"It is so, Coordinator."

"Ha! You finally admit it."

"Hai,Coordinator."

"Why?"

"This will be the last time we fight," Homitsu said gravely.

Takashi stiffened. "I did not know you thought so little of my skills as a warrior."

"I respect you as a warrior, Coordinator." That was no lie. Takashi's skills as a warrior had no bearing on other matters.

"But you believe I will lose to Jaime Wolf."

"Iie,Coordinator. You will not lose to Jaime Wolf."

Takashi frowned, his puzzlement overcoming his emotional control. Then, as if suddenly sensing the threat Homitsu posed, Takashi snapped his bokkenup between them.

Homitsu brought his own weapon up as he moved forward. Now that they were engaged, it must be resolved quickly. No one must interfere.

The Coordinator did not let him take the initiative. Takashi struck quickly, murderous strength in his blows. Homitsu parried. And parried again as the fury of the Coordinator's attack forced him to retreat. Takashi's blows shifted target from the restricted zones of kendo,darting for areas unprotected by armor. Wielded with lethal intent, a bokkencould be as deadly as a sword, breaking bones and smashing muscles instead of slicing them.

Homitsu could not let himself be defeated. His life would be nothing if he failed today; his honor would be wind. The fire of his need burned him clean and the flames filled his limbs.

Takashi snapped a feint to the menand twisted it into a rising cut from the off-side. Homitsu took the blow on his armor, flowing with it. The impact made his head ring, but the bokkenwas deflected and Takashi's rhythm was broken. Homitsu's bokkendarted out, thrusting for the Coordinator's face. Takashi danced back, as Homitsu intended. Pressing forward, Homitsu rained blow after blow on Takashi, forcing him further back. Always the flat of Homitsu's weapon contacted the Coordinator's flashing bokken.Flaws appeared in Takashi's defense. His breathing became ragged, a sign of slipping concentration. Homitsu smashed the Coordinator's bokkenaside, whirling his own weapon up for a pear-splitting stroke. Helpless, Takashi stood to take the blow, but Homitsu halted his weapon as it kissed the Coordinator's men.

He took a step back, allowing the puzzled Coordinator to raise his bokkento a warding position. Thought one with action, Homitsu struck at Takashi's bokken.This time, the edge contacted the Coordinator's weapon. Wood parted. The shining blade concealed within the wood burst free to slice through Takashi's bokkenjust above the guard. Homitsu completed the great circle, stilling his movement only when the blade's point hovered at Takashi's throat.

The Coordinator let the useless hilt of his bokkenfall to the floor. The sound was loud in the sudden silence. Homitsu waited while Takashi mastered his ragged breathing.

"You could have killed me."

Homitsu said nothing.

"That you did not tells me that you have more in mind. Do you expect to torture me?" Takashi tugged loose the knot securing his men,releasing the mask to fall to the floor. "One shout will bring the Otomo. Any suffering you inflict will be of inconsequential duration, and I assure you that you will be disappointed in my response. Even if you manage to kill me, you will die shortly thereafter."

The Coordinator's baiting meant nothing. Holding his sword steady in one hand, Homitsu removed his own men.The Coordinator made no move to escape or cry out. Homitsu didn't care what Takashi's reasons were; he was grateful that the Coordinator remained calm. Perhaps Takashi sensed the importance of the moment.

Over the clatter of Homitsu's mask falling to the floor, Takashi asked, "What is it you want?"

"Your death."

"Why?" Takashi demanded without hesitation. "We have no quarrel."

"With Fukushu Homitsu you have no quarrel, Takashi Kurita, but I am no longer Homitsu. He is a fiction, a tool." The man who had denied his own name reached to his face and peeled away his eye patch. A dead white orb was revealed. "I am Michi Noketsuna."

The pronouncement did not disturb the harsh set of the Coordinator's face. His stern expression neither lightened nor darkened. To that implacability, Michi said, "You say we have no quarrel, and in a sense you are correct. I am justice for another man's quarrel, an innocent man you sacrificed to your personal hatred. Minobu Tetsuhara was my lord and mentor. I bring hisquarrel to you."

"Tetsuhara," Takashi said slowly. "He chose his response and died a true samurai. I honor him."

"You killed him. He would not see the truth, as I have."

"You are mistaken, as he was not."

"In ancient Japan, there was once a samurai forced to commit seppukubecause he was caught in the machinations and intrigues of a noble of the court. His name was Asano, and he made the only decision he could, as did his loyal retainers. As have I.

"I have been as loyal to my master Minobu Tetsuhara as Oishi Yoshio was to his lord Asano. Oishi left his life as a samurai and pretended he didn't care about his lord's fate. But all the time, he was preparing vengeance in his lord's name. So for years, he and his fellows waited until they could confront Lord Kira, the man who had forced death upon their lord.

"I, too, have denied my heritage and hidden my goal. Though I am but one and not forty-seven, as the loyal retainers of Lord Asano, yet I will have justice done. You are in my hands now. As the forty-seven offered Lord Kira the way of honor, I offer you now the chance to commit seppuku.Atone for your failure as a samurai's lord."

Takashi's eyes were glacial ice. "If I do not?"

"I will kill you," Michi said, his voice as cold as Takashi's eyes.

"You say that you are justice, yet I tell you that there is no justice in what you are trying to do. It was never my will that Minobu Tetsuhara die."

"Warlord Samsonov was your man."

"Samsonov was a fool," Takashi snapped "Ultimately he was his own man, and he paid for it. But you know that, don't you? It was you who killed him, not one of Wolf's Dragoons."

"I killed him," Michi confirmed. "He was not enough of a man to end his life honorably. I expect better of Takashi Kurita."

"There is much I was blind to during those years," Takashi said. "Just as there was much that you could not see, or seeing, understand. Your vendetta is misplaced."

The Coordinator talked of the political maneuvering that went on around Wolf's Dragoons during their contract with the Draconis Combine. He spoke of Warlord Samsonov and the man's hatred for the Dragoons and for Jaime Wolf, in particular. He had not, Takashi declared, ordered Samsonov to do what had been done to the Dragoons; in particular, he had not ordered the attack on the Dragoon families.

If Takashi was to be believed, his concerns for the Combine had been misinterpreted by Samsonov. Michi felt the seeds of doubt begin to break the soil of his mind. If Takashi had not ordered Samsonov's actions, there was no reason for vendetta against the Coordinator. He was wrong in demanding Takashi's death.

Takashi enumerated the threats that had faced the Combine in those days. Emphasizing his paramount concern for the survival of the realm, Takashi asserted that no one person could put his own concerns ahead of the Combine. Michi could not disagree; he had set aside his own desires more than once in favor of the Combine's survival. Takashi believed that the importance of the realm's survival justified the actions necessary to ensure that survival. He spoke of manipulating the warlords, pitting them against one another and constantly testing their loyalty, as a tool to that end. Sometimes, regretfully, tools broke or were misused. The Coordinator implied that Samsonov had misunderstood, had usurped prerogatives reserved for the Coordinator.