Chapter 387 - 384 ~ Yoshimura’s last stand

Chapter 387: Chapter 384 ~ Yoshimura’s last stand

The vice-patriarch drew his sword. The leader did not move from the place he had planted his feet; he held his dagger up, and the smile had not left his face. For one second they disappeared, and the next, they were in the middle of the clearing, clashed together.

The first three exchanges made their advantages clear. The elder was physically stronger; the younger was faster, but right now that strength was fading. The vice-patriarch led with his right; the leader answered with his left. They knew each other so well that the fight was almost a conversation, and for those three exchanges neither of them bled.

Then the poison in the leader’s blood began to do its work, and the elder brother felt a pain sharper than before. He felt it first in the hand that held the dagger; the grip weakened, and he corrected it, but his hand would not stop shaking.

The vice patriarch saw. He attacked and managed to cut him, driving the leader down to one knee on the ground.

The vice-patriarch followed with a second strike, but the leader stepped back, and the blade cut only air and falling leaves.

The vice-patriarch stood over him, the point of his sword at his brother’s throat.

"You should have killed me on the road, brother, when you had me down for a moment. But you were too busy guarding her. Now the poison’s done its work; you don’t have the power left to beat me."

"That is what a father does with his last strength; he gives it to his child. You would never understand that. You have never been a father or kind enough a man to know what a sacrifice is."

"Your sacrifice will not amount to much. I will find her, and I will end her quickly; it is the least I can do for you.

The leader looked up at him, huffing. He still had one breath left in him, and he meant to use it.

"When the clan elders ask, I will fool them and tell them the Karasu did it," the vice-patriarch said. "And once they believe it, I will collect what the Karasu owe. Their deaths will pay for my parents’."

"It will not buy you everlasting peace," the leader said. "Even if you burn the Karasu to ash, another clan will rise where they stood, and you will chase it the same way that is all your wound knows how to do. It will not let you rest."

"Then I will keep burning them," the vice patriarch said. "One clan at a time, forever if I must."

The words hung in the frozen air. There was nothing left to say to a man who was already dead.

"Now shut up and die already, brother."

The leader, on his knees, was still holding his dagger. He was losing strength fast, but the hand did not loosen. He thought, "I need to keep him here for a little longer."

They clashed again.

Far away from the battle

Hoki ran until her legs gave out beneath her, heavy with the last of the poison, watching the trees behind her.

Her father’s words caught up to her only then: "Run west, do not stop, do not look back."

The trees were changing. They were thicker here, taller than any she had known, their trunks like walls, and on both sides the ground climbed into mountains that shut out the sky. She had never known the forest went this deep.

The wall of hanging vines was on her before she saw it. She crashed through into the dark and fell into something vast and warm that gave a little under her weight.

It was fur.

She froze. The fur did not move. A voice came out of the dark.

"Brat. This is my territory."

In front of a beast this size, she forgot how to speak. The nine-tailed fox opened his eyes.

"Looks like you are too scared to move," the fox said. "Do not worry; I do not eat people. That is a rumor I keep, because it keeps people away. Unless I find them irritating."

It was the flat refusal to eat her that finally told her she was safe. The knot in her chest let go, and she breathed out for the first time since the path.

"You have one minute to scram, kid."

She tried to back up and stopped. The way she had come led back to the smoke and the blades; her father must be dead too, or he would be here soon. The only way left was forward.

"Well? Get out."

"Please," she said, and the word came out small, the first thing her voice had managed in this place. "My uncle is trying to kill me. My father tried to stop him, but he is poisoned. Please help me. I have nowhere to go."

"I do not care what you are running from."

"Then let me stay. Just until it passes. I will leave first thing in the morning. Please."

He grumbled. "You are a bother. A small, frightened, bothersome child." He closed his eyes. "Do not touch my tails. Do not make noise. Do not thank me. And do not expect me to save you from anything. I am sheltering you because it is less trouble than listening to you cry."

She was safe here, though she did not know why yet: not because the fox had chosen her, but because nothing in the forest would come near her.

Back to the meeting place

The Karasu leader had waited at the bend in the river until the sun was past its peak, and still no Yoshimura had come. He turned to his men. "Let us go and check. The Yoshimura may be my enemy, but he is a man of his word and he is never late. My cousin is not here either. I am having a bad feeling."

He was not a man to ignore omens. He left his post and followed the road east, where the path narrowed.

