Chapter 31 The Cloud Makes the Dragon Fly, The Wind Makes the Tiger Run The full moon shimmered over the sea. Yoshi wore no hat and he sat on the beach, his back leaned against the remains of a broken boat. He gazed up at the moon. The waves wished against the sands. He reflected. He reflected long on how when the Buddha still was in this world he sat beneath a tree and did not move until he had attained enlightenment. Not even death would move him. As life and death were meaningless before him. The god of death came to him, and visited as an army, as a holy monk, as his mother, as his father, as his child, and he tempted the Buddha six times, and six times he would not move. After that, a tremendous moon rose in the eastern sky, and he felt as though that moon had entered his heart. He was enlightened, and the eye of his mind and the eye of his heart were opened. Yet Yoshi thought long on how he lived in Hell, defying the Buddha, and Shinto, and Bushido. He must endure the unendurable. He must kill all who attack. He could not ever waver until his quest had been achieved. He did regret, though his regret could not move him, and he watched the moon until he and the moon were all, and he watched the moon until he and the moon were one, and the eye of his mind and the eye of his heart were opened. He was enlightened. He looked to the moon, and there he saw father and mother and self. There he saw wife and child. He let loneliness and sorrow drift away. Soon he would set foot into Edo. Soon he would challenge the Akechi to final battle. Meanwhile, across the sea, in Edo, within the castle of the Shogunate itself, Edo castle, alone in the court-yard of the Akechi compound, stood Imagawa. He looked up at the moon. He said, “The moon appears bigger with but one eye. Yet I only see you, Yoshi Onimura.” He entered into the Akechi compound again, stepped into a dark quarters. He spread a map on the floor and two of his samurai leaned over it. “We think that Onimura is on the coast here,” one samurai said, and pointed to the map. “I see,” said Imagawa. “He has two choices. Follow the shore, then sail up the river and enter Edo. His second choice, take a boat and enter Edo from the west.” “How will he enter Edo itself?” Imagawa asked. “The coastal route saves five days,” the other samurai said. “The river provides easy access. It is a safer way on the ocean, that is, of course, unless we are ready for him.” “The sea is easier,” said the first samurai. “Yet it would be a risk with a small vessel. It would, too, add days to his journey. I would choose the coast.” “Our forces?” Imagawa inquired. “The last of the Akechi are gathering this very night,” the second samurai said. “We are one-thousand strong.” As this was said, not that far from the Akechi compound, riding horseback through the hills of Japan, were hundreds of Akechi samurai, their katanas strapped to their backs, their bucket shaped straw hats over their heads. The final battle drew near. From across the sixty states of Japan, the Akechi were called to Edo, they came by land and by sea. At sea, a ship with an Akechi crest on its sail sailed toward Edo. Down the streets of Edo marched more Akechi, their bucket shaped straw hats over their heads. They poured into Edo. They passed through the gates. A dark cloud passed over the moon. In the Akechi residence, in the inner chamber, over the map with his two samurai, Imagawa straightened his back and looked at them with his one eye. “Put our warriors at every point!” he shouted. “When Onimura shows himself, we crush him as a common criminal!” “My Lord!” Imagawa stopped back over the map. “If he comes by sea, then…” He raised himself. “Summon Honjo Goro!” “My Lord!” The man, Honjo, was summoned. He sat now at the bow of a skiff as it was being rowed toward the Akechi compound. It took little time for him to enter into the compound and bow before Imagawa. “Imagawa Sama,” he said. “I am here at your beck and call.” “Tell me, can you sail?” asked Imagawa. “Of course. When? To where?” “Kitsune has the heaviest guns?” “She does, sir.” “Sail now! Take the helm!” “Our task?” “To kill Desolate Wolf!” Imagawa struck a spot on the map with his fan. “He is around here! Over sail him, and kill him! The man lives in hell. It is my bet that he will take the sea. When you find him, use your cannon! We lose no more men, and he gets his hell!” “No.” “What!” “My vessels are the Shogun’s. We hurt the name of our Lord, the Shogun, if we use them against a single ronin. Nor are these ships here for your use, Imagawa Sama.” “Quiet! There is no wrong in killing a criminal! Our Lord, the Shogun, permits that!” The man bowed with his palms on the floor and his forehead near them. “Go now!” shouted Imagawa. “Sail!” “My Lord!” Imagawa stood and stepped out into