Shishio surveyed the scene from the porch and frowned with irritation. An entire outpost wiped out by an influenza outbreak... Houji would be beside himself when he found out.

But Shishio knew that was foolishness. With some simple precautions, it was no more than a minor setback. The men here would be quarantined until the epidemic was spent. Those who were strong enough would survive it, and those who weren’t... The bodies and everything carrying the disease—the equipment, provisions, and even the building itself—all of it would be put to the torch. The disease wouldn’t survive the fire. That was why there was no risk to himself, even being here in the midst of it. The doctor couldn’t imagine a pathogen that could survive and do its work at Shishio’s elevated body temperature.

Those still alive were already tending pyres of the dead, and those beyond hope of recovery got a swift coup-de-grace before being cast into the flames. Looking at the piles of burning corpses, Shishio could appreciate the irony, but no one could call him a hypocrite. Anyone who walked out of those fires would get all the credit he deserved, although he doubted that would happen. None of these soldiers were substantially more than human sheep, peasants with a uniform and a blade, though they might think they were more. They were all easily replaceable.

Only one thing threatened by the influenza would really be a damaging loss. Something that would take years to replace, as much as it could be done at all...

The doctor emerged from the building. He had a cloth wrapped around his face and clutched it tight to his nose and mouth against the smell of burning flesh.

“Well? How is he?” Shishio asked.

The doctor tossed his free hand in frustration. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“What?”

“That is, there are treatments, but I can’t get him to swallow medicine, or even use ice-packs for the fever. He keeps pushing them away.”

“Really?” Shishio said. “What’s your prognosis, then?”

The doctor shook his head. “He’s running such a temperature you could probably feel it. Without any kind of treatment... I doubt he’ll last through the night.”

Shishio sighed hotly and marched into the house without another word. The main, wide-open chamber was littered with sick soldiers and filled with a soft chorus of moaning and coughing. All their eyes clung to him, but he didn’t glance at one of them, only crossed resolutely to the sometime conference room and entered it, throwing the sliding door shut behind him with a loud CLACK.

In haste, the doctor’s supplies had been left laying about as he used them, along with three buckets of crushed ice—just as the doctor had said, a cloth-wrapped pack of the ice lay there unused, bleeding water on the floor. This was all clustered around a futon with no overquilt. Seta Soujiro lay there in his nemaki*, curled up tightly on his side with his back to the door, shivering violently. Shishio couldn’t see his face, but knew that he was still smiling. It gave his labored breathing and occasional coughing a strange, light pitch. Shishio walked around the futon and sat cross-legged on the floor where he could look down at Soujiro’s face.

“Konnichiwa**, Shishio-san,” he greeted with a weak, cheerful voice.

Out of morbid curiosity, Shishio pulled off one of his gloves and lay his hand on Soujiro’s forehead—it felt clammy and almost-lukewarm to him. For a normal person, that would have to be a violent fever. “The doctor tells me you won’t take any medicine,” he said simply.

“Eh? Yes...”

“Why?” He picked up a few chips of ice with his bare hand, just to watch them sink into hot puddles on his palm.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did wrong...” Soujiro said. “The strong live and the weak die... And now somehow I’m so weak I can’t even stand up...” He tried to laugh, but it sent him into a fit of coughing. It could almost have passed for a laugh anyway, with that smile.

Shishio knew to see through that, though. Soujiro smiled, yes, but his eyes were half-closed, with a deep, watery sparkle. He hadn’t looked that way since that first night in the rain, eight years ago. “So you’re just going to die, then?”

“That would be better, wouldn’t it?”

“Idiot,” Shishio said. “I didn’t think you would let yourself be defeated so easily.”

“Eh?” Soujiro looked up at him with full, wide-eyed attention.

“This isn’t like what you’re thinking,” Shishio said. “Sickness isn’t a weakness, it’s a battle. If you’re strong enough, you’ll survive and recover. I thought you would be, but you aren’t even trying.”

“Of course I’m trying,” Soujiro protested, with a smile and a wheeze.

“You can’t refuse medicine and say that.”

“But, if I’m saved by the doctor, isn’t that...”

“No. This is like kenjutsu***. Use every resource available. The medicine and the doctor’s treatments are your sword for this fight. If you choose not to use them, then what happens to you is your own fault.

“But I won’t bother arguing with you,” Shishio said, pulling his glove back on. “If you want to see things your way, then I have no use for you, or any of these other sick people. When I leave here, I’ll burn this place to the ground. Whether you’re still inside when I do is your decision.”

Soujiro managed a bright smile. “Wow, Shishio-san. You’re a lot smarter than me.”

“Yes, I am, but if you can realize that, there’s hope for you.” He stood up and started toward the door. “I’ll tell the doctor you’ve come to your senses.”

“That’s good,” Soujiro agreed. He was answered only by the sound of the door sliding open and shut again.

Hopefully the doctor would be back soon. Not content to lay waiting to be rescued, he reached for the bundle of ice and, with tremendous effort, pulled it close enough to rest his face on it. It was painfully cold, and sent another wave of shaking chills through him, but if this was how this battle was fought, then Soujiro knew he could take more of it than anyone.

Except Shishio-san.