Despair: Yasuhiro Uehara’s Arc. The Second Eagle becomes a Desperado.

My father was a murderer and I’m a murderer’s son.

Hiro “The Second Eagle” Uehara

Yasuhiro was not used to the inhuman heat of Aeris desert. But he had been taught well. Immediately he shut the complaint inside his mind. Never utter it with the tongue. Warriors are born to be better than everyone else. Warriors are born to suffer. To suffer better than anyone else. A highborn warrior like himself grew up inside the manor house of the Uehara clan at the south of Aeris.

The estate was established in the grassland around river Eien (Japanese for eternity). The river was always the ambiance for his uncle’s flute that would echo in the vast hallways of his house. There was always a sinister, sweet smell that came with the long, slow, meditative improvisations of his uncle.

A large metal pot was burning opium in front of Sadakata-dono, young Yasuhiro and Ichibei’s uncle. Sadakata-dono leaned forward while in the giza position, covered all the holes of the flute with his fingers and used it as a pipe to draw a long puff of the opium smoke. The smoke seemed to have jolted the old man's skeleton as he started to sway with the tune's phrases and changes.

Sadakata-dono felt a familiar feeling of wild, unhindered happiness. This was the day his nieces and nephews would be coming of age. Ironically, for Uehara Clan or " Death Talons" that would also be the day they'd all die, but for the strongest one.

The Uehara Clan took pride in this ritual which named the last offspring standing, "eagle". The Clan Leader, Ryuto Uehara had six sons from three different wives, all were the same age. They would compete in a deathmatch for the title of the first eagle.

Ryuto-dono was very sure that his favorite child, Ichibei-san would be named the first eagle. The rest of them didn’t stand a chance against Ichibei’s martial excellence. Small price to pay. All things come to life to meet their inevitable end. It is not fratricide, it is a process that keeps the strong seed of the Uehara Clan. As long as the first eagle is chosen, they get to have their harem and engage in giving as many sons as they can. For the Uehara Clan, the Law of Approval was always on their side.

Ryuto “The Death Talon” Uehara was governor Phobos’ chief assassin. Of the Sadist Six, Ryuto’s terrible skills and practices would be deployed whenever the death of a potent enemy of Phobos was required. Ryuto’s body count was two hundred and seventy-four people. All done with extreme precision by the blade of Ryuto.

For the Uehara Clan, their blades were forged by the core family’s blacksmith. Then the young warrior would have to try the blade on live manhunts surrounding the Eien valley. Poor bastards died so that these vile aristocrats would get to see if their blade lives up to the demands of Ryuto-dono. It was also an exercise to desensitize them further. To drop all inhibitions and humanity. Ryuto-dono always said that they should be as cruel as life. This was life in the Aeris desert after all, despite the privileged position of the Uehara clan in one of the few remaining grasslands.

Phobos wanted his loyalists to build up their numbers while restricting the population growth in lands where the resistance or scarce illegalist opposition was growing. It was a battle he had been winning for a long time. The Uehara clan were die-hard loyalists because their elitist frame of mind fit well into Phobos’ dominion.

Yasuhiro was sweating. His long black hair was tied in a tight bun and his glistening, turquoise kimono was reflecting the sun rays. He had two blades by his side and a shortsword in a scabbard on his back. He knew that he was the least capable in combat of them all. His twin, Ichibei had been bruising him and bleeding him in training for fourteen years. Ichibei was the first one to come out of the womb, he was more able-bodied, fierce, angrier, and overall more predestined to be the family’s great warrior. Yasuhiro was having visions of his brother slitting his throat during the Eagle Trial.

In half an hour, the big bell at the garden would toll and Sadakata-dono would play the melody that would initiate the trial. The rules were simple. The murders and the duels had to take place within the estate. Should one try to escape, the entire clan would offer an inscription to have them murdered. It has not happened before but everybody was convinced that the Uehara clan would not allow the deserter to live.

