Old Habits by Hiruma Nekokaburi
"No wall stands forever. Only duty stands forever."--Kaiu Hosaru, A Perfect Cut
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Old Habits
by Hiruma Nekokaburi
A Bushi opens an order signed by his daimyo and eventually requests seppuku.
A member of the Crane Clan meets a tsuru (crane animal-spirit).
"A snowflake, light as a fool's promise, drifts down along a mountainside, allowing the wind to carry it where it will. The snowflake touches others, like-minded, and from the wind's gentle push, a ball of snow forms and grows. Unable to resist the pull of weight, this flake finds itself tumbling madly toward a ravine, part of a great boulder of snow large enough to crush the snowflake under its weight."
Tsuburu snorted quietly. "Inami-san, my snowflake, if you hid your black pepper as poorly as your allegories, you would be a dead man by now, cut down by some nosy self-righteous Kitsuki."
The two men stood motionless, their heads barely above the waterline of the bay. Their voices no more than whispers nestled within a forest of noise. The gentle groan of the trio of koutetsukan rocked by the lap of waves, the occasional creak of timber. Dressed in black, the men were two shadows sharing a greater darkness, all but invisible. As would only be expected for Daidoji Harriers. Seizing an opportunity, Daidoji Tsuburu spoke again after berating his companion. "You know, I met a priest once who told me the kami sift and sort each soul as per its strengths, and that each man's role is predestined before birth. Thank you for illustrating that fact, Inami-san. You would have made a poor storyteller, and that would have been a slight on our clan. You know the rules."
Tsuburu paused only for a moment, but Inami's response was not required. The punchline was a familiar move in an old kata. Tsuburu completed the ritual himself, staring out at the vast silhouettes at the edge of the docks. "Perfection. Nothing less."
"Do you ever feel shame at what we do, Tsuburu? The Emperor has mandated against our tools, yet we are..."
"The Emperor appears to have overlooked a mandate against Crane families starving, despite his infinite wisdom. Given that he is dead currently, I don't see such a mandate forthcoming, snowflake." Tsuburu looked cautiously toward shapes moving along the shoreline. Samurai, by the slow and sure way they moved.
Their footsteps faded into the night, and Inami spoke. "You should not speak such of the Blessed Emperor, Tsuburu-kun."
"Heh. I leave religion to the priests and politics to wiser men than myself. What I do know, however, is that we need the land we fight over to feed our clan. The Crab, greedy brutes that they are, will not cede our claim. Beg for what is rightfully ours? Pah! If I am reborn as a gnat for my karma, I would seek out the Crab's greatest duelist, and just before the moment of the strike, I would bite him like so, and he would be cut down, his focus lost."
Despite himself, Inami chuckled softly, eyeing the shorelines. "You would be a fierce legend among gnats, my friend. Now, it is time to go to work." Like a sail catching the wind, all slackness disappeared from the two. They slipped below the water, appearing on the far side of the iron turtles, flowing onto the ships, leaving a trail of carefully placed satchels behind them, the satchels painstakingly protected against the waters of the bay. After no more than a minute, they nodded silently to each other, then crept to the far side of the boats, facing the vast expanse of night and the countless stars above. Freedom stretched out before them, bouyed on rolling waves.
Tsuburu spoke first. "Three Hida just passed along the shoreline, and a good number more nearby to accompany these monstrosities to ship out tomorrow."
Inami nodded slightly. "Hai. We should light the fuses and leave."
"At least twenty samurai who will, one way or another, reach Crane lands, snowflake."
Inami nodded again, the gesture more his head dropping in resignation. "Hai."
The two figures found their way to the edge of the docks, a fire growing behind them on the furtherest of the iron turtles. They shucked their black garb, revealing Yasuki kimono that had lightened their lord's purse considerably to purchase. Tsuburu drew a small knife from his sleeve, and drew a ragged cut, shallow but bloody, along his face. The two of them ran toward the shoreline, screaming and waving.
"Saboteurs!"
"Assassins!"
A lone Kaiu samurai came running from the darkness, other silhouettes in the distance coming closer. Tsuburu feigned a stumble as the Crab samurai approached, and the burly Kaiu reached out to steady him. He never saw the tiny needle that slipped into his throat as Tsuburu fell into him, but he felt a moment of white hot pain as if his veins were burning. Daidoji Inami stopped to look with a sincere mask of confusion at the two as samurai boiled onto the docks. Almost perfectly timed, one of the smaller charges on the boats erupted into a ball of flame, announced by a crack of thunder that would make Osano-Wo smile. Inami pointed along the docks. "The boats!"
