kazegumo's complaints about breaking the Accord when he got back. Now, he knew he needed to focus on finding the yokai in his contract. However, he kept thinking about the gaijin. Something about keeping anyone a hostage like that concerned him, especially considering the fact that he was only being kept alive to be killed and for what? The crime of being shipwrecked? Even that reached a level of absurd that he wasn't prepared for.

"Are you really doing that in public?" He recognized and older woman's voice and turned to see the onna-bugeisha and another man sitting across from her, hands folded neatly in front of him as if he was praying.

"And who is going to stop me?"

"Everyone. You know how the shogun feels about kirishitans."

Maru had heard the term before. Allegedly, some traders from the West brought their God with them and converted several major lords who took the title. He was decently surprised to see an onna-bugeisha consorting with one. He focused on his table, but opened his ears to see if he could catch what they were talking about.

"Kubara called you in, then?"

"He claimed that he had information on my son."

"And?"

"I'm a bottle and a half deep in local sake, Himonoe, you tell me."

Maru flicked a quick glance to see the other man chuckle. He had a soft oval face with heavy lidded eyes and was the kind of man who seemed genuinely kind, He dressed simply, kept his greying hair pulled carefully back from his face, and seemed to always wear that gentle smile he indulgently gave the scowling Shoda. "Shoda, listen, be positive. You got to see old friends, right?"

"Osafune has been chased out of his home by a thug he was kind enough to take into his home. You, however, are a ray of sunshine, I will admit." Shoda took another drink from her shallow cup and set it down with a sigh, "Every time, he wants me to leave Mifune..."

"And will you?"

"Of course not! I have three children with the man and a nice house... He isn't bad looking, either."

"How is he these days?"

"Better than that Sayonakidori is going to be if he keeps eavesdropping." Maru paused and snapped his head up to find the onna-bugeisha scowling at him. "What's wrong, bird? Your master throw you out of the house?"

Himonoe frowned at her, "Shoda..."

Maru cleared his throat, "Truthfully, I told him to shove his contract up his ass."

That made her blink, and Maru had a vague sense of satisfaction at her expression. "Huh," she gave a small chuckle, "imagine that..."

"This is why I tell you not to pre-judge people so harshly," Himonoe scolded her like she was a child, and Maru saw her give her eyes a long sardonic roll.

"Join us, bird. I want to know what made one of the biggest swords for hire turn down a contract." Maru took Shoda up on her offer and joined the two at their table, and before long he had told them everything. Maybe it was frustration, maybe it was the liquor he had consumed, but he poured out all of his grievances to the two surprisingly sympathetic people watching him. If nothing else, they seemed to be about as exasperated with Kubara as he was.

Himonoe frowned and folded his hands in his lap, "I had heard the rumors that he had a gaijin locked up, but I didn't know that he was planning on executing him for, what? Shogunal approval?"

Shoda grunted, "Of course. He's incapable of proving his competence, so he's attempting a publicity stunt. Typical."

"Proving your worth to a dying shogunate," Maru muttered with a roll of his eyes. "Wonderful."

Shoda paused and looked over at him as she took a sip of her drink, "Seems like you have opinions, bird."

"I work with samurai every single day," Maru folded his arms and looked between the two, "and if I don't keep up on the politics, then I run the risk of losing business, after all."

"Ah, the Sayonakidori," Himonoe smiled. "Ever the profiteers!"

"It's why I tend to ignore them," Shoda muttered.

"Mind telling me why there's all this hostility?" Maru unfolded his arms and glared at the two. "You invited me over here to sit!"

"It's less you and more the fact that I saw the Sayonakidori try to kill one of my best friends because he knew the location of the Blade..." Shoda stopped dead in her tracks when Himonoe gave a loud cough. Maru watched the two of them look between one another as she cleared her throat and took another drink, "I need to stop talking once I'm three glasses deep."

Maru paused when he heard what she had started to say. There was only one "blade" that the Sayonakidori were interested in. "The Blade of Hachiman? Isn't that a myth?" Maru looked back and forth between the two as they shared nervous glances. 

"It's real," Himonoe began, his eyes never leaving Shoda. Maru saw why. Her hand had gone to her hip where her tanto sat, and he knew that her reaction would be based on whatever he followed up with. "Though I fear that the Sayonakidori have the wrong impression of the blade."

"How so?" Maru flicked his eyes to Shoda, who had seemingly completely sobered and watched him with a look that was almost sharper than her knife.

"The leadership seems to be convinced that the blade was made to slaughter yokai. Maybe it is, but they are also looking for a sword so ancient and steeped in myth that its true power is likely lost to the ages. Not to mention that the blade was broken, last we heard of it," Himonoe added, his eyes also never leaving Maru. When the Sayonakidori glanced down at his hands, he saw a shikigami between his fingers. They were fully ready to kill him if he tried anything.

"Well, you can put your weapons away because I'm not here to chase Kazegumo's fairytales," Maru grunted, and at the affirmation, the two seemed to ease off. "I'm on a different mission, and forgive me for not believing that a sword like that exists in the first place. My main concern now is Kubara and the gaijin."

"So, you're going to do... what?" Shoda watched him carefully, her sharp brown eyes gliding over every expression he made. "You're not seriously considering running back and saving that gaijin, are you?"

"He's chained like an animal in a cage. I can't just leave him," Maru protested, and as he did he saw Shoda smirk at him. "What?"

