text: The woman was limping badly. Her white pilgrim clothes were stained, and her hat was frayed. Sugiyama was resting in the shade of a small grove when she passed him on the way to Miyako. He watched her through the bushes, unnoticed by the group of rough-looking commoners who were eyeing the same woman from further along the path.
  
  The men talked among themselves in low voices, casting looks at the young woman all the while. There was much subdued laughter, which became more furtive as she came opposite them. One of them, dressed in worn blue-dyed pants and a ragged gown that was tucked into his belt rose and sauntered casually into the path before her. He stretched hugely and looked to either side of the path, then nodded. The pilgrim woman slowed down to pass the lounger.
  
  "Well sister," he said, grinning at her and peering beneath thick brows. "Why the hurry? Wouldn't you like to stop awhile? Hungry and tired, aren't you?"
  
  She looked at him with a worried expression and made to pass. Another of the ruffians stepped into the path behind her. Suddenly he was gripping her elbows and the other two rushed from the shade, laughing.
  
  "Stay with us awhile sweetie," they said.
  
  She tried to scream but the first loiterer had his hard palm across her mouth. She was borne rapidly into the woods, beating at the strong bodies impotently. They laid her down by the stream and started pulling off her clothes. Finally she was cowering at their feet, scratched and slightly bruised, dressed only in stained white gaiters that covered her shins from ankles to knees. She tried to cover herself with her hands while one of the men held her shoulders down and licked greedily at her small breasts. The other three stripped rapidly, and the fourth stood before her and waggled his cock playfully.
  
  "Only for a while, dear."
  
  The leader, his head stubbled, crouched over her loins. She held her thighs determinedly together. He grinned and ran a hand into her dark fluffy bush. She shrieked and one of the men whipped a bandana around her head, gagging her. The man over her clutched at the dark hairs. His forefinger poked at the top of her slit. She struggled as the other two knelt on either side of her, watching their companions and waiting their turn.
  
  Stubble-head thrust the blade of his hand forcefully between her legs. He added another hand, keeping her hips flat with his elbows. At last he managed to pry her legs open. He gazed lustfully at the open slit, then grasped her ankles suddenly and raised them to her head. Doubled over, her cunt was suddenly exposed to his gaze. He laughed and the others laughed with him. She grunted with the effort, the sound muffled angrily behind the gag. His thick finger was suddenly inserted into her dry cunt, bringing a cry of pain from her. He spat on his hand and rubbed the insufficient moisture against her purse, made prominent by her position on the ground.
  
  He crouched over her for a moment, glorying in her shame, wishing her to see and appreciate the humiliation to which he was subjecting her. Then, guiding his cock with his free hand, he descended into her. The broad crown of his cockhead parted the lips easily. She tried to move but was held down by three pairs of hands. Slowly, looking at her eyes cruelly all the time, the ruffian lowered his hips. His thick nobbly shaft disappeared slowly into her cunt lips, which seemed to shrink back with fear at the pressure. At last his scrotum rested on her upraised buttocks. He paused and pinched the soles of her feet through the straw sandal straps.
  
  Holding her legs by the ankles he widened her to a V then set to work, raising and lowering himself into her. A shiny froth appeared as he progressed and her passage became looser, oiled by her own involuntary discharges. She grunted unwillingly as his body weight pushed her down. His movements speeded up and he began to grunt and mumble, extolling the virtues of her slick cunt and smooth legs, delighting in the feel of her body. The other three pawed at her breasts and thighs, squeezing her flesh painfully and exchanging remarks that left nothing to the imagination. She turned her face away, knowing that her fate was sealed.
  
  The wash of hot liquid into her aching cunt was a relief for the pilgrim. The man above her humped violently into her, enjoying the last dregs of his triumph and pleasure. She could see the white stream, residue of his discharge, trickling down her upside-down cunt and pooling on the creases of her belly. The man withdrew and lowered her legs to the ground. Helplessly, her muscles tired from the uncomfortable posture, she let them fall apart.
  
