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certain why she chose the upward direction. The path would be easier were she to go downward; but it seemed imperative that she pursue the harder course.
    When she began to trek toward an unseen peak, two squat toadlike beings immediately hopped off the face of the mountain to block her path. They reared on bowed, spindly legs and glowered balefully from protuberant eyes. Tomoe’s swords slashed without hesitation, without thought, bursting through the skin of both bloated creatures. Air seeped out of their wounds, spurting green fluid. Their bulbous eyes registered surprise. Without any sound beyond the air escaping from their bodies, the toad-creatures leapt off the mountain side and into limbo.
    A wind cleared the sky of snow for one moment, and for that instant Tomoe beheld an array of bizarre monstrosities waiting along her path. They were hungry things, half human and half animal, wretched in appearance and posing threateningly.
    A group of five oddities walked down the path on stubby legs. These bore knives mounted on poles. Their bodies were pockmarked and scabby. Tomoe parried their spears a while, but became annoyed and dispatched them one after the next. Their screeching death-cries churned her stomach. Cursing, she struggled on up the mountain road, wary of the next attack.

    It was a difficult journey, but the struggles were not the fault of the creatures she slew with ease. For although the road was not steep, it affected her as though it were. Her breaths pulled hard. Her legs dragged heavily. Only her arms were unaffected, so her swords could take their toll.
    She sweated in the cold atmosphere. Snowflakes melted against hot skin.
    It was a day without moon or sun, giving Tomoe the eerie impression of having come to a land within a cosmos not intended for human habitation. She wondered if she were no longer living in the universe she had known before the battle on Shojiro Shigeno’s north estate.
    Monstrous semi-human things came at her without pause. With dizzying insistency, her swords carved the monsters up and down. Some fell upon the road, others over the side. A few climbed, wounded, straight up the mountain wall.
    As they died beneath her whirling blades, many screamed hideously, in pain or in sorrow, with bestial hatred or with solicitous pleas of mercy. They merited no pity for their agony and it was dangerous to share their hatred; to respond negatively or positively was to lose to them her strength. Their varied cries assaulted her ears and emotions more fully than the reality of their existence assaulted her flesh or sanity. She was grateful to the ones who made no sound at all.
    Most of them fought like beasts, reliant on fang and claw. A few were poorly armed with rusted swords and iron mallets. Now they came in vast numbers, as many as could crowd abreast without pushing one another off the road. Tomoe’s butterfly-longswords carved amongst them with unceasing ferocity.
    Her eyes tried to search the road beyond the untrained, ghoulish army. The snow was not heavy, but it was relentless, limiting visibility. She looked backwards only once. She was shocked to see no monsters nor their corpses, no snow, and no boulders cluttering the way. The path down was more inviting. If she faced the way of the monsters, she needn’t struggle more. It was with extreme difficulty that she looked upward again; and she didn’t look down thereafter.
    One huge monster pushed itself to the front of the rest. It had arms long and gnarled like thick branches, with several joints and elbows. It champed and frothed and had so huge a manner of confidence that Tomoe was given pause, though she would not give up ground.
    The monster’s extraordinary arms held the others back, as if to say, “She’s mine! I will kill her by myself!” She was startled to realize it had said precisely those words; and it said more: “None walk up this path who have fallen toward hell! The only safe route