Up, up, and away!

My eyes opened and I was floating above the town, flying like an eagle on the wing. I knew I had to be dreaming, but somehow this time I was able to control it. I was above the Honda Dojo and swooped down low to get a closer look. The moon was still bright and nearly full, and the family shrine, ornamented with gold and silver gleamed in the night. The crown jewel of it was an ancient katana owned by some long-dead ancestor displayed up at the top of the ten-foot-tall shrine.

I'd always wanted to see it for myself, to hold and draw a real samurai sword, and now that I was flying I swooped down and grabbed it. It felt so real, light but deadly in my hands as I pulled it out of its scabbard. I waved it around, gently back and forth, then gave it a quick slash. I longed to feel it cut through a man, slicing him open like a pig and cleaving through guts and bone.

<So do it…> a small dark voice inside of me urged.

Why not, this was my dream. I flew up and then shot north as fast as I could imagine. The town disappeared and I searched for where our army and the barbarians faced off against each other. The giant conglomerate of fires burning all over one area of the land attracted me like a moth. I'd never seen so many fires and something in me was overjoyed and gleeful, but as big as the first camp was there were perhaps a thousand fires farther to the north of it after a small stretch of valley.

Fires as far as the eye could see. I flew closer and could see this one wasn't just a warrior camp, but that these barbarians were nomads. Women and children were moving about along with their soldiers, but given the time of night, there must be hundreds of thousands of people, a veritable city here. I was awed by the massive expanse of it, but as I came to the center I saw a massive tent, perhaps a hundred feet wide and almost as tall. I knew that had to be the palatial tent of the feared barbarian king. Well if this was my dream, I was going to be the hero and kill him I decided.

I flew down like an arrow, letting all the angst and rage I had at everyone who ever treated me bad and sliced through the top of the tent and entered the mostly quiet tent that was so big it had a bonfire still burning inside it. Purple and green bearded men jumped up before me only to be cut in half as I flew like a leaf on the wind and women ran screaming, but even most of them fell as I slashed at everything that moved.

For a minute it seemed like a flood of men just surrounded me, many unarmed, but each exploded in turn with a spray of blood as my blade magically flashed around slicing them open. I could feel their blood coat my body, hot and wet drenching me, and that seemed to only make me stronger and faster. Their blood was a feast for me and I was an avatar of ****. Finally, there was a break in the madness and I spotted the giant man towering over me before his throne, his long purple beard encrusted with gems and gold, pointing a massive naginata at me.

"What kind of foul oni are you?" he shouted at me in his foreign tongue, but this was my dream so I understood him perfectly.

I grinned and licked some of his men's blood from my lips. "I am the hero of Greytown, and your doom," I responded in his own tongue, then charged. He tried to spear me with his polearm, but I cut right through it, his arm, and up to his neck as his head came off, all with one epic slash.

The tent was empty now, just a massive pile of open bleeding flesh, with anyone else who had been inside fleeing for their lives. I calmly kicked the head away and walked over to his throne where a giant chest of gold and gems sat open for the taking. I could never have hoped to lift it in reality, but this was my dream, so I closed it up and grasped it in both hands. It was heavy, even in my dream, but I somehow felt like time was running out before I would wake so I looked up and just flew up with my treasure and the world disappeared below me.

I opened my eyes as the sun rose and looked up at my familiar ceiling, now blazing orange with the early morning sunlight. 'That was the best dream I've ever had' I said to myself, then reached up to rub the sleep from my eyes, but my hand was wet. I blinked the water from my eyes and then saw red. My hand was sticky wet with blood and that woke me up with a jolt.

Both my hands were caked red with drying blood that was still wet enough to be recent. I jumped up and checked myself for wounds, but I seemed to be okay. A quick glance and I saw my sister had not yet woken up so I moved quietly as snuck outside to try and make sense of what was happening. I followed the single set of bloody footprints across the floor leading to my bed thinking, 'This cannot be happening!'

As soon as I was outside I looked around and thought about going to the fountain in town to clean off in the spring water there, but realized there would likely be people already grouping there by now. Maybe I could go to the Takahashi bathhouse? No one other than maybe Chizu should be up yet, and she was likely in the kitchen making breakfast and doing other chores. I'd decided that was what I was going to do but as I walked ten feet away I spotted the giant chest outside my home to one side. That couldn't really be…

I walked up to it and with nervously shaking hands clawed at the clasp. It opened up and just as in my dream the massive treasure gleamed in the bright sunlight. "Holy crap!" I couldn't help but exclaim aloud. Then I heard someone moving. The walls to my home were thin and I could hear Kouki waking up at my exclamation. I didn't have much time before she spotted the blood on the floor, much less this giant treasure chest if she looked outside, and I had no idea what I was going to tell her.