XVIII. A Ghost, Though Living
You stare into the roaring flames of the campfire, your mind torn. Shadows dance across the face of the samurai, their roaring laughter, their whispered discussions, and Ondo's presence at your side. He saved you and you saved him; you share a bond of battle, and you feel you can talk. Or rather, you feel you
must talk, a flame like that of the campfire in your own chest, words pressing at your lips, however unwise they may be.
"I wasn't just on the battlefield the day my lord died," you begin. For a moment you fall back to silence, Ondo waiting quietly. "I was Okami's protector. With my bunraku I could hold back any army that sought to overwhelm the commanders of our army. Suzaku, his son, my brother-in-battle, would keep any challenger from reaching him, and I would cut down the rabble. It was my duty to put my life on the line for them, and I would have gladly died for that purpose. But I was not given the chance. I fought and fought on that day with all the fury I could muster, but the demons were too many. Caught in a tide of enemies, we were separated. I could not place myself before him. They killed him, and all I could do was strike back. I killed the oni… As many as I could… But in the end I stood alone. I failed in the one duty that had been given me."
You reach for a nearby clay bottle, and pour yourself another cup of sake, downing it in one gulp. Then your eyes, half-cast down, wander over Ondo's face.
"Why are you still alive?" He asks, and although is voice is not unkind it is a punch to the gut.
"It wasn't fair," you say, too fast, anger at what happened to you flushing your face. "I gave all that I could. I tried my best, it just wasn't enough."
"But you failed." You wince, the truth of his words another blow. "Your effort did not change the outcome. You could have stood aside and let the oni pass and the result would have been the same."
"Don't talk to me about
result," you spit. "We are samurai. Every day we fight we forbid ourselves a dozen things which would make the battle easier, because they are unjust or dishonorable, because a deeper order must be maintained no matter how much war tears us apart. It is the
action that matters," you say, almost convincing yourself.
Ondo shakes his head, and drinks in turn, more slowly.
"It is not the effort or the outcome that matters. It is the
path. A succession of correct actions leading to a correct outcome. The correct outcome reached with wrongful action is unrighteous. The correct actions leading to the wrong outcome were misguided. Your duty was to die before your lord was harmed, and yet he died, and you remained. Whatever effort you made, however hard you fought, you were misguided. But you did not correct that failure."
"No," you say in a dark tone. "I did not. And what would have been the point? Okami died with his bloodline. There was no one alive who would care about my death, who would want me to repay that failure. If I lived I could still serve. I could save other lives instead. And I did! I protected Shidao and his men, I saved you and Gozen and her troops," you add, voice getting hot.
"Do you intend to keep a ledger in which you record every life you save until the sum of them all repays the death of your lord? Do you think that's how it works?"
You don't answer, staring at the flames. Eventually, you say-
"No."
"You can't be a protector, Tomoe," Ondo says without looking at you. "You can't be a savior. You failed as both when it mattered the most, and that is an action now engraved in the writ of time. You can't take it back."
"So what should I do? Fall on my sword?" You won't. Whatever else happens, you know this: it is too late to choose death now, not after all the road you've walked to get where you are now.
"No. You should kill."
You look at him, surprised, unsure how to react.
"You should have died before your lord, it was your duty. In truth you died that day: you died as a samurai and as a protector. But still you stood, and you killed those who had taken him. In the flesh you may live, but your honor is that of a hungry ghost, your duty is one of vengeance. You, Tomoe, are the guarding shade that arises from the grave of the unjustly murdered to slay the guilty."
"The life of the walking dead is not a happy one," you murmur, echoing the words you said to revived Kakashi.
"Happiness is not for you," Ondo says with a sad look. "You can choose to live a falsehood, to try and protect others as if this could repay your failure. Or you can embrace a place made for you in the order of the world: as one which has forsaken her soul to slay evil. As a sword without scabbard."
You clutch your empty cup, emotions raging in your mind. Part of you wants to tell Ondo off, to ask him where he gets off talking with such arrogance, and part of you wants to hear in his words an answer to your guilt, to find in them a resigned satisfaction.
"You did not protect me today," Ondo says, frowning. "I would be dead without you, certainly, but you were not my defender. At the apex of the battle I made a sacrifice to open up the kami's defenses, and you seized that weakness and destroyed him. I lost. Silent Hare, my bunraku, was destroyed. And it was worth it because its destruction allowed you to visit vengeance upon the enemy. This is who you are, Tomoe. Do not seek to protect. Seek to destroy."
Shaking his head slowly, as if to rid his mind of some burdening thoughts, Ondo takes the bottle and pours the both of you another drink. You take your cup but do not bring it to your lips. Your chest feels like it is burning, your mind like at once an open wound and a thing smothered in the numbing gauze of alcohol.
"I will not speak of your failure," he adds with a shrug. "It is a private thing, only between the two of us. But I advise in turn that you would not speak of it to others. A few may be accepting. Most won't. You should remember that Summer's tolerance is not acceptance. There is a difference between accepting a ronin and accepting one who has failed her master so directly; most believe that the latter can never be trusted again. If lord Summer had allowed Gozen to interview you, and you had said what you just told me, she would have not only rejected you, but cast you out of the city, and told you that the only proper fate for you was to die at your own hands."
