Yatagarasu Series
Volume 9:
The Raven's Loyalty
Author: Abe Chisato
Prologue
A head flew off.
That wasn’t a metaphor. A human head literally flew off and shot through the air like a ball thrown at high speed. Blood spurted like a waterfall. The stench of it stung my nose.
Screams rose from all around as the headless body collapsed.
This unexpectedly violent event occurred just after a young priest had come to the temple to offer formal greetings to me. The other priests who had escorted him stared blankly at the corpse as if they didn’t understand what had happened. The head rolled away from me, leaving streaks of blood on the dry ground.
I was stunned. It was the first time I’d witnessed such an atrocity. I was still a boy and had never seen a Yatagarasu die before. I couldn’t believe that the well-spoken man who’d come to meet me was now dead. It felt like a cruel joke.
I did not show my shock to others because I knew this was not allowed. I was keenly aware that my every move was being watched by everyone around me.
“Rokon… why?” I asked my bodyguard as sweat dripped down my back. My voice threatened to break, but I kept it steady by force of will.
Rokon stood over the dead man, a naked blade in his hand. He laughed. “Why? He was plotting against you, Prince Natsuka.” He said this nonchalantly, as if he murdered for Natsuka every day.
But he didn’t. This was the first time, wasn’t it?
Rokon was intimidatingly huge, so tall that the top of his head would touch the ceiling if he stood on the tips of his toes. His thick black hair was messily tied back. His eyes shone with keen intelligence. His hawk-like nose and sharp canines made him look like a fierce predator. His absurdly long sword was clean. He had beheaded the man so quickly that there was no blood or tissue on the blade anywhere.
My bodyguard approached the headless man and kicked him over so that he lay with his back on the ground. The movement shifted a concealed blade in the man’s sleeve: a dagger without a sheath.
“See?” Rokon asked. “He meant to kill you.”
I did not trust myself to speak.
Rokon shrugged and then rolled his eyes. “Look. This is gonna happen again. It’s going to happen a lot. There are people who want to kill you, Prince Natsuka. Do you understand? You should learn to sense danger around you.”
I blinked and looked up at him. Perhaps he could tell when people wanted to kill me, but I certainly couldn’t. How had Rokon known this man’s intent?
Rokon raised his thick, bushy eyebrows. “Never mind. You’ll learn from experience, like everyone else does.” He stepped over the body onto the blood-soaked rice mat flooring, coming closer to me. “You’re all right now, see?” He smiled faintly. He reached out, using one red sleeve to wipe a splash of blood from my cheek.
“It hurts to be killed,” I said, “but it doesn’t seem like killing hurts at all.” The smell of blood hung in the air, cloying and overwhelming. I wanted to throw up.
Rokon turned a dazzling smile on me.
It was hard to believe that Rokon was a Yatagarasu. He seemed more like a wild beast—an untamed, violent animal. He terrified me. From that day on, he frightened me more than anything else in the world.
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