"They didn't beat all of your decency out of you, did they?"

"Who?"

"The Sayonakidori, of course," the woman chuckled and sat back. "You're crazy, Bird, but I admire your guts."

Himonoe chuckled and shook his head, "You really do enjoy people who are very... shall we say... direct."

"Of course I do. No sense in dancing around a topic, eh?" Shoda laughed and looked to Maru with a knowing smile, "If you're serious about saving the gaijin, there's a small rear entrance by the stables used by servants to come in and out unnoticed during the day and stairs right inside that will take you straight up to the third floor where he is. You should be able to slip in and get him if you are half good at your job."

Maru glanced between the two before he adjusted himself and leaned forward on his knees, "Why help me? I got the impression you two aren't fond of Sayonakidori."

"Oh, we're not," Himonoe nodded, "but trust me when I say that we hate Kubara even more."

---

Maru slipped in through the castle's back entrance entirely unnoticed. The men were all off drinking and the servants all seemed to have gone to sleep, and just like Shoda said, he found the staircase for the upper floors as quickly as he had anticipated. He moved up the wooden stairs like a shadow, soundless and with such speed that he was even impressing himself considering that he had outfitted himself from head to toe in his armor and weaponry. The staircase led to a ladder the led him to a small door. He slid it open and found himself in the mostly empty corridor where the gaijin was kept. He made his way to the door and took a deep breath.

He slammed the door open and found the men guarding the gaikoku-jin lying on the floor. Rooting through their unconscious bodies was the foreigner in question, and Maru saw that he had already helped himself to the knife of one of the guards and was rooting through the clothes for the key to his cell, most likely. The large man snapped his head up when the cell door hit the stone wall, and he stared at Maru carefully.

"One of two ways this can go," Maru furrowed his brow as the gaijin spoke, unsure of exactly what to make of his strange speech. "Hope this guy is on my side."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're saying there, big guy, but if you don't want to die, come with me!" Maru strode forward and grabbed the big man's arm and hauled him up off the floor.

As he did, several more guards rounded the corner, and Maru spun to do something about them when the gaijin stormed forward and slung one hard punch into one man's jaw and set the other flying out from the room.

"Holy- what do they feed you people?" Maru stammered as he followed the man from the cell.

Having his newly found rather large friend turned out to be a boon. Where Maru lacked in brute strength, the behemoth he had hopefully befriended made up for it in spades. Where he lacked in finesse, Maru complimented him perfectly. They fought their way to the balcony where Maru had hoped there would be a survivable drop down, only to realize they were up much, much higher than he had anticipated. "Well, that... That complicates things a bit..."

The gaijin did the same and then slowly turned to Maru, "I don't know why I trusted you to actually lead me the right way."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're saying..." Maru looked back at him and sighed as a number of guards surrounded their only exit. Among them, Maru noted as he and the gaijin both sighed, was Kubara.

"You insult me, turn down my contract, and steal my prize?" Kubara boomed out as he shoved his way to the front of the assembled group. "I should-!"

Maru tuned him out as he began to run through options when one slowly began to surface. He had an idea. It was crazy and somewhat stupid, but he knew that the worst that could happen was that he just died a different way than what he was already going to. He grabbed the knife from the gaijin and dragged the sharp tip of the blade across the back of his hand, holding it up so the rivulet of blood would get caught in the wind from the large open balcony behind them.

"What are you doing?" One of the guards shouted the question at them.

Maru closed his eyes and heard something in the walls. It was a scratching noise like long claws or nails digging and clawing at the wood, and he smiled under his mask as he began backing towards the balcony.

"What's that noise?" Kubara asked as his attention was also drawn to one of the nearby walls.

Almost before anyone could speak, some of the wooden planks and plaster went flying, and from the hole burst a hino-enma, her blood red lips, blackened teeth, and organ red tongue on full display as she leaped out with a ear piercing scream. She latched onto one of Kubara's guards and plunged her teeth into his neck as the man screamed and the guards quickly turned their attention to the savage yokai.

"Now or never, big guy!" Maru turned to the gaijin and gave him a hard kick to the stomach, sending him flying over the edge of the balcony as Maru jumped after him, hoping that they both had enough momentum to land in the mote surrounding the veritable fortress.

They hit the water. Hard.

Maru felt the wind get ripped from his lungs just before a strong arm pulled him up from under the water. He grabbed ahold of it and gasped for air before realizing that the arm wrapped under his own arms was that of his large foreign friend. Maru looked back over his shoulder and saw the man dragging him through the water.

"Alright, that armor makes you heavy as shit, but I've got you..." The man grunted as he hauled them both up onto one of the shallow sandbars. 

"You're strong as hell..." Maru coughed and looked up at him with a grin, "Thank you."

They climbed up the jagged wall and looked back over at the castle. "Fuck that place and fuck that guy," the gaijin waved a dismissive hand at the castle. "Good riddance."

"Seize them!" Maru heard Kubara scream from the upper floors of his castle.

"Shit..."

"Fuck me..."

The sound of horses behind them made both men turn to see the onna-bugeisha from the previous day riding up with two horses in hand. She reined the horses to a halt in front of them. "Get on!" She shouted, and neither of them wasted a  moment jumping on the horses. Without waiting to see who would get sent, the three rode off into the night, vanishing into the darkness before Kubara's man could ever find them.