They were dragged through stone hallway after stone hallway. Kairi's knees were scraped raw from the rough rock, and she left a trail of red behind her. Open wounds on her back flowed from when they had beaten her, and a gash on the side of her head filled her right ear with blood.

She felt none of it.

Her brother was alive.

The impossibility of it all swirled around in her mind. How? How is it possible? We saw his body--we burned it! Yet here he is, just as alive as I am. How? Is this some kind of magic?

She flitted her eyes to the side, where he was being dragged alongside her. He looked older than she remembered him, and there was a new sadness in his eyes, something that was almost never there before. Back then, it was always either the kindness of a smile, the humor of a joke, or the determination of a fight that she saw when she looked at him. Now, there was a weariness--a hopelessness--that could only be in the eyes of a man who had seen too much.

It pained her to see him in this state. His head was bowed to the ground, and his eyes were closed. Blood dripped from his nose onto the stone floor. His breaths were quick and ragged, and she heard a wetness in them that scared her.

She shifted her eyes again to the other side, where her other companion was being dragged. Benjiro. His posture was the exact opposite of her brother's. His head was up, and he stared forward with a fierce determination. There was no hopelessness in his eyes; just a fire, eternally burning in hatred for his captors. The blood that framed his face didn't make him look defeated, as it did to Tatsuoki. It made him look... dangerous, almost.

"Where are we going?" he asked suddenly, his voice hoarse.

"Silence," the guard holding him hissed.

"No, he has a right to know," the one holding Kairi said in a mock-friendly tone. He was the one who had held the knife to her throat, and she recognized him now. Niiro. "We are taking you to In'ei, of course. It is he who will decide your fate."

In'ei. Kairi had once almost relished the thought of meeting the man who had stolen her clan from her grasp. She had imagined herself strolling into his presence and challenging him to a duel to the death. She had thought with glee of the moment when she would cut him down, making him pay for all the suffering that he had caused. She had never imagined that she would be coming to meet him like this; weaponless, bleeding and battered, being dragged along by his guards like some kind of common criminal.

"What will he do to us?" Tatsuoki asked quietly, his voice laden with the same hopelessness she had seen in his eyes.

"That remains to be seen," Niiro answered. "You and Benjiro were simply pawns, used to bring Kairi to us. I imagine that your deaths will be quick and painless." Niiro turned his eyes to Kairi, and she swallowed. "For you, however, Saito-dono..." he said, softly and mockingly. "You were the daimyo's main target this entire time. I can promise you that your death will be very drawn out and painful."

She swallowed again, but lifted her chin and set her jaw, trying desperately not to show any fear. That will not happen, she told herself. Takaoka and his men will find us and free us.

As if echoing her thoughts, a resounding boom shook the floor of the fortress. "The rebels have attacked," the guard holding Tatsuoki said, a hint of fear whispering through his otherwise calm tone.

"That does not matter," Niiro said, waving a hand dismissively. "They will not reach the interior of this fortress."

Kairi inhaled nervously, a sliver of doubt growing in her mind. What if they aren't able to rescue us? What if the plan fails?

Then... we die.

It suddenly hit her that that might be the case. The plan might fail. Takaoka might be overrun. And if that was the case...

This could possibly be one of her last hours on this earth.

Did that thought frighten her? She couldn't quite tell. She had faced death before--she had hung on the gallows of her own execution! She recalled how she had felt at that moment, walking through the streets towards the place where she was to be hanged. At first, she had felt panicked, but then a strange calm had washed over her. She had been ready to die.

Now... she didn't know how she felt. Was she still ready to die? She didn't know. She just felt numb. Death is still not certain, she told herself. Takaoka may still succeed. You have underestimated him before.

She stopped being dragged so abruptly that she almost fell forward onto her face. She righted herself and found herself staring at a shoji, plain and simple. The black new emblem--the black circle with the white arrow in the middle--was printed clearly on the doorway. Her heart burned at the sight of it, and a single thought popped into her head suddenly and vibrantly:

If I go down today, In'ei comes with me.

Niiro kicked at her back. "Stand up, baka."

She clenched her teeth, but slowly attempted to rise to her feet.

And then the pain hit.

