Splinters.

When had the bridges become so weathered? Nothing in the dynasty feels age, nothing. The bridges in my mind are fresh-lacquered and sleek as a black snake, gleaming in symmetrical coils over streams of blue green water. Exotic scales of fish flash mirrors to the sun and double moons of the golden sky. The whole realm could have been lifted from the side of a painted screen, or stolen from the flutter of a courtesan's jeweled fan.

That world no longer exists. Now tiny fragments of rotting wood prick at my palms, no doubt damaging the homespun fabric wound around them. Rough woven cotton, not silk, not armor. What I had been born into wearing, so long ago. What I would die wearing, I realize.

Not in silk.

Not in Armor.

My socks are wet.

I suddenly want to laugh.

Mighty Sh'ten, greatest of the MaSho. Once. Maybe still. I stare death in the face, standing on a decaying bridge in a decaying world, equipped with splinters and armored in muddy tabi socks. I can think of nothing nobler.

I would have liked to see their faces, but I understand there is no time for that now. There was faint comprehension behind their face guards before the barges drew them into their cold embrace; I can only wonder what they are thinking now. I pray to have bought them time enough, to have peeled away most of the rotting silk bindings wrapped around them. I wonder what they would look like free. I have no memory of them without the stain of his shadow, even at the very beginning. Then they were as sharp and beautiful as flowers trimmed in ice. I can imagine their eyes without the darkness, and I feel faintly the armor bond that was perverted by Arago. It is sluggish now but still true, and I wonder at the blaze that must run through the blood of the Five, consuming them with each other. I do not know if they have thought to become lovers yet. I envy them the unraveling of such shared fire. I feel myself smile at my own memory, an unaccustomed motion.

"Sh'ten?" She is confused. She has right to be. How odd my armor looks on her, surely as unsuited to her as the robes are to me. Our roles are traded, but only briefly. Even now I can still feel the pull of the oni; it is not long for her skin. I will not open my arms to it upon its return. The Yoroi does not know such things, however. It does not predict.

Speaking is agony, small things tearing away from their moorings within me, my soul shaking away shackles of five hundred years. "You are free, Kayura."

My vision swims with my own image, thrown in distorted waves back at me from the muddy surface of this stream. It is not the likeness I see, though. The reflection I remember is a quiet park pool in the human world, the amber glow of loyalty aflame on my brow.

Brothers, do you know? Can you feel it? Is it not glorious, the true strength in our hands, the true names burning on our lips? I can fly with it now, letting go of splintered pathetic wood, opening my arms to the horizon unrolling before me like silk. I know, my fierce ones. I understand. Love should not be a warriors' word, but I think it is the only one we know.

Ripples fanned out slowly from the quiet form in brackish yellow water, his crimson hair drifting like seaweed. There was a surprised clink of armor, and a child's anguished cry. The tiger could not weep, and only blinked his great brown eyes, lowering his heavy head in respect.

There was no time to do more than lift him from the water, Jun's sniffles stifled by the sight of Sh'ten's calm face. Nasuti brushed away the damp strands clinging to his elegant features. Kayura arranged him with his head to the north, brilliant emerald eyes forever shut and turned to the east. She sat back on her heels and was quiet for a long moment, then offered one long, respectful bow.

The tiger tarried briefly after they left, nuzzling his great furred muzzle under limp fingers, snuffling a quiet farewell.

Rajura found him first. It was only fitting; he had been the scout to first notify Lord Arago of a young man with promise, wasting his talent fighting skirmishes in the provinces. He wished it had been one of the others.

It might have been easier had Kayura kept the armor of spring, but with Arago's demise it had vanished. None of them had thought to ask where, finding it here instead, wrapped around the slender warrior on the riverbank. The armor was too familiar on him, lacquered with memory, and Rajura's one violet eye burned with a strange remembered sensation.

Anubisu pushed past him in impatience and stopped, staring. His kneeplates sank deep in river-mud, armored fingers shivering as they touched cool wet hair. His jaw tensed and he gathered Sh'ten in his arms, lifting his still face to the gilded dynasty sky. Naaza stepped forward then, kneeling beside the Yami MaSho and clenching his fist in quiet, helpless rage. Autumn and Winter understood such things, deny them though they might wish to. Rajura spun summer and preservation in his webs, riots of blooming life and noisy insects. This silence chilled his blood.

But he drew near nonetheless, sinking into the clay beside his companions, reaching unwilling hands to untangle crimson hair, to brush river grass from the tooled leather coat.

How long they sat there they did not know, but it seemed years before Anubisu brushed lips across the extinguished forehead, cradling cruel breastplate to cruel breastplate and pressing ravaged cheek to cool temple. Naaza relieved Anubisu of his reluctant burden, offering no farewell but the touch of brow to brow, bearing their fallen back to the castle.

Rajura offered next, aching to think of the last time they had borne Sh'ten between them. He had twisted with defiance in their hands, hands that bruised the perfect skin and bloodied sculpted lips, tore the ruddy glory of hair. He submitted himself willingly to the Gen MaSho, more defiance in stilled lips than in his furious indignation. Sharp, too sharp, to think of never hearing that voice again.

"So, beautiful oni. You beat us to this as well." Rajura's breath stirred his eyelashes, an illusion of waking.

He felt the other two flanking him, lifting their uncovered heads to the arched portal of the castle. Wildfire's swords had left scores in the wood; Naaza thoughtfully pulled a gold arrow from the frame and frowned at bedraggled fletching.

"Where do we go from here, Rajura?" Anubisu, sounding strained and pensive. "Back through these gates again?"

"They are the only gates we know, Anubisu." Rare words from Naaza, composed and lucid in the sunset light of the youjakai. "All our daring, all of us that is change is here." The green gauntlet was pulled away, bare skin pressing to the stillness of Sh'ten's chest. "Empty. What are we without spring?"

"What would you have us do, die?" Anger was swift in the scarred ice of Anubisu's eyes, pain as raw and new as the scar of his identity must have been at first cut.

"I would not have you do anything, Yami MaSho. I was not sculpted to command." His eyes slitted, grief thrown aside for the readiness of rage.

"Damn your forked tongue! Don't throw such calm words at me! I would-"

"Did he mean so little to you?"

That silenced them like contrite children, eyes flickering to Rajura's burden and away. "We are old, but so was he. None of us were made to change, to adapt. But are we so weak that we cannot learn? Always Sh'ten set our challenges. Tempted us. Enraged us. Forced us to outdo him. Dared us to love him. Will we turn our backs on this last task? Sh'ten returned to his humanity. He gave his life. He learned to change for what he believed in." Rajura lifted his too-bright gaze to the other two, standing silent in the doorway. "We will not let him best us in this, will we, brothers?"

The wind blew, snapping Anubisu's cape like a battle flag and tangling Sh'ten's hair. The Dynasty seemed to howl with sorrow at the loss of her red-topped child, sudden rain spattered on armor and shook petals from sakura in the castle garden. As one they bore him up on their shoulders, uneven number for an honor guard. The gates of the castle swung open to admit them, and four passed through it in determined silence.