“The one thing that separates man from beast is restraint. To control yourself from giving into your base desires. To practice discipline and honor despite being urged by temptation. For if we lose ourselves to the bloody and savage slaughter of our enemies, then we are no different than the beasts that roam these lands.”
With a grunt, you clear the last step of the winding stone staircase that leads to the shrine of your most hated enemy. You stand right under the large red beams of the torii gate, eyes squinting as you see the figure of a white-haired woman standing in the open clearing, as if awaiting your arrival.
Nakiri Ayame, the white and red oni, scourge of the East, and the woman who killed your wife. Your fists clench in anticipation as you feel your blood pumping in tandem with the rage that burned within you. Ayame gives you a smug grin, swaying about lazily as if wanting to welcome you.
“You’re finally here, Anon. I knew you would come. And now, without that vixen in the way, I can take what’s rightfully mine!” She cries out, almost in glee.
“I’m here for blood, and only blood,” you scowl. Ayame’s expression shifts from a smile into a grimace as she clicks her tongue at disappointment. You cross the border of the gate, entering into oni territory for what you believe to be the last time in your life.
“That bitch Fubuki should have never come between us. Me and you, we were destined rivals, meant to meet each other in the battlefield time and time again, to dance to the beat of battle, to hear the sweet singing of our metal. The excitement, adrenaline and heat of it all! This is what we’re meant to be doing, Anon!” She shouts at you as you approach her, her face once more lighting up with excitement as she recounts all the bouts you have done with her.
“I was fighting to protect my people from your wrath, and all you cared about was the thrill of the fight! I even thought that we could live in peace once I made a pact with your clan. Fubuki, my wife… I loved her. Why, Ayame? Why did you have to take her away from me?” You shout out, your words getting caught in your throat as your mind wanders back to the day you found your snow-white fox-wife lying bloodied on the ground, her ocean green eyes closed forever, and you would never be able to see her gentle smile any longer.
“Because she took you away from me! That vixen bitch was the one who whispered in your ear to make a pact with us, and we never battled ever again! I had to kill her!” She retorts, her face twisted in anger and anguish, but not as much as yours.
“Y-You demonic bitch! What is it that you want?! To torture me endlessly?” You cry out, actual tears starting to fall. Your hand trembles as you grip your beating chest.
“It’s you! You are the one I want! Only you can excite me so much in battle, to give me the thrill I so desperately crave! But I can see now that this will be the last time I ever get to do so.” She says somberly, as if understanding that only one of you would walk away alive from this.
“Then show me a good time!” She calls out to you, unsheathing her infamous twin swords. You draw your own blade, taking a deep breath as you attempt to calm yourself.
Calm down, Anon. Remember your training. Clear head, clear strikes.
Under the moonlit sky, nary a single creature makes a noise, perhaps in awe of the upcoming battle that was about to explode. Only the breeze blew by callously, uncaring for the two duelists that were preparing to fight to the death. A stray leaf or twig falls, rustling the undergrowth as it falls, and with that, the battle begins.
You raise your sword high and rush towards Ayame with as much speed as you could muster. Ayame just smirks at your seemingly direct attack, crossing her swords in front of her to meet your strike. However, you had anticipated this, and with only a hair’s breadth away from her own blades you swing your sword downwards, narrowly crashing against the metal. As quickly as you brought your blade down, you invert the momentum upwards, catching the lull in her guard as you complete your feinting strike.
Ayame’s eyes widen at your maneuver, and with unnatural speed brings down one of her blades to meet your strike. A loud clang rings across the courtyard as metal meets metal, the force of the blow causing sparks to fly at the point of impact. Now it was your turn to be caught by surprise, but the moment quickly passes as you remind yourself that she was no mere opponent. Nakiri Ayame was your rival ever since you picked up the blade, your bouts becoming more and more deadly with her until it reached its climax tonight, where only one can walk away.
“You better not be holding back!” Ayame sniggers at you as you leap back to a safe distance. She raises one sword high and one pointed low, a guard that protects her from almost every angle.
“I fully intend to kill you, Ayame,” You leer back at her with all the grief-stricken rage you could muster, letting your emotions feed you for a moment.
“Good! Then I won’t hold back either!” The red and white haired oni shifts her stance, tensing her muscles like a compressed spring. And like a spring, she bursts forth at you with blinding speed, her body whirling like a twister of death.
You do your best to guard and deflect her blows, but they come pounding in like a torrential river. A few strikes break through, nicking and gouging your body, but you weathered through the worst of the storm. Ayame herself comes to a stop and smirks at you seeing that you were worse for wear.