It came as a sudden wave, consuming her senses completely with its white-hot passion. She fell to her knees, crying out at its intensity. In her mind, she begged it to stop, but it just laughed at her, licking at her flesh like a hot flame.

"I said," Niiro hissed, "STAND UP!"

He kicked her again, and she fell flat on her face. Her vision blurred, and the world spun around her. She could hear people talking, someone yelling--Benjiro?--but she couldn't make out the words.

Then strong arms grabbed her and lifted her up, and she found herself being carried into the room. Before she could take in her surroundings, however, she was thrown back to the floor, and the pain flared up all over again.

And then there was a voice, coming seemingly from nowhere and everywhere at the same time."So," it said, "this is the famous Saito Kairi and her companions."

The voice was low, soft, and mocking, and Kairi had the feeling that she had heard it before, though she couldn't pinpoint where. She lifted her head slowly, wincing slightly at the pain that came along with it, and tried to locate the source of the voice. She spotted a figure in front of her, whose face and body was completely hidden by shadow. In'ei.

"I have waited for this day for a long time," he continued.

"Who are you, and why do you lust for our blood?" Benjiro hissed, his voice low and dangerous.

In'ei gave a short chuckle. "Ah, Iwashita Benjiro. A most... interesting specimen. Tell me, does your friend Saito know anything about your dark past?"

Kairi quickly glanced at Benjiro, alarm in her eyes. He took a deep breath, and she knew that In'ei's question had bothered him. He didn't answer, but the look in his eyes said enough.

"She doesn't?" In'ei said in mock surprise. "And why not? Do you not trust her enough yet? Or... are you just fond of keeping secrets?"

Benjiro looked at her, and there was apology clear on his face. He spoke to In'ei without turning his head, his gaze fixed upon her the entire time. "It was because I wanted to forget, and speaking it out loud would make it real again."

"Are you sure?" In'ei said quietly. "Or are you perhaps hiding something?"

"Enough with your games," Kairi said suddenly and sharply. The confidence in her own voice surprised her. "Come into the light. I want to see the face of the one who robbed me of my clan, and I want to deal justice upon him."

He laughed shortly. "You think that you, bloodied and battered with no weapon upon you, could take me down? Me, the one who has cut down thousands of enemies without suffering a single scratch? Me, the one who was practically Oda Nobunaga's right-hand man? Please, tell me how you plan to do this."

She gritted her teeth together so hard that her jaw hurt. She hated his cocky attitude, his mocking tone, and everything else about him. She abhorred the very ground he walked on. This man had taken everything away from her, and now he just stood there mocking her. "I will tear you apart with my bare hands," she growled. "I will rip your limbs from your body, and at the end of it all, I will snap your neck. I will kill you without honor, for you have already robbed me of all the honor I once had. Then maybe you will have suffered through as much pain as you have caused." She stopped and took a deep breath. "Now come into the light."

And then he did.

His chest was the first thing to be exposed, and she noticed the strangeness of his garments. It was the sort of thing that one would wear when one was getting married, except it was torn in multiple places and soaked with blood. There was a clan emblem on the sleeve, but it was smeared with dirt and crimson, so she couldn't tell what it was.

And then his face was exposed.

She immediately knew that she had seen it before, but she could not recall where. She searched through her brain, pulling out all the memories she could find, but his face was not in any of them. Yet she knew that she had seen him before, somewhere.

"Do you recognize me, Saito?" he asked, and his voice had grown soft. "Do you know me, Kairi-chan?"

And suddenly, the way he said her name brought a memory to the surface of her mind: a man--this man--standing in a hallway waiting for her and then speaking to her. "You look beautiful, Kairi-chan."

It was followed by the memory of her standing up next to this man while a monk read words over them, then of them walking down an aisle, and then... of him being shot by an arrow.

She knew who he was.

"Maeda Toshinaga."

The words felt heavy coming out of her mouth, and even as she said them, part of her did not believe them. In'ei, the one who had caused her so much suffering and hardship, who had taken her clan from her, was none other than the man she had once been betrothed to.

Married to, she corrected herself. You were married. For about five minutes.

He clapped in mock happiness. "She remembers!" he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "She remembers now, ages and ages after the wedding; ages and ages after she promised my parents that she would find me but never even bothered to look!"

