Steam

The night belongs to men such as me.

Even in the darkness, I can see. I see… steam rising from the blood pooling under a body at my feet. An official who died quickly — a single upward slsh to open his throat, well before he ever stood a chance of calling for help. His eyes remain wide, fixed. I stare at them, but they do not stare back. Imprisoned by a penultimate moment of recognition. Hitokiri! No! Neck swipe.

I swing my blade to get the droplets off and clean the rest on the corner of his expensive haori, resheathing it in a single motion. The Satsuma steel whispers as it returns to its scabbard. It’s a sound I find more familiar than my heartbeat. My name is Tanaka Shinbei, though few know it. In Edo, they do not speak of me. Whispers, if they mention my name at all. I rarely sneeze. I am the shadow from Satsuma; least known of the four who have earned this title from the masses. “Hitokiri.” Man-cutter. Man-slayer; in these dying days of the Shogunate, with the Tokugawas on the backfoot.

Each of us who carry swords carry their own burdens. Gensai-dono, the most skilled among us, kills with a precision that leaves no room to question its artistry. They say his victims often die before realizing they’ve ever been harmed. Toshiaki-dono, my Satsuma brother, strikes fear even in those who share his cause. And Izō-dono from Tosa is a man driven by demons. I recognize the shadow that inhabits him but do not name it.

Unlike the other three though, I leave no witnesses. In that way, I am different. No stories will persist where I’ve been. A blade that strikes from nowhere; name all but forgotten by record-keeping officials. This is my strength.

The paper lanterns along the street sway in the breeze as I melt into the shadows. Kyoto in 1864 is a city divided against itself. The Emperor’s loyalists plot in teahouses while the Shogun’s men patrol the streets. Foreign ships filled with barbarians crowd Nagasaki and Yokohama harbors, bringing with them indecencies more dangerous than any sword. Tomorrow, men in silk robes will debate what to do about the foreigners, about the future of our nation. Tonight, I simplified those debates by removing an entirely unnecessary and foolhardy voice. The safe house is three streets away… in a district where samurai rarely venture without purpose. I move without haste, another figure in the night. My clothing is plain, my swords are unremarkable. In these times, a man with two swords is commonplace. What matters is only how he chooses to use them.

“Is it done?” A voice, from the darkness of the entryway, before I have fully slid the door closed.

“Yes,” I confirm, stepping into the dim light of a single oily, sputtering lamp.

Saigō-dono sits cross-legged on the tatami, his massive frame seeming too large for the modest room. Even sitting, he dominates any indoor space. A man with the presence to lead our domain in rebellion. He nods his approval soberly.

“Complications?”

“No,” I kneel and place my swords beside me. “He may have died believing it was a common robbery.”

Saigō-dono grunts and sips from a dish. “Good. The last thing we need to give the Aizu is another martyr.” He pushes a cup toward me and fills it with sake. “Drink. You’ve earned it.”

The rice wine burns going down, washing away that metallic taste in my mouth that always seemed to linger persistently after a kill. It frustrates me that I never know if it’s real or imagined, that taste of copper on my tongue.

“What news of Gensai-dono?” I ask, setting down the empty cup.

“He’s been assigned a target in Edo. A scholar who proudly espouses embracing Western ways,” with a sneer, his lip remaining slightly curled afterward, “These intellectuals will be the death of Japan if we allow them free reign.”

I say nothing. It isn’t my place to question targets, only to service them. The politics of sonnō jōi are for men like Saigō-dono to debate. Men like me are simply instruments of their will.

And yet, as I sit in this small room with the saké warming my blood, I can’t help but wonder… what will become of men like us when the fighting ends? If it ever ends? We four hitokiri — will history remember us? And if so, as what? Heroes? Murderers? Assassins, or villains? Or will we fade into shadow as I have lived all my life? Names forgotten, even as our deeds shape a nation?

Gensai-dono, with his surgeon’s precision. Toshiaki-dono, with his battlefield glory. Izō-dono, with his raw, untamed power. And me, Shinbei, the darkness of Satsuma.

We are the hidden blades of revolution, cutting away the old, to make room for the new. But what happens to the blade when the cutting is done? Is it smelted back to ore, and made anew? Or discarded, now that its usefulness has ceased?

“Get some rest,” Saigō-dono tells me, interrupting my thoughts. “Tomorrow we meet with representatives from Chōshū. And next week…” He pauses, eyes calculating. “Next week… I may need you to visit Osaka.”

I bow my head in acknowledgment. One more target. One more night like this one.

Outside, the first hints of dawn are beginning to alleviate the obscurity in the East. Soon, the streets will fill with merchants and laborers. Then I will become invisible in a different way. The life of a hitokiri is measured in nights; in the spaces between breaths. When a blade meets flesh, it must be done without honour. I am not a butcher, but I butcher. We do not speak of “honour” as other samurai do. If it exists at all, we see it in the perfection of our craft, and our devotion to our cause.

They call me Shinbei. Least known of the four hitokiri of the Bakumatsu. And that is precisely how I have survived this long.