Chapter 37: The One Who Touched the Ryu

  (Perspective of Ieyasu)

  After that day... I prepared for the final battle. I had to achieve mastery of Pandora's ultimate technique. The technique that kills an entity in the realm of the Gods. Every laugh that passed my ears, every life that died by my hands, all the blood that stained my hands... all of it was fuel for that moment. The moment I mastered it, and it took my soul with it.

  I thought time would cool my burning heart. But... did my heart cool? Or did I just forget? I forgot the tone of the "Voice of Kindness". I forgot the hoarse voice of the Frog. I forgot the sound of loyalty. Nothing remained but the "Voice of Coldness". However... my soul remembered. Even if it was faint, it still remembered that night.

  Years passed as I tried to understand. I reached the age of the "Voice of Kindness", then grew older than him. And I still do not understand... why did he do that? Is it because he is kind? And why did tenderness betray me? Is it because tenderness always comes with betrayal?

  My sword, Pandora, was still laughing in my hand, burning with the same malice. Until finally... after many years, I mastered it. But for some reason... I remained seated. My revenge, my main course, was right in front of me... but I did not move. I do not want to go there.

  Did time really cool my heart? Or is the old "Kindness" trying to save what is left of my heart as it flies like a bird in a sky I cannot see? I do not know. But I waited for an answer.

  Until finally it came... the Oni. I did not hear a demon in his footsteps. I heard "Sorrow". I heard a "Sin" greater than his soul. And the "Red Voice" that flows from me... was overflowing from him as well. But his voice was not anger at the world... it was anger at himself. That voice... made me remember. It reminded me of the path I had chosen. And this path had to end.

  I touched the dirt of the sacred sanctuary once more. I gripped my sword, and I cut down the Gods. Their screams filled my ears. As they burned and screamed: "Why?! Why?!" I myself had forgotten "why", so how could I answer you?

  But I heard an old voice I had forgotten. The sound of tenderness. She was singing. I remembered that song. She used to sing it to me while I slept. When I heard her voice screaming at me and asking me why... I knew she was the Traitor. And the time has come to pay the price, you Traitor.

  "Ieyasu-kun..." Why do you call me by that name I forgot long ago? In the time of the weak blind boy, you used to call me by that name. I heard the sound of her body falling to the ground, then trying to stand up. "Ieyasu-kun..." Why are you still trying to stand? What are you trying to say to me?

  She stood. And said with a voice dripping with blood and regret: "Ieyasu-kun... I am sorry." Then... she died.

  Why did you apologize? Why didn't you die as a traitor? Why did you decide to die as a mother? Do you think that if you came apologizing I would forgive you after all this time? If... If you had come that night apologizing... I would have forgiven you from the very first heartbeat you emitted. Why did you choose, with your death... to apologize?

  I will not apologize. I have no regrets. I forgot you a long time ago. To me, you became nothing but a mission that had to be completed.

  I returned to my throne. And I sat. I had just killed a goddess. I had just killed the one I called "Mama" a long time ago. But my heart is cold. And my soul is dying after killing that goddess. I failed in following the path of revenge, because it did not grant me peace.

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  Knock... knock... Knocks on the door of my throne. A man who was my world in an ancient time. A man I called out to with a voice of longing in a time when I was an empty, blind boy. It was the Ryu.

  "What brings the Ryu to my home?" I asked coldly. He said in a hoarse voice: "The Oni is dead. I killed him." I replied: "I know. For I see what a sighted person cannot see."

  I felt his eyes looking at my dead eyes, those eyes that a woman I just killed had said were beautiful. The Ryu said: "That is enough, Ieyasu. Your revenge no longer has meaning. Everyone who killed Matsudaira is dead." I stood up slowly, and said in a whispering voice: "I wonder... was his name Matsudaira?" "Follow me, you who yearns."

  In a minute, we arrived at a strange place. A field of flowers. A place the woman who gave birth to me had described: "There is nothing more beautiful than these flowers... except the child in my womb." I wish I could hear those words that my father spoke. The Ryu was there, waiting.

  I said: "Do you still think I cannot become a Ryu?" ...... I raised my sword, Pandora, and said: "Ryu... what do you think of a final duel for a man on the brink of death?" He unsheathed his sword, and I heard the sound of pure metal singing. I raised my sword, readied myself, and said: "Ryu... is the view beautiful right now?"

  He was silent for a moment, then said with a voice carrying the weight of centuries of pain and boredom: "It is a blessing that you were born blind... so that you do not see the ugliness of this world." I smiled: "Strange... I always imagine the world as beautiful."

  Then... we moved. Or rather, he moved. To a sighted person, perhaps it would have been seen as a flash. As for me... the blind man... I did not hear a sound. There was no fwsh, no sound of a foot scraping the ground. The air suddenly vanished from in front of me. The movement of his body created a terrifying "Vacuum", a miniature black hole that swallowed sound and wind. The air pressure changed in a fraction of a second, pressing against my eardrum like a silent scream. I knew he was coming. Not because I heard him, but because the world became "Incomplete" because of him.

  Fwsh. He reached me. I felt the coldness of his blade pierce my chest before I felt the pain. It was a clean, perfect, and swift strike, to the point that my blood did not realize it was supposed to flow. I felt my skin tearing, my bones cracking. There were many cuts, as numerous as the wheat in a farmer's cart. And my warm blood painted my ears and my chest.

  A sighted person would have blinked from the flash of the sword. A sighted person would have retreated in fear of the image of the Dragon coming toward them. As for me... I did not see the Dragon. And I did not see the sword. I only saw the "Intent". I saw his bare soul approaching me.

  And in the exact moment his sword was tearing my flesh, my hand was moving on its own. I did not strike where the "Sound" was, but I struck where the "Vacuum" was. I struck the coordinates he would occupy a fraction of a second later. I moved the blade of Pandora along a trajectory only a blind man could see.

  Chk. A faint sound, and a delicious resistance against my blade as it cut through something solid and alive. Then I heard the sound that no one had heard in a thousand years. The sound of a drop of blood falling to the ground... not from my body.

  I fell on my back. My body hit the hard ground, and I felt the flowers crush under my weight. I opened my eyes wide. My eyes, whose color I do not know, dead and blind. I directed them toward the sky I cannot see. I smiled, blood filling my mouth.

  The Ryu walked, swaying slightly, until he reached me. I heard the sound of his hand touching his wound in astonishment, and the sound of his erratic breathing. He said in a faint voice, carrying a tone I had never heard before: "You are the first person... to make me bleed in a thousand years."

  I smiled wider, blood streaming down my neck: "What an honor, Ryu... but unfortunately, I do not see this honor, I only hear it." He stood over me, his sword still drawn, his shadow covering my face. "Will you complete your revenge? Or shall I kill you here and now?"

  I laughed with a hoarse voice, and coughed up blood. "Ryu... it seems the blind man gave you more credit than you deserved." I raised my trembling hand, and pointed my finger toward the blue void above us. "Sit down, Dragon..." "And look at the beauty of the sky... not its ugliness." "I see it as beautiful... so why don't you?"

  He remained standing for a moment, then I heard the sound of his sword returning to its scabbard. Click. And I heard the sound of him sitting beside me, on the grass.