Chapter 36: The Banquet of Flesh and Blood

  (Perspective of Ieyasu Tokugawa)

  The sound of my heart grew louder and louder.

  It was the heavy pounding of iron hammers striking the walls of my chest, shattering my ribcage from the inside.

  With every strike, my old life vanished like water vapor.

  My hatred grew for my life, for my death, and for the cold air entering my lungs.

  The sound of a life unworthy of being lived in a world that knows only one language: the sound of breaking bones.

  This is what the "Voice of the Blind" had become.

  Since that night, beneath the stench of the horse's burning flesh... the child Ieyasu died.

  And Ieyasu was born.

  Ieyasu Tokugawa... the Yorishiro.

  Since that night, I understood the voice of Danhash in my head. His voice was like the grinding of rusted knives, whispering to me the only truth:

  "Your revenge will remain as smoke in the wind if you do not have an army of iron behind you, and a throne of skulls beneath your feet."

  And from there, from the womb of the cold void, the idea of the "Shogun" was born.

  I am not of the royal family; I am not a "Tokugawa" by blood.

  But my sword, Pandora, carries the blood of those who wielded it before me—the blood of the Princess of Nippon, mother of Jimmu.

  When I grip it, I feel the beating of their ancient hearts in my grasp.

  And this sword, and this hatred boiling in my blood like scorching oil, will make me ascend upon the corpses of the gods.

  At first, they knew me as the "Thief of the Gods' Messengers."

  In every city I entered, I heard the heartbeat of a fox.

  They had a distinct scent... the smell of musk, cloves, and sacred incense, a scent that nauseated me.

  I would track the scent. Sever the head.

  Then... I would drink.

  The taste of their blood was metallic, salty, and hot as embers. It slid down my throat and burned me, but I felt power surging through my veins with every drop, transforming my blindness into bloody sight.

  I guarded my ears before my dead eyes, fleeing like a ghost before I could hear the sound of their drums chasing me.

  Then, they knew me as the "Shinigami."

  The one who comes without a sound, like a shadow painted on a wall, severing heads and vanishing, leaving behind only the stench of death.

  Then finally...

  They knew me as Ieyasu Tokugawa, the Yorishiro.

  I would not leave a single fox whose heartbeat my ears could hear alive.

  Stronger and stronger. Blood became my daily wine.

  Years passed.

  And with every night that passed without me knowing it had passed, I grew darker.

  And every second, the blind Ieyasu, the weeping child with the innocent scent, was buried deeper beneath the sounds of dirt and mud, until his voice vanished completely, replaced by the laughing voice of Pandora.

  And every year, I looked behind me (with my ears).

  I no longer heard the sounds of pursuit and panting breaths.

  Instead, I began to hear the sounds of fear. The sound of trembling knees, the sound of teeth chattering together, and the smell of cold sweat.

  Then, fear turned into faith. And into worship.

  I was the Yorishiro, the rightful heir of Nippon, the awaited savior by force.

  And every entity that opposed their faith in me had its head roll slowly, thud... thud..., until it bumped against my feet, before being served as a raw dish on the banquet table of my revenge.

  The "deaf-mute" (silent) years passed like the time of the sighted.

  And finally... the time had come.

  It was time to serve the main course.

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  For the Lord of Demons.

  The drums behind me screamed with a heavy rhythm that shook the earth: Doom... doom... stop! (Fear).

  And the swords in the hands of my army were drawn from their scabbards with a single sharp sound: Schwing! Saying: Advance! (Obedience).

  And Pandora vibrated in my hand, whispering with a laugh that sounded like breaking glass: "Kill them all... burn this world to the ground... and laugh in their faces."

  I reached the forest of Kina. The forest where demons were born.

  I smelled its scent. It wasn't the smell of normal trees. It was the scent of arrogance. The scent of fake holiness and rot hidden beneath flowers.

  One day, I swore, this forest would burn along with its gods, and its scent would turn into the smell of pure ash.

  I stood before it, waiting for them to emerge.

  They had wanted to see me for many long years. To see the one who slaughtered their brethren and vanished like a ghost.

  But now... the voices behind me were many. An entire army breathing as one.

  And my power reached the heavens, a heavy purple aura pressing on the air, making it hard to breathe.

  Second after second.

  Until I heard their screams and their war chants. A chant resembling the howling of wolves. They thought they would kill me.

  Fool... "Lord of Demons" (Kinjin).

  I heard his heavy footsteps, boom... boom. They were arrogant steps. He should have run, just like I ran that night. But his pride, and the scent of his "sacred" blood, killed him.

  Tonight... will be a bloody, viscous, and warm night.

  Then they arrived before me.

  It was the Kinban (Elite) squad, with their master Shuten Doji, who calls himself Kinjin, the sword of the demon gods.

  As for the traitor... Kinami.

  I heard her heartbeats. She was there with the demons.

  Her heartbeats that used to lull me to sleep once upon a time, now rang like an annoying alarm bell.

  The one I thought was an angel... became a fallen angel.

  A demoness in the eyes I do not possess, and her scent had become foul in my nose.

