The stifling humidity of the Kyoto summer hung over the market district like a damp, suffocating wool blanket. It was the seventh month of the year 1867, a time when the air should have been filled with the joyous anticipation of the Gion Festival. Instead, it was thick with paranoia. The Tokugawa Shogunate was losing its grip, and the streets whispered of rebellion, foreign warships, and the chilling flash of assassins’ blades in the night.
Kenjiro sat cross-legged on a worn reed mat beneath the meager shade of a canvas awning, grinding black ink onto a stone palette. He was a man in his early thirties, with hair tied back in a frayed topknot and eyes that held the weary, haunted depth of a man who had seen too much death. Once, he had been a samurai of the Aizu domain, a master of the sword. Now, he was a ronin, a masterless wanderer who survived by painting cheap portraits and landscapes for passing merchants. His katana, wrapped tightly in oilcloth, remained hidden beneath his supplies. He had sworn never to draw it again.
“The plum blossoms are too dark, painter,” a passing merchant muttered, tossing a single copper coin onto Kenjiro’s mat.
Kenjiro did not look up. “The world is dark, my friend. I only paint what I see.”
Before the merchant could reply, a sudden commotion erupted at the far end of the narrow street. A flock of pigeons scattered violently into the overcast sky. The crowd parted with terrified gasps as a man stumbled blindly through the throng. He was a samurai, but his elegant blue kimono was shredded and soaked in a terrifying amount of fresh, glistening blood. He clutched his stomach, his face pale as ivory, his breathing coming in ragged, desperate wet gasps.
Kenjiro’s instincts, dormant but never dead, flared to life. He dropped his brush.
The dying man locked eyes with Kenjiro. Perhaps he recognized the hardened posture of a fellow warrior, or perhaps it was sheer, blind luck. The man lunged forward, collapsing heavily across Kenjiro’s wooden stall. Pots of ink shattered, splattering black across the dusty cobblestones.
“The roots…” the man choked out, grabbing the lapel of Kenjiro’s faded yukata with astonishing, desperate strength. Blood bubbled at the corner of his lips. “The roots are poisoned. The Lotus… burns tonight.”
“Keep still,” Kenjiro commanded in a low, urgent voice, pressing his hands against the terrible slash across the man’s abdomen. “I will call a physician.”
“No!” the man hissed. With a trembling, blood-slicked hand, he reached into his sleeve and produced a small, intricately carved wooden netsuke—a toggle used to fasten a pouch to a sash. It was shaped like a snarling tiger. He shoved it violently into Kenjiro’s hand, his fingers completely cold. “Find the shadow… save the Shogun…”
The man’s eyes rolled back, and with a final, shuddering exhale, he went entirely limp.
Kenjiro sat frozen, the wooden tiger heavy in his palm. The blood on his hands was warm and sticky. A sudden, unnatural silence fell over the market. Kenjiro looked up.
Standing at the edge of the clearing, pushing the terrified commoners aside, were three men. They wore dark, unassuming traveling clothes, but their faces were hidden behind horrifying, crimson wooden masks of the Tengu—the long-nosed mountain demons of folklore. In their hands, they held drawn swords, the steel catching the meager light of the overcast sky.
They were assassins of the Ishin Shishi, the radical patriots who wished to violently overthrow the Shogunate. And they were looking directly at Kenjiro.
“Hand over the tiger, painter,” the lead assassin ordered, his voice muffled and distorted by the wooden mask. “Do so, and we will grant you a swift death. Refuse, and we will peel the skin from your bones.”
Kenjiro slowly rose to his feet. He slipped the wooden netsuke into the deep pocket of his sash. He did not reach for his hidden katana. Instead, his hands swept over his ruined art supplies.
“I am merely a painter,” Kenjiro said, his voice deadly calm. “I have no quarrel with demons.”
“Then die a painter,” the assassin sneered, lunging forward with a terrifying, two-handed overhead strike designed to cleave Kenjiro in half.
Kenjiro moved with a speed that defied his relaxed posture. He grabbed a handful of fine, dry white lead powder used for mixing pigments and hurled it directly into the eye-holes of the assassin’s mask. The man shrieked, his strike going wide and burying his sword deep into the wooden frame of the stall.
Before the other two could react, Kenjiro snatched a heavy stone inkwell and hurled it. It caught the second assassin squarely on the temple with a sickening crack, dropping him instantly. The third assassin hesitated, shocked by the lethal efficiency of the street artist.
That hesitation was all Kenjiro needed. He grabbed his oilcloth-wrapped katana, kicked over his stall to create a barricade, and sprinted into the labyrinthine alleyways of the market. He knew they would follow. He knew the Shinsengumi police would soon arrive to investigate the murder. He was a dead man if he stayed.
As he ran, the heavens finally opened up, releasing a torrential summer downpour. The rain washed the ink and blood from his hands, but Kenjiro knew the stain on his life was permanent. He ducked into the shadows of a deserted shrine, his chest heaving, and pulled the wooden tiger from his pocket. Applying pressure to the tiger’s jaw, he heard a faint click. The netsuke split in half, revealing a tightly rolled piece of rice paper.
He unrolled it. It was covered in a complex grid of numbers and symbols. A cipher. A plot to kill the Shogun. Kenjiro closed his eyes, listening to the rain. The sword he had buried in his past was demanding to be drawn.