She was speechless for a moment; was that the only reason behind everything that he had done? "I believed you dead," she said once she had regained her voice. "Everyone did."

"And did you mourn?" he asked quietly.

She drew in a breath. The truth was, she hadn't had time to mourn; she had been called into battle not long after he had been declared dead. Then her father had died, and her whole adventure began. Toshinaga had been pushed to the far recesses of her memory.

He took her silence as an answer and continued speaking. "But believe it or not, that was not the reason for everything I did to you. There was more driving me than just revenge. In fact, I had this all planned out even before the wedding!" He laughed to himself. "You see, Oda Nobunaga had already begun his conquest of the smaller clans. I knew that it was only a matter of time before the Maeda clan was next in line and that he would take no prisoners, especially not those from the daimyo's family. So I went to him first. I offered him help, not only in taking down the other clans but taking down my own. I had no love for my clan. It had only ever brought me harm. He agreed to take me in, and he gave me a mission. He wanted me to overthrow the Saito clan, and promised power and riches if I did my job. So I began to plan. I knew I could not defeat the Saito clan through arms alone, so I started scheming.

"The wedding was a ruse, just a way to get you and your family in one place so I could kill all of you. I made it look like they were after me, when in reality, you were the real target. I even let myself get shot." He scowled. "But my archer--my hired assassin--grew afraid. He ran before he finished the job--tried to save himself, I suppose. He was executed afterward, of course." He said this last sentence with the air of one commenting on the previous day's weather. Kairi's stomach clenched in anger.

"So then the plan changed. We decided to take a less direct approach. I hired Niiro, he lured you out of the city... You know what happened next."

Kairi's hands shook with anger.

"I controlled the Saito clan. However, this was not enough for Oda. He wanted you dead. And now..." he spread his arms wide, indicating the scene before him. "Here we are."

She looked up at him, eyes burning like hot coals. "You're a baka. All you are is Oda's little puppet, waiting to do whatever he bids you to do and hoping that he gives you some reward for it."

"Oda Nobunaga is dead," he said coldly and fiercely.

The room fell silent.

Kairi's heart was the only noise she could hear.

"What?" she finally managed to say.

"Oda is dead," he said again. "Magoichi Saika killed him. I am nobody's puppet, Saito Kairi."

With those words, he rushed forward, and before she could even react, his katana was buried to the hilt in Tatsuoki's chest.

Kairi screamed, but it sounded oddly far away. Her heart was leaping out of her chest, threatening to crack her rib cage and spill out onto the stone floor. She jerked towards her brother, trying desperately to escape Niiro's grasp, but he held her fast.

Toshinaga yanked the katana out of her brother's chest, and he collapsed to the floor, coughing up blood.

Quicker than she could follow, he moved to the other side of the room, and his katana was suddenly at Benjiro's throat. "I am nobody's puppet," he said again.

Kairi was suddenly hit with the truth.

We're all going to die.

Then, to her surprise, Toshinaga lowered his katana and motioned to Niiro to let her go. As soon as she felt his hands leave her skin, she stood and raced over to where Tatsuoki lay on the ground in a pool of his own blood. She no longer felt the cuts on her skin from where she had been tortured; those were minor wounds compared to the rift that was opening inside her. She knelt down beside her brother, who had been seemingly brought back from the dead but was now dying once again.

She hurriedly pulled apart his kimono, tearing at the coarse fabric. Her eyes were met with an assault of red blood, which left no piece of skin uncovered. The wound itself was gaping red, and she could see immediately that this was not a wound that could be recovered from. Tatsuoki was going to die--again.

She laid over him, not even caring about the blood that got on her kimono. What did it matter? Her brother was dying. There was no denying that.

"Imouto..." He coughed again, blood dribbling down his chin.

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. "What is it, ani?" she asked, trying not to choke on her tears.

He lifted his head slightly, gesturing to the left-hand pocket of his kimono. She reached inside and pulled out a small piece of parchment, on which words had been hastily scrawled. "Read it..." he whispered. "Let me hear it... one last time..."

She tried her best to read the characters on the paper through her tears. Her hands shook, and she read: "Watashi wa fukkatsu to jinseidesu. Watashi o shinjiru hito wa, tatoe karera ga shindemo, ikirudeshou."

