‘Hide, Isla. Go, please! If you love me, don’t make me see you die. And don’t you watch me – I want you to remember me like this, alive and in love with you.’
Keiichirō’s plea was so desperate Isla couldn’t say no.
They had left the darkness of the cave behind a long time earlier. Men fell all around them, bodies littering the forest floor, the heavy bombardment a cacophony in which they crouched. An orchestra of chaos and death playing a deadly tune.
Blood sprayed, limbs flew, and the scent of smoke and copper assaulted the air. Shouts echoed up the mountainside, agonised screams cutting off to gunfire.
But Keiichirō and Isla were only looking at each other, their faces filling their whole world.
As the soldiers crashed nearer, Keiichirō pushed Isla into a nearby bush beside a cluster of bamboo trees. In his final moments, he was determined to do what he could to protect her.
The sun was rising, the sky pink and bringing light to the world.
Isla breathed hard, watching her final dozen friends stand among the dead, swords raised. Someone yelled a battle cry, a fierce scream concealing his despair. Any samurai left alive bellowed back an answering war cry with a passion that made the hairs on her arms stand on end in pride.
Isla hid in the brush, not daring to wave away a mosquito that buzzed constantly around her head. For the first time she could remember, she forced herself to be patient.
She heard imperial soldiers cresting the hill, shouting orders. The samurai fell on them like an avalanche, swinging swords and screaming for blood.
Keiichirō moved with the grace of a dancer from a lifetime of training, murder in his eyes as he stabbed a soldier in the chest and threw his body to the ground. Isla had no sword, no way to help. All she could do was watch him fight, terrified that, if she looked away, the man she loved would fall.
* * *
Keiichirō defended both his love and Saigō-sama with all the determination of a wounded animal protecting its young. He ignored the agony flaring in his weakened shoulder. What did it matter when his enemies were killing those he cared for? How could they hurt someone who had accepted their fate?
Blood bathed him, hot on his skin. His sword shimmered with it, a painting of silver and crimson. A flow of imperial soldiers, their hair cut short, pretentious moustaches on their faces, attacked at close combat with the frightened hesitation of men only trained with guns.
Keiichirō pushed away the fear in favour of confidence in doing the right thing, Beppu-san fighting at his side, Saigō-sama ahead with Murata-san. Their leader was hunched, in pain, but he held his sword aloft and Keiichirō was inspired by Saigō-sama’s bravery. He would happily die at this man’s side.
‘Fall back! Retreat!’ came the cry.
Teeth clenched, Keiichirō turned and joined his fellow samurai heading back to the caves.
He would find Isla, he would—
A gunshot.
The shocking sight of Saigō-sama on the ground, pain on his round face as he clutched his stomach.
‘Saigō-sama!’ the men roared.
Keiichirō ran to his leader, blood screaming in his ears, as he helped him stand. ‘Saigō-sama, get up! Get—’
Pain exploded across Keiichirō’s back.
* * *
Isla sobbed her relief when she saw Keiichirō with Beppu and Murata, their combined strength holding up Saigō’s giant frame.
Then Keiichirō sagged against the cave wall, and Isla knew something was desperately wrong.
She burst from her hiding place and ran to him. She turned him onto his side. His eyes were shut tight as he sucked in ragged breaths. A whimper burst from Isla. His haori jacket was torn to shreds, his back a gory mess. How was he still breathing?
‘He was shot,’ said Beppu, not looking up from Saigō’s side.
Isla glanced up, her eyes burning. Saigō held his belly, blood seeping from between his fingers. Which of them was Beppu talking about?
‘Is . . . la . . .’ Keiichirō moaned.
‘I’m here,’ she cried.
Keiichirō groaned, forcing himself up to sit against the rockface at the mouth to the cave.
Beppu and Murata knelt with their heads bowed, like a great weight had fallen on them. Saigō lay with his eyes closed, the wound in his stomach not bleeding any more. His hand was on the handle of his sword and his face, stained with flecks of blood, held a serene look of peace. He was dead.
The sun rose higher, the mountain set aflame.
Keiichirō’s chest moved with rapid, shallow breaths as he stared at his fallen leader. A tear trickled down his dirt-stained face, leaving a track.
Isla reached out and wiped it away.
He turned to look at her. His face was soaked in sweat and dirt, splashes of blood on his skin, but he had never looked so handsome. That expression she knew so well, the strength that only melted away when he was asleep, adorned his face. And in his eyes, sorrow and affection. Grief and love.
Beppu withdrew his own sword.
Isla knew Beppu meant to cut off Saigō’s head, but nothing could have prepared her for the meaty slice and the thump. The few samurai left prostrated themselves, bowing for the final time to their fallen lord. Isla helped Keiichirō join them, and she bowed alongside him, their foreheads touching the ground.
