The pine scent was crisp and vibrant, a tart, bracing smell that you could almost taste on your tongue. Kaze came to a stream swollen by the heavy rains and watched the different shades of silver blinking at him. He took off his mud-smeared kimono and rinsed it in the steam. Walking to a place where the water was eddying a bit slower near a curve in the streambed, he stepped into the water to wash the mud off himself.
The water was cold. It seemed even colder than the icy spray of Dragonfly Falls. He told himself to be strong and wondered if, at thirty-one, he was already starting to get soft. Still, age didn’t have much to do with toughness. The Sensei had been at least twice as old as Kaze was now, and he had been like a stone whose surface had been made smoother and harder by the passage of years. Although the body couldn’t help but age, it was the spirit that got old, buffeted by too much pain, too many bitter memories, and too many disappointments. Kaze took a scoop of cold water and washed his face.
Getting out of the stream and donning his wet kimono, Kaze walked until he found an open space. A large cryptomeria was growing at the edge of the space, an infrequent procession of water drops dripping off a low limb. Kaze braced himself, his hand on his sword, and waited.
A tiny drop formed at the end of the limb, swelling until finally it released its bond with the branch and started falling to the ground. Kaze drew his katana and cut at the drop in one smooth motion. The polished blade made a flat arc, meeting the drop in midflight. The drop exploded into a constellation of minute stars that flew outward from the contact point of the sword and the water.
The borrowed sword had stuck slightly in the scabbard. Kaze made a note to use more force next time. He returned the sword to the scabbard and waited. When the next drop fell he repeated the act, cleanly meeting the drop before it hit the ground. He waited and did it again. And again.
Then he stopped and looked around the periphery of the space until his eyes finally settled on a young bush. He scrutinized the bush and picked off a tiny budding leaf, smaller than his thumbnail. He put his hand on the sword handle and threw the leaf in the air. The leaf caught a light breeze, and its irregular shape caused it to tumble about in the air, following an erratic path. Kaze drew his sword and sliced at the leaf.
He bent down and picked up the leaf, looking at it closely. He had missed it completely. He picked off a second leaf and threw that in the air. Once again he sliced at the leaf. Again he missed it. The normal swing of the katana was too long to catch the flitting leaf as it made its erratic way through the air. The dropping water was predictable, but a standard draw and swing on an erratically moving object was useless. Something like a small tumbling leaf required a different technique.
Kaze kept the sword in his hand and threw the leaf in the air. This time he used a sharp, flicking motion with his wrist instead of a normal cut. It was a motion that wouldn’t generate enough power to deliver a mortal blow to a man, but it allowed the tip of Kaze’s sword to move with blinding speed and catch the fluttering leaf.
This time when he picked up the leaf, he noticed he had sliced off a tiny section of it. He picked out other leaves and threw them in the air, repeating the process again and again and again until he was picking up two pieces of each leaf cut neatly in half. It was an unorthodox move with a sword, but Kaze practiced it as diligently as he practiced any move.
The purpose of practice, his Sensei would tell him, was to transcend technique and take his motions with the sword into the realm of expression and art.
By repeating the motions over and over again, you could reach a point where the mind and muscles no longer had to coordinate consciously. When that point was reached, the sword movement became a part of your body’s existence, like breathing or the beating of your heart-a natural movement of your body that required no thought to execute.
Kaze still strove to learn his art and to perfect it. But despite the fact that he had great skill, he always considered himself a pupil who had to strive to learn just one more technique or movement. In the hands of a master like the Sensei, the way of the sword was an art, but it was one that could have unfortunate consequences.
Kaze had thought that great good would come from his skill at one time, when he was much younger. But he understood the capriciousness of fate and that the movement of forces greater than one man often held the key to our lives. One swordsman, no matter how good, could not fight the changes transforming Japan.
Kaze came out of the woods and returned to the pushcart to find the merchant had found some dry wood and had a small fire going. On the fire was a black metal pot; in it was water boiling for tea.
“It’s probably best not to light a fire,” Kaze said as he walked up to the merchant.
“Where were you?” the merchant said quickly. “I was worried you might have left me.”
“No, I simply went into the woods.”
The merchant just grunted his understanding, thinking that Kaze was simply answering a call of nature.
“The bandits might see the smoke,” Kaze continued.
“I don’t care,” Hishigawa replied petulantly. “I have to get dried off and warmed up or else I’ll die.”
Kaze shrugged. “Unless we get some help,” he said, “we will not be able to push that cart through these muddy pathways.”
“Where can we get some help?” Hishigawa said.
“A pathway always goes somewhere,” Kaze answered. “You simply follow it until you come to a village or farmhouse. There, we might be able to recruit some help to allow us to get this pushcart from here to the barrier.”
“When do you think I should do that?” the merchant asked.
“Right now,” Kaze answered. “If you go to a village or farmhouse, you’ll probably find a hot breakfast.”
The merchant looked over at the pushcart. “But what about the cart?”
“I’ll stay here and watch it,” Kaze said.
“But…” The merchant let the word trail off.
Kaze smiled. “Don’t worry, I can’t push the cart by myself either. So your gold will be safe. If you can’t recruit some help, we are going to be here two or three days, until the roads dry up.”
Sighing, the merchant took one last, reluctant look at the water starting to boil in the kettle and said, “All right. I’ll go get some people to help us push the cart.”
He started off down the road in search of a farmhouse or village. As he left, Kaze looked at the cart. He stared at it for several minutes, thinking about the possibilities.
Hishigawa was tired, stiff, and cold. All these things drove the fear from his heart and replaced it with anger. He was used to ronin doing as they were told, not giving orders. In fact, he was used to most people doing as they were told.
He was raised as the only child of a wealthy merchant family. First-born sons of Japanese families were always special anyway, but being the only son of a rich household made him the object of constant attention and pampering.
His first nurse, Ando, was barely older than he, yet she insisted on carrying him about on her back, his legs around her waist and a wide piece of cloth strapping him in place. This continued until Hishigawa was almost as big as Ando, so Ando would stagger around with the burden, a burden she seemed to relish. Ando was still with him, and as a reward for her loyalty, Hishigawa had given her more responsibility than a servant and a woman usually had.
Hishigawa wished she was with him now, to tend to his comfort. Instead, he was being sent to scour the countryside for help while the strange ronin was supposed to be guarding his gold. Gold. Until he met Yuchan, his entire life was motivated by the need to acquire more and more wealth. Now his life had two driving objectives.