The participants could employ any means to assassinate each other. Nothing is off-rules. They had been trained that way. Disguise, camouflage, poisons, darts, daggers, explosives, improvised weapons. They had learned how to weaponize themselves and their surroundings. Every day from dawn till dusk, they trained relentlessly. They went to bed in tears, they were awakened with punches by their trainers and they had to fight their way to the dining table. There had been five portions of food for the six of them. The last one was not meant to eat, the weak exist so that they don’t survive. These were the teachings of the Uehara Clan.

In Ryuto and Sadakata’s teachings, clinging to life was the ultimate weakness. No one is destined for immortality. They were taught to be friendless, to trust no one. To prepare for an ambush no matter what. They had no love in them. They were shadows. An image of something, devoid of meaning. Any meaning at all, apart from depriving all life of its light.

Yasuhiro remembers one day at the pond with the carps. He loved to sit there in the short intervals of the brutal training. The pond was filled with adolescent Yasuhiro’s tears. The carps looked so quiet. His father noticed the boy’s affection for the fish. Affection meant weakness. Weakness meant death. The boy had to be punished, for the boy was soft. All things soft are treacherous. Life is hard. Death is soft, quiet. Death is not the fate of the Eagle of the family. He tied young Yasuhiro to a tree for three nights and prohibited entrance to that garden to everyone except for Sadakata-dono who would offer the boy a cup of water every day.

Once the three days passed, Ryuto-dono took young Yasuhiro on a trip to the closest hilltop. It was a long and exhausting hike. The boy had already been drained by the punishment and could barely walk at the end of the climb. Ryuto-dono gestured at him to keep his mouth shut and kneeled. Although he was on the brink of death, Yasuhiro realized that this was as close as he could get to his father.

After a couple of moments, they both noticed the ring-shaped nest of an eagle with four baby eagles getting fed by their gracious mother. As soon as she finished, she spread her wings and soared around the hill. Ryuto-dono seemed to have anticipated that moment. Because the strongest of the eaglets started attacking its weaker siblings. It killed them all. They did try to resist but nature seems to have had other plans.

Yasuhiro should have known better than to trust his father for this hike. He has heard others calling him a member of the Sadist Six but he had no clue what that meant. He was not allowed to address his own father unless spoken to. Even if he could address him, his authority was such that he knew not to. He had been punished time and time again, he didn’t want to draw the Eagle’s attention. He always tried to survive by being unnoticed and that made Ryuto-dono furious. Ichibei-san on the other hand, lived to excel. Natural-born assassin.

Yasuhiro grew up in the shadow of his twin brother. Ichibei was a natural at every aspect of the martial arts that the clan prioritized for the upbringing of the eagles. He was scary when yielding a sword and his empty hand combat prowess was second to none. Everyone believed that Ichibei would be the First Eagle. He had not lost a single spar, ever. He bruised his siblings with ease. Ryuto-dono was pleased, though he would never show it.

Ichibei had always felt proud. He knew that he was the best. It was evident. He worked all of the details. Strengths and Weaknesses of his siblings. He had rehearsed and visualized the day of the culling for far too long. Ichibei was ready to take what was rightfully his.

Sadakata-dono, rang the big ceremonial Gong in the garden. It echoed throughout all the open and closed rooms of the estate. The young ones stood vigilant. They drew their swords, daggers, and spears and started roaming the estate.

Ichibei saw his twin, Yasuhiro in the distance. He chuckled as he thought that Yasuhiro was too weak and he shouldn’t be concerned with him at all. Yasuhiro decided to avoid them all, it was impossible to defeat Ichibei. He was thinking what would be the chances of him escaping the Uehara estate. Even so, the entire clan would hunt him down. He needed to find a way to win or at least, to buy time.

He decided to hide underneath one of the wooden bridges of the different carp ponds in the garden. The gargling screams of sliced throats made him shiver. This was too hard to bear. Yasuhiro thought of taking his own life there and then. He did not want to be part of this. It was what they bred him for but not who he wanted to be.

