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 Honor and Sorrow {Pre-Lotus} The beating of a heart is like the drumming of raindrops against a roof, calming. Focused into a world of purity in thought, in motion, and in sincerity one can find serenity even in chaos. Kata serve this purpose, imbuing the mind with their rythms and counciling the body with their unrelenting pace. Precise moves to protect and kill, to defend and destroy. All weapons have their kata, their rythms. All weapons have some virtue that allows their bearers to seek and obtain that heightened state of being that bordered upon that fragile precipice of enlightened thought and mortal concern. However, none but the katana held so much potential to reach true enlightenment through motion.
Daiyo smiled as he recalled the words of his father, remembering all the fond times in his youth as he practiced against his beloved sire with the bokken, learning the art of kenjutsu. Now he practiced alone, a thought that saddened him greatly. Furiously he forced his mind away from this thought and pushed it into the graceful, sweeping kata his body now lunged through.
His father's sword - now his own - seemed to dance through the twilight as Daiyo's movements became faster and faster. It seemed a thing alive, a shimmering tongue of steel that darted and flicked with the smallest twist of his wrists. He twisted, spun about on the balls of his feet and completed the last motions of the kata, slicing up one side of his body and down the other, the blade so close to his sides that it seemed more to slide up and down his skin rather than above it. Slowly, very slowly, Daiyo fell into the calming; a period of focus that his father had described to him one night. It was the after - the time beyond the conflict where lust for battle must be set aside and the mind forced away from the brink of self-enlightenment lest madness take hold at forever being denied that glory.
Daiyo barely heard the click of his katana sliding into the saya. But he smiled when he heard his sister clap softly nearby. That smile brightened to a pleased grin when he dropped his calming stance and turned to open his arms and grab his sister in a fierce embrace.
His sister, barely five years old, giggled and hugged his waist with as much strength as her small arms could muster. Daiyo laughed again and lifted her up, spun her around in a circle and placed her firmly on his shoulders. "Toeii-chan you know you shouldn't be wandering out here alone," he half-heartedly admonished her as he began to walk the path home. "It's dangerous out here, you know that!"
Toeii laughed, that pure laugh that only innocence could possess. "Nii-san, I wasn't alone. I was with you."
Daiyo gently lifted her away and set her down, turning Toeii around to face him as he bent over. "You still shouldn't come out here alone, Toeii-chan. I can't protect you from everything." Toeii pouted for a moment, hanging her head with guilt before Daiyo cupped her chin gently and lifted her face up to his again. He considered her for a long time before finally smiling, "Okay, I won't tell mother. But you've got to stop coming out here alone, neh?"
"Un!" Toeii bobbed her head, all smiles again.
"Race you home!" Daiyo shouted suddenly, bounding away just far enough to make it look real. Toeii shouted a strangled protest but wasted not a second before she chased after her brother. Daiyo cackled at her, dancing ahead of her always, making Toeii work to keep up with him. Not long after they rounded a hill and their home appeared, a simple house with few embellishments. Daiyo put on a mocking burst of speed just before the end, Toeii responded by dashing ahead with a surprising celerity that took Daiyo by surprise.
She touched the wooden floors of the veranda and started laughing wildly, gasping for air between her bouts of humor. Daiyo slowed and panted silently, admiring what he'd just seen. Of course, he had no intentions of winning this race, but he certainly wasn't going to admit that his younger sister had just out-ran him despite his own best efforts. In a way it was fine for Daiyo.
She'll make a fine samurai one day, he thought with all the pride a fourteen-year-old could muster.
"Daiyo-kun. Toeii-chan! Where have you been?"
Toeii bowed her head, "Okaa-san I was watching Nii-san practice."
"Eh? You know you're not supposed to go off alone."
"Yes Mother," Toeii bowed her head even further, shamed that she'd gone against her mother's orders for her safety.
Quickly Daiyo smiled at his mother, "I was watching her Okaa-san. I kept an eye on her while I was practicing."
