Tomoe Gozen describes beheading her lord after his ritual suicide to preserve his honor.
Timotius gets the first return. The dedication flings him from a mini-golf head injury to Bangkok neurosurgery, then lands in a cell where someone is coming to badly. Tsu is no help. The prisoner takes stock: inside, outside, no key, and maybe one creature with a hoof where rescue ought to be. Language turns into another locked door. Konnichiwa, kon-bao-wa, and a shaky koko-wa-doko run into talk of shadows, fallen leaves, and an invisible course. Then the title drops: 1185. Once Tomoe Gozen takes over the room, the scene hardens into vows, horses, blades, and shame. Love does not soften the command. Lord Kiso wants her away from the battle, but she asks for one worthy rival before death catches up. Uchida shows up at exactly the wrong time. He grabs for her and tries to pull her from the horse, becoming the rival she dispatches with frightening calm. The army breaks. Soldiers scatter, pursuers close in, and Tomoe rides hard enough to sound half-demonic as she pulls her wounded lord from the ground. The stream gives them one breath. With his blood on her horse's coat, Lord Kiso chooses ritual suicide and still cannot bear to die beside a woman. That is the cruel turn. Tomoe kneels to join him, obeys when he commands her not to, and turns her own death into the task of finishing his. The room can barely stand it. Its horrified questions leave room for the grim fact that the beheading is treated as love, obedience, and survival. Even the linen matters. She wraps Lord Kiso's head in cloth torn from her trousers, buries it near the stream, and fears Taira's army will make a ceremony of it.
