It was warm in the mass of darkness that encased the samurai. When he reached out he felt the frigid morning against his hand. He heaved himself between two wolves, running his fingers through their fur until their eyes shut like castle gates. All the wolves were spun together in a bun on the forest floor.      For three weeks he'd followed the rivers current. He shared his game, he sung them songs, and he learned theirs as well. Each day he followed the trail of the man who took his sword.

   Even in the clutches of death it is said  that a samurai grasps his sword and will continue to until his body blends with the soil. It is said that a samurai and his sword must be connected as he rots in order for his spirit to transition. If a samurai rots into the soil without his sword, his spirit will be entangled in the roots of trees and eaten by the worms. All dead samurai feed the earth.

   They say the trees in these woods can only sleep to the cadence of clashing steel, and have been restless since the age of the samurai passed. They say the trees in these woods let the rain water run and drink only the spoils of war to grow strong. They say the forest is dying of thirst.

   Nemo felt light walking over the fallen leaves, he braced himself from every gust of wind threatening to carry him into the

canopies. Golden leaves were swept away like the silhouettes of waltzing ghosts.

   It felt as if much time had passed since his sworde was taken. Three weeks is a long time without a soul. Three weeks ago, Nemo fell from a waterfall wet with blood, a torn piece of cloth wadded in his fists. When he hit the water, red film billowed from his mouth, panning out in front of him as he sank.

   At first, Nemo could only see the swordsman's ember in the shadows on the tip of a cigar, flicked to the ground and smothered. The swordsman stepped from the dark shall of the shade with a masked face and a wide swing of his sword. Their blades clashed, like licks of electricity. They pressed together. Nemo felt the swordsman's hot breath through his mask. The swordsman lowered his head and ploughed it through Nemo's teeth. Nemo tore at the swordsman's sleeve and staggered backward, blood running down his chin. The swordsman flipped and caught his blade. He beat Nemo with the handle until his legs buckled. Nemo lied exhausted, looking at the sky, panting at the edge of the waterfall. When the swordsman ground his heel into Nemo's arm, the samurai accepted the swordsman was going to deny his spirit to pass on. Nemo couldn't move, but he could still grip the handle of his sword with white knuckles. The swordsman had to break three of his fingers to pry it from his clutches.

   Blood pooled in the swordsman's palms and ran down his wrists while he stood with two blades in his hands. Nemo seized and quivered, bringing himself to his knees. He waited for the cold steel to kiss the back of his neck, and for his head to fall

from his shoulders. His spirit would be caged in the roots for eternity and spread from the dung of worms and vermin. But instead, the swordsman racked down on the samurai. Each broken bone clapped like a snapped bamboo chute. Then Nemo felt the swordsman's foot nudging him off of the edge. The water caught him and he sifted through like panned gold. He was a red cloud sinking until the bottom reached his feet. Like an anchor dropped at full mast, his body raked over the rocks in a deep sleep.

   He could smell the pine wood floor of the dojo and heard chimes ringing in the dark. Nemo spun in a slow circle in the pitch blackness.

"The samurai was a symbol of nobility."

His masters voice ricocheted off the walls.

"Today the samurai is a ruthless warmonger."

His master fed a strike. Nemo swept it away.

"You will become an arbiter in this age of cruelty. You must become the reason why a samurai looks over his shoulder before he tests how sharp his blade is on a peasant."

Nemo blocked another attack. Sparks curled from their blades, and in that spark he could see his masters next strike preparing.

"Kill the empire!"

Nemo stepped around his masters upwards strike. His master chuckled.

"Never strike on nerve alone. That is all."

   Nemo bowed in the dark. He opened his eyes. The shirt on his shoulders was caught in the clenched teeth of two wolves pulling him up and out of the water. With the cloth still wadded in his fist he brought it to the wolves snouts and let the scent take in. They'd followed it ever since. Downriver. Nemo and the wolves.

   Nemo sat and listened to the river. Soon, the wolves would stir awake. He could hear the Alpha trotting towards him. He perched on the rock beside Nemo and watched the water flow with dark beady eyes. Only three weeks ago the wolves dragged Nemo to the Alpha's feet. Wet and frigid, Nemo woke with his back to the forest floor. He could feel himself filling up, bleeding on the inside where his bones splintered at his flesh. He tried to move. It hurt.

   Nemo could only watch the sun go down. And when it did, he watched the bats grace from tree to tree. The wolves returned as a fleet. Nemo wanted to dart up into the trees. He'd bleed out on the spot. He asked himself how he'd rather die. Impalement or wolf food? Nemo decided he would rather bleed out all at once when he saw the whites of their teeth. When he tried to lift himself up; he dropped back down with a spike of pain shooting through him. Nemo could taste his own blood in his mouth. It was hard to swallow. It was hard to breathe. He tried to pretend to sleep, but he couldn't stop from choking on his blood.

   Nemo could see the wolves, a group of ten, dragging the body of an elk over the forest floor. He closed his eyes and hoped to feign death even as he spat blood, his whole body jerking in the cold, deepening his wounds. Nemo could hear their breaths come closer, and the sound of the elk dragging through the dirt.  One at a time, every wolf stood by the carcass of the elk while the Alpha dipped his snout in its guts and smeared the blood on their faces like masks. The heart was removed, and dropped on Nemo's chest. Nemo could feel the elks heart seep through him.

   Nemo began to leap from rock to rock. The other wolves would catch up, but the Alpha followed.

"Nemo!"

The wolf speaks? Nemo's foot slipped on the next rock and he tumbled into the current. The Alpha stood waiting where he climbed

up.

