It is during the final decade of the Hantei Dynasty... Four years before the Scorpion Coup and the death of Hantei the 38th... Seven years before the Emperor's illness and the beginning of the Clan Wars... And nine years before the death of the possessed Hantei the 39th and the crowning of Toturi the First...
The Two Swords of Duty: Destiny Forged
A tale of Mirumoto Giri
Two swords rise and fall, arcs of brilliant light painted in their wakes. White and blue are parted by a silver flash and drowned beneath a crimson flood. The Crane falls, but he does...
not...
fall...
alone...
Tonbo Kojiro's eyes flew open, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. Eyes now tightly shut against the images that still danced in his head, the youth sought to ease his aching muscles. The past three days had left his young body singing with a closely bottled tension that had left him with little chance for rest, nor even sleep.
Now, it seemed, meditation, too, would be added to the list of activities denied him. The past three hours, spent at clearing his mind and finding the center of his being, should have seen him at peace with himself and free from all of his recent concerns. Instead, he was left with nothing but nightmare visions of a far too recent past.
Shoulders slumped in weary resignation, Kojiro remained kneeling on the tatami mat, facing a blank wall. He had failed again. It was becoming a habit.
The young bushi brought his hands to his face, wiping away the sweat that beaded his brow and attempting to rub away the strain that beat at him from behind his eyes. For a fleeting moment his hands traced the lines of the tattoo that covered his left eye. With a trembling sigh he let his hands drop to his lap, head bowed and eyes held tight against the threatening tears. The tattoo was just another honor he had failed to uphold.
So absorbed was the boy in his sorrows that he did not hear the gentle rustle as another entered the room, nor feel the looming presence of a tattooed figure towering over him.
For a brief moment the figure studied the youth, a wide grin taking shape as a thought began to form. The ise zumi was only two feet behind Kojiro, when he let loose a roar of such force that it seemed to shake the very walls of the room, "Show me you stance!" he bellowed, his voice holding the same commanding tones shared by every sensei who ever taught at a dojo.
Kojiro was instantly on his feet and spinning, whipping around to face that familiar, booming voice. He came around just in time to receive a thundering kick to the chest that sent him careening back into the stone wall behind him.
Kojiro lay dazed, rubbing his bruised chest through the kimono. Propped up against the wall, he stared up at his towering assailant. Togashi Mitsu's scarred and tattooed visage grinned back down at him. "Is that the stance the Mirumoto have taught you, Koji-san?" asked the monk, with mock curiosity.
The tattooed man knelt to crouch over the prone form of his one-time student, the grin changing into a face of such exaggerated seriousness it could only be comical, "Now let's get you back on your feet, Koji-san, so that I can knock you down again! Only this time," the humor in the ise zumi's voice was mirrored by the mirth in his twinkling eyes, "we can pretend that you might actually have had some training in the ways of a bushi!"
For the briefest of moments a grin found it's way onto Kojiro's tired features, but it quickly died, replaced once again by a look of weary desolation. "I apologize for my failure, Mitsu-sama. It will not happen again."
Mitsu rose back to his full height, a scowl taking the place of his jovial grin. When he spoke again his voice had lost all trace of it's former humor, "Enough, Tonbo Kojiro!" large hands reached down and lifted the surprised youth to his feet, "I have tried to be understanding of the troubles you face, but you are no longer a child to be coddled! This simpering self pity is not the path that you have vowed to follow. We did not teach you to be a man so that you could continue on as a boy. You do dishonor to your teachers every time you forget their lessons!"
Kojiro found himself staring upwards at the glowering Togashi. Mitsu stepped back from the youth, his fists clenched from the effort not to grab the boy and shake him. The myriad tattoos covering the ise zumi's muscled form seemed to writhe in time with their master's agitation, and a thin stream of smoke trickled from his flared nostrils.
"The boy has died," Mitsu's voice was hard, no touch of sympathy, nor understanding was made evident to soften his stark proclamation.