The gesture was largely redundant, but presented a clear course of action to samurai who had not expected the war between the Crab and the Crane to come so far south to them. Most of the group ran along the dock toward the growing inferno. A Hiruma samurai-ko turned half way along the docks, her one good eye noting what her instincts had taken in seconds before: the remains of small tears at the back and sides of their kimono. The last thing she saw was Inami and Tsuburu suddenly diving for the protection of the water as a brilliant orange flower unfolded behind her to swallow everything along the docks, finally engulfing her as well. A brief twinge of regret was felt as she became ash upon the wind, that she did not die with her blade in her hand.
*
Inami ran a finger along the note. He could feel the fine points in the ink, tiny notes as numerous as the stars in the sky above. Also like the stars, together they spelt an ominous thing, an ignoble deed that could not be averted. Inami looked to his lord, standing atop a small footbridge. Daidoji Jun's features were aquiline and predatory, taking more after a hawk than the gentle crane of his clan.
"Is there any confusion, Inami? Kill Tsuburu."
"Though it is not my place, my lord, might I ask to know the reason why?"
Jun looked down at the waters of the pond. They reflected in his eyes, black, still and inscrutable. "I will give you that gift, Inami, out of deference for your past relationship. Inami must die for the murder of my wife."
Inami's eyes narrowed, as he worked through what was happening here. "But my lord, your wife was removed as a spy and a traitor to the clan. By your orders."
Jun turned to face Inami, the lantern at his back casting his features in darkness, but not masking the intensity of his gaze. "Surely, had such words fell from my lips, Tsuburu should have seen them for the test of loyalty that they would have been."
Inami nodded curtly. "Hai, my lord." Realisation fell upon him swiftly. Tsuburu had poisoned their lord's wife on his very orders. Her loyalty remained with her family after their inter-clan marriage, and she had foolishly attempted to spy on a Daidoji lord, for whom deceit was like smoke upon the wind. Her treachery discovered, her death had been made to appear an accident. That way, Daidoji Jun could in time discover what her family hoped to gain by plotting against him. Now, for the sake of honour, and to further cover evidence, Tsuburu's life must now be forfeit. Although Tsuburu's loyalty was as true as a Tsuruchi arrow, he lacked Inami's tact and diplomacy, Perhaps the very reason why Tsuburu had been chosen for the task: Expendability. And now, if Tsuburu was to die as well, that left a mysterious assassin still plagueing his house, whose identity could be established as anyone. Inami was not blind to to that small footnote to the task set to him. All in all, his lord was making a masterful, if dangerous stroke.
"One other thing, Inami."
"My lord?"
"Use the blowfish poison."
Inami nodded again. "Hai." Jun's wife had been murdered using a rare blowfish poison which gripped the heart in a tight grip, before finally squeezing and killing a person. To casual inspection, the death appeared natural, while tragic. To more detailed inspection, the deaths appeared the work of assassins, too complex and involved a method to use if Daidoji Jun wanted his wife dead, when he had easy access to his own wife.
*
"A celebratory meal, Inami-san? He must be pleased." Tsuburu eyed the sushi arrayed before the two of them. "Sweet rice rolls? Impressive. Someone actually managed to remember my favourite dishes." Tsuburu's eyes danced away from the feast before them to look at Inami. Inami waited for his companion to select a piece, out of deference, then the two began picking pieces from the vast array before them, casual eating interspersed with even more casual conversation, roaming back and forth across years of experiences they could share with no one else, acts performed in service of their clan that would make a Doji faint with shame.
Sated on food and sake, the two left the eating room to walk in the open air, watching the rapidly setting winter sun fall below the mountains of the area. Inami was the first to break the silence. "Do you ever think that the kami intended for our clan to suffer, Tsuburu-kun?"
Tsuburu lifted an eyebrow, and stopped walking to gaze at Inami, who pressed on with his point. "The Great Kumo rose as a result of the civil war, Tsuburu-kun. That demon cost us so much of our lands, and was fed on the blood of Crane killing Crane."
