BLK GIRL SOLDIER
I cleaned the blood from my blade. When I looked over at the warlord, I couldn’t see his expression, but I wondered if he was pissing his pants right now. Was he beginning to regret wasting all his resources and manpower on little ol’ me? Did I prove once and for all that the strength of the Sistah Samurai was as they were rumored to be and that they were not, under any circumstances, to be fucked with?
I shuffled up the hill, hand on the hilt of my katana, ready for another fight. As I neared, his armored guards prepared their stances, and the warlord’s face sharpened into view. I blinked in disbelief. Wait a minute . . .
Was that a pink diamond in the man’s forehead?
I had never for a minute considered that the ‘Pink Diamond Warlord’ would be a literal description. I shook my head. Young folks these days.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it.
When Edolanta had been sacked, I hadn’t arrived before the thieves and vultures picked it clean. They had stolen much of my Sistahs’ personal belongings, from swords to spare change, and stripped the armor right off their corpses. I’ve collected what items I could find over the years. Just pieces here or there. So imagine the anger that quaked through me at the sight of this raggedy ass warlord wearing the pink sheathes of my Sistah’s katana and wakizashi, an identical pair to my own—Of, fuck no. This triflin’ bastard was intentionally twisting the legacy of The Sistah Samurai to his own selfish ends, and that was a level of disrespect I could never let slide.
I charged forward, but the damned bodyguards moved in formation to block me. Judging by how they moved, they were far better trained than the opponents I faced downhill. Each warrior had talismans ready to deploy and I had exhausted all of mine.
I gritted my teeth, knowing I was entering a losing battle. I should walk away. I needed to get home. But at the same time . . . Haven’t I abandoned my Sistahs enough? I didn’t have much honor left, but whatever the tattered remains of it had me rooted to the spot. I had a duty to their memory, and I’ve turned my back too many times.
Oh, now you want to act like a samurai? Where was this dedication when your Sistahs were being slaughtered by demons? You really want to honor them? Die like a samurai, then.
I barely evaded a streak of lightning. The electrostatic burned the insides of my nostrils. I weaved through sharp metal spikes but slipped onto my knee when the ground turned to mud. Taps of acidic rain pattered my skin. I chunked myself to the side to avoid a roaring flame and landed hard atop a sheet of ice. A metal bar rudely slammed into my pelvis. Ugh. I fell flat to the ground. At that moment, every bruise ached, every wound throbbed, and all my bones creaked.
“Don’t kill her. Not yet.” So, the warlord could speak. “I want to torture her slow. Make an example of her. Show everyone in that podunk village how dangerous it is to defy me. If I defeat a Sistah Samurai, everyone will know of me. They’ll . . .” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I wasn’t really listening anymore.
Why keep fighting? Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you exhausted? Just end it. You might not have lived with honor, but the least you can do is die with it.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to ignore the voices assaulting me on two fronts.
How did I get here? How did I get to this moment with some fool with a pink diamond in his forehead villain monologue-ing over me? Or a demon in my head tempting me to perform hara-kiri so it could eat my soul? I should have just left things alone. I should have swallowed my pride back at that restaurant and taken my ass home. No detours, no side quests, because this was what happens when I break from routine. I make mistakes. I get sloppy. And now some bougie ass warlord might get lucky and kill me. I should have minded my own damn business.
I curled around my wakizashi. Pissed. Conflicted. Helpless. I didn’t know if I wanted to live, or to die. I was so tired, and I was finding it harder and harder to think of everything I was fighting for.
Let go. Let it all go.
I had decided a long time ago, out of necessity, that the living was more important than the dead. I couldn’t spend my entire life as an avenger. I couldn’t spend all my time atoning for my mistakes. I couldn’t fall on my sword when others were depending on me to live. But. I’ve regretted that decision my entire life. I swore oaths to fight and die a formation. I had looked my Sistahs in their eyes, held them in my arms, and promised never to abandon them.
And then, I did.
I was no samurai. I was a flaky piece of shit that should have chosen death before dishonor. The guilt ate away at me like a poison. It choked my sleep and haunted my every nightmare. A bright plastic keychain hung off the katana at the warlord’s hip, and I knew the hands of the Sistah that had woven it. I saw her face clearly in my mind’s eye when I cremated what was left of her.
It wasn’t fair. No matter how many demons I fought or how many times I said their names, justice never came. I failed them time and time again, as I am fated to fail them now.
Was it still a formation if you’re the last left standing? Did I deserve to continue life without them? Or did I deserve to fall on this sharpened sword of guilt and shame? What was honor with all my Sistahs gone?
But if I died, who would be left to carry their memory? And not just the memory of them as warriors, but also the women they were when they sheathed their swords? We used to dance like bouncing crickets around the fields. We used to laugh like fluttering butterflies in the sky. We used to roam like carefree deer, staking safe places where no one constrained our volume or tore down our joy. We made each other stronger, each Sistah another fold in the forging of our blades. Even after each of us was assigned our own daimyos to protect, nothing compared to the riotous hugs we would give one another after not seeing each other for years. Time used to feel so patient and merciful back then.
But now, who would build altars to their magnificence? Cherish their beauty? Awe at their intellect? Or should history consume us by tucking away our accomplishments and making footnotes of our lives? Should the power-hungry burn and ban our legacies? Should the warlords twist and water down our stories, and dismantle our progress one action at a time? Who was left to scream into the void and say that we were here? To declare that we were more than the soldiers the world forced us to be. We were women, and mothers, and sisters, and cousins. We were teachers, and healers, and innovators, and warriors. And we went down fighting.
The world blurred around me, and this time, it wasn’t the absence of glasses. I didn’t cry that day. I didn’t have the time to. I had to cremate the bodies and perform the funerary rites as best I could without their souls. But the tears broke out of me now, running for their freedom. My hands shook on the hilt of my wakizashi. Would hara-kiri wipe away all my sins? Would their ghosts stop haunting me? Would you finally leave me alone?
“Bring that bitch over here.”
My attention sharpened into focus.
I thought about my Sistahs—who deserved more respect, more dignity, more love, and certainly more life than the world ever gave them. I tightened my grip on my wakizashi and flipped it away from my stomach.
Fuck honor. I’ll go down fighting.
My nails scraped against the ground, grinding them jagged. I trembled as I pushed myself to my elbows, and glared at the warlord through a filter of red. I had blood in my eyes that I couldn’t bother to blink away. The warlord’s bodyguards encroached, smug, thinking me beaten. And I was, but I think I had enough willpower to take at least one of them with me. If I could just get to my feet.
Then suddenly, a foot stepped into my field of vision: zori sandals and plum blossom nail polish. Confused, I looked up and blinked at the loose hakama pants, a haori jacket tied blithely above a bare belly, and long waist-length braids. Every time the braids swayed, hundreds of plastic beads clashed a roaring waterfall at the ends. The newcomer looked over her shoulder at me. Yellow-boned, mischievous eyes, a lip gloss-sheened smirk, and a face I thought long since dead.
“Hey, Big Sis.”