But you were a warrior, and not one to give in so easily. You shake off the countless cuts and bruises, going in for your combo of attacks. You thrust and slash with your blade, keenly aware that Ayame seems to be deflecting them off easier than you would like. But that was only part of your tactics, keeping up with your flurry of wide, erratic blows until you find the opportunity of her torso being undefended. You knew she kept her attention on your blade at all times, but you weren’t going to use your blade for this. You slash horizontally at her, which was easily blocked, but with the momentum you follow through with a spin, delivering a crushing kick right into her abdomen.
Ayame stumbles back a few steps as you land nimbly on your feet. She may have the advantage of two swords, but you utilized your whole body for offense.
“Good, good! This is exactly what I wanted! No rules, no holds barred, nothing to come between us! You feel it too, don’t you, Anon? How exciting, how exhilarating this all is!” She cheers out in manic glee. You just take your stance and raise your blade, resisting the urge to fall into the same bloodlust as the memories of your now dead wife floods your thoughts.
Ayame’s smile almost instantly turns into a scowl as she notices your stoic expression.
“You’re no fun at all, Anon.” She grumbles as her twin blades cross in front of her chest. With one hand raised, she casually walks up to you before bringing it down in a deadly arc. You use your own blade to deflect it, but her other sword comes thrusting up at you, and you nearly have your skull turned into a shish kebab had you not twisted your body in time. Ayame doesn’t let up with her slow, deliberate strikes and even though you evaded and blocked most of them, you could feel your hands ring and prick with the pain of exhaustion.
Fine then. If defense isn’t going to work, then we meet her with offense.
You change your stance to one of attack, weaving your strikes in between dodges and deflects, but Ayame counters every single one of them. Even as you try more unconventional strikes, the sheer strength of the oni manages to power through your blows, shrugging off a devastating elbow to her face.
She even lets go of one of her blades, catching you by surprise and before you knew it a bare fist was all you see before being sent flying into the ancient stone flooring. Stars erupt in your head as you try to recover from the blow, blinking multiple times to shake off the blooming pain in your face. You wipe your hand across your face, and see it smudged with bright red blood. Your nose was likely smashed in by that punch, and you dread to think what could have happened if it were her blades instead.
“I tire of this, Anon. We had so much fun before this, but now you bore me. I’ll let you in on a secret, I’ve been holding back all this time, just so that we could have as much fun as we can. But it seems like you don’t want that, so I’m forced to kill you just like I did to Fubuki.” Ayame tells you monotonously, as if you were a discarded plaything. You grit your teeth in rage at her uttering your wife’s name.
How dare she? You think to yourself. And yet, if she was indeed holding back all this time, how would you actually defeat her? Your mind races to find a solution, but all it was met with were dead ends upon dead ends. Were you really going to die here without avenging your wife?
In the last moments of your desperation, you reach into the folds of your clothes, pulling out what looked to be a small round object wrapped in brown paper. Pulling the twine binds, the wrapping papers unfurls to reveal a deep red pellet, almost black in colour. You gulp as you recall what this forbidden medicine was;
A beast blood pellet is made out of the coagulated blood of the wildest beasts of the land. One pellet can fuel you with enough beastly strength to take down a dozen men and more, but it will also drag you into the deepest pits of depravity, ever hungering for slaughter as you feed the endless maw of bloodlust.
Ripping apart the flesh of one's enemies and being rained up by their splattering blood invigorates one's sense of beasthood, feeding strength and euphoric feeling alike. Consuming this pellet means you consume your own humanity, so pray you never have to use this.
You shake away your own apprehensions and shove the ball of congealed blood into your mouth. It tastes as disgusting as you thought it would, the abhorrent taste of iron invading your whole mouth as you try to swallow it down. You just keep thinking of your wife, and how desperately you wished to see her again, no matter the cost, even if it was a futile cause.
At first the image of your wife still burned into your mind, her smile shining ever so brightly like you remembered. Tears erupt once more from your eyes, coursing down your face as your grief overwhelms you at the thought of never being able to see her, hold her close, to spend the rest of your life with her. You reach your hand out, as if to grab on to her ephemeral form, but the image of your wife melts into a puddle of blood as your vision grows red. Violent whispers of rage echo in your head, growing into a cacophony of hate as you are consumed by a single thought.
Kill, maim, burn! Rend, slaughter, devour your enemies!
A bloodcurdling war cry escapes your throat, more akin to the howl of a beast than a man. Your extended hand curls like a claw before you grab your sword, gripping the hilt so tightly your knuckles whiten. Your eyes dart all over the courtyard before locking on to your prey, Nakiri Ayame. She stands with swords up in a guarding stance, but worry and apprehension fills her face upon seeing your crazed expression.
