Bitter Steel
by Kakita Kaori
`
A cold wind forced its way past him and into his home before Kashiwa could slide shut the shoji screen. It was unseasonable for it to be this chill in the month of Bayushi. It was a cause for worry. The normally bountiful rice crop grown near Golden Petal Village was only average this year. The Emperor’s taxes demanded their timeless toll without abatement, regardless of tsunamis, wars, or displeased fortunes, and the Crane looked to villages like Golden Petal to make up the difference. If the touch of winter had come so early…
His thoughts trailed off. There was little enough he could do.
Around him, Golden Petal Village itself was stirring awake. Smoke from early morning cookfires painted whisper-thin brushstrokes into the sky as the villagers set rice straw in their hearths to heat a little tea. A village woman, tipping water in a bucket from the village well into a large urn, stopped to bow deeply to him, a bow he returned with a nod. He heard a squawk as one of the village children had to roust a broody hen from her nest to gather up some eggs. Peaceful enough. Leaving the care of his protectorate to his yoriki, the village sonchou Kakita Kashiwa began the walk that would carry him across the six miles of paddies, woodlands, and gently rolling foothills to Tsuma village and his role as an instructor at the Kakita Academy.
It wasn’t until the sleepy sounds of the village had been long left behind that Kashiwa noticed that the chorus of birdsong that normally greeted him on his morning walk was subdued. A willow thrush warbled a sweet cry, but no other trills greeted it. Then, a sudden movement...a brace of wood larks, ascending to the sky as a pair, rapidly beating panicked wings. Kashiwa’s hand dropped by reflex to brush the katana at his side. Something is wrong. He took a position, back against a solid oak, and waited.
These were no ninja...the swordmaster heard a crashing through the undergrowth long before the forms in brown and gold erupted from the pine shadows. They roared a challenge as they approached, but did not wait for his response. His response did not hesitate either; his first draw sliced one of his attackers from shoulder to hip, then he dived from under the blade of a second. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “Have the Lion lost all honor to attack like bandits in the forest?!”
A thrust of a spear was an answer, his retort a leap to close upon his attacker, followed by a pommel strike to crush his larynx. The sound of steel rang through the forest as he moved through the ancient woods, evading his attackers, leaving their crumbled bodies in his wake.
I must warn Kyuden Kakita...There are too many for this to be a scouting force….
He switched direction, diving deeper into the woods like a fox headed for its den, dodging the branches and leaves that whipped at him, scrabbling over the dirt covered slabs of shale as he ascended the mountain side. He could hear his pursuers, now closer, striking at him by ones and twos, now further away, but never entirely lost. They knew where he was headed.
Blood ran down his arms, but Kashiwa’s attackers eventually fell behind. Even before he broke the final stand of trees before the castle village, though, the Sensei knew he was too late. He flicked the blood from his katana and resheathed it.
The screams and the smell of more blood reached him first. Lying, face down on the river bank, was the body of a village guard, his blood pooling around him, his right arm almost severed. Two more Crane bushi lay dead on the small bridge that separated the forest trail from the village. Small units of brown-clad ashigaru carrying spears patrolled the streets, led by samurai armored in gold and steel.
On the hill overlooking the village, lines of smoke and sparks lanced the sky in graceful arcs...flaming arrows aimed at the Daidoji manning the walls of Kyuden Kakita. And below those pale gray walls, the hill was blackened with bodies marching in uniformed rows.
The Matsu had come for the Kakita. An ancient grudge, fulfilled at last.
Behind him, the rustle of bracken. The iaijutsu instructor whirled, hand ready to redraw.
