Art Is Rain

“Bakayarō!”

Whatever elegance the man in the suit had possessed earlier was long gone.

Fine tears ran through his suit, and blood still dripped from his cuffs.

What annoyed him most was his pants.

They were expensive. Very expensive.

So expensive that he hadn’t even been willing to wear them on his last job.

And now, less than an hour into this assignment, they were torn to shreds, as though a dog had chewed on them.

The skin exposed through the rips wasn’t much better. Tiny wounds covered it from head to toe, beads of blood welling up everywhere.

The man in the suit glanced down and swore even more viciously.

Sakamoto Tenryu stood ahead of him, looking somewhat better off.

A layer of qi shielded his body, keeping his injuries light, but his breathing had already grown uneven.

“I’m done. I think I’m going to pull out first.” The man in the suit raised a hand and wiped the blood from his chin.

Sakamoto Tenryu didn’t turn around. He merely angled his face to the side.

“If you want to leave, then leave. I can handle this alone.”

The man in the suit froze.

He had expected the other man to curse him out, or perhaps pressure him with some speech about national honor. But there was none of that.

As expected of the Sword Saint.

“You sure you can manage on your own?”

“Whether I can or not has nothing to do with you.”

“Fine. I won’t stand on ceremony, then.”

The man in the suit turned and left at once, moving quickly and decisively without the slightest hesitation.

He was only an assassin.

An assassin’s goals were simple: make money, spend money, and stay alive long enough to visit the clubs.

Give his life for the Great Empire of Nippon?

That was something found only in propaganda films.

He paid his taxes. There was no need to hand over his life as well.

After walking a dozen or so steps, he looked back.

Sakamoto Tenryu was still standing there.

If he died, the man would go pay his respects to the Sword Saint.

“Next time I take a job involving a Chinese target, I’m checking the guy’s entire family tree back eight generations.”

The man in the suit muttered under his breath and ran even faster.

He had no idea that the wounds on his body were giving off faint wisps of black qi.

Sakamoto Tenryu paid no attention to the departing man in the suit.

He gripped his sword and stared at Zhafu in the center of the scene.

As the Sword Saint, he naturally feared none of these unorthodox methods.

Zhafu was no longer recognizable as human.

His limbs had transformed into black roots that burrowed into the ground.

His face continued to writhe, while his mouth repeated the same few words over and over. They were impossible to make out, yet somehow deeply irritating.

Sakamoto Tenryu stared at those roots, his fingers pressing against the sword’s hilt.

He couldn’t delay any longer.

Once those things took root, the damage would extend beyond this single street.

It might engulf all of Edo.

And who would clean up the mess then?

The useless fools in the Armaments Bureau, who did nothing but bow?

Or those old relics in the Onmyō Bureau?

Sakamoto Tenryu inhaled air thick with the scent of blood, then held the sword horizontally before his palm.

He rarely used this technique anymore.

Every time he did, it cost him dearly.

But he had no other choice.

The blade sliced across his palm. As his blood dripped onto the sword, it instantly awakened some hidden power.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

A low sound resonated from the blade.

Sakamoto Tenryu lowered his eyes, his arm perfectly steady.

“Old friend, I’ll have to trouble you again.”

Red light spread across the blade.

“It’s been a long time since I used this technique. I never expected my opponent wouldn’t even be human.”

Not far away, several Onmyōji who had rushed over stood rooted to the spot. None of them dared approach.

One of them looked at Sakamoto Tenryu and swallowed hard.

“So this is the Sword Saint’s trump card?”

“Shut up. Don’t disturb him.”

The old Onmyōji speaking had his face pulled taut.

He had originally thought that no matter how powerful the Sword Saint was, he was still only a martial artist.

But now, it seemed that even all of them together—the men who spent every day chanting incantations and drawing talismans—might not be able to withstand this single strike.

Sakamoto Tenryu raised his sword.

The pain on Zhafu’s face intensified, and several words forced their way from his mouth.

“Save... me...”

Sakamoto Tenryu paused.

Only for an instant.

“I can’t.”

He stepped forward and brought the sword down.

“Secret Transmission—Supreme Art—Falling Chrysanthemum Petal Slash!”

A streak of red flashed through the air, sweeping toward Zhafu like an ordinary blade aura.

The black roots buried underground sensed the danger and rose one after another.

They formed layer upon layer in front of Zhafu, forcibly tearing the ground apart as they thrust upward.

But the instant the sword light collided with the roots, it transformed into countless chrysanthemum petals.

Every petal contained a devastatingly powerful slash.

The roots were severed, black qi spilling from the cuts, yet they were given no chance to regenerate.

Sakamoto Tenryu pressed down with his wrist and drove the blade’s momentum forward. The black roots snapped apart section by section. The ground shook, and burning timbers collapsed from the wreckage ahead.

The Onmyōji watched, their scalps prickling with dread.

“This Sword Saint has some serious strength.”

“Don’t talk.”

“I’m not wrong.”

“Say one more word and he’ll hear you.”

The man shut his mouth.

Zhafu’s body broke apart beneath the barrage of slashes. Black qi poured from the ruptures and was swept into the air.

Sakamoto Tenryu staggered back half a step, his chest heaving, blood still flowing from his palm.

The black qi in the air did not disperse. Instead, it gathered into the shape of a human face.

Its features were indistinct. Its mouth opened, and it rasped out a muffled sentence.

“Give me back my life!”

Sakamoto Tenryu frowned.

“Sorry, I wasn’t the one who killed you. If you have a grievance, take it to the one responsible. Go find—”

He stopped before finishing.

Something was wrong.

This thing hadn’t come to demand vengeance.

Sakamoto Tenryu looked up, his expression darkening.

At that very moment, a beam of golden light shot from the direction of the Imperial Palace, heading straight for the black face in the sky.

Cheers rose from the distance.

But Sakamoto Tenryu’s heart sank.

“Damn it!”

The golden light struck the black face.

The black qi shattered on the spot, breaking into countless fragments with no chance to gather again.

To everyone else, it looked as though the evil creature had been destroyed.

But Sakamoto Tenryu saw the truth.

It hadn’t been annihilated.

It had merely been scattered.

The fragmented black qi surged into the heavens and merged with the clouds. Before long, rain began to fall.

The rain was clear.

No one noticed the fine black threads mixed within it.

They fell onto the streets, onto pedestrians’ heads, into drainage gutters, and into bento boxes that had not yet been put away.

An office worker wiped his face and cursed the weather forecast for getting it wrong.

A high school girl handed her umbrella to a friend, allowing half her own shoulder to be soaked.

A patrolling police officer tilted his head toward the sky and caught a few drops in his outstretched hand. He noticed nothing.

Koji Takeda, who had already run far away, watched the fine rain fall and was drenched by it as well.

Sakamoto Tenryu stood in the rain, the sword in his hand gradually fading into darkness.

At last, he understood.

Zhafu had only ever been a puppet.

The golden light from the Imperial Palace had probably made things worse instead of better.

The person behind all this had wanted this rain from the very beginning.

It had to be the one Zhafu had mentioned.

Lin Mo.

And every one of them had helped Lin Mo complete the final step.

Lin Mo’s plan was complete.