Yamashiro Province

The sparks from the flames that were consuming the only bridge leading into the grounds of the Byodo temple shot high into the morning air, illuminating the slight puffs of fog that crept across the ground. In front of the temple, on the small island on which it stood, white banners packed together as archers and foot-soldiers clustered; the entire Minamoto force, even though it was dwarfed by the Taira, bristled with enough points to put a herd of porcupines to shame.

Tomomori cursed under his breath. It was a disadvantaged position to begin with. Either they were forced across the bridge and mowed down, or they were forced into the water and mowed down. It looked like there was no longer any choice but the second. That old man sure knew how to defend a position.

The Taira's red flags flapped in the wind behind the three nobles leading their force, and the archers drew their bows. Horses paced, snorting. They knew what was coming just as well as Tomomori did.

The fourth son of the Taira clenched his sword hilt, readying. It would be any second now.

With a final flourish of smoke and sparks, the remaining half of the bridge snapped loudly and careened into the river.

The tall young man at the head of the army drew his blade, pushing it forward and making it glint against the sunlight.

"My name is Ashikaga no Tadatsuna, and in the name of my lord Taira no Ason Kiyomori, Grand Chancellor of the Realm to whom I have pledged my undying fealty, and in that of the Emperor, Amaterasu in the flesh, I will destroy you! Men, charge!"

What seemed like a thousand horses began to break into a full run, their hooves pounding on the packed dirt, and with them, a thousand warriors' cries. The surcoats they wore over their armor caught the wind and ballooned out, making family crests wave like flags. Soon, the colorful plates decorating their bodies, the elaborate horned helmets and metal masks the samurai wore, maybe resembling a demon or a tengu or a warrior spirit, would become painted with the colors of the battlefield: dirt, grass, gore, and many unspeakable things. Tomomori had seen far too many young nobles ride into battle proudly, with the most elaborate armor and weapons money could buy, those that had been given a god's protection from some shrine or other so that no harm could come to the wearer, and had seen them come back from battle a pale corpse, their throats slit, their bodies opened, or perhaps missing their heads altogether, a cloth thrown over the cadaver's face to vainly disguise what all their comrades already knew. With the young Ashikaga at their lead, the knights on horseback pounded into the water, kicking up spray. A black rain of arrows loosed from the defending forces on the island, and those on the mainland returned fire.

The screams of horses and of men filled the air, as bodies splashed as deadweight into the water. The Minamoto were not budging, as they simply stood packed, swords out, cutting down the samurai who attempted to dive into their ranks.

It was not a battle they could keep going this way. Sooner or later, they would be overwhelmed. But they were losing far more men than they could afford to. It would be far better to circle around and rush from all sides.

The young warrior who was the commander, however, did not think that way. He was unhorsed, in the water up to neck height, holding his cloak up to his neck to block the arrows being fired at him from all directions.

That blasted fool, thought Tomomori. He's more concerned with his honor than his life.

There was a footsoldier breaking from the shore, ready to charge. The commander was pinned down. He could not devote a free hand to his weapon.

In a single fluid motion, Tomomori drew his bow from his back, drew, and cocked it. Five sen, wind to my back. Aim high.

The arrow that loosed flew true into the eye of the attacker, who fell instantly. But more were beginning to break from the pack defending the island. Surely they had recognized the commander, and the fact that he was alone.

Tomomori fired another arrow. Direct hit, four and a half sen. Heart.

They were coming faster than he could fire, though; at this rate, he couldn't hold him off forever. As he cocked another arrow, he heard a voice beside him.

"Big Brother, Lord Ashikaga is out there fighting all by himself...I don't know what I should do...I know we ought to rescue him, but I can't do it all by myself...please, if we let him die, I don't know how angry Father will be."

Why are you asking me that? Do you think I'm any more confident about it?

Unlike his younger siblings, he did not care what his father thought of him at all. But he knew, if he did not act like a hero at least for that moment, and he let a man who trusted him as a lieutenant die without raising a finger to help, it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Curse you, you damn old man. Curse you for goading us into a battle that did not need to happen, and curse you and your entire family for making yourselves martyrs even though you are rebelling against your own Emperor, Yorimasa, you backstabbing old snake.