Beppu picked up Saigō’s head, and announced he would hide it.
‘Come.’ Murata rose to his feet, fighting trembles as he rallied his comrades. ‘Let us take our last fight to them.’
Then something slammed into Isla from behind.
She shrieked and fell forward. For a moment, terror gripped her as she thought another fresh barrage of cannon fire was coming at them.
But it was wind, howling and warm and carrying the promise of rain, and a branch ripped from a tree had felled her. Large drops of water began to splat on the ground.
She turned, Keiichirō mirroring her. He winced as the pain in his back screamed. She took his hand.
On top of the mountain at their backs, an impossible storm raged. Rain and wind battled, encased in a bubble mere metres away from them like it was wrapped in an invisible cocoon. Flecks of rain fell on her, soft as kisses.
And at the peak of the mountain Isla could see something that made her freeze.
A white torii gate.
A gate that hadn’t been there moments ago.
‘Isla.’ Keiichirō’s voice was weak.
Hope bubbled up through Isla. She could save him, she could.
Any second now, Beppu would order the samurai to run to their deaths, to draw their swords and take down as many soldiers as they could before the darkness took them.
Even now, the warriors were starting to rise to their feet, shaking off injuries and readying themselves. Murata, tall and regal, held his sword, his eyes shining with tears. Beppu was returning, wiping his face. Kirino Toshiaki, Hisa’s husband, cast a final glance at Saigō’s headless body.
‘Come with me, Kei. I can save us.’ Isla was desperate.
Keiichirō’s face twitched. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘You don’t have to die.’
‘Isla. You told me Saigō-sama is known in your time. He is remembered. This is how it happens.’
The samurai gathered, leaving Saigō’s headless body to rest, Beppu in the lead. He glanced over at them, a silent question in his eyes.
Will you join us, Maeda Keiichirō? Or will you live like a coward?
Isla didn’t need Keiichirō to explain why it was impossible for him to survive this day. His fellow samurai had fallen around him, given their lives to this cause. Even if he survived the horrific injury to his back, if he lived, he would hate himself until the day he died.
‘He is known,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows his name. There are statues. Books. Movies . . .’ She closed her eyes. ‘He’s remembered as a hero.’
Keiichirō lifted her face, and her eyes opened. Peace had fallen on him, his face relaxed. ‘Then that’s enough. But Isla, you must survive. You don’t belong here.’
The words stung. Her gaze fled to the storm on top of the mountain. It had come here now, in her final moments, a last chance for her to escape. To go home.
Her being here wouldn’t make a mark on history.
Keiichirō would stay. She had sworn to remain at his side.
But she was so afraid to die.
‘Not any longer.’ Keiichirō tottered on his feet; whether from emotion or his injury, it was unclear. ‘Please live, Isla. Go back to your own time. Continue Saigō-sama’s legacy. That’s enough for me.’
‘Maeda, it is time,’ Beppu growled as the last samurai stood for the final charge, holding up swords, shaking off injuries and spitting blood. Shouts from the bottom of the hill erupted. A gunshot cracked in the air.
Keiichirō kissed Isla, his lips barely brushing hers. ‘Goodbye, bonnie lass.’
Staggering, his back in tatters, strands of midnight hair spilling behind him, he stumbled to his brothers. ‘Go!’ he yelled back at Isla over his shoulder.
Her heart shattering, Isla ran.
She took a step after the samurai, and then she turned the other way and charged up the hill and into the torrent of rain.
Isla exhaled heavily as the warm deluge hit her, soaking her at once. Hair sticking to her neck, the water soaking through her robe and onto her skin, she staggered up the hill towards where lightning flashed, illuminating the torii gate at the top of the hill. Her muscles burned, rain blinded her, her soaking robe increasingly heavy; she grabbed tufts of wet grass to stop her falling back, pulling herself up.
Only when she had almost reached the gate did she turn back.
Trees obscured her vision of the hillside below, but through the rain she could see the ships in the harbour. Cannons and gunfire boomed through the air, smoke choking the trees. Hitting the last warriors. Killing them as they ran to their deaths.
Rain pelted her down to her bones. Isla’s vision swam. She fell to her knees. Part of her wanted to throw herself off the hill, to join Keiichirō’s fate.
But the torii gate didn’t stop calling to her, like the sweet hum of music, and promising the way to her time. Her home. Wind rushed around her, pushing her, encouraging her to step through and leave all this behind.
Isla closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears.
Whispers surrounded her, mingling with the falling rain.
When she opened her eyes, beyond were city lights, passing cars, people with umbrellas and jackets, scowling against the downpour.
So familiar.
So alien.
Thunder rumbled, the wind pulling her into her own time and away for ever from the man she loved. The brave samurai she would never see again.
Her tears mingling with the rain, Isla stepped through the gate.