Lord Oda's Revenge by Nick Lake

contrived to place himself as far as possible from Hayao. He couldn’t bear the sight of those wasted, once handsome features, nor could he stand to be near the pale woman no one else could see. The woman never once looked at him – he didn’t think she was aware of anyone but Hayao. But her very impossible presence was awful.
    He noticed, though, that Hana curled up to sleep closest to Hayao, and that rat inside him started to chew again, and he clenched his fists.
You’re being crazy,
he told himself.
The man’s sick – she’s just concerned for him.
    All the same, he found it impossible to sleep.

CHAPTER 6
    The mountains near Mount Fuji
    Three months earlier
    Y UKIKO PULLED THE cloak tighter around her, shivering. She didn’t like these high places, with their thin, cold air. There was something mean about them, something cruel and remorseless, that reminded her of swords, arrows, bullets – those pitiless instruments of death, those sharpened pieces of cold metal.
    Yukiko was an instrument of death too, but she did not think of herself as cruel – she was passionate, rather, fuelled by fury and revenge. She was a living thing, hot-blooded, a hawk, not a blade. She belonged down in the warm, striving, fighting. Not in this inhuman coldness. She felt that the cold wanted nothing more than to creep into her veins and still them, and she cursed Kira for leading her here.
    Trudging up the path, she rounded a corner and saw smoke ahead, coming from a hut. She was glad – for the warmth it promised, and for what it meant. Months now she’d been tracking Kenji Kira. Then, finally, the breakthrough – he’d written to Lord Oda, saying that Taro’s mother was at a monastery on Mount Fuji, Taro no doubt with her, and that he was riding there without delay to kill them. This despite the fact that Mount Fuji was over the border, in Lord Tokugawa’s province.
    Impetuous fool.
    Yukiko knew Taro was not at Mount Fuji, knew also that Kira would kill Taro’s mother without thinking through the consequences. She had set out for Mount Fuji herself, hoping to stay his hand. Yet when she arrived – or rather, when she drew near, for the samurai massed in the region prevented her from getting too close – she found that the monastery had already been destroyed by Lord Tokugawa’s army. The rumour was that the monks had defied him one too many times.
    She knew that Kira would have turned back, would not have risked capture by Lord Tokugawa’s troops. And so she had hunted for him, chasing gossip and horse-trails farther and farther into the mountains.
    And finally, here she was, at this little hut. The question was – what was Kira doing here? There could be no strategic value in holing up in the high places like this. She ducked behind a tree, as a samurai wearing the Oda
mon
stepped out from the hut, stretching in the pale light.
    Well, she was about to find out.
    She stepped out, keeping her hood up as she approached the man.
    â€˜I’m looking for Kenji Kira,’ she said as he looked up, startled.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜I’m looking for Kenji Kira.’ She could be patient. It was something she’d learned about herself, these past months.
    The samurai grabbed her arm, peered at her face. ‘What are you doing all the way up here?’ he asked. ‘Pretty girl like you.’
    Yukiko sighed. ‘I’m looking for Kenji Kira.’
    â€˜So you say,’ said the man. ‘He isn’t here, as it happens.’ He kicked the door open with his heel and dragged her inside. She let herself be dragged – there was no point giving herself away.But she could feel the steel against her side where her sword was strapped.
    Inside the hut, three other samurai turned to look at her. They were rough men, with uncut beards, missing teeth, and scarred faces. Battle-hardened men, violent men, used to doing Kira’s dark