Unicorn Letter #11
My kinsfolk,
There has been an awful battle. Many have fallen. Many more with they had. More undead rise around us - among us - by the day.
I was there, in the Shadowlands, when Kamoko-sama came. The legions of the Fallen Moto split apart, allowing Kamoko to pass with sickening cheers and howls of triumph. On the rotting bog before the gates of the Volturnum, a column of flame blackened by dark words swirled. Riding beside Kamoko I saw Shahai, the traitor, and I saw the soul of Kamoko's mother.
The battle-maiden went into the fire without a word, and the thousands of undead fell silent. In the flames, I could see as Kamoko whispered to herself, doubting her decision. Then she raised her head and faced death as proudly as Otaku herself. "Mother forgive me," she said, then no more. May the spirits of the ancestors, driven through Adorai's gate and torn apart by the Shadow, forgive us all. Kamoko may have dealt with the Bloodspeakers to save her mother's soul from the Shadow, but she has lost her own.
Even in defeat, she was a true Unicorn. When she emerged from the flames, Shahai smiled at her with poisonous glee. "If I must give my life for the Unicorn," Kamoko shouted, slicing open the traitor's belly with her mother's sword, "then so will you." As the Bloodspeaker's life dripped out onto the marsh, the Motos' roaring began again, louder than before, christened by blood, dedicated with Kamoko's soul.
The Otaku have no daimyo now.
Even now the Fallen Moto march, Kamoko in their vanguard. Though Kamoko has not fallen to the Taint, how long can she stand the hunger? The weariness and thirts? Prepare yourselves for war, my people. The final struggle for the souls of the Moto has come, but I cannot be with you. Only I can defeat Yori before he open's Fu Leng's pit once more. I leave your destiny in the hands of our glorious kami.
I will never see the Iuchi Plains again.
Iuchi Karasu