You bite your lip, mulling this over, and finally drink your cup, without true thirst. Your mind is a chaos of uncertainty.
[ ]Reject Ondo's words (You must write in a rationale.)
[ ]Accept Ondo's words (Acquire trait, "A ghost in the flesh.")
***
You cross the gates of Summer in the late afternoon, a hundred warriors behind you pulling the bodies of the dead and on an improvised cart the wide and great tree containing the Heart, dirt still stuck to its roots. You carry it as far as the courtyard of the palace, and Gozen quickly orders servants to take it away and to begin work on cutting it apart. With the other soldiers and samurai dismissed, your commander orders you and your fellow puppeteer to come with her.
"Lord Summer is meditating in his private garden, in the west wing of the castle," a servant informs you. Gozen frowns at hearing this, a look of mild discomfort on her face, but does not comment. She leads you through heavily decorated corridors into the wealthier part of the palace; this is no west wing, crowded with servants and homeless nobles like yourself, but the private apartments of the daimyo and his private circle. You remain on the first floor, and Gozen guides you to a small room, adorned with figurative tapestries depicting peaceful landscapes, and closed from the outside by a paper door - the room is empty, and devoid of any noticeable accommodations save a few gardening tools.
Beyond the paper door, you think, waits a garden; you hear the sound of birds and can smell grass and flowers. But there is a shadow behind that screen, as if it were night on the other side; lady Gozen does not open that door, but instead kneels in full, both knees and her forehead to the ground. Without needing to be told so, you and Ondo imitate her.
Behind the door, the shadow shifts. Rays of sunlight stream through the paper screen, then are occluded again as some great shape twists just out of sight.
"SPEAK," says a voice like waves rolling on a stone shore. Its sheer weight and tone sends shivers down your spine, and from a look you see it affects both of your companions in much the same way.
"My lord, we have retrieved the Heart," Gozen begins. "It has built around itself some kind of protective tree, but as we speak the artisans are working on taking it apart and allowing you to fully reclaim your property. Only one man has died in the fighting, noble Yoichi Ideo, but one of our bunraku was destroyed and the other heavily damaged. The kami was able to build some kind of war-shintai…" She talks on, describing the mission, the rise of the fortress-kami, conveying your own earlier report of battling Akamine, until finally she is done and falls silent again.
"IT IS PLEASING TO ME THAT THE HEART BE RETURNED TO ITS SERVICE." The voice is like a tide, rolling in and out, shaking your bones; and yet there is an edge of sweetness to it. "ALTHOUGH YOUR HISTORY HAS FORGOTTEN IT, IT ONCE SOUGHT THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL HUMANKIND, AND FOR THIS WAS RIGHTLY PUNISHED. IN CAPTURING IT YOU DID NOT ONLY SERVE THE NEEDS OF HEAVEN BUT ALSO YOUR OWN."
"I AM, HOWEVER… DISPLEASED BY THE LOSS OF A CHASING STAR," and the screen trembles faintly. In-between words you hear the sliding of some great shape on grass and stones in the garden. "TO BUILD A NEW BUNRAKU WILL COST SUMMER MUCH."
"My lord," Ondo pleads, "apologies are not enough, and I must express my greatest shame for this loss. If my lord deigns to rebuild my bunraku, I will consider myself honored by the favor of Heaven itself. In the meantime I am your most devoted servant, and whatever you shall ask of me, I shall do."
"YOU SHALL."
Ondo quivers slightly, and you feel unseen words between them. What will your lord ask of him to repay such a great price?
"TOMOE," the voice calls, and you feel the weight of a terrible pressure, of a watchful intent seizing every part of your being. "YOU HAVE DISTINGUISHED YOURSELF IN YOUR FIRST MISSION. ASK ONE FAVOR, AND IT SHALL BE YOURS."
You grit your teeth, the pressure passing over you like a curtain of cascading water, making you feel vulnerable, exposed. To an unwary onlooker your lord's statement would seem unfair: Ondo and you both fought with equal skill and daring, and it was only bad luck (and the inherent fragility of a Chasing Star) that had him destroyed where your Harvest was only damaged. But here again, you feel the weight of unseen words. Your bunraku
is damaged; your lord expects the favor you ask to be for him to cover the repairs of Harvest; if you ask for this you will be left having moved no further than you had before setting out on that mission.
That said, if you are feeling canny, this might be an opportunity to ask for something unexpected and secure a new advantage. You will only have to negotiate with some other party to pay for Harvest's repairs, perhaps at the cost of favors of your own…
[ ]Ask lord Summer to pay for Harvest's repairs.
[ ]Ask for a bounty. You have many material needs, although such a boon will be wasted if you cannot find a way to have Harvest repaired at no money cost.
[ ]Ask for a title of land - it is likely to be very small, but without one you're still half a ronin, no matter what your title says.
[ ]Ask a question. Bound by his offer of a favor, lord Summer would not dare to lie.
-[ ]Write in your question.
[ ]Confess your true failing in Autumn's battle, and ask for forgiveness before this secret can somehow harm you.
[ ]Write in?
I just like the ghost metaphor.