Suicide was very enticing. It was like a woman’s voice. His mother’s voice. A voice calling him to rule out himself from the tragedies of life in Aeris and the Uehara Clan estate. He was part of all the malice of Ryuto-dono. He was guilty like everyone else. Maybe by committing suicide, he would murder one more of the people he hated. He would kill one more perpetrator of the suffering and the madness. In his heart of hearts, he knew that he did not want to be the family’s eagle.

His father had always said that he was the worst. Unable to grow out of his emotions and inhibitions. The dreaded Uehara training and conditioning did not deprive Yasuhiro of his true materials. He was not desensitized, whenever he was fighting, he would hold back.

Ichibei would go all out on him. He knows that he can hide but he cannot run. It is impossible to escape the estate as it is also impossible to sneak in its fortress. For the first and maybe last time of his life, he had no option but to fight.

The silence was interrupted by the sound of blood spraying from someone’s throat. The disgusting gargling echoed in the garden, only to be followed by Ryuto’s laughter as another one of his sons was killed by the martial prodigy of Ichibei-san.

Ichibei yelled, “Come out, Hiro. I will do it quickly. You are my twin after all.”

Hiro came out and threw his blades to the ground in submission. From a distance, Ryuto-dono was overwhelmed with rage. This was a disgrace. The boy was everything that was wrong with the world according to the clan’s leader. He was a projection of weakness, an obstacle in the clan’s route to domination. He deserved to be treated like livestock. Hooked in the mouth and chained and mutilated.

Ryuto-dono might have been the Eagle of the Sadist Six, yet there was a time when he showed mercy to his brother, Sadakata-dono. Ryuto was and is, a great warrior. No one had ever made him bleed while he eradicated entire towns in Aeris. Both an impeccable tactician and a brutal duelist, he orchestrated genocide with the same virtuosity that his brother played the flute.

Ryuto-dono would have killed Sadakata if he hadn’t been the last person to memorize the scrolls of the Uehara martial traditions and laws. In their rite of passage, Sadakata was chased by Ryuto for hours. He managed to hide inside the vault of Uehara Clan. He locked himself inside and for three days he was memorizing everything. Once he finished a scroll, he shredded it to mere dust.

The Clan could do nothing but spare him but they saw that he’d pay a horrible price. Using cattle’s stomach acid-the same they used to refine and polish daggers- they burnt his eyes. Sadakata was the only exception to the trial of initiation. He survived because he was necessary for the continuation of the traditions of the brutal clan Uehara.

Ichibei lifted his Wakizashi to strike his brother but Ryuto interrupted him.

“I consider the ceremony finished. I will give this insolent scum enough suffering to make him beg for a painless death. Others have begged for their life, he will beg for his death. Grab your sword Yasuhiro!”

The father and son. Hatred and mercy were aligned like stars on a collision trajectory. They charged onto each other with utmost malice.

A sound like thunder interrupted the duel before it even began. Then Ryuto-dono fell to the floor as if there was nothing to help him resist gravity. A round hole was bleeding at the center of his forehead. A man who was thought to be unkillable was now succumbing to gravity like a fucking hammer.

Ichibei screamed until his throat bled. Then turned around to see the murderer. By the pond stood a man with a black desperado hat, a leather waistcoat and long black hair to his shoulders. He turned his pistol to Ichibei and shot him twice on the left shoulder. Rolled his pistol back to its holster, unzipped his leather pants, and started pissing in the pond while whistling a famous tune.

-You killed them both.

-Nope. I only killed the old cunt. I let the other cunt live to tell the tale.

-Stop soiling the pond. It’s a shrine for my family.

-¿Estás bien princesa?

-Speak the language. Who are you?

-I am Gabriel, the one who just saved your life, my Lord.

-Gabriel? Are you Gabriel Ituralde the most wanted desperado?

-Si, soy Gabriel “El arcángel de la muerte” Ituralde. The scorpion of Aeris desert. Now pick up your flashy knives and let’s fuck off. These relatives of yours will kill us if we stay more, princesa.

Gabriel finished, zipped up, and walked away. Yasuhiro was still in shock but he’d live to die another day. He started running behind him.

(To be continued)