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for his loss? Then what of you? Sukayo's protege. How fit are you for command?"
    This is infuriating. "We are like bricks in a wall. Never mind who is killed. We have many more bricks and all are capable of leading the Guard."
    "Now you are the one who exaggerates."
    "If you truly believe that Yoshida -kai is our enemy, it is your duty to relate this to the Chairman."
    "It is not my duty. It is yours. You are the senior member."
    "And you are senior next to me. The distinction is of no significance if you believe that our clan's foremost ally is in fact an enemy plotting to destroy us."
    "No, you are senior member. The responsibility is yours." Machiko looks to the tree limbs overhead. This will be a long and trying night. Again, she wishes Sukayo-san were here. He would know how to answer Gongoro.
    How to silence him.

7
    Several times, Machiko-san seems at pains to lower her voice. Ryokai sees little point.
    Despite the pounding in his head, it is clear to him that Machiko-san 's words and Gongoro's growls carry far against the quiet of the night. The GSG standing watch by the main entrance to the Chairman's house can follow every word. And several times, though his eyes grow blurry with fatigue, he spots the faces of GSG stationed on the hillside turning to gaze uphill. It is troubling. The seniors of the Guard should work out their disagreements in private. This open display of dissension can only lead to further trouble, perhaps trouble enough to involve the entire GSG membership.
    "Do not lecture me about duty, Gongoro-san," says Machiko. "I know my duty. Do you?"
    Gongoro growls an angry reply.
    Ryokai closes his eyes and tries to conceive of a means of ending the conflict peacefully. Yet he knows it is probably hopeless. Machiko and Gongoro are like mongoose and snake. It has always been this way between the two of them, ever since their early days at the academy of the Guard. Their mutual animosity first took tangible form during barehanded combat instruction. Grappling techniques. Gongoro twisted too hard, some say accidentally, and snapped Machiko's Wrist. Some weeks after that, during sword practice, Machiko swung her boken with such force, even with her wrist still in a cast, that she shattered her wooden practice sword, smashed the helmet on Gongoro's head, and struck him stone-cold unconscious.
    Later, she apologized, but not before telling Ryokai, privately, of feeling Gongoro's burning resentment. Of his despising her for being female. For being forced to train with her.
    "When I lifted my boken I felt I possessed all the power of a whirlwind. I had no mind, Ryokai-san. I could not help myself."
    And often it has seemed just so, whenever she lifts a sword. Like a whirlwind arising. A force, once unleashed, beyond anyone's control. A power as sublime as nature itself.
    Gongoro snarls, "You are a witch with that sword in your hand, but your spirit is weak. You will not speak for the GSG. You will not tell the chairman what he must be told. You will kneel like a woman and, like a fool, seek consensus." Machiko-san grunts. "You are intolerable."
    "So you would say, because I am right!"
    "Because you have the manners of a barbarian!"
    Abruptly, Ryokai feels the ground beneath his feet tilting, tipping him backward, off-balance. For a fleeting instant, he expects to hear the roar of an explosion, uprooting the earth, feel the force of a shock wave, bowling him over. This does not occur. Instead, all is quiet, serene. He sees a faint stroke of white, like a blur of the crescent moon, through the dark canopy of the trees. He moves his feet to regain his balance; but strangely, his feet drag the earth. He glimpses a brief expanse of black night sky. He feels his back strike the ground. The pain in his head swells immense . . . and then, through eyes that keep drifting closed, he finds himself lying on the ground. Several people bending over him. Gazing at his face, the side of his head. A man in camo, but with medics'