the court-yard. A dark cloud passed away from the moon. He gazed up at it. “Onimura!” he spat. “You fool!” As this happened, many miles away, Yoshi stood on the coast and prepared the small skiff. He did not wear his hat. He pushed the skiff off with a long oar. The craft glided out to sea. At the far end of the craft set a dummy that he had made of straw and dressed in a kimono. “It begins!” he shouted. He rowed. He rowed toward the full moon over the black waters. In Edo, during the early morning hours, the sail with the official crest of the Shogun upon it puffed out in the wind, and the gun-ship took to sea. The cannon stuck out of a port at the side of it. The man whom Imagawa had summoned, Honjo Goro, stood at the helm, with a metal helmet that had a wide brim that curved at the sides. The ship sailed far out to sea and he looked over the bow. He said, “If I lived in hell, then not by land nor sea, I would wait. You are old, Imagawa.” That dawn the rains poured on the sea. Yoshi let go of the oar and eased it down on the skiff. He stripped to his loin cloth and put his clothes into a wooden backpack. He put it on his back and tied his katana over the backpack and tied the rope of the scabbard across his torso. The boat filled with rain water. He waited, and in time the rains ceased, and the sun shown bright amid the few thin clouds. “It is time,” he said. “I go by hell-ship to the heart of the moon.” He waited until he saw the ship with the sail that bore the holy crest of the Tokugawa. Then he dove into the water and swam through the sea. In the meantime, aboard the ship, one of the crew spied with a telescope the waters. Then he shouted, “Boat sighted! Starboard!” Many of the crew scurried to the side of the ship and looked at the small skiff on the waves. The Capitan, the man whom Imagawa had summoned, looked through his scope and spotted the dummy made of straw. “I knew it all along,” he said. “Prepare the cannons!” one of the crew screamed. The Capitan, Honjo, laughed to himself. “One who trusts in numbers loses to the few,” he said. “Imagawa thinks that lies are truth, and that truth are lies. A pure samurai needs no allies, no friends, he does what he must do alone. He trusts in life in death. One who barrows warships to kill one man is no samurai. He will be shamed for all time. Yet I must protect the Shogun’s ship. To the death. Bring down the sail!” The men hesitated. Some of them stood by the cannon. “What!” shouted a man with a telescope held to his eye. “He tricked us! Decoys!” “He went by land!” another shouted. “He tricked us to sea!” Yoshi swam in the sea. He swam fast and hard through the sea. The waves made his body rise and fall. He swam beneath the current and he swam above it and he was graceful as he went. He swam toward the ship and he threw a very small grappling hook up to the back of it, and he used a very thin line to began to climb up along side of it. When he stood aboard it he announced himself. “Desolate Wolf stands here!” The crew drew their katanas and began to run at Yoshi. “Stop!” ordered the Capitan. “It is the duty of the crew to protect the ship! This task lies with me!” He removed his metal hat. He stood before Yoshi, who stood only in his loin cloth and backpack, the katana tied behind it, and he was soaked from the sea. He drew his Owazimono from his back. “Honjo Goro,” the Capitan said. “Yoshi Onimura.” “I do not serve the Akechi. I have no ill will, nor animosity towards you, sir. I will not fight you.” “My thanks,” said Yoshi. “Yet I have stained our Lord’s ship.” “No.” The Capitan stepped back. The crew were all working at the ship. All save one man. He removed his straw hat. He looked at Yoshi. This samurai had shoulder length black hair with no top-knot or pony tail. He wore a black kimono. He wore a single katana. He watched Yoshi. He studied Yoshi, and he remembered the way Yoshi had stood in the Decapitator robes that bore the holy crest of the Shogun behind his Lord. The Lord had set on a mat that lay on the rocks. He had worn white death-robes. He had a shaven pate and no top-knot but a long pony tail stuck out at the back of his head. Before him had been a small box that had a circular hole in its center. The box had had a table on top of it, and on top of the table was a short-sword, the tang of it having no handle. The blade had been wrapped tight in white cloth. Beside the mat there had been a wooden bucket filled with water that had a sponge inside of it that was connected to a stick. The samurai of the Lord had all gathered behind him, with shaved pates and neat top-knots, and they had worn wide shouldered vests and katanas and short-swords. They had all bowed their heads and they had cried. Yoshi had sat behind the Lord silently, his hair had been slicked