His mother snorted, "The way your father kept an eye on me while he was practicing? I hardly think you kept an eye out on anything at all Daiyo-kun, let alone your sister. The way your father taught you...it is dangerous here, Daiyo-kun. Reaching forever for enlightenment can be just as deadly as poison, especially when one ignores everything to reach for it."
Daiyo bowed his head humbling to accept the rebuke, "Yes Mother, thank you."
Daiyo's mother sighed and shook her head, "Your father would be pleased with you, though. There's no doubting that. Come, it is time for the meal." As his mother left Daiyo thought about her words. A small pit of anger wrenched at his stomach.
Father...one day, the butchers who slaughtered you will pay. They will pay!
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"Toeii-chan! Toeii-chan!" Daiyo shouted without restraint, careless of who - or what - might hear him in the blasted wastelands. There lingered no more regards for his own safety anymore, only a searing despair. "TOEII-CHAN!"
Echoes. No more.
Daiyo sank to his knees and wept, a single tear falling to his white-knuckled hands. "...t-Toeii-chan..." His mind quickly flashed, his inner eye seeing that which filled him with such fear and dread. The once beautiful, simple home in which he and his family had lived now in ashes. His mother's burnt body lying, curled and blackened. Her head stuck to a pike outside the remains, the once peaceful face now twisted and sticky with blood.
His sister nowhere to be found.
"Animals!" he growled, pounding his hand into the dust of the blasted lands. "Filthy, barbaric, wretched animals!" he screamed, hands tearing his clothes and his hair. "First my father and now my mother and sister? Why!" His strangled pleas to uncaring gods were interrupted suddenly. Someone was screaming.
Daiyo leapt to his feet and ran, ran for all he was worth. He ran as fast as his sister and then some. He chased the scream, following it back, tracing it on the currents of the wind. Over small rivulets of blackened water and up hills charred by forces of otherworldly work. On top of one such hill he found those who'd taken his beloved sister and in his rage he roared at them with furious anger.
The three armored men who heard this inhuman shout instantly whirled to see the source. One shouted a curse and drew a weapon, pointing it's long spiked end at Daiyo. The others immediately dropped their burden and drew weapons of their own. Daiyo shouted again as he saw his sister treated so ill.
"I'll kill you!" Daiyo blasted at the three men, charging them down the slope of the slippery hill. The three men instantly formed together into a solid wall of steel and flesh. With exact precision they moved to strike down Daiyo, but he was no longer there. Instead he was behind them, leaping forward through their open legs and drawing his katana. The men broke apart and turned on him. Without a second thought Daiyo placed himself between his mother's murderers and his sister.
"Toeii-chan! Run!" he bursquely commanded as he fell into the stance his father had taught him time and time again. "Toeii-chan! Run!" His sister sobbed. The pitiful sound drew his eye towards her, movement in front of him drew it back. The two men flanking him, the ones bearing katana like his own, charged. Daiyo cursed his stupidity, but the curse died on the lips of his inner voice as he feinted at the man on the left and then turned instantly to the right and buried the point of his sword into the man's exposed throat.
Red blood bubbled down the skin and Daiyo's blade. The man weakly reached for the sword but never reached it. Daiyo whipped the weapon away and slashed again at the samurai on his left. Toeii was sobbing wildly behind him. Desperately Daiyo blocked a cut that would have severed his arm and turned it aside. Two more strikes were turned aside as well before he lashed out and blinded the samurai.
Quickly he turned and grabbed his sister roughly. "Run!" Toeii stumbled but followed as best she could. Their pace was slower than what Daiyo wanted, but there was nothing to do about that. Rough vegetation and perilous hillsides slowed them to barely a crawl. A hasty glance behind them and Daiyo cursed vehemently. The remaining unharmed samurai was following. He was gaining.
They crested a hill and ran along a ridge, and for a time Daiyo held hope tightly within his breast. They were moving faster now, faster certainly than the heavily-armored warrior lumbering behind them. With a little more good fortune they stood a chance to leave the murderer behind. Daiyo tightened his grip on Toeii's arm and ran faster, praying that her legs could hold and keep up.