"Men, charge!" Tomomori yelled, turning to the remainder of the army still behind them. "Our goal is to protect Lord Ashikaga! Let no Genji even touch him!"

The roar of approval that filled the samurai behind him told him that he had made the right decision. As one, they began to spur their horses onwards toward the river. As the remainder of the Taira forces collapsed, the Minamoto, in defense, began to charge into the water in return.

The two wild beasts finally met. The sound of metal making contact with itself, cutting deep into flesh with sickening crunches, filled the air. The smell of death filled the air. Blood was pounding in Tomomori's ears so hard he could hardly hear. The crimson cloak of the Commander was ahead. If he could only reach him...

Something strong suddenly grasped him and yanked him off his mount, and instantly he was in the water. The liquid filled his nose and mouth as he gasped for breath. He tried to struggle to the surface, but something was holding him down, no matter how hard he thrashed.

Then, suddenly it was gone, and he instantly stood up, gasping for air. His younger brother was in front of him, breathing heavily, water (or was it sweat?) slicking his hair and covering his face. His blade was wet, and as he looked down, Tomomori noticed the limp body of a Minamoto soldier lying face-down in the water, dark tendrils spreading out from it all around. The entire river was beginning to darken.

Shigehira's mouth was still wide, and he was struggling to hold his breath in. That would have been his first kill, Tomomori thought. It had happened to him once, too. All boys started as bright-eyed and wondrous, having heard of the great deeds of war heroes and wishing to be exactly as them...and then they took their first life, and they broke.

The commander was in front of him, the Taira warriors boxing him in. He slowly struggled to his feet. The water was waist-height here, and Tadatsuna could stand again. He moved slowly and weakly, however.

"My lord, please retreat!" Tomomori yelled.

Something out of the corner of his eye twitched. Somebody in the water? No, the Genji were all trapped on the island, and the only ones in the water were bodies. There could not be anyone still alive-

A glint of steel shot from the water. Tomomori could only turn around fast enough to see a wounded Minamoto soldier thrust his blade at the commander's throat. They all were completely off guard. Perhaps sapiently, or perhaps just out of instinct, Tadatsuna managed to get his sword up in enough time to block. The dagger fell from the hand of the wounded enemy as he fell to his rear in the water. He had a deep gash along his sword hand's shoulder; the muscle was most likely severed, and blood was openly spurting from it, and with it went the life that flowed through him. It was amazing he had even managed to move the shoulder at all. He would be dead soon, Tomomori knew. Nary a man had ever survived a wound of that degree; whenever it bled that way, they were good as finished.

Tadatsuna raised his blade, glinting in the sunlight. The enemy could not offer any resistance. Now, he would be finished. It would be the valiant thing to do, to let him die a brave warrior...

And then the young Ashikaga dropped his sword in the water and fell to his knees.

"What are you doing, Lord Ashikaga?" Shigehira yelled, barely audible over the din of war. "Kill him!"

The commander said nothing, only stared straight ahead with a vacant look. He had gone completely pale, even more lifeless than a corpse, it seemed. If he couldn't do it...Tomomori gritted his teeth and drew his sword. He didn't like killing any more than anyone else did, but this man would surely die anyways...

An arrow flew through the air, piercing the forehead of the Minamoto soldier, who fell limp into the water. Tomomori relaxed, even as arrows flew all around him and lines of knights in front of him crashed into each other on the island's shore. He wouldn't have to take another life after all.

He heard the second arrow whistle through the air before he saw it pierce into Ashikaga no Tadatsuna's back. His commander stiffened before coughing up blood, stumbling forward. As he struggled, another arrow flew and embedded itself in his neck, and the young Ashikaga fell alongside the Minamoto soldier, dead.

Tomomori and his brother whipped around, now at the ready. Was there a flank coming in? They couldn't have lost to the old devil here, not now that their forces were making it onto the island and toward the temple, where the Minamoto's pretender and the general were sequestered...

But the banners that emerged over the hills behind the Taira forces were not white but red, and at their lead, a flaxen-haired man, smiling wryly ever so slightly, carried his bow and blade, dragging a limp body beside him. "A Genji has infiltrated our midst!" Munemori roared so loudly it seemed that all of the Kinai could hear, throwing the corpse in front of him. "He has disguised himself as one of our men and cowardly slain Lord Ashikaga from behind! We will not forgive them for this! Men, charge their lines!"