For a moment that stretched out into eternity Kojiro stood frozen, his mind, once again, the prisoner of times past.
With the vision of a haunted memory, Kojiro stood again before the young Kakita bushi. Each was a dark reflection of the other, as each waited in his own killing stance. The Crane was all elegant grace, poised as a dancer preparing to take flight. Kojiro stood as a blacksmith stands before his anvil, and his hand rested upon his sword hilt with the same casual competence that marked out any master wielding the tools of his craft. Together they waited, prepared to kill, prepared to die, each at peace with himself and his destiny. It was the slightest drop of the Kakita's shoulder that told him it was time...
...Kojiro came out of mushin, the trance-like state of 'no-mind' that all duelist seek to enter, to find his opponent gasping at his feet, blood pooling beneath the still moving body. With a start he realized that the cut had not been clean, it had not been a killing blow.
He moved to raise the sword a final time, to give the Crane a death fitting so honorable a foe, despite the slanderous words the other had had about the Mirumoto school. But, before he could deliver the final blow and issue the youth a clean death, he was grabbed from behind, his swords stripped away by grasping hands and shouted voices.
"He was the son of the Kakita ambassador," Mitsu's voice brought the youth back to the present and away from his visions of the past. "A favored nephew of the Crane Champion, Satsume-sama," Mitsu's eyes bore into Kojiro's own, each proclamation, a pronouncement of doom, "You dueled on the day of your gempekku ceremony, on a day Yokuni-sama, himself, decreed would go without bloodshed," Mitsu's voice grew quiet now, the intensity of his gaze conveying the import of his last words, "It took him three days to die."
Kojiro stared into his mentor's eyes and found his voice stolen, his arguments dead before they were ever raised. For the past three days he had railed and cursed and cried, but now he could offer only silence to Mitsu's waiting stare. Eventually, he dropped his pleading gaze, turning away from the ise zumi, his voice quiet and meek, he asked, "And what now?"
"And what now, indeed?" echoed the tattooed man, a trace of his former humor returning to his voice, though now carrying a bitter bite, "Well, Yokuni-sama denied the Kakita the right to your head, though why a Crane would want so clumsy and thick skulled an ornament I can not say," Mitsu's tone became brooding and his eyes grew distant as he spoke his next words, "The duel was between you and his son and it has already ended with a single death. So petty an argument does not need more blood on which to feed."
Kojiro found his eyes captured in the ise zumi's own, as Mitsu turned to face him once again, "You did no insult to the Kakita, though I do not think she'll name you a friend. No, the trust you betrayed belongs to another."
Kojiro fought to break the hold Mitsu kept upon his gaze, sought to turn away and hide his shame, to flee the words he knew were next to come, "It was Yokuni-sama who declared that day, a day of peace," Mitsu's eyes bore into the youth seeking to impart his words deeply into Kojiro's very soul, "It is he that you betrayed. It is his loyalty that you failed. And yet..."
Mitsu paused and turned to walk away from the boy, moving across the room to stand at the edge of Kojiro's futon and stare down at a clothe wrapped parcel he had placed there earlier, before ever alerting Kojiro to his presence.
"And yet he does not want your head, either," Mitsu turned and smiled back at the youth, a hint of his former humor returning, "Not that I can blame him mind you."
"But I am to leave," it was not a question, but Mitsu nodded in agreement anyway, the too-fleeting-smile having already vanished.
"Then I have no choice, I will..." there was a set look on Kojiro's face, a stiffness to his stance and even as the boy began to speak, Mitsu was already striding over, his arm making a quick cutting motion that ended the sentence before it had half begun.
Taking the boy by the arm, the ise zumi searched his eyes for understanding, "Iie. No, Kojiro-san. Yokuni-sama will not allow it."
There was a flash of anger in Koji's gaze and when he shrugged free of Mitsu's grip, the tattooed man let him go, "Then what am I to do, Mitsu-sama!? Wander this land without home, without purpose, nor reason, nor honor!? Better than that I was dead!" The last was shouted into the ise zumi's face, Kojiro standing inches away from the taller man's chest and hurling his words, along with his desperate rage, upwards.
