Akiko the Brave | Part 1: Moonlight [v1]
Satomi knelt in silence, his face kissed by the flickering light of an andon lamp in the room’s corner. The gentle flame pushed valiantly against the surrounding darkness, its only ally the dying kindle of a hearth burning in the room behind. The hearth’s light bled through an open paper door, joined by the low drone of insects chirping in the brisk night air. In front laid a paintbrush, an inkwell, and a long section of washi paper–each aligned as straight as a warrior’s blade and spaced evenly to one-another.
Like something was to come, he waited, his eyes sealed in meditation. A gust entered from the window, dancing among the bare walls and toying with the ends of his unkempt hair. Never once did he wake from his state, undeterred until the moon beckoned through a blanket of passing clouds. Moonlight poured from outside, lighting the wall before him and waking a bright shimmer in the drab light. His eyes opened, his glance met with his reflection staring back through the sheen of a blade resting on a shelf. His gaze was deeper than the greatest ocean, his thoughts like waves in a tidal storm. The sword spoke no words, but he heard its call all the same.
The kodachi-class blade was under two feet in length. Like a maiden wrapped in the finest garments, the hilt was dressed in the best fabric human hands could weave–its piercing blue more vivid than the morning sky. The guard was carved with the image of a small house in a valley, the negative space perforated and bordered by an outer band. The polished blade was purer than meltwater on the first day of spring, its appearance like mercury in sword form. Just near the collar, the words “Kenichi the Brave” sat deep into the metal.
The sword taunted in its moonlight, but he ignored the spiteful eyes floating in the reflection. With a long breath, he pulled the brush, dabbing it into the inkwell. Globs of black poured over the paper, his eyes shaken and mind frozen. More droplets dove from his trembling hand, gathering into a mirrored puddle beneath. His image emerged in the void below as he summoned what strength he had left, setting the brush against the paper.
“For those who may find me–” he started, hesitation pulling at his hand with every stroke. “–my name is Satomi, fourth son of Katsuo, and I am the greatest swordsmith that has ever lived.”
Like flashes of lightning on a summer’s night, memories poured between his words, leaving as quickly as they came. There were moments that he felt–moments where laughter echoed in the room and smells flooded his nose, but not a soul sat beside him. They were only ghosts–memories of days he would never see again.
“In my life, I’ve made over a hundred swords, each one a rival to the rising sun itself. Many grew to know my name, Satomi, as the man in the valley–the man with the gifted hands. For a time, I believed them.”
Satomi held his dangling sleeve aside with his spare hand, graceful in every stroke despite his reluctant grasp. On the shelf, the sword continued its watch, patient as the wind howled from the window.
“Today, I know this to be untrue,” he wrote, a single droplet falling from his cheek into the black below. “I am not the man I thought I was.”
His hands were beaten and calloused, marked by years of work. Two marks stood from the rest, his palms bearing lesions and boils seemingly days old and still cracked with dry blood. He persisted nonetheless, unbothered by his healing wounds. Instead, his eyes ached with a different kind of pain.
“It is with the little honor I have that I ask–do not bury my remains, do not pray for my soul, and do not mourn the man I was, for I have failed my greatest purpose.”
Sorrow held him as he wept alone, his face a waterfall of fluid from his eyes and nose. His lungs struggled for air, but the surrounding walls only closed tighter the more he gulped. He slammed a fist to the ground, toppling the inkwell and dousing the floor in black. His face twisted in anger, alert despite suffocating in the shrinking room. His quivering hand grasped the brush and dabbed ink from the flowing puddle. No matter how bright the sword’s light beckoned, he continued, his tremors only worsening the further he pushed.
“I have committed the greatest failure a man could make,” he marked, sweat beading on his blushed skin. “For this I beg, leave what is left of me to rot within these walls. Only after my bones turn to dust may I begin to atone for the price of my existence.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He wrote until his arm obeyed no further, his paintbrush rolling off his tired fingers. His eyes fixed on the paper, reading the words back in silence. In ways he couldn’t explain, it was freedom, the message he wished he was strong enough to say in his own breath. He read it again, and again, until the torrent in his hand calmed like a river’s merge to the sea. It was a new feeling, he thought. For so long, it was like he carried something inside him–something heavier than even the largest stone. But now, he was light. He could stretch his chest, he could finally breathe. A smile emerged through his drying tears. His gaze shifted, locking eyes with the sword on the shelf. It was time.