"Come on Toeii, we're loosing him now. Soon we'll be away and we'll go h-" Daiyo's voice choked and he stumbled. Rocks and pebbles flew away from him and his sister as they skid to a halt.
"Nii-san?" Toeii's small voice was ragged and fearful.
"It's okay Toeii-chan. It'll all be okay." He pulled his sister tight against him and held her for a long time. "It'll be okay." He drew his sword again and pushed her down the hill. Her strangled shout fading into cries of pain as her small body rolled away from him and down the hill. Rolling away to safety.
"Nii-san!"
Tears ran down Daiyo's face as he softly replied, "Run away Toeii-chan. Run far, far away." Shuddering with grief he turned to face the four samurai who'd risen without any warning from the path ahead. Behind him the survivor from the first patrol was approaching slowly, his heavy weapon making a deadly sound as it rolled through the air. Daiyo bowed to the samurai, who did not bow back, and drew his katana again.
His feet instantly fell into their stance and he felt all fear vanish from him, "I am Daigotsu Daiyo! Son of Daigotsu Ruujan! You will die before my blade." He charged the grey-plated samurai, there were no tears on his face anymore.
He'd shed all his tears.
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Hida Tennu turned away from the dead body and the pathetic creature who wept above it. He cursed at Hiruma Eia to do something, and the hard-looking woman simply nodded. Before he realized it the samurai-ko had buried her yari into the base of the small girl's head and twisted. The spine broke with a wet snap.
Eia spit at the dead child and her beheaded brother with a furious spite. Tennu recoiled from the act, stunned that such hatred could be extended to those too young to even know they were corrupted by evil. But the Hiruma had lost too much in their history, sacrificed too much, suffered too long, and regained so little.
There were no innocents among the Hiruma, it was said. Even the children were born with the certain knowledge of their doom. Tennu thought on that during the march back to the Kaiu Wall, wondering about it. The samurai who greeted them at the gate saw something in his eyes that day, they saw one of the most unforgivable sins a samurai could commit. They saw doubt.
Within the week Tennu had retired to live in one of the few monastaries the Crab mantained. Years passed, wars were fought, people died. Eventually he came to serve at the great Hall of Rememberance, the place where stories of Crab Heros were forever repeated lest their memories be lost.
It was here that Tennu encountered that living legend. He bowed deeply, honored to see a glimpse of the man who was not a man. "Kisada-sama, greetings." Then he turned to his work, cleaning the floors of the main hall. But he felt someone approach behind him, so Tennu stopped and turned to bow again to Hida Kisada, the Fortune of Persistance.
"I've seen you here many times...but I've never heard you tell a story." The statement was a question.
"I've never had a story worth telling, Kisada-sama." He'd learned the stories frequently told by his brothers, but he'd never spoken one aloud. It did not seem fitting to him, somehow.
"Why?" Kisada turned and waved away several people gathering nearby. They immediately bowed and scurred away to less-visible positions to listen from.
"...I don't know, Kisada-sama."
Kisada tilted his head, his helmed face expressionless and daunting. "Why not tell one now?" he sat on a small resting-dais nearby.
"I..." Tennu swallowed, "I'm not sure if I know a story that would entertain you Kisada-sama." He bowed in shame. "So sorry."
"You were a fighter," Kisada bluntly said. "Everyone has a story. Tell me one of your own."
Tennu bowed and thought, recalled the thousands of times he'd ventured into the dark realm of shadows to the south. Recalled the dozens of times he'd nearly been killed by the servants of evil but survived through cleverness or luck or skill. But they seemed pointless, they all ended in the triumph of one person, himself, and it sounded vain even in his head to tell another about. Then he remembered a day in which he was not seriously threatened, nor outnumbered, nor in desperate peril.
Tennu sat on the floor, "Many years ago I led a patrol into the Shadowlands. It was this day in which I had the great honor and privlige to fight against a boy with great courage and honor beyond reproach-"
"A samurai from another clan?" Kisada barked, "How did he get beyond the wall?"
Tennu set his jaw, then softly answered, "His name was Daigotsu Daiyo, and he died defending his sister..."
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