The meaning of the words rang loud and clear in her mind. I am the resurrection and the life. He believes in me will live, even though he dies.

"Kore o oboete... remember this, imouto..."

He gave a shuddering breath. "No!" Kairi screamed, desperation clawing up inside her. "No, I can't lose you again! I just found you! I can't lose you! I won't survive without you!"

He gave a small smile. "You already have, imouto... you already have..."

"But I can't do it again!" she cried.

"Just remember the words... Always..." He coughed again, and the whole room filled with the sounds of his shallow breathing. He looked up into the sky, and peace consumed his eyes. Taking one final breath, he whispered, "Watashi wa fukkatsu... to jinseidesu... Watashi o shinjiro hito wa... tatoe karera ga shindemo... ikirudeshou..."

He exhaled one last time and was gone.

Before Kairi had found out that her brother was alive again, she had always wished that she had been there when he had committed seppuku. She thought that maybe she would have been able to help him win the battle, or at least convince him not to take his own life. She had often daydreamed about what she would have said to him in that moment, and how she would have changed what happened.

But now... now, there was nothing she could do.

He was gone.

The numbness returned, even stronger than when she had found out that he was alive. This was a different kind of numbness: not one of relief, but simply of deadness. She felt nothing; not the hands that eventually came to drag her away from her brother's dead body, not the cold of the stone on her legs, not even Benjiro's reassuring embrace. It was all... nothing.

She lost track of time. Darkness embraced her vision, calling out to her, and for a while, she let it in. She forgot where she was or why she was there. She forgot her name; her past; everything about herself besides the fact that she had an older brother who was now dead. That one thought filled her existence, replacing everything that she had lost.

Eventually, the darkness fled, and everything came back to her. But it left something in its place: the burning hot fire of rage. It consumed her just as the darkness had, but much more completely. All she felt was anger towards the man who had just killed her brother; who had sliced him down like he was nothing. Multiple times, she lashed out at him, and multiple times she was stopped by a group of samurai who seemed to appear out of nowhere. But she kept trying. She didn't care if they hurt her. All she cared about was hurting him.

Hours later--or days later, or minutes later, or seconds later; she couldn't tell--a messenger ran into the room. He was winded and covered in blood, though Kairi could tell that it was not his own. He stopped for only a second to catch his breath, then began speaking. "Kakka, our armies have successfully defeated Saito-dono's rebels. Everyone is either dead or imprisoned."

Air rushed from Kairi's lungs, and hope fled from inside her. That was it. Their only hope of rescue had been cut down. All their friends were either dead or rotting in a jail cell.

"Excellent," Toshinaga said, and Kairi's chest burned once again with deep hatred. "What of their general? Dead or captured?"

"General Takaoka was captured, Kakka, and is awaiting you in the dungeons."

"Perfect," Toshinaga breathed quietly.

He turned his head and looked at Niiro, arching his eyebrows. Niiro understood whatever message he was trying to convey and kicked at Kairi's back. "Get up," he hissed.

She reluctantly stood, her eyes staying on Toshinaga the entire time with a glare that could melt through metal. "If you touch him," she growled, "I will tear you apart, and no amount of restraint will be able to stop me."

He said nothing, just lifted an eyebrow and smirked. Niiro shoved her forward, and she began walking against her will, following Toshinaga. Benjiro walked silently behind her, never saying a word.

Kairi knew the path to the dungeons by heart. She had already walked it once today--or had that been today? She didn't know--and she had walked it multiple times before, when she had actually been the leader of this clan. She barely even noticed where her feet were taking her, and the walk seemed so much shorter than when they had been going in the opposite direction. Maybe it was because this time, she didn't care anymore.

They stepped through the doorway to the dungeons one after the other; Toshinaga first, then Kairi and Niiro, then Benjiro and his escort. As they walked down the stone hallway, she saw many familiar faces--people that she had worked with when they had been in the camp, or even people that she had grown up with. They all gasped or bowed their heads as they saw her pass. She hated it. I don't need your pity, she wanted to say to them. But she kept silent.

"Saito-dono, what have they done to you?"

