Black Orchid

My family was once wealthy. Or so I was told. Great heroes that protected the land from evil. Favor of the emperor and all that. Spent on booze and extravagant parties. Eventually I guess the royals got sick of us. My mother certainly did. Packed her bags and left in the night, never to be seen again. Father was barely effected by her leaving. I suppose he was too drunk or hungover at the time. I'd always thought I could be the hero to restore the family's honor. That if I was given a chance and our family heirlooms I could travel the land and rescue people from the terrors of Yokai. I would never get my chance though, my elder brother would have the Orchid passed on to him. And I knew what he would do with it. Nothing. He would follow in our fathers' footsteps. He would do nothing with his life, living on charity of others and their fear of the monsters of the world. The thought drove me mad. Another drunk waste of space, while I struggled to make a living. And why? Why should he be remembered and I forgotten? My blood boiled when I first heard it. A hiss in the back of my mind. Nearly indistinct from a gust of wind through the grass, but I heard it. "Find me."

My father was sat outside the dilapidated main house, sake in hand and eyes fixed on the storm clouds as they loomed ever closer. I didn't know where my brothers were, but I didn't care. They didn't matter anymore. I slipped behind the house, the overgrown shrine just barely visible through the bamboo. A tugging in my gut drove me forward. I was nearly giddy with excitement. My destiny was near. I had spent my 19 years afraid I would die unknown and irrelevant while the family became more and more of a laughing stock. The shrine was locked tight, the chains rusted. What was once a monument to the heroes that were my ancestors was little more than a stage for moss to perform a great dance. I tugged on the chains. Nothing. I scowled. I slowly circled the shrine, inspecting the structure of the wood. The solution was apparent when I arrived at the very back. A break in the wood right at the ground, a small divot in the ground underneath. I chuckled bitterly. All these years I'd asked father to let me see the inside of the shrine when I could have simply crawled in myself. The crawl was uncomfortable, centipedes scurried over my hands and legs and I briefly worried once would bite me and I would die in a hole. But I pushed forward. When my hand touched polished wood I knew I had succeeded. I pulled myself up into the dark. The clouds outside suppressed all but the smallest beams of sunlight. But I could see what I needed to. The armor stand and chest in front of it. I smiled wide. My birthright. Finally within my grasp. The armor fit me perfectly, as if the pieces had been forged for me. It felt right to wear the armor of my heroic ancestor. I then looked to the chest. It seemed to draw me towards it. The lid was heavy, but I managed to push it aside. Lightning flashed outside followed by the boom of thunder. The gods themselves knew I was embracing my destiny. I gently picked up the entombed sword, the ocean blue scabbard was covered with intricate carvings, the hilt wrapped in violet cloth. I felt as if I was a child being given his first bamboo sword again. I drew the Orchid. The blade was solid black steel, the detail of a flower flowing all up the body. It lit the shrine around me with a subtle purple glow. I could swear I could hear laughing in the back of my mind. The door slammed open behind me, making me instinctually turn around. My father stood in the rain, another flash of lightning illuminated his face and the look of horror on it. "What have you done?" He breathed. Kill him. The voice in my mind mind hissed. I saw the fear in my fathers' eyes as I thrust Orchid through his chest, but also resignation. ripping the sword out of his heart covered my feet and legs with his blood. A faint strand of purple light seemed to float from his body to the sword as my fathers' body fell to the ground. Good. The voice was a little louder now. Your brothers will stand in your way. Destroy them. I grinned. My legacy began now.