neatly back, with a very neat top-knot. He had had more meat on him then than now. The Lord had looked out to the stream. “I have always loved this view,” he had said. “Forgive me for wishing to see it once more before I die. I do not know how it was in the days of old, but today there are not many daimyo who would choose such a place to die. Yet we all once were warriors, our hearts longing for nothing more than death. Thank you for this one last indulgence.” “Of course, my Lord,” Yoshi had said. “It is time,” the daimyo had said. “Now, my death poem.” He had said, “The very first second of death is like the very first second of life, someone else is wailing loud, never mind the distant sound of waves. The body of the mother from out of nothing like the child with no name until buried. This honor is as strong as death. I can hear the heartbeats of dying butterflies. Like them, I die with beauty.” The Lord had crossed and re-crossed his arms to make the huge shouldered vest fall to the back, had parted his white silk death-robes to reveal his bare mid-section, and had reached and taken the blade by the white cloth wrapped around it, and had with his other hand taken the table and moved it around him and sat down on it, then had stabbed himself and had cut his stomach and had looked ahead and had screamed silently with his face in rage. Yoshi had had his katana raised, and he had struck down. The head of the Lord had fallen forward still attached by a slit of skin at the throat. The blood had ran out of the neck and the blood had rained down. The blood had flowed long, the samurai remembered, as he watched Yoshi. “Pardon me,” he said. “The wind carries different things at sea. Perhaps you should dress yourself.” “My thanks,” Yoshi said. “I am sure you do not remember me, but no doubt you remember my Lord,” the samurai said. “It has been only four years ago. My Lord committed seppuku, and you were his second. Might I ask for a duel? It is my dying wish.” “The river goes,” Yoshi said. “Yet the water never returns. The samurai never look to the past. Life in death, that is all we have. Farewell.” The samurai stood, and he studied Yoshi. He then looked up to the sky, the clouds, a lonely bird. “My Lord,” he said. “For three years I have hung on to life. I have been negligent in my duty. Though now it seems that I might finally die. Had I not met Yoshi Onimura this day, I would have guarded your memory until time claimed me. Yet it seems that Heaven has not turned away from me. Please, my Lord, watch me from afar.” The samurai looked back to Yoshi. He said, “Please, sir.” Yoshi said nothing. Then he nodded. The samurai said, “The instant that I saw you, I knew that death would come in some way.” “I fight you of my own free will.” “I did not want others to mock my Lord for his dishonor, and thus I chose a life of shame. I became a ronin. Then I was hired for this task. Do you believe me, these last words before my death?” “It is said that the cloud makes the dragon fly. That it is the wind which makes the tiger run. There is nothing more painful than a dragon without a cloud, a tiger without the wind. A Lord needs true retainers who are his cloud and his wind. They need a retainer such as yourself. The utmost loyalty, beyond death, never ceasing. Your Lord was blessed with both wind and cloud.” The samurai had stood listening, and tears were streaming down his face. He gradually drew his katana, turning his scabbard upside down as he did. Yoshi drew his katana from his back. He held it out. The Capitan and the crew had all stopped, and they watched. The samurai charged forward. Yoshi took a stance, then stepped to the side. The two samurai crossed. They stood back to back. The samurai with the long hair began to leak his lifeblood from his chest. Tears swelled in his eyes. “At last, my Lord,” he said. “At long last…at your side!” And then he died. “Another true bushi,” Yoshi said. “Lost forever.” Tears were now in his eyes as well. The tears ran down his face and he did not wipe them away. The sail rose and billowed in the wind. Yoshi untied his Owazimono from his back and took off his backpack and dressed himself. He put his katana in his sash. The crew labored to work the ship. Soon it docked at the harbor. The gang-plank lowered and the crew stepped off it into Edo. They stood in a row at the end of the plank. Yoshi walked down the plank. “We have brought the ship of our Lord the Shogun to harbor,” one of them said. “If you would cross into Edo, please do so.” “My thanks,” Yoshi said. He sobbed as he stepped down the gang-plank. Tears streamed from his eyes. “The moon,” he said. He said, “I walk upon the moon.”
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 03:33:57 +0000
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