Takaoka's voice was soft and kind, and it felt out of place in the harshness of the dungeon. Kairi slowly turned her head to look at him and was pained by what she saw. He was covered in blood from the battle, most of it his own. There was a long gash running down the right side of his face and over his eye, sealing it shut. And--her stomach clenched at the sight of this--all of his left arm below the elbow was gone.

Toshinaga did this. This is all because of him. That was the first coherent thought that entered into her head. She whirled around as fast as she could, aiming her fist at his head. He was faster, however, catching it in his hand and twisting it. "Enough," he hissed.

"Saito-dono..." Takaoka's kind voice came again. "Revenge is not the answer. It never will be."

His words pained her because that was exactly the sort of thing that her brother would have said.

"So, how does it feel, old man," Toshinaga said softly and deviously, "to know that whatever remnant of the old Saito clan that was left was wiped from the pages of history?"

Takaoka stiffened, and Kairi could tell that this very thing had been on his mind. He was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I feel proud that I got to be a part of it, even for a short while."

"But what does that matter now?" Toshinaga said. "Now that you are locked away, doomed to die in a cage forever? Would it not have been better to have... gone with everything that had happened? Would it not have been better to have accepted the change in leadership and moved on with your life?"

"I regret nothing that I did," Takaoka said, and his soft, kind tone was gone, replaced by hardness. "And there is still hope. Our true daimyo still lives."

Toshinaga's face contorted in rage, and before Kairi knew what was happening, she felt the blade of a katana stab into her chest.

Pain consumed her, its white hot tendrils once again spreading over her skin. This Pain, however, was even worse than the Pain of torture. This... this was the Pain of Death. It swallowed her in its agony and tried to drag her down into its pit. She was vaguely aware of someone screaming, yelling her name--what was her name? She didn't know anymore. The Pain erased everything, dragging her down closer and closer to Death.

And then she saw Benjiro standing over her. "Kairi..." he whispered, and she remembered.

But she knew that she was dying, and she was afraid. Death had never seemed real to her until now when she was being brought down into its clutches. Everything seemed to be moving slower than normal.

She watched Benjiro, who had her in his arms. And then, she watched him suddenly duck down as an arrow flew over their heads, an arrow which sliced expertly through the air and buried itself in Toshinaga's chest. It was followed by another, and then another, and then another, and In'ei--Maeda Toshinaga--was dead before he hit the ground.

Benjiro's head went up briefly to look for their savior, then immediately went back to Kairi. He was saying something to her, but she couldn't tell what it was. The only thing she could hear was the sound of her final heartbeats pumping in her ears.

And then suddenly, her brother's words from earlier came back to her: Watashi wa fukkatsu to jinseidesu. Watashi o shinjiru hito wa, tatoe karera ga shindemo, ikirudeshou.

"He who believes in me will live, even though he dies..." she muttered, then coughed because it hurt to speak.

"Shhh..." Benjiro hushed her. "Don't try to speak. You will be fine."

"I'm dying..." she said softly. "You cannot deny it..."

Blood escaped from her lips, but she didn't care. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. Those words swirled around in her head like music, the most beautiful song she had ever heard.

She recalled stories that had begun spreading around all of Nihon; stories of a great prophet in a land to the east who could heal the sick and bring the dead back to life. They told of how the leaders had grown tired of his teaching and had killed him, but how his followers claimed that he had come back from the dead. Most believed this fact to be impossible, and that he had just been a great prophet who died and whose body was stolen away by his followers. Some, however, claimed that he was more than just a prophet--that he was God in flesh, and that he had come to cure people not just of their physical ailments, but of their wrongdoings. At first, when she had heard those claims, she had scoffed at them. How could someone who was God be at the same time a man? But now, a mustard seed of belief sprouted to life in her heart.

But this is foolishness! Part of her screamed. A man cannot come back to life after he has been killed!

Tatsuoki believed it, she answered, and he was not a fool. He would not have believed it if he was not completely sure it was true.

And then, she suddenly realized that she believed it too and that she had for a long time. She just hadn't exactly known yet.

"I believe," she whispered out loud, and Benjiro was the only one to hear her. "I believe..."

Darkness began to consume her vision, but it was suddenly chased away by the most brilliant light she had even seen. The light covered her, wrapping her in its arms.

With the light came a voice, the sweetest, most beautiful sound she had ever heard.

Welcome home, my child.