He stood at the edge of his room, amber eyes staring steadily out at the back yard of the inn through the open screens. Everything, from the smooth, polished wood of the porch and the rough gravel beyond, was painted in the same heavy darkness. All was silent and peaceful in this eerie hour. The wind that had sent dead leaves and twigs scratching and scraping across the ground like skeletal fingers last night was quiet now, only whispering in branches and sending slight puffs of air to stir the nodding lilies now and then. The sun would not rise for several hours yet, and so there were no dogs barking, no roosters crowing, and no servants dragging their sleep-heavy bodies out of their warm beds to shiver over kitchen fires and whisper in corners about the inn's guests. And all of the men who had trod back to this inn last night covered from head to toe in tacky, half-dried blood were now bathed and changed and sleeping heavily, exhausted from their deadly work the evening before. Well, all except for one.

Saitou had returned with the others, shed his blue and white and crimson haori so that it could be washed right away, and fallen to cleaning his sword before even thinking of attending to his own body, just as they all had. He had wiped away all traces of blood, oiled and polished the blade, and then carefully set his katana and wakizashi on the stand in his room. And then a bath, with the rest of his layers of clothing peeling from him in stiff folds, flakes of reddish brown littering the floor as he undressed. Savage scrubbing bleached his body of the blood of many, and a long, hot soak in the scalding bath helped to chase away whatever worries and thoughts remained despite the calming ritual of cleaning his katana.