  The Lord of Demons shouted, his voice shaking the leaves of the forest: "You demon! We will bring punishment upon you!"

  I smiled.

  I raised my sword.

  I unleashed its toxic purple aura, which made the grass beneath my feet instantly wither and turn yellow. And its manic laughter filled the void.

  And I said with a voice as calm as death, a voice emerging from an open grave:

  "You who call me a demon... I swear to you that my revenge has only begun tonight."

  "Tonight, the vengeance begins. Nothing will soothe my burning heart except the souls of your demonic gods."

  Then... I moved. Fwsh. I reached Shuten Doji in a single second.

  I smelled the scent of fear exploding from his pores before my blade even touched him.

  He parried my burning sword with difficulty; I heard his blade groaning as it cracked under the pressure, and the sound of his bones screaming.

  "Did you think the voice of my heart would cool down with a single strike?" I whispered in his ear, my cold breath lashing his face.

  "Just as I cut the Voice of Kindness (my father) into a thousand pieces... I will cut you into tiny raindrops."

  Tzzzzt. Another strike.

  I knocked his sword to the ground. The metal rang weakly. He tried to pick it up like a panicked monkey, but he was weaker than my burning heart.

  I began dismembering him. Slash... chk... krrrr. Piece after piece.

  An arm... a leg... a shoulder.

  Bloody shreds upon shreds. Everything in his soul was severed.

  I heard the sound of flesh tearing, and the sound of blood flowing profusely, filling the air with a warm, salty mist.

  Until he became like the meat dish I ate with that traitor on that distant day. A pile of minced meat.

  Those who called themselves the messengers of the gods were shocked. I heard their gasps, their hearts stopping for a moment.

  Did this squad think their shock would make me spare them?

  No. Absolutely not. Fwsh. Fwsh. Fwsh. The dance of death.

  A demon's head rolling. Followed by a demon's liver exploding. Followed by a demon's heart stopping.

  Those dubbed the strongest squad in Nippon fell before the voice of my heart like dry autumn leaves.

  There was no need for the voices of faith behind me (my army) to do anything but watch this bloody play with widened eyes, and smell the stench of the massacre.

  Until only the last member of that squad remained.

  The traitor.

  Kinami. The one the voice of the blind had called "Mama."

  "Hey... stand up, you traitor."

  She was kneeling on the ground, amidst a pool of her comrades' blood.

  I heard the sound of her terrified breaths: fast, shallow, and erratic.

  "Didn't you choose the path of blood? Aren't you their mother?"

  I walked toward her, my boots crushing the remains, making a wet, nauseating sound. Squish... squish. "Here I am... I have killed some of your children. But inside that forest, there are still children of yours, and gods you worship."

  "And I swear to you... I will not die until I kill your gods."

  "Come on, stand up."

  She didn't move.

  "Stand up!"

  "Stand up!"

  "Stand up!"

  I screamed at her, my voice shattering her will. "Do you still want to look at their corpses?"

  I lowered my head, directing my face toward the ground where she knelt.

  "Don't you want to stand up, you demoness?"

  I reached out my hand.

  That hand, which once sought an embrace, had now become a claw of iron.

  I clamped my fingers around her wrist.

  The moment our skin touched, I was struck by a painful sensory memory.

  That hand... which was once a sanctuary, which was as warm as the sun.

  But now?

  It was clammy. Covered in a thin, cold layer of the "sweat of terror." Its touch was repulsive, as if I were holding the skin of a dead frog.

  Her wrist bones under my grip felt fragile, delicate, like dry twigs I could crush with the slightest pressure.

  I smelled her.

  The scent of wild grass and flowers had vanished. The fragrance of "Mother" was gone.

  Replaced by a sharp, sour, and sickening odor.

  The smell of ammonia and iron. The smell of someone who had lost control of their body out of sheer panic. The stench of defeat.

  I heard her pulse.

  It was beating in her veins madly. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Like a caged bird beating its wings against an iron cage.

  I hoisted her up with one hand.

  She rose into the air like an empty ragdoll. I heard the rattling of her breaths as she tried to suppress a scream.

  I brought my face close to her ear, and her trembling, hot breaths lashed against me.

  I whispered, my voice blending with Pandora's laughing voice in my mind:

  "Return to your sanctuary... and never leave it."

  "But I swear to you... one day I will come, and I will burn everything your eyes can see of what you call a homeland."

  I tightened my grip for a final moment, savoring the creak of her bones groaning under the pressure, then...

  I threw her.

  I felt her weight leave my hand, and heard the sound of her body hitting the damp earth far from me, and the sound of her rolling among the corpses.

  I wiped my hand on my clothes, as if wiping away the impurity of her touch.

  Then I walked back to my army.

  My steps were steady, and blood covered my path.

  Leaving the gods for another day. And leaving the traitor to the hell of fear and waiting.

  "On that night... beneath the sky of Nippon enshrouded by darkness, people thought that Oda Nobunaga—the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven—had been resurrected from his ashes to burn the world once more... But the thunder was not a harbinger of destruction, rather it was the birth cry of the Third Unifier; The Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa."