A Hero's Death
Lightning flashed in the Shadowlands sky, tearing the clouds open so that bloody rain could fall. The Shi-khan waste were deep within the territory of the undead, surrounded by rolling hills and wasted rivers.
A man walked through the fields. He had been headed north, but a pack of undead hounds had caught his scent driving his to the East, away from the wall and the Crab reinforcements. His jade tetsubo had long ago ceased to glow, turning to ash and ruin with the taint of the dark land. Still, a light shone upon him, gleaming from beneath his armor with the brilliant green of Jade.
The hounds scrabbled after him, their terrible jaws slavering green puss and rot. but he continued on. Two were dead, three more skewered and left to feed their pack mates, but the animals continued to herd him onward. If he were not weakened, if he were not starving... that would have been another story.
As it was, he was only able to move on, trudging deeper to the East, farther from his north bound goal. When the dawn came, the beast attacked, this time, with riders at their side, driving the howling wolves forward. He fought, tearing at their hides with an ancient sword and his bare hands, but they were too many. Bodies littered the ground - man and beast alike, and the Crab stood his ground, despite his wounds. One leg shattered from a dark Moto's blade, he tore the head from one of the screaming zombies, crushing the man's torso in his arms. Dark blood stained his hakima, and the Crab staggered.
"Bring me more," he growled. Half dead, bleeding from a dozen wounds that would have killed any other man, he only grinned and reached out for the next to fall.
Ropes flew from afar, twining around his arms and pinning them to his sides. Sharp barbs of iron woven into the thick cords cut his flesh, snarling his limbs in a deadly embrace. The Moto's glowing skull grinned as the crab tore against the solid iron strands, and each rider raced by, adding more loops to the deadly embrace.
At last the Crab Thunder was theirs. "Cut that blasphemy off his arm," the rider said. With swift strokes, rusted steel parted a hand of jade from a bloody arm. "Bring him," Tsume's voice was foul and rasping. "The Master will have his way." They dragged the fallen Thunder to the South, their cheers resounding from the hills of that wasted land.
On the tainted land where the jade hand had fallen, only a single spot of ground remained.
Deep beneath the Sepulcher of Bone, Kuni Yori poured acid upon his wounds. "For too long I have waited for this boy," he snarled, laughing behind his porcelain mask. Yakamo snarled, and spit rolled down the painted white clay.
"You will never have my soul."
"I will. And when you have died, Yakamo-sama, you will serve me willingly once more. With you at our side, we will break the wall."
The agony was intense, pouring through Hida Yakamo's veins like poison water through the rivers of his homeland. Yori smiled knowingly. Any minute the samurai would break. He had seen it, hundreds of times before, the torment of those that believed themselves stronger than the Dark God's will. Though never as intense as this, he had given them all pain, through spell or vice, and he had seen them all break.
His face fell in shock as the Crab began to laugh.
"You do not understand the wall, Yori," Yakamo gasped, his face blackened with blood and filth. "You never have. If you think the wall is a thing of stone and iron, you have never been Crab. Steel hearts and courage make the wall. The sons of Hida are the wall!"
For thirty days and nights, Yakamo withstood the torture of the Kuni necromancer. When he died, it was not a death of cowardice, or a failure of the heart. It was with stoic silence and disciplined will, mocking the sorcerer's vain attempts to bend a soul that could not be broke; to enslave what could not be controlled.
When he died, it was by Yori's hand, out of fury and frustration. The necromancer could not win.
"Come with me brother." A spirit called from the far side of the gate, extending his hand. "Once, you were the wall and I was the weakness. I followed you, and you protected me. Now that you are weak, I will be your guide, and your protector."
"I will be your strength until it is time for you to return," Sukune said. "Your time is not yet done."