A Beautiful Nightmare

“As you wish, Lord Shingen.” Her dulcet voice reflected the meek expression on her perfect oval face, eyes cast downward while she held her bow - forehead nearly touching the tatami mat.  Around her, Lord Shingen’s top council were shocked, stern faces enraged at her sudden dismissal.  It had only been a week since they were able to breach the city walls and overtake the city.  Seven days since Lady Blue’s amazing defeat of the Sun Samurai.  Why then, would he send her away?

Although the braziers burned with their perfumed woods, the sweet stench of death and rot from outside permeated the castle walls and remained a morbid reminder of the past carnage – lingering in the stale air of the room.  Below, eta hauled away cartfuls of blackened and swollen bodies, to be buried in trenches miles away from the small town.  The streets were being swept, and buildings cleaned.  Shinto priests walked up and down, quietly praying or placing small paper ofuda on the buildings to purify and ward away the evil spirits. 

Blue’s exile was purely a formality.  Shingen’s decision had already been determined hours before, in his private chambers.


Snowy white robes accented her long blue hair, bound in the traditionally style for women.  Blue knelt in front of Lord Shingen with the tanto laid horizontally on the mat, in front of her knees.  She had finished binding her legs together with a long piece of crimson silk.  Silently she picked up the weapon, and removed the blade from its oiled sheath.  Sweat poured off the lord as he watched her turn the blade, aiming the wicket point at the hollow of her neck.  Blue’s expression was impassive, her eyes looking at the floor.  With slender fingers wrapped around the tanto handle, the kunoichi drew the blade back for the killing stroke.

“WAIT!” Shingen called out, holding up his hand.  “Wait.” He moved forward and took the tanto from her hands, tossing it away from her in horror and shock.  His hand roughly caressed her silken cheek as he forcefully tilted her chin so that he could gaze into her eyes.

It always chilled him - those large violet eyes, devoid of any human emotion.  They were empty, lacking any indication of the horror that she had committed just days ago.  “Lord?  I do not understand?” she asked him questioningly, eyebrows furrowed.

He released her and stood up, turning his back on her while he looked outside his window and to the mountains beyond the gates. 

As much as he loathed this woman….this demon, it was by his hand that she had committed the crime.  He remembered her words as he stood in the courtyard, littered with decaying corpses.  An entire city laid to waste, poisoned by contaminated well water.  Wearing the armor of samurai, her face grimy as if on the battlefield, Blue had knelt on one knee, her head bowed low while presenting him with the bundori.  It was freshly washed and mounted head of Akeno Kikuchi, the Sun Samurai and the last resistance to the Onnotangu clan.  She said quietly, “My lord, I am your blade and I do your bidding.  By my hands, please reap the rewards of your victory.”

It was made to look like Kikuchi had died in battle.  Only Blue and Shingen knew otherwise.  When the city had fallen, Kikuchi had spent three days in a forgotten dungeon being meticulously tortured.  The girl had extracted every piece of information that she possibly could out of him before finally ending his life.  She bowed before what remained of his lifeless body, reciting a prayer for the fallen warrior.  Around her, bits of organ, tissue and broken bone littered the nearby tables.  Blue was very good at what she did, and also very good at keeping people alive while breaking their minds and bodies.  It was a job that no one in their right mind would wish to see.  Any trace of her undertaking was burned and cleansed; a heinous crime meticulously erased by the delicate hands of a skilled kunoichi.

When she later told Shingen the details of it, he had waved his hand in disgust.  “I don’t want to know what you did.  Just give me the information.” 

Since the fall of the town, Shingen had not slept.  Bodies of innocents, including women and children, hauled away so indecently, tormented his dreams.  He could feel her violet eyes looking at him, devoid of emotion.  “I am your blade.” He could hear her soft, melodic voice.  It echoed his guilt for the orders he had given.  Whenever he gazed at her hauntingly beautiful face, it was now a cruel reminder of the sins that she had committed for him.  She had to die. 

Yet as she knelt behind him in her white robes, he could not let her do it.  Turning from the window, he walked over to her.  He knelt in front of her with his mind made up, words spoken slowly and deliberately as he put together his next plan.  “You will go to Lord Kita of the Ookuma clan.  He and I were once very close friends, and I owe him much when I was a younger man.  You will be a gift to him to repay the debt that I owe.  Blue…” he said, cupping his hand under her chin and lifting her face so that he could watch her eyes again, “when you leave beyond these walls, your commitments to me are dissolved.  You will go to Lord Kita now, and your duties will be to him.”

“Hai, my lord.” She nodded.  He examined her eyes once again for any, trace of guilt or remorse.  He desperately needed and wanted to have her feel the pain and the shame that he was feeling.  There was nothing.  The blank, emotionless stare she returned sent chills down his spine.  It was a reminder, a constant reminder that she was not human. 

Shingen wrote a detailed note to Kita, and handed it to her.  His hand brushed against her cool skin and he shivered.  She was so soft.  He had to send her away tonight.  Must send her away, his mind thought.  But his body….

“Come here.” He said before closing and locking the chamber doors.  They were made from thick solid wood.  Grabbing her hand, he suddenly pulled her towards the bed, roughly throwing her onto the mattress in a heap of silk and hair.  The thick, reinforced walls prevented anyone from hearing her screams.  He was careful though, not to leave marks on her face and neck for anyone to see.

Now, he watched her kneel before his court accepting the orders of her banishment.  The thick folds of her elaborate kimono made her look like a beautiful, exotic orchid, despite the darker colors.  It had been a gift from him the previous year, and when she wore it, he could almost feel the gazes of the people around as they, just like he, were captivated by such radiant beauty. 

She knew that it was his favorite outfit on her, and she had never looked so beautiful as she did now, rising to her feet with such slow, deliberate grace that he almost sighed out loud in wonderment.  He knew that beneath the silk, her skin was bruised, swollen and cut from his night with her.  What he could not see in her eyes, he beat into her body.  His rage, his frustration, his guilt - brutally marked upon her skin.  Her screams of pain and agony etched into his mind, driving his sex as he violated her, hoping that his final, violent release would free him from the nightmares.  Yet despite her wounds, she showed no trace of any of it here in his hall.  Damn her.

She averted her eyes, backing away with the small shuffling steps of a lady that could make even the finest geisha seem like a clumsy girl.  She bowed one last time, before leaving the court.  “Sayonara, Lord Shingen.”

In the first hour of the dragon, with the sun just warming the earth, he watched through his window as two samurai carried her palanquin between their horses.  A small shuriken with a skillfully etched tiger and dragon rested in the palm of his leathery hand.  Her horse, another gift that he had given to her, followed behind, carrying packs of kimono, gifts, and the letter. 

A moment before they reached the gate entrance, she pulled aside the curtain and looked up. Her violet eyes continued to gaze directly at him while the guards fumbled with the heavy wooden barricades.  When they passed through, she closed the curtain.

“Farewell, beautiful nightmare.” He said, clenching the shuriken so tightly that blood welled out from between his fingers.

As he watched her disappear into the mountains, he could still feel her lips pressed against his skin.