I could hear it reaching out to me, groaning and swiping at empty air. I managed to dodge its clumsy attempt and snatched up my ikupasuy. I centered my attack on the source of the creature’s moan. I struck quickly, and the crack vibrated up through my arms. The creature fell back upon the earth as I released a triumphant shout of “Ten Thousand Years!”
It is difficult for me to describe my feelings at this moment. Fury had exploded within my heart, a strength and courage that drove away my shame as the sun drives the night from heaven. I suddenly knew the gods had favored me. The bear hadn’t been sent to kill me, it had been sent to warn me. I didn’t understand the reason right then, but I knew I had to survive until the day when that reason was finally revealed.
And that is what I did for the next few months: I survived. I mentally divided the Hiddaka range into a series of several hundred chi-tai. Each chi-tai contained some object of physical security-a tree or tall, flat rock-some place I could sleep in peace without the danger of immediate attack. I slept always during the day, and only traveled, foraged, or hunted at night. I did not know if the beasts depended on their sight as much as human beings, but I wasn’t going to give them even the most infinitesimal advantage.
Losing my vision had also prepared me for the act of ever-vigilant mobility. Those with sight have a tendency to take walking for granted; how else could they trip over something they’ve clearly seen? The fault lies not in the eyes, but in the mind, a lazy thought process spoiled by a lifetime of optic nerve dependency. Not so for those like me. I already had to be on guard for potential danger, to be focused, alert, and “watching my step,” so to speak. Simply adding one more threat was no bother at all. Every time I walked, it was for no longer than several hundred paces. I would halt, listen to and smell the wind, perhaps even press my ear to the ground. This method never failed me. I was never surprised, never caught off guard.
Was there ever a problem with long-range detection, not being able to see an attacker several miles away?
My nocturnal activity would have prevented the use of healthy eyesight, and any beast several kilometers away was no more a threat to me than I was to it. There was no need to be on my guard until they entered what you might call my “circle of sensory security,” the maximum range of my ears, nose, fingertips, and feet. On the best of days, when the conditions were right and Haya-ji was in a helpful mood, that circle extended as far as half a kilometer. On the worst of days, that range might drop to no more than thirty, possibly fifteen paces. These incidents were infrequent at best, occurring if I had done something to truly anger the kami, although I can’t possibly imagine what that would be. The beasts were a great help as well, always being courteous enough to warn me before attacking.
That howling alarm that ignites the moment they detect prey would not only alert me to the presence of an attacking creature, but even to the direction, range, and exact position of the attack. I would hear that moan wafting across the hills and fields and know that, in perhaps half an hour or so, one of the living dead would be paying me a visit. In instances such as these I would halt, then patiently prepare myself for the attack. I would unclasp my pack, stretch my limbs, sometimes just find a place to sit quietly and meditate. I always knew when they were getting close enough to strike. I always took the time to bow and thank them for being so courteous to warn me. I almost felt sorry for the poor mindless filth, to come all this way, slowly and methodically, only to end their journey with a split skull or severed neck.
Did you always kill your enemy on the first strike?
Always.
[He gestures with an imaginary ikupasuy.]
Thrust forward, never swing. At first I would aim for the base of the neck. Later, as my skills grew with time and experience, I learned to strike here …
[He places his hand horizontally against the indentation between the forehead and nose.]
It was a little harder than simple decapitation, all that thick tough bone, but it did serve to destroy the brain, as opposed to decapitation where the Living head would always require a secondary blow.
What about multiple attackers? Was that more of a problem?
Yes, in the beginning. As their numbers swelled, I began to find myself increasingly surrounded. Those early battles were… “untidy.” I must admit, I allowed my emotions to rule my hand. I was the typhoon, not the lightning bolt. During one melee at “Tokachi-dake,” I dispatched forty-one in as many minutes. I was washing bodily fluids from my clothes for a fortnight. Later, as I began to exercise more tactical creativity, I allowed the gods to join me on the battlefield. I would lead groups of beasts to the base of a tall rock, where I would crush their skulls from above. I might even find a rock that allowed them to climb up after me, not all at once, you understand, one by one, so I could knock them back into the jagged outcroppings below. I was sure to thank the spirit of each rock, or cliff, or waterfall that carried them over thousand-meter drops. This last incident was not something I cared to make a habit of. It was a long and arduous climb to retrieve the body.
You went after the corpse?
To burry it. I couldn’t just leave it there, desecrating the stream. It would not have been… “proper.”
Did you retrieve all the bodies?
Everry last one. That time, after Tokachi-dake, I dug for three days. The heads I always separated; most of the time I just burned them, but at Tokachi-dake, I threw them into the volcanic crater where Oyamatsumi’s rage could purge their stench. I did not completely understand why I committed these acts. It just felt correct, to separate the source of the evil.
The answer came to me on the eve of my second winter in exile. This would be my last night in the branches of a tall tree. Once the snow fell, I would return to the cave where I had spent the previous winter. I had just settled in comfortably, watting for dawn’s warmth to lull me to sleep, when I heard the sound of footsteps, too quick and energetic to be a beast. Haya-ji had decided to be favorable that night. He brought the smell of what could only be a human being. I had come to realize that the living dead were surprisingly bereft of odor. Yes, there was the subtle hint of decomposition, stronger, perhaps, if the body had been turned for some time, or if chewed flesh had pushed through its bowels and collected in a rotting heap in its undergarments. Other than this, though, the living dead possessed what I refer to as a “scentless stink.” They produced no sweat, no urine, or conventional feces. They did not even carry the bacteria within their stomach or teeth that, in living humans, would have fouled their breath. None of this was true of the two-legged animal rapidly approaching my position. His breath, his body, his clothes, all had clearly not been washed for some time.
It was still dark so he did not notice me. I could tell that his path would take him directly underneath the limbs of my tree. I crouched slowly, quietly. I wasn’t sure if he was hostile, insane, or even recently bitten. I was taking no chances.
[At this point, Kondo chimes in.]
KONDO: He was on me before I knew it. My sword went flying, my feet collapsed from under me.
TOMONAGA: I landed between his shoulder blades, not hard enough to do any permanent damage, but enough to knock the wind out of his slight, malnourished frame.
KONDO: He had me on my stomach, my face in the dirt, the blade of his shovel-thing pressed tightly against the back of my neck.
TOMONAGA: I told him to lie still, that I would kill him it he moved.