You lunge, moving at blistering speed that you never knew you could reach. Even Ayame was caught off guard by your speed, barely able to raise her guard as you bring down your wrath upon her.
“What the hell, Anon? You didn’t tell me you had this trick up your sleeve!” She tries to jest, and had you been in a better state of mind, you would have caught the falter in her tone, noting the hesitation. But right now all you saw was a blaze of crimson, fully intent on ripping apart your opponent into countless, bloody pieces.
You rain down blow after blow upon the petite oni girl’s form. Your attacks were not perfect, not graceful nor completely accurate, but each one that did strike her was like getting hit by a charging rhino. If there were any spectators, it would seem like you were a wild beast rather than a trained warrior, a ball of pure, sinewy madness made into flesh. Somehow, even through all your terrible blows, Ayame manages to slip away from you with a quick kick to your abdomen, using your body as a springboard.
In the lull of the battle, Ayame tries to regain her breath, only able to hold one of her swords aloft, the other tossed aside thanks to your endless attacks. The two of you were breathing heavily, yet you didn’t feel tired. Blood still pumped through your veins, and as long as your muscles could still move, you weren’t going to stop.
“What the hell did you do, Anon? You’re more beast than man, is there not a shred of humanity left in you?” You growl back at her response, the only words that you could form belts out of your mouth,
“KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! RIP AND TEAR YOUR FLESH AND BONES!” Your mouth froths and slobbers with saliva as your words slur, your mind once again closed to every other thought other than the crimson red of slaughter. With another howl, you leap into the air, flipping forwards and tucking your body into a ball before striking downwards with a wicked blow boosted by your raw strength and gravity.
Even as Ayame raises her single blade to protect herself, the sheer power of your blow shatters both of your blades upon impact. But you push the offence, your now broken blade digging into her left shoulder as she screams out in pain, blood spraying out onto your face as you relish the rain of your enemy’s blood. She shoves you away as she puts her right hand to stem the bleeding, her sword clattering to the floor where a puddle of her blood was quickly growing.
You glance at your own broken blade, tossing it aside now that it was useless. Suddenly, you feel multiple pangs of pain erupt all over your body, as you clutch your chest, feeling it tighten up. The pain must finally be kicking in, you thought to yourself. But you weren’t done yet. Not until you bathe in her blood, and paint the whole courtyard red. Looking up at your bloodied opponent, you see the same crazed fires burning in her eyes, her bloodlust finally taking over after all the terrible wounds she suffered.
The two of you roar like animals as you run towards each other, your fist being driven into her gut while her elbow smashes right into your nose. She doesn’t let up, following up with another uppercut into your chin and before your body could even hit the ground she brings both of her arms down on your back, slamming you into the ground.
You grit your teeth through the pain and quickly roll to the side, as her foot comes down to where your head once was, crunching into the stone flooring. Pushing yourself up, you lunge at Ayame from your lowered position, crashing your shoulder into her torso as the two of you tumble onto the ground.
With Ayame’s body being straddled underneath, you lay vicious blows down on her. She tries to raise her hands to block you, but with each punch, elbow and slam it eventually breaks, exposing the prime target of her face. Grabbing her by one of the horns, you repeatedly smash your fist into her face, first breaking her nose as blood once more erupts all over her face. Then her lips split, the red now mixing with the purple of her bruising face as you don’t let up for a single moment.
“DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!” You shout with every punch that lands on her once pretty features. You pull her head up by her horn and slam your fist once more down on her, the horn actually breaking from the force of the blow. Her head slams back into the ground with a sickening crunch, unable to do anything but twitch and spasm.
You could do it. You could kill this bitch and avenge your wife. Your… wife? Would she be proud to see you like this, breaking the pact you had promised to uphold, giving yourself to your base desires to kill, all for the sake of “revenge”? But it was too late by now. You swore to kill Ayame, and if she didn’t kill you, the rest of her clan would. You wrap your hands around her neck, feeling how fragile and thin it was and start clamping down.
It would have been a perfect end to the night of your hunt, bathed in the blood of your enemy as her body lies limp, but your chest tightens in excruciating pain, to the point where blood even spews from your mouth. Your vision becomes hazy, and strength starts to leave your body. Was the beast blood pellet finally wearing off? Were all the wounds you suffered finally catching up to you? Was death coming in to claim its due? You double over in pain; more blood being vomited out of your body.
Perhaps this was your punishment for breaching all the trust that was built up on you. To be so close to your goal, holding it right in your hands, but never being able to actually achieve it. To have tossed every part of your honor and see it crumble at the end. With the last of your strength, you look skywards at the full moon, letting loose a mournful wail that echoes all over the empty courtyard.
As you fall over and black replaces the red in your eyes, you think to yourself,
At least you could see your wife again.