Mitsu again reached out, grabbing a hold of the younger man's shoulders, holding him steady as he spoke with a soothing voice, "Is that all it is to you then, Koji-san? Is this all seppuku means to you? A chance to escape your shame? Iie, no, it is not allowed. You have a greater duty to your clan and family."
"What clan? What family? Though I hold the name, I am Tonbo no more, nor was I since the day I first stepped foot within Shiro Mirumoto. And you say I am not Dragon! So what am I!? Ronin? Wave man? One of the lost, to be tossed out to die?"
Mitsu's gripped tightened, silencing the youth's bitter words, as his voice continued it's soothing drone, "No, Koji-san. If you are Tonbo no more, than that is your decision, though I know your family would still welcome you with open arms," Mitsu released one hand to trace the tattoo over Kojiro's eye, "As for purpose and honor. Destiny creates one, your action and your deeds create the other."
Kojiro paused, his confusion evident. Before he could give birth the question on his lips, Mitsu released his grasp and stepped backwards, studying the youth intently. "Do you know the significance of the tattoo of the Crow, Koji-san?" Kojiro's hand rose to trace the dark lines that flowed across his face, shaking his head slowly.
Mitsu nodded, "You know the tale of the Crow? How he led Shinsei and his Thunders into the shadowlands, returning with his once white feathers darkened to an eternal black?" Kojiro nodded and Mitsu continued, "Since that time, the Crow has always been one of the shadowlands greatest foes. And those who bear his mark," Mitsu paused, and nodded when Kojiro's eyes widened, "Those who bear his mark share in his duties against the Dark One's minions."
"What does this mean, Mitsu-sama?"
Togashi Mitsu turned and lifted the parcel from the futon and turned again to face the youth, "It means, my young 'hohei'," the older man smiled, as Koji's eyes widened again, this time at being addressed by the title of a bushi's first rank, Mitsu began unwrapping the parcel to reveal a full daisho set, wakazashi and katana, "that you are still samurai. And as samurai, you will always have duty and purpose, as long as you have life and destiny," with that Mitsu handed the daisho to the young samurai.
When Kojiro bowed in acceptance, Mitsu's bow was deeper. With a quiet smile the ise zumi said, "May the Seven Fortunes guide you, young samurai," then turned and left. Leaving Kojiro alone to stare at the two blades resting in his hands.
Epilogue:
Togashi Mitsu sat in full lotus position facing a blank wall. His mind was empty and waiting, when he felt another enter his small room. He did not need to turn to see his daimyo, he could feel the other's presence fill the entire chamber with his power. Turning about to face his lord, Mitsu performed a kneeling bow, head held low.
Togashi Yokuni stood, waiting silently. When Mitsu rose from his obeisance, he kept his head lowered, eyes cast to the floor at his daimyo's feet. "I am sorry, my Lord Togashi," the tattooed man's voice was subdued as he waited to hear his daimyo's response.
* And what do you apologize for, Mitsu-san? * the words did not float through the air to the ise zumi's ears, so much as they appeared full blown within his own thoughts.
Eyes still downcast the ise zumi said, "I fear that I have overstepped my bounds, my Lord. I gave the young Tonbo a set of daisho. I told him to go forth as a samurai. I told him to seek his own purpose and his own honor. I could not let him end his life in shame. I told him he was not yet finished with his destiny."
* Ah, in this you _were_ wrong, my friend. * Mitsu could _feel_ his daimyo's smile inside his head * It is destiny who is not yet finished with him. * And with that, the presence of the last Kami retreated from the room, until Mitsu found himself alone. And confused.
'Two swords of duty,
forged from the burdens of shame,
seek your destiny.'
- A haiku found in the former room of Tonbo Kojiro after his departure from Shiro Mirumoto.