  Another of the ruffians was quickly upon her. His cock was inserted into her overflowing cunt. The penetration was not as painful this time. She turned her face away and contemplated the tops of the trees while the man grunted above her. He slobbered on her breasts, then spewed his load, shaking her supine, unresisting form with the heady rush of his passion.
  
  When the last of the rapists rose from her, she breathed gratefully and tried to sit up. Between her legs spread a pool of male cum, matting the large patch of black hairs at the juncture of her thighs and muddying the leaf-strewn ground. She tried to rise to her feet but was dragged down wordlessly by the ruffians. They leered at her.
  
  "Not so fast dearie. We haven't finished yet."
  
  She tried to run, was dragged back just as Sugiyama walked across the small clearing on his way to the stream on the other side.
  
  "Hey, what the hell you doin' here?" one of the ruffians said. "Get out."
  
  "You do not speak to a samurai that way," said Sugiyama icily, going down on one knee to drink and ignoring the commoners. They were no concern of his, the woman least of all.
  
  Without a word one of the men drew a dagger from a plain wooden sheath in his clothing and struck at the exposed back. Sugiyama spun around under the blow and his katana blade whispered from its sheath and without pause cut the man in two at waist level. For a brief second the tableau froze. The commoners could not believe what they just seen. Sugiyama relaxed in perfect zanshin: final movement. The would-be murderer could not feel anything below his chest, did not know for the second before his blood pressure dropped that he was dead.
  
  Sugiyama rose sideways to avoid the rush of blood from the twitching, falling corpse, and shook the blood off his blade. The three other men jerked to life like suddenly animated puppets. Two rushed for their clothes, looking for weapons. The third, more practical, groped for a stone. The kozuka flashed from Sugiyama's dagger sheath into his eye before his fingers reached the rock. Sugiyama stepped forward and his great blade, wielded with one hand, severed the bent neck of one of the men. A two-handed blow met the charge of the last, and cut his belly open.
  
  Sugiyama looked impassively at the four bloody rag dolls, one of them cut neatly in two. His pulse quickened, now that the action was over, as it always did after he had killed. His attention shifted to the shocked gaze of the woman pilgrim. He stared at the juncture between her legs and she tried to cover herself up in vain. He stepped towards her and she rolled over onto her hands and knees, trying to crawl away. Sugiyama stopped her with one hand on her smooth back. She paused resignedly, her head hanging.
  
  Incuriously he examined her sopping cunt. His heart was pounding as usual after killing. He loosened the tapes of his hakama trousers. His cock sprang erect. He lowered his sword to his side while his other hand explored her sopping interior. The feel of his fingers was infinitely more gentle than what she had just experienced. She responded by arching her back.
  
  "Please, ..." she whispered, and it was not clear, not even to her, what she was begging for.
  
  Sugiyama adjusted his height and pushed forward. His cock slid easily into her moist interior. He pulled it out slightly, then pushed in once again, deeper this time. She moaned, with pain or disgust, resignation or lust, he was unable to tell. The samurai felt a faint twinge of remorse at taking her this way, but after all, the lower classes were there for the ease of the gentleman class, and he needed her services.
  
  He stroked her hanging, quite full breasts, then started jogging his rump easily into her. She responded to his movements as her body shook with sobs by grinding her hips against his loins. Sugiyama explored the front of her body with his hands and she forced the pace, raising and lowering her head and humping her full ass against him. Her cunt contracted suddenly and squeezed his cock. He was not ready for the paroxysm of sobbing and of twisting, grasping hips against him. His own climax boiled up and he sank into her brutally. On all fours they shook like a pair of mating dogs, his white juice seeping from the joint of his shaft and her channel.
  
  Sugiyama released the woman when the last of their tremors was over. He straightened his clothes and stuck his sheathed sword back into his sash, then strode off in the direction of the road without casting a glance back.
  
  She looked at the samurai's departing back, then at the corpses at her feet. Dressing, her reddened swollen eyes dry now, she spat at them in fury, then bent to rob the corpses. She had had her revenge on four of them, and would probably never revenge herself on the samurai. So be it. She still had many miles to go on her arduous pilgrimage.