"I remember the day you left this forest. You came back like a bowstring, four thousand samurai stepping on your heels. They

followed too far. Guts hung from the canopies and glistened in the sun. You became another legend of the blood forest."

   The wolf lowered his head so Nemo could throw his leg over. He hung on to two fistfuls of black fur on the Alpha's back, spurting from tree to tree. Nemo could see open fields, and then the city.

"Its a concrete jungle, Nemo. How long have you been hiding while the world got sick?"

Nemo could see armoured birds the size of rice grains in the distance, falling from the sky, gouging buildings. Smoke gathered on the horizon.

"You killed every wave of samurai until the waves stopped coming. Did you think you served your purpose? You thought you snuffed out the fire. If you cut the legs off a tick the head stays embedded in the flesh. You failed as an arbiter. You have been hiding while cruelty walks abroad. Who knows your legend now in a world where few know the Bushido?"

Into a ring of wolves the two descended from the canopies.

"You were raised by wolves, Nemo, and taken from us by your master. We remember you. You don't remember us."

The Alpha's black-hole eyes pulled at Nemo, and released their grip to address the pack. He signalled for them to move.

   The wolves hunting grounds in the blood forest move with the seasons like a double bladed swordsman moving down river, deeper into the forest. Nemo hoped to find the swordsman entangled in the branches of a Jubokko vampire tree. The deeper into the forest you go the more aggressive the trees hunt. The Alpha stopped dead in his tracks.

"You hear that?"

   When the samurai held his breath, he could hear the monotone hum in the far distance. As the other wolves picked up on the low hum, they slipped into the brush like hidden playing cards.

   "Nemo, the forest is in danger," the Alpha said this looking over his shoulder. Then he was gone. Only  two wolves were left with their snouts in the brush, hesitant to step forward. The samurai turned and headed down river. The pair followed.

   They were close. The scent was strong, the wolves heaved it in, weaving passed trees. Nemo felt as if he were chasing throwing darts, flying in and out of sight over hills and thorn patches. The samurai looked at his hands. He remembered the way the cloth wrapped handle felt in his grasp. The thought of hearing his blade fit into the sheathe pushed fire under his feet and soon Nemo was trying not to step on the wolves tails as they blazed forward. Then it was there, shining bright in the sun, piercing the trunk of a tree pinning a note to the bark. The wolves bolted to the tree. When Nemo noticed blood running from where the sword met the tree, it was too late to warn the wolves. They were already in range. Only Jubokko trees bleed.    The branches plunged into the wolves and lifted them into the air. Their bodies deflated as their insides emptied. When the wolves bodies hit the ground their bones smacked together. The tree spoke.

"Its been a long time, Nemo, since you've been this deep in the woods."

   A hunk of bark began to peel from the tree, moulding into the shape of a man until  man of bark stood with his back to an exposed ripe patch. Something clung together, clad from bark, shouldn't have moved with such grace. The man grazed the back of bark husked hand over the top of the grass as he walked toward Nemo.

"The fields, and trees, the vines and ferns, their language runs through the veins of this forest like an electrical current, you

understand?"

There were no features to the man's face, but Nemo could feel the man's eyes like cattle prods.

"You've been defeated, but he let you live. He knew you'd be saved by the wolves. He's testing you, Nemo. Its why he left your blade in my guts over there."

Now the man stood face to face with Nemo.

"He knew I would make it hard for you to get it, as hard as I made it for him to put it there."

The man looked at Nemo from head to toe.

"You smell like dog."

Nemo raised his hands to block the Jubokko's swing, but the clad fist of the Jubokko knocked him over. The Jubokko got a couple

kicks into the samurai's ribs on his way back to his feet. Nemo hurled himself at the figure, and then sat on top of him, bludgeoning the man of bark's face deeper into the ground with every swing. Nemo lept for his sword. He was pulled to the ground by his ankle. With magic, the Jubokko lit his hands like torches and Nemo kicked free of their searing grasp. They stood up. The Jubokko swung his flaming fists at the samurai. Wide hay makers. Nemo stepped away from them, and then forward, connecting a blow to the Jubokko's chin. The Jubokko kept swinging, and samurai kept knocking him back with strikes. Blood dripped from Nemo's hands Nemo swept the man's feet from beneath him and stomped his head into the dirt, but the man of bark stood up and continued to swing. Nemo stomped the Jubokko's shins and knees, dropping him to the ground again and again. Nemo thought he would see a crack, a spurt of blood leaking from the bark. an indication that it could be broken. Only Nemo bled. The flames grew larger and the heat on Nemo when he stepped into strike grew hotter. He smelled his own singed hair. Nemo caught the forearm of theJubokko's next swing and swept him off his feet again. He wrenched the Jubokko's arm behind its back and let the fire from its fists jump up his spine. The Jubokko writhed in and squirmed but only fed Nemo its second arm which he also pinned down to grow the flames until the heat burnt the frayed edges of Nemo's sleeves. Nemo released the Jubokko. It set off running on all fours, head first into a creek. The samurai walked towards the rising smoke gushing off the Jubokko and found it lying halfway out of

the water. It tried to slip back in but Nemo brought his foot down on its back and it crumbled into ash and washed away.

Nemo pulled his sword from the tree, caught the note as it fell. It read:

Meet me under the ivory bridge across the fields, the one which links your world to mine.

    Nemo walked across the fields. Dead wolves and man alike were tucked in the grass. Heavy machinery used to cut down trees laid dormant. The windows were busted and framed with blood where the wolves must have dragged the operators out by their throats. Nemo had never seen machines like these. They were monstrous. But he had seen the insignia painted on the sides of them. The same insignia of the empire he faced years ago.