Thousands more samurai drew their blades and rushed into battle, their horses' hooves kicking up dirt and spray. The Minamoto on the island, still holding, fired arrow after arrow, and their knights moved to meet the reinforcements, but there were just too many fresh men. The white-bannered line stretched and stretched before breaking, and the knights in red poured onto the island. It was finished, and all the two Taira brothers could do was watch from afar as the island was taken.

As Tomomori and Shigehira stood in the water, still lapping at their knees, the hooves of a horse splashed behind them. Their older brother, his bright red surcoat unsullied, came to a halt beside them. Shigehira sighed contently. Once again, Mune-nii had come to save him.

Munemori looked down at the body of Ashikaga no Tadatsuna in the water with an expression; Tomomori couldn't quite tell if it was pity or contempt.

"So that's what happens when you don't take the lead, is it?" Munemori asked. "You two would be better to be more attentive. Perhaps you could have saved him." He dropped the body he carried into the water at his two younger brothers' feet. "Then again, he would not have survived one more battle. The weak tend to die in the field. You don't want to end up like him, do you?" He paused before spurring his horse, and Tomomori's older brother took off toward his own army.

Shigehira was down on one knee, breathing rapidly, now trying to fight off the adrenaline of battle. For the first time, Tomomori felt the river water seeping into his greaves. It was cold, oddly so for the Kansai summer. He climbed onto the shore of the river where, in the distance, he could see the last of the Minamoto forces fighting with all they could to protect the door to the main hall of the temple.

As he sat, the sun drying his wet armor, the body of the man who his brother had said traitorously killed Tadatsuna floated up, depositing on the shore beside him. The surcoat, red, as all Taira troops' and affiliated families wore, was stretched in the sun; wet, but the family crest on its back was still fully visible. A dragon over a peony flower...the man was a member of the Kiryu clan. Tomomori sat perplexed. They were not a Taira branch family, but they carried a long-standing hatred for the Minamoto: once a long time ago, a Kiryu had been murdered in a drunken quarrel with a Minamoto, but as the killer was a member of the Four Noble Houses and the victim was from a minor clan, no justice was ever meted out, even though there was more than enough evidence proving the Minamoto did it. It was simply unfathomable a Kiryu would ever fight for the Minamoto, much less betray his lord and country to do so.

Tadatsuna's body was still in the river, the two arrows protruding from it; Tomomori stopped to take a look at it. The arrows were alternating quills of red and white...it was hard to tell a lot of the time, but many families colored their arrow quills differently. Taira were solid red. What was the Kiryus' colors? He had learned this long ago, as had most other noblemen, but as he had never figured he would use it, Tomomori had shoved it in a corner of his mind he had yet to locate. It could very well be the thin red and white striped design, but that just didn't seem right to him. He wracked his mind. Blue with a red stripe? Yellow, red halves? Neither of those fit in Tomomori's mind.

"Big Brother, is something bothering you?" Shigehira had made his way out of the water and sat down by his older brother.

Tomomori suddenly snapped back to attention. "Green and white. It's green and white."

"What's green and white?" Shigehira responded, confused.

"Oh, nothing," Tomomori answered. He didn't want to bother his innocent younger brother with this revelation, but something had become clear to him.

The arrow that killed Ashikaga no Tadatsuna was not a Kiryu one.

Outside, the Prince could hear the clashing of steel drawing closer and closer. It was over. He had expected this, but he was not at peace, rather, he had grown hasty. There was still things he needed to do. More to see, more to walk, more to live. But he knew that he couldn't. He was dead.

"My lord." The voice beside him had lost any indications that it came from the mouth of a man of over seventy years. It carried no shake, only cold, steely determination. "It is time for us to go."

Mochihito stood up slowly. His robe, white and blue, was pristine. Even the hem that trailed on the wooden floor was as the newfallen snow, untouched by any earthly grime. How ironic. How ironic that blood spattered everything outside: the fields, the river, everything was turned brown. But he, sequestered, was untouched.

