It was just eighteen market days after he was revived, and the villagers were gathered again, this time Ezemuo could not revive him. This time Ezemuo would not revive him.
“Who brought me back here?” Ikenga thundered the moment he recognized his surroundings.
He had been unconscious for four market days since an enemy soldier sneaked into his obi and stabbed him by his side.
The people of Umuetu prayed and kept vigil for him to wake up from his partial death, after they made the enemy a feast for soldier ants.
“Who?” He roared, swiftly lifting Ezemuo by his throat, the sounds of choking doing nothing to assuage his anger.
“Ikenga, put him down.” It was the voice of his mother.
Word had reached her that her son lived, but had gone mad and was raising his voice in the same shrine where Ezemuo had begged the gods to revive him.
In six market days, Ikenga formed a plan; it was the only way he could return home. His suspicious smiles confirmed his madness to the villagers.
No one sensed his grin as he apologized to Ezemuo, neither did anyone suspect his motive as he volunteered to fight battles, unaided.
No one would believe he needed to die; no one else had tasted the other side.
Ikenga welcomed the spears of the Ogbuisi warriors, the excruciating pain drowned almost immediately by the serenity and joy he sensed from home.
It took him too long to return, but he was finally here.
Witnesses would tell how he stopped fighting, but smiled as each merciless piercing from the soldiers led him closer to his death.
What they could not tell, was that it was no ordinary death.
It was his passage home.
He was going home.