Atsushi and Tatsunari died quickly. I almost felt bad about killing Tatsunari, he was awake and looked up at me with great fear. But I was doing him a favor. He would never go to bed hungry again. But Chishiro. Where was Chishiro, my beloved elder brother? I turned the house upside down looking for him. "Chishiro!" I roared, my voice surprised me, I could have sworn there was a second voice speaking alongside mine. I stalked outside, leaving bloody footprints on the floor as I walked. "Chishiro! Face me, coward!" I screamed into the storm. The estate was silent save for the rain and thunder. It was as if the life of the land itself had been drained away. I circled the outside of the house. Nothing. The shrine. The voice again, even louder. I stomped over to the clearing which housed the shrine. Kneeling next to our fathers' body was my brother, his shoulders shaking. He was crying. He looked up at me as I entered the clearing, eyes full of tears. His gaze flicked from my face to Orchid and back to my face. "Isshin," he began, his voice quivering as he stood. It was then that I noticed the sheathed sword in his left hand. "You will not take my destiny from me, coward!" I roared at him. He seemed taken aback, by the sound of my voice or my words themselves I wasn't sure. "Why," He hissed. "Why would you do this to yourself? To us?" I pointed my sword at him. "We are descended from heroes," I hammered my fist on my chest plate. "Slayers of demons. And now what are we? Laughing stocks, living without honor." Chishiro shook his head, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Honor I will restore. And which you would have squandered." He finally returned my eye contact. "You're a damn fool," He spat. The venom in his voice left me speechless for a moment. Chishiro was mild mannered, weak. "You still believe that shit father told us as boys? I thought you were smarter than that. Our ancestors were obsessed with that," He pointed at Orchid. "You think they were demon slayers? No. They became demons." Lies. He wants the sword for himself. "Shut up," My twin voice was starting to sound natural to me. I held my sword in neutral stance, just as father had trained us all during his lucid sparks. "No more talk. We finish this like men." Chishiro drew his sword, holding it in front of him. A traditional Ronin stance. I sneered. He thinks himself a Ronin. Pathetic. We stood, eyes locked, for what felt like hours. Lightning flashed. We both took this as a sign to begin. My footsteps were heavy in the rain as I ran towards him, the plates of my armor clanking gently together. Our blades met once, twice, three times over. He disengaged, jumping away and slashing at me to create distance. We circled each other, thunder crashing in the distance. We both returned to stance. My mind was flooded with memories. The two of us practicing with bamboo swords. We were happy then. I loved my brothers. Our mother was waiting to tend to our scrapes and bruises. The memories brought a tear to my eye. Forget those. The voice spat in my mind. Memories like that will hold you back. That time is dead. My mind was cleared, my resolve hardened. I knew Chishiro. And I knew how he fought. He would look to finish the fight quickly, avoid fatiguing himself. Ronin stance transitioned itself smoothly into a thrust with little warning. His hands tightened around the hilt of his sword, his muscles readying themselves. There! The thrust was fast, but I had dodged it before he had begun. I pivoted around the blade, my right foot raised off the ground. Before Chishiro could recover from the missed attack, I brought my foot down on the blade. It snapped right in the middle, throwing off my brothers' balance. I took the opportunity to kick him away. He fell to the ground coughing, the pathetic stub that was once his sword still gripped in his hand. I stalked towards him as he scrambled back, failing to find his footing. "Now you die, brother," I cooed at him, my excitement nearly making my voice shake. Chishiro looked up at me with tears in his eyes. "Please. Don't do this. You can still come back," I raised my sword over my head, prepared for the killing strike. He threw the shattered remains of his sword at my head, hitting my right eye and knocking my helmet off. I roared in pain and frustration, grabbing my brother by the throat as he tried to run. I lifted him from the ground with a strength I didn't know I had. His kicks and struggles to escape hardly even registered to me. It was over and he knew it. I raised my blade to his neck. I could swear I smelled his blood pumping. I slit Orchid across his throat, the blood of my brother spilling over my hand. His body went limp and I dropped him. The purple glow on Orchid grew ever so slightly. A sudden rattle in my mouth and taste of blood notified me of a lost tooth. I spat it onto the ground next to the body of my brother. My family's' estate lie dark and bloody. No more would there be life and light inside it. I turned my attention towards the distant glow of the village. A smile spread across my face.

I crested the hill overlooking the darkened, silenced village. Signs of fire were clear, smoke still rising from some buildings. The survivors of the massacre hadn't been exaggerating it would seem. The wind carried a sent of blood and smoke, my nose wrinkling in disgust. I made my way down the hill towards the village, pulling my Santo down lower to cover my eyes. The corpses of buildings were wanting to walk through, dried blood spattered over several walls. Noise seemed to have a hard time reaching the village. No birds sang, no wind rustled the plants. Nothing living was left in the village, only dead men and women lying in the streets where they had fallen. Some seemed to have been dragged off, streaks of blood all leading towards the other hill, opposite where I had come. I followed the trail carefully, reaching the top of the hill, seeing a dilapidated house set just outside a thicket of forest. The trail lead right to the house, a single pale red light visible through one of the windows. Moving quietly, I made my way to the house, peaking in through a crack in one of the walls. I had a poor angle, but I could see the crooked branch with a lantern full of fireflies sticking up from the dirt. And I could hear perfectly fine. The sounds of tearing flesh, bones being broken and messy eating. I moved to the gap that would have once been a door. That was when I first saw him. A giant of a man, his white hair loose and unnaturally flowing behind his head. His body bulged through the armor he wore, skin stained red from blood. Horns grew from the top of his head, accentuating his head movements. His appearance was truly horrifying, forcing me to suppress a gag. My foot cracked a small bamboo branch on the floor, grabbing the attention of the monster. His head snapped around towards me. His face was possibly the worst aspect of his appearance. His right eye was missing, a wound covering the socket and bleeding black. His remaining eye was blood red with the pupil turned yellow. Several of his teeth were too long for his mouth, sticking out from his lips. And blood was dribbling from his mouth. "Ah," he breathed, turning the rest of his body towards me. "It would seem I missed one. But I do not recognize you, little girl." The oni rose to his full height, the sword on his side seeming comically small. "I am not from your village," I responded in a monotone voice. "I've come here to kill you, oni." The monster's nostrils flared. "I carry on my family's legacy! The villagers simply refused to recognize my destiny as samurai." I readied myself, entering my stance. "Then you won't object to an honorable duel," He snorted, drawing his sword. The blade was ornate, forged out of black steel. The purple glow around the weapon was just as the survivors had described. He rushed me, raising his blade overhead. I breathed in. My hand went to my scabbard. I drew. The golden light of my sword slashed through the oni's. The monster fell before me and I removed his head. My mission was done. The blade what had caused all this was destroyed. I turned to make my way back to Tokyo, and my palace.