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Cicadas had long played a secondary role to Gaisu's life. They had filled the silent air of the night of his first kiss. They had narrated his first act of mischief as a child. And now, they hummed a war-tune as he stood amidst the blowing tall-grass and sweet smelling air of a battlefield.

The rabbit stood proud, his imposing height made possible by the ears jutting from the tattered remains of his conical straw hat. The waxing moon above laid bare the movements of those who still lived, and the silent slumber of the dead. White fur gleaming in the moonlight, Gaisu smirked as he watched the trembling line of soldiers before him.

"Not a man to be seen, but children to be punished!" The rabbit stepped forward haughtily, his sheathed katana rattling beneath the loose grip of his paw. The soldiers, their spears raised, fell back a step. Visibly dismayed, they looked to each other for some kind of leadership. "Come then." The rabbit's body shifted, his left leg moving forward as he brought himself up into an almost casual stance; his paw did not leave the hilt of his weapon.

"T-The Shogun demands your head, traitor!" A lanky tiger, his meagre peasant armour already in tatters from the battle, moved forward. The spear in the feline's grip trembled as his three companions looked on. A pile of their comrades lay in the rabbit's wake, their bodies cut down like wheat by the threshing edge of the samurai's blade. The tiger's body bore several bleeding wounds of its own, though none of them fatal or debilitating.

"He will have to settle for yours." Gaisu lifted the first several inches of his blade from its sheath, thumbing along the edge and savouring the familiar keenness of it as it sliced through his flesh shallowly. Blood trickled freely, wetting the weapon as though a sacrifice to rouse the blade's interest in spilling more. Gaisu's eyes closed behind the nearly opaque mesh of his hat.

He heard the tiger's footfalls as the larger male began to barrel towards him; even the feline's loud battlecry couldn't wash away the sound of those large, plodding steps. He heard the tell-tale rattle of armour as the spear was raised, and he felt the hot stink of the oncoming male's body: the sweat, the blood, and the fear. There was no warning, however, of the rabbit's counter-attack. His blade slid silently from his sheath, twisted and swung through the air with the practiced ease of a dedicated swordsman. Gaisu's right leg pushed him forward, his back bent forward and his eyes--now open--not leaving the three soldiers who were waiting to see how their comrade fared.

"GRAK!"

The feline's body went taut as the lapine flowed past him. The whites of the tiger's eyes were luminescent in the moon's cold glow, like pools of radiant water amidst the fire of the boy's orange fur. A final sparking thought ran through the large cat's mind, there, then gone even as blood sprayed from the nearly invisible slash across his throat. Tongue falling from his mouth, those white eyes rolled back into the cat's head as his head, in turned, rolled back and right off of his shoulders. The standing corpse fell to its knees even as the severed head landed with a heavy, meaty thud in the mud. Shocked, perhaps, at its own destruction, the body shuddered for several seconds as though gripped by some sudden chill. Blood escaped in a single long arterial spray before simply coursing down the tiger's body. Gaisu straightened himself up once more as the tiger's headless corpse collapsed forward, laying flat in the mud with blood still jetting from the stump of its neck.

The remaining three soldiers--terrified by the suddenness of their friend's death--hastily retreated several steps. Gaisu stepped towards them. The soldiers retreated another step. Gaisu again stepped towards them. The soldiers retreated once more.

"Is this the might of the shogunate? Cowards, but in numbers enough to overwhelm with the force of their cowardice alone!?" Gaisu snarled as he spit on the ground, tilting his hat back just enough to allow the hard glare of his lilac coloured eyes to fall squarely on his would-be opponents.

Two more of the soldiers charged, their anger and shame overpowering their common sense. A lynx wearing only a white loincloth--his armour stripped to relieve weary muscles--and a red panda in gleaming onyx-coloured steel armor, both sought to overbear the single samurai. A soft snort was all the respect they earned, however. Slipping his sword back into his sheath, the rabbit once more swung his left leg forward and waited.

"YOU BASTAAAAAAARD!" shouted the lynx as he neared his intended prey. The red panda was only several steps behind.

Once more, Gaisu's blade slid free, as though launched by some hidden mechanism within the battered black wood of the samurai's sheath. It burned in the moon's glare, and like cold fire it tore through the lynx's neck with ease.

"HRRK!"

Gaisu danced. His right foot pushing him forward, he used his planted left foot to pivot, all but spinning around the charging body of the lynx, which continued forward under a momentum unperturbed by the head flying in the opposite direction. The red panda's spear pushed forward, and Gaisu's blade came down on it, driving it towards the muck of the battlefield where it impaled itself harmlessly into the ground. Left foot now dominant, the samurai finished his initial pivot, long blade resting on the weapon of the disoriented panda, who had to fight to maintain a grip on his weapon after the sudden stop.

"NO! PLEA--!"

Gaisu's weapon ran up the haft of the red panda's spear as his body came full circle and he could put his full force behind it. There was no stopping the masterfully folded steel blade from tearing into the red panda's throat. His tongue pushed free from between his lips as blood cascaded down his front. The sheerness of the blade and the power of the strike were enough to keep the slain soldier's head firmly upon his shoulders, despite the growing seam of red that surrounded it.

Nearby, the lynx's body had yet to fall fully. The slain male's head lay in the grass, his eyes wide and mouth open in a final scream which gave him a sense of life that he clearly no longer possessed. The male's loincloth was tented out by his cock, hardened by the inexplicability of its own destruction. Even as the body finally gave in and collapsed, hot piss soaked through the white garment before the whole thing became a mess of mud, blood and shadow.

The red panda quivered before joining his former comrade, slumping down almost gently compared to the other two. His head rolled into his lap even as the male's body came to rest in a seated position, his legs tucked beneath him and his spear handle stuck beneath one arm; it was this support which kept the corpse mostly upright. Blood pulsed into the air in an arching splash which stained the grass the corpse was kneeling in.

Gaisu let out a low breath, rubbing his blade along the tunic exposed on the red panda's back. Cleaned, the weapon was once more sheathed.

"And you?" His voice was low, his head lowered once more as he waited to see how the final soldier would react.

"D-Demon! Monster!" The spear fell from the numb fingers of the final opponent. Stumbling backwards, the Tanuki--his orange and black pelt dark with mud already--fell heavily onto his ass, watching as Gaisu moved towards him.

"What of it?" Gaisu asked, his weapon pulled free before he pointed it towards his final assailant.

"The shogun will have you!"

"He will have my blade to his throat. Nothing more." The rabbit paused, standing over the fallen tanuki now. "You will tell him so."

The raccoon-dog looked incredulous, "You'll spare me?"

"I'll use you."

Gaisu's blade became, for one moment, a pen. With it he wrote a detailed letter to the shogun. He told him what was coming. He warned him of his fate. And he made sure his anger was clear.

All this he did in a single stroke.