Tsuburu turned back to look at the horizon. Oranges had shifted to deep purples, and soon would become greys and blacks. "The civil war was the doing of the Lying Darkness, Inami-san. This is common knowledge."
"Sometimes, I wonder, Tsuburu-kun."
Tsuburu smirked. "I don't doubt that you worry at a great many things." The two samurai continued walking toward a small hill that afforded an excellent view of a small lake on the estate. Tsuburu smoothed his kimono and sighed. "It was a good meal. And a good sunset. It was good of you to stay with me until the end." Before Inami could react, Tsuburu spoke his final words. "Heh. I can see my heartbeat." And then, his face a red to match the most furious of the sunset, he collapsed lifeless to the ground.
Inami stood, uncomprehending, attempting to puzzle out what had happened. Tsuburu had known he was to die? And done nothing? The two questions hammered at him like the persistent rhythm of a kodo drum, like the hammering of his own heart. Under their weight, he staggered down the hillside, finding himself at the shore of the lake on his lord's estate. Staring into the waters, starting at the reflection of his own eyes, he understood why Akodo Deathseekers and Hida berserkers were so rarely shaven. How could they face the same eyes that looked back at him now? Cold, dead eyes that now stared back at him? Inami stood at the edge of the lake, and time lapped about him.
A moment brought Inami's world back into clear definition. A silhouette in the near darkness, along the shoreline of the lake not far from him. A wink of metal catching the fading light drew his eye. A figure, an elegant, lithe figure of an unfamiliar samurai-ko was moving through a sword kata that was completely alien to him. Long, sweeping arcs of the blade punctuated by perfect stillness. Watching, he felt himself slowly overcome by the inexpressible beauty of it, and the vast emptiness within him ached. Tears began streaming down his cheeks as he watched the shape move from point to point with a grace unbounded by the hears of deeds done at the cost of honour. Buoyed by a soul lacking the gaping hole he felt so keenly now, that had been worn in by years of compromise. The empty space where pride and resolve should be.
His mouth opened to make a sound. Perhaps a sob, a lament, or an expression of disbelief at the perfection he gazed upon. Startled, the silhouette leapt away, the sword disappearing. To Inami's amazement, the samurai-ko ran, not along the shoreline, but across the lake, arms working slowly like wings, her feet barely touching the water. Gentle ripples echoed as she passed, a fading memory of her passing even as her feet left the water, as she floated ghost-like into the coming night. Inami's half-formed sound became a ragged sob as he realized what he had been watching: a tsuru, a crane spirit. Perfection. Nothing less.
Inami dropped to his knees, as awe fought grief, and he began to weep openly. His legs were numb by the time he realized he was not weeping for Tsuburu, but himself.
*
Kneeling before his lord, the sleeves of his kimono brushed against his still damp knees. It was no longer clear if his eyes were reddened from weeping, or the night of sleep he did not have. There was some perverse comfort in the fact that his external appearance now matched his inner chaos.
His lord spoke. "Seppuku, Inami? Our children starve, we face an invasion from these ogres dressed as samurai, and you ask for the right of seppuku?" Jun tunneled through Inami with the same contemptuous stare he had fixed on the space occupied by an eta when they had last spoken, when Inami had questioned his orders.
Inami spoke, almost whispered, his voice raw and gravelly. "My lord is wise to question my resolve. To ask for a display of my convention. I wish the three cuts to cleanse my honour, Jun-sama. I feel I have given much to the clan, lost much."
Jun shook his head. "Seppuku would be a waste of the clan's resources, Inami. The Emperor has his underhand. You are mine."
"That would be the end of it if I were a resource, my lord, but I am not. I am a man." Inami dropped his forehead even lower, almost pressing against the floor.
"We must all make sacrifices for the clan, Inami."
"If I were to give my life a thousand times over, each time it would be with more relish than the last for serving my clan. But to ask me to sacrifice my honour? A stain that will follow me to the next life? Honour is a string that runs through a man's backbone, not making him a puppet, but holding him upright. My string has been cut long ago, Jun-sama, and the only thing that keeps me upright in the pretense of walking as a man is habit. If you will not allow me the right of seppuku, then I must take my life in protest as an outlet for my funshi. Such an act would raise questions."
Daidoji Jun spoke softly, his eyes somewhere far away. "Do as you will."
*
even as a mote
I leap into my foe's eye
winter finds some warmth
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