Before jumping to his feet, he added one last line at the bottom: Signed–Satomi, fourth son of Katsuo. Once the greatest swordsmith that ever lived. He sat the brush down and rose, his aged knees groaning from his time spent on the floor. Gentle and quiet, he glided over the letter, careful never to dab the end of his yukata in the wet ink.
It was like staring at an old foe, the way he glared in his approach. At arm’s length, something froze him where he stood. His peace washed away in his emerging tears, his face turned red as he watched the man he barely recognized in the reflection. He laid a hand on the hilt, his muscles almost too weak to wrap it in his grasp. Overwhelmed, he coiled, stepping back as if it could jump him at any moment. Only, he knew it never would. It was just metal sitting on a rack. Nevertheless, fear consumed what soul there was left in his eyes.
He fell to his knees, dragging his head against the wall as he slid down. The air was too thin, the room too small. His face dripped with more sweat than tears. While his lungs struggled for breath, he watched the tremors in his hands, his head still planted against the wall. A voice bounced in the room, reaching even the deepest recesses of his conscience. As the other ghosts had faded with time, one still remained. It was a young, the voice, full of joy and vigor. It beckoned him to play, calling from the shadows.
Satomi shifted his sight to the moon, then to the sword above. He rose, pushing through his panic and locking it in his grasp. The blade sang with light, almost supernatural in its glow as he turned to the door. With poise in every movement, he pulled the garment off his shoulders, dropping it to his waist and crouching back to his knees.
His chest was bare against the chilling wind, his skin bumpy with goose pimples. He meditated in silence, hovering the sword over his palms. Muttering a prayer in the quiet of the room, he stared through the sheen of the metal as he spoke. His eyes floated along the engraved words, following each indent with a gentle graze of his thumb. “Kenichi,” he whispered, tears leaping off the end of his nose.
As the lamp’s flame fluttered in the breeze, Satomi fixed his gaze ahead, turning the sword tip toward his abdomen. The cold of the metal stung long before its edge had the chance, his hands trembling while his mind fought for even a semblance of composure. In and out he breathed, his nervous eyes sealed in focus despite the ghosts’ continuing torment. With a clench of his muscles, he began his thrust, slowly pushing the moonlit blade into his skin.
A bubbling of blood emerged where the sword met flesh, quickly trailing a line of red down his lower stomach. Waves of warmth and nausea radiated from his core to the surface of his skin, his fingertips pulsing with pins and needles. He couldn’t remember a worse pain in his life, but he had to persist–he wouldn’t bear himself if he gave up.
The blade sunk only half an inch deep before he felt a daze overcome his senses. He panted and shook, his muscles quickly betraying all command. Braced by no more than a shred of perseverance, his face curled in a rage, his veins thick in exertion. He groaned through the agony, his voice carried far in the quiet air.
With one last pull, he brought the sword nearly two inches into his abdomen. Only, just as he had begun to feel the moon’s beckon under its gentle light, something changed. The very hands that once gave him so much held him from the one thing he wanted most. The sword halted but an inch away from his destiny, a destiny he no longer had the strength to achieve.
“No!” he cried with every last drop of air in his chest. He refused defeat, but his body convulsed the further he resisted. There was no amount of spirit that could compel the sword deeper into his flesh. He had nothing left to give, no more courage to end his darkness. After a moment suspended in what felt like an eternity, he yanked the metal from his stomach, hurling it across the room. It crashed against the floor as waves of tears washed over the look of anger burned into his face.
He pressed his hands over his eyes, falling onto a growing puddle of his own blood. “Yume!–Yume!” he called, his voice hoarse and skin pale. “I’m sorry!”
Rolling to his back, he gazed through the window just above his head. The moon returned his glance, painting him in a bluish glow. “I’m sorry, Yume,” he said.
Wind whipped through the quiet valley, rustling trees and dancing among the tall grass. A wall of clouds blanketed the night sky, engulfing the moon in its wake. As the moon vanished before his eyes, its shadow swept across his face. “I failed you,” he said, sobs jumping between his words. “I’m...I’m a failure. I am a failure.”
[**Author’s Note: Thank you for reading Part 1 of this story! Though it begins on a sad note, it is not a story about endless pain and turmoil. Rather, it’s a story about learning to see what lies beyond in life. If you or a loved one have suicidal thoughts or tendencies, please call the hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Your life matters, and I am excited to accompany you in this narrative adventure!**]