“No need for that.” The Lion commander stepped out from the undergrowth, hands far from his own blade. His armor shone in the early morning sunlight, which rippled in the golden mane of his kabuto. A dozen ashigaru archers followed, all keeping their distance while the steely points of of their arrows pointed at Kashiwa’s torso. The commander glanced up at the hilltop. “If you are trying to warn Kyuden Kakita, I assure you, they are aware of our presence. As for you….” The Lion’s eyes narrowed as he assessed Kashiwa’s mons. “....Sensei. You have acquitted yourself well in the forest, but the time has come for you to surrender. If it is the Academy you were headed towards before you ran into us, rest assured, we have had, so far, no reason to cause it trouble. We have secured our flanks near that location quite thoroughly and see no reason to trouble it further. There is no need to deprive schoolchildren of their teachers. Unless those teachers decide to turn a school into a battlefield.” The commander allowed a pause to eloquently emphasize the subtle threat. “It would prove educational.”
Kashiwa let his hand, slowly, fall. He thought of his wife Nishoko, at home with their two small children. He thought of his Yoriki and the villagers of Golden Petal. And he thought of his kohei. Hopeful. Idealistic. So eager to defend the glory of their school. So eager to die. It would be effort for the Lion to capture the school, especially with Toshimoko-sensei in command. But children would die. He could not afford retaliation against it for the sake of his own pride.
“Who commands these forces?” he protested with a quiet hiss. “To whom would you have me surrender?”
The commander gave a bow, only a hair short of what courtesy would expect. “You speak with Ikoma Morinao. But our Champion, Matsu Tsuko, commands these forces. You look on the might of the Lion armies.”
Kashiwa reluctantly returned the bow. Champion. Not even Kakita Toshimoko, Headmaster Sensei of the Academy, had the status to challenge the claim. There was no kenshinzen here whose status Matsu Tsuko could not simply dismiss. And Kyuden Kakita could not hold.
A single sword would not make the difference this time.
“Very well,” he answered at last. “I will go with you. We will find out what the Emerald Champion has to say about this.”
As the ashigaru marched him away, Kakita Kashiwa kept his back straight. He tried not to look at the columns of smoke rising from Kyuden Kakita, and prayed that those fires would not find their way back to Golden Petal Village.
`
A cold wind forced its way past him and into his home before Kashiwa could slide shut the shoji screen. It was unseasonable for it to be this chill in the month of Bayushi. It was a cause for worry. The normally bountiful rice crop grown near Golden Petal Village was only average this year. The Emperor’s taxes demanded their timeless toll without abatement, regardless of tsunamis, wars, or displeased fortunes, and the Crane looked to villages like Golden Petal to make up the difference. If the touch of winter had come so early…
His thoughts trailed off. There was little enough he could do.
Around him, Golden Petal Village itself was stirring awake. Smoke from early morning cookfires painted whisper-thin brushstrokes into the sky as the villagers set rice straw in their hearths to heat a little tea. A village woman, tipping water in a bucket from the village well into a large urn, stopped to bow deeply to him, a bow he returned with a nod. He heard a squawk as one of the village children had to roust a broody hen from her nest to gather up some eggs. Peaceful enough. Leaving the care of his protectorate to his yoriki, the village sonchou Kakita Kashiwa began the walk that would carry him across the six miles of paddies, woodlands, and gently rolling foothills to Tsuma village and his role as an instructor at the Kakita Academy.
It wasn’t until the sleepy sounds of the village had been long left behind that Kashiwa noticed that the chorus of birdsong that normally greeted him on his morning walk was subdued. A willow thrush warbled a sweet cry, but no other trills greeted it. Then, a sudden movement...a brace of wood larks, ascending to the sky as a pair, rapidly beating panicked wings. Kashiwa’s hand dropped by reflex to brush the katana at his side. Something is wrong. He took a position, back against a solid oak, and waited.
These were no ninja...the swordmaster heard a crashing through the undergrowth long before the forms in brown and gold erupted from the pine shadows. They roared a challenge as they approached, but did not wait for his response. His response did not hesitate either; his first draw sliced one of his attackers from shoulder to hip, then he dived from under the blade of a second. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “Have the Lion lost all honor to attack like bandits in the forest?!”