He found the ambush site. A dozen bodies lay strewn across the frozen ground in the pattern of a fight that had ended badly for everyone who took part: his cousin, the vice-leader, among them, throat cut, his sword in the ground beside him; the Yoshimura escort in a heap nearby, dead where they had fallen; and the air thick with the stink of poison, though it did not touch him where he stood.

"So it was a setup," the Karasu leader said flatly. He turned his vice leader’s body over with the toe of his boot. "Just as I thought my cousin was in on it. And I can smell the poison from air."

He counted the dead, then searched them again. He found no body of the Yoshimura leader among them. Someone had escaped.

"Maybe Kageyama Yoshimura is still alive," the Karasu leader said. "If I reach him before his attacker does, his whole clan will owe me, and he always pays his debts. So we will ask a big reward for his rescue."

One of his men nodded. "If the leader still lives, he owes us everything."

There were escape marks: a trail leading west into the thickest part of the forest, broken branches, and dragged and heavy feet. The Yoshimura Leader was alive, and he was running.

The Karasu leader turned to his men. "I think I know who is behind this. Kageyama Yoshimura called for the truce; he would not break it himself. But his brother... I hate that guy. And I don’t trust him a bit."

"The peace talks are over," he told his men. He glanced back at the trail leading west into the dark. "From now on we keep ready for an ambush. We do not know how many he commands or where, but we will track where that trail leads.

Back to the fighting

They clashed again, and this time blood sprayed across the ground. The elder brother’s dagger dropped from his hand.

The younger brother stood over him, the point of his sword at the leader’s throat. "You fought well, brother."

"Just kill me," the leader said.

The vice-patriarch sheathed his sword, bent and picked the dagger up by the blade, the edge cutting into his palm, and flipped it once so the hilt came to rest in his hand. He drove it forward into the leader’s gut.

The leader went still. He did not cry out. He looked down at the hilt of his own knife protruding from his stomach, then up at his brother, and he smiled. He died thinking of her running west, alive.

He fell, and the ground beneath him turned red. He did not close his eyes. He was still smiling.

The vice-patriarch stood over him, his brother’s blood hot on his hand. For a long moment he did not move. "What the hell are you smiling about?"

He could not bear to see his brother’s smile any longer or waste any more time. He turned to follow the trail that led west into the forest.

The trail was not hard to follow; broken branches and trampled leaves marked it, and past the clearing where the drag marks ended, the girl’s own tracks ran on small, light, and made alone.

"Found you," the vice patriarch said and followed her.

The trail ended. He stopped. He felt it before he saw it, the weight of something breathing slow and deep below the threshold of sound, a presence pressing against the skin of his face.

He took a step closer, then another, and his hand went to his sword hilt.

Behind a humongous vertical rock, the nine-tailed fox lay with his eyes closed and his tails spread across the valley on the other side. He was not asleep; he was listening. He had heard the Vice-Patriarch’s footsteps a hundred paces away.

The Vice-Patriarch’s face went pale. He had heard the stories of the fox that lived in the deep places, but he had never believed them. He believed them now. He looked at the size of the creature, the depth of its breathing, the casual indifference of a predator so far above him that killing him would not even register as effort.

The fox opened one eye and stared at him.

A/N:

Please leave a review on WN if you liked the story and support me on P@treon. Your support keeps the story going.

Thank you.

MrDragneel, Some guy, Dalton Harris, darklord413, Cain, Marco, Hugh Jass, Toyo, Dat1gnome, R3vo, Zach Moss, El Gordo, Nova Gamer555, David Jenkins, Carlos Barker, Zee B., Zarassa van Cresh, Vernan Stapleton, Zelmanyr, Kenji Neyra, Cash, Codesavage, Auzzo, McCallister Wilson, Timothy cordelle, Mason Erickson, Eymi Lopez, ?????? ????????, Vernan Stapleton, Monkey D. Murda

for supporting me on P@treon.

You can also support me via Gpay: pjpageturner@okaxis

Latest Chapter on P@treon: Chapter 404 ~ Not Found

A few free Chapters are available for everyone to read on p@treon. com/PageTurnerPJ.

Your support is what gets this story going, so please like, share and review the story and add it to your library.

Free gift card for premium Chapters for those who read the full author’s note: /PageTurnerPJ/redeem/AFE9D

Just give a review if you use the gift link