"We are falling back to the farther chapel," Yorimasa announced. "Come quickly. My sons are buying us time."

Mochihito said nothing, but followed. He wondered, someday would someone, a poet or writer, put down these events, and the ones that were sure to follow, as text, and noble families read them to their children as if they were some sort of fairytale, the same as giants and fairies and tengu and all sorts of fantastical creatures, just as his parents had done to him long ago, when they read he and his brother stories of Yamato Takeru and Hikaru Genji and all the first emperors at their bedside, and Norihito would smile and go all starry-eyed, but Mochihito himself would wonder if those things actually happened so long ago...

His brother. As he followed the old man out the temple and onto the back of the horse outside, more and more memories came into his mind. The young boy who was so beautiful that he could easily pass for a princess, how he would sneak his way out of the palace, Mochihito following close behind, protesting that there were all sorts of dangers beyond the tall stone walls, Nori paying no mind and climbing them, his brother following close behind. How they managed to see the sunrise from outside the palace for the first time, how they cloaked themselves up, disguising themselves as peasant children, and wandered around the streets of the capital; as the Prince knew now, it was so dangerous, but that didn't even matter to his brother. Nori was always smiling, and Mochihito only remembered his younger brother smiling around him. Sure, they had other siblings, many brothers and sisters by many mothers; Nori wasn't even biologically his brother. But he didn't remember a single one else. Nori was special. He was never meant to be shut in the palace. He never should have been, but then their father abdicated and he was suddenly on the throne, and he was forced to marry, and have a child, and sit upon the throne, and be a puppet for Taira no Kiyomori. And then he was dead.

I ran away. I could have saved him, but I ran away.

He mounted the horse, saying nothing. The old man spurred the chestnut beast onwards, galloping toward the final building before the temple grounds gave way to woods. The noise was almost deafening. All around, screams, whistles of arrows, the sound of bodies dropping, echoed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw nothing but red: red blood, red armor, red banners. The Taira were almost on them, slashing at the outskirts of their party, but the samurai flanking the old Minamoto and the Prince fought them off. Still, more kept coming. As they reached the small chapel, the red-coated Heike were all around. There were no more white banners, no white crests, no more reinforcements to help.

The Minamoto samurai, Yorimasa's two sons at the helm, stopped their horses, forming a wall around their father and Mochihito. The two quickly unhorsed. "My lord, please come quickly-" the old general began, and then suddenly stopped. As he dropped to a knee, Mochihito noticed the arrow penetrating deep into Yorimasa's arm.

"Lord Yorimasa!" the Prince exclaimed, hastily dropping to steady the old man. In front of them, the red river of Taira surged, only being held back by the thin dam the Minamoto warriors had constructed. It would not be much longer.

The old Genji breathed out heavily. "It is over, my prince. You run. I can go on no more."

"But my lord, you cannot be left here! All of our men are protecting you and I!"

Without a response, and with the most effort Mochihito had ever produced, he grabbed the old man and pulled him hard into the chapel, crashing through the door. They landed in a heap. Outside, Yorimasa's sons and the other warriors had been dropped from their horses, pushed back farther from the door, but still they bravely fought, even with sweat dripping from their faces and wounds gushing red.

Mochihito attempted to pull the old man up to his feet. He didn't want to die. He was afraid of dying. He was going to live, and he was going to make sure the Minamoto general lived, no matter what. He placed the old man's arm over his shoulder, and began to walk forward. And then, all the weight suddenly left his body. When he looked back, the old man had let go, and was crumpled in a heap on the ground.

"My lord!" Mochihito cried. "Please, hurry!"

A weak smile crossed Yorimasa's face. "Sorry. I already told you that it's the end for me."

Outside, only Yorimasa's two sons remained to defend the doorway.

"Why...why don't you want to even try to live?" Mochihito exclaimed.

"Let me tell you something, you of few years." the old man sighed, coughing before proceeding. "When you have lived as long as I have, you do not fear death. It could take you at any moment, and you just have to accept it, because you can do nothing about it. But I...even as a warrior, a samurai, one who cheated death so many times...all my life have I served someone else. I lived, but it was not my own life. I was not a master of my own fate. I never wished to be a war hero. It was something I just became. But now, at least...I can die as I choose. And that makes me happier than you would know."