A thrust of a spear was an answer, his retort a leap to close upon his attacker, followed by a pommel strike to crush his larynx. The sound of steel rang through the forest as he moved through the ancient woods, evading his attackers, leaving their crumbled bodies in his wake.
I must warn Kyuden Kakita...There are too many for this to be a scouting force….
He switched direction, diving deeper into the woods like a fox headed for its den, dodging the branches and leaves that whipped at him, scrabbling over the dirt covered slabs of shale as he ascended the mountain side. He could hear his pursuers, now closer, striking at him by ones and twos, now further away, but never entirely lost. They knew where he was headed.
Blood ran down his arms, but Kashiwa’s attackers eventually fell behind. Even before he broke the final stand of trees before the castle village, though, the Sensei knew he was too late. He flicked the blood from his katana and resheathed it.
The screams and the smell of more blood reached him first. Lying, face down on the river bank, was the body of a village guard, his blood pooling around him, his right arm almost severed. Two more Crane bushi lay dead on the small bridge that separated the forest trail from the village. Small units of brown-clad ashigaru carrying spears patrolled the streets, led by samurai armored in gold and steel.
On the hill overlooking the village, lines of smoke and sparks lanced the sky in graceful arcs...flaming arrows aimed at the Daidoji manning the walls of Kyuden Kakita. And below those pale gray walls, the hill was blackened with bodies marching in uniformed rows.
The Matsu had come for the Kakita. An ancient grudge, fulfilled at last.
Behind him, the rustle of bracken. The iaijutsu instructor whirled, hand ready to redraw.
“No need for that.” The Lion commander stepped out from the undergrowth, hands far from his own blade. His armor shone in the early morning sunlight, which rippled in the golden mane of his kabuto. A dozen ashigaru archers followed, all keeping their distance while the steely points of of their arrows pointed at Kashiwa’s torso. The commander glanced up at the hilltop. “If you are trying to warn Kyuden Kakita, I assure you, they are aware of our presence. As for you….” The Lion’s eyes narrowed as he assessed Kashiwa’s mons. “....Sensei. You have acquitted yourself well in the forest, but the time has come for you to surrender. If it is the Academy you were headed towards before you ran into us, rest assured, we have had, so far, no reason to cause it trouble. We have secured our flanks near that location quite thoroughly and see no reason to trouble it further. There is no need to deprive schoolchildren of their teachers. Unless those teachers decide to turn a school into a battlefield.” The commander allowed a pause to eloquently emphasize the subtle threat. “It would prove educational.”
Kashiwa let his hand, slowly, fall. He thought of his wife Nishoko, at home with their two small children. He thought of his Yoriki and the villagers of Golden Petal. And he thought of his kohei. Hopeful. Idealistic. So eager to defend the glory of their school. So eager to die. It would be effort for the Lion to capture the school, especially with Toshimoko-sensei in command. But children would die. He could not afford retaliation against it for the sake of his own pride.
“Who commands these forces?” he protested with a quiet hiss. “To whom would you have me surrender?”
The commander gave a bow, only a hair short of what courtesy would expect. “You speak with Ikoma Morinao. But our Champion, Matsu Tsuko, commands these forces. You look on the might of the Lion armies.”
Kashiwa reluctantly returned the bow. Champion. Not even Kakita Toshimoko, Headmaster Sensei of the Academy, had the status to challenge the claim. There was no kenshinzen here whose status Matsu Tsuko could not simply dismiss. And Kyuden Kakita could not hold.
A single sword would not make the difference this time.
“Very well,” he answered at last. “I will go with you. We will find out what the Emerald Champion has to say about this.”
As the ashigaru marched him away, Kakita Kashiwa kept his back straight. He tried not to look at the columns of smoke rising from Kyuden Kakita, and prayed that those fires would not find their way back to Golden Petal Village.