The story sounded familiar. Trapped, being forced into things you didn't want to do but had to do. Being a slave to someone with more power. Ironic. It was so ironic. His brother, in a crown and robe and seated on a throne, and he himself, had no more power over their own lives than the common peasant. No, maybe less. For all their hardship, they at least got to choose what they ate, what they grew, how they made their rent each month; the royal family did not even have that. They were nothing but shogi pieces for the ones with real power to play with as they pleased.

The old man struggled to his feet. In his hand, a short dagger glinted.

"Listen to me clearly, you Heike bastards!" Yorimasa cried, a look of anger and determination that you would never expect to see from a man of his age crossing his face. "You will never even lay a single hand upon me!" Then, he plunged the dagger into his stomach, smiled a painful smile, and dropped to his knees, and the Taira surged around him, hiding what was left of the Minamoto force, once hundreds strong, that guarded the temple.

Mochihito was running before he even realized what he was doing. He broke into the forest, the sunlight being hidden behind leaves, his feet pounding on the packed dirt. The old man had sacrificed himself to save someone else. Minamoto no Yorimasa had thought nothing of throwing his own life away so that someone else could live, unlike himself, who had just left his brother at the mercy of the many hungry beasts of the court. Once again, he was a coward, running away from suffering at the expense of another who did not deserve it.

I never got to tell Nori I was sorry. It's too late now.

Up ahead, light shone through the trees. It was dangerous, but as he reached the other side of the island, perhaps he could cross the river and get far away...

He stopped suddenly as the island terminated in a rocky cliff. It wasn't far, but the boulders on the shoreline sat gleaming sharp as blades, a thousand points ready to pierce whichever unlucky soul would meet the bottom.

A cold, unfeeling voice came from behind him. "My, my. I knew we were forgetting something."

A flaxen-haired man, smiling ever so bewitchingly slightly, was in front of him, the edge of his blade straight toward the Prince, hungry for the taste of human flesh. His surcoat was the color of blood. Mochihito's body went icy cold.

"That pretender the Genji tried to call the rightful heir? Pathetic. Of course, trying to defend against thousands with barely a thousand of your own is pathetic in its own right. The Scourge of the North was a bit too confident, isn't he? It was only because of my father that he got a good reputation, but then the ungrateful old man goes and stabs him in the back. Oh, well. He's dead now."

He didn't understand anything. Yorimasa never thought he could win. He had sacrificed himself for the greater good. That was always his plan, to give up his own life for the safety of his nephews. Those three...they would be the ones to save this land. Not Yorimasa, and not Mochihito himself. The Prince expected to die as well, but he had made it to the end of the island...almost managed to escape, and then...no one would stop him now. Not even Amaterasu herself.

Without warning, he dashed to the left, back towards the woods, and then, a searing pain caught the right of his face, so great he had to drop to his knees and stagger forward. He screamed, or at least he thought he screamed; it was faint and muffled...

It was only when he put his hand up to the right side of his head and it came back wet and sticky did he realize there wasn't anything there anymore.

The samurai stood over his prone body, smirking even more. "Going to run, are you, Your Highness? You really should have trained more. Sitting all day in a monastery isn't good for your stamina. By the way, I don't think you know who I am, which is a little sad, since I hoped you would...I guess not everyone's heard of the Wolf of the Heike?"

Mochihito, on the ground, felt a sudden chill and sense of dread. He had, in fact, heard that name. The Heike had a messenger of death among them, one that could not be beaten. One that would kill you with a thousand cuts, taking joy in your suffering. No one had ever met the Wolf in single combat and come back alive.

"Well, that would be me, Your Majesty. Taira no Munemori, at your service," the man announced, making a mocking bow.

It didn't matter. He had to run...

No sooner had he gotten back to his feet than another wave of pain struck the front of his face. He was sure he screamed again. His vision was starting to blur, but he could vaguely make out a flesh-colored piece of something on the ground...As his eyesight cleared for a second, he realized it was his nose. He was nauseous. The taste of metal was filling his mouth, and he tried to spit it out, but it kept coming no matter how hard he tried.

So much determination, and it was all useless.

At least he would see his brother soon. And then, he could say he was sorry.

There was a breeze. It was starting to pick up. Soon, leaves and dirt began to whirl around him, and then it made a wall, so thick he could barely even see the Taira in front of him. Then it stopped, and the island, the temple, and everyone around it was gone.

Am I dead?

He stood on an empty, flat plain of grass, with mountains in the distance. In front of him sat a small mud cottage. His wounds still smarted, but he could stand up and walk again. Tentatively, he edged toward the dwelling.

"Welcome!" a voice chirped. "So you're the one I ended up saving?"

He whirled around to see a rosy-haired, rosy-cheeked young girl, dressed in a shrine maiden's costume, standing before him. She looked too happy, unsettlingly so.

"Who are you?" the Prince groaned. "Where is this place?"

"Um, I'm not exactly sure," the girl mused. "It's somewhere far away."

"Is this heaven?"

"Nope!" came the plucky reply.

"So I'm in hell, then?"

"Nope!"

"Then what am I doing here?"

"You're alive." She sat down in the field, plucking a stalk of grass and chewing the end before making a disgusted face and spitting it out. "If you were dead, I wouldn't have bothered taking you out here. You would serve no purpose then."

"Purpose? Why did you even need me? And you still haven't even told me who or what you are."

"Oh! Right, yeah. Well, my name is Kofuku. But technically, I don't really have a name. I'm just one of many, and we all are so minor we don't have names of our own, so I chose one myself."

"Kofuku?" Why was this girl, who didn't seem old enough to live alone, saying she named herself after a god of all things? Something didn't seem right to Mochihito. "What are you?"

Suddenly, she was uncomfortably close. She smelled of strawberries, but after they had withered on the bush and become sickly sweet. "I'm a god. Specifically, I'm a god of despair, of poverty, stuff like that. I need you because you have lots and lots of it. We all need to eat, don't we?"

"Wait, I'm your food?" He was about to turn and run. This girl was crazy. He needed to get out of there, fast.

As he turned around, Kofuku was still in front of him. "This is how you repay my kindness? Don't even think about it. Maybe I don't want to keep you alive. Maybe I'll kill you, cut you open from head to foot. That would make you despair the most of all, right? And then I'll feast, and feast, and feast! So if you want to live, you're going to stay right here."

"I do. I want to live." Mochihito repeated the words without thinking.

"Well, don't be shy, come inside!" Kofuku cheered, doing a pirouette into the hut. "Sorry about the mess. I had no idea I'd be having a guest." Inside were a couple mats and things strewn about the floor; outside there was a firepit with a copper pot. "Guess I'll have to get food. I haven't done this for a long time..."

"By the way, there sure is a lot of despair in this country. Something big is coming," she chirped, pouring hot water from the pot into a porcelain cup and tossing a few leaves in. "It's all so yummy, but my sisters might be mad if I eat it all, so I'll settle for just you for now. I felt Hat-chan and Vana-chan's presence where you were, too. Two big gods fighting...I suppose this will be very, very interesting!"

Mochihito did not reply, though. He had already settled on the tatami mat and fallen into a deep sleep.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

We're taking a bit of a break from Yato's adventures (which we'll get to in the next chapter) to take a look at the first big battle of the Genpei War! And yes, all these people are real, and the events did happen sort of in this way, although not quite. To me, you can get away with a history lesson so long as you make it entertaining. Plus, I like writing historical fiction, and this is not the last we will see of these characters (except the dead ones, of course, but that's obvious).

If you're wondering what the delay was, that's because I've just entered college. I know, big deal, and lately I've been swamped with homework and having to get used to the schedule and time management. So while I figure it out, updates may be slow. I just do this for fun...unfortunately, I have to have higher priorities.

For a little bit of info:

Yamashiro Province is the old province of Japan that corresponds to Kyoto Prefecture. The Byodoin (the temple at which this chapter is set) is still standing today, and you can go visit it. It sits on an island in the Uji River in the city of Uji, Kyoto.

The colors of the Japanese flag actually come from the red and white flags of the Taira and Minamoto that were used during this war, as this is widely considered the formative event of the modern Japanese state.

Again, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you again soon!

-mrcmc888