Walking through the neatly ordered garden, Lin Feng mused on the idiosyncrasies of the class he was going to hobnob with. The Samurai were a contradictory people. Their creed was an oxymoron: Pride in humility.
As the only continent on the plane, the society was isolationist by circumstance and as such self-sufficiency was of utmost importance. They achieved it by adhering to a strict social hierarchy and constraining the leaders and administrators with an archaic honour code: Bushido.
It was basically a society that placed great emphasis on honour and duty, which was fine until you realized the levels to which it was taken.
Suicide was a valid form of apology in these parts. It even had an exclusive term: hara-kiri.
Social interactions were just an evolved version of the shame game where the hosts and the guests had a good time by poetically demeaning themselves. You won when you degraded yourself to a point below your opponent’s bottom line. It was clever in that there were no losers as the winner’s humility played to the loser’s pride.
Coming from a more liberal environment where sects were run like enterprises and kings were representatives of their subjects, where Gods were treated with respect but not reverence since you could become one yourself, where no one had to bow to another since all it took was a reincarnation to switch places, Lin Feng found this society stifling.
An unintended result of this sort of honour code was the increased intricacy of the social interactions. Somewhere down the line, some Daimyo or the other had gotten it into his head that the more effort a host put into preparations for a party, the more sincerity he demonstrated.
This mentality had escalated over the years until simple things like drinking tea had been convoluted into an artform: sado.
The party that was to be held this day, however, catered to another mundane aspect of life that had been elevated to the status of a hobby only nobles had the qualifications to pursue. The appreciation of incense.
The simple act of lighting combustible substances that emanated an aroma when burnt had been cooked up into a precise science. Everything from the bowls in which incense was to be burnt to the shape of the very room in which the party was to be held had been tacked on with a connotation and the guests were supposed to appreciate it.
Well, it was considered a competitive art for noblemen, who each had their own incense-infused smell, a necessity when one lived in a stiflingly hot valley capital while wearing at least eight layers of clothing in the summer.
Praise be for the inventor of temperature regulating seals.
The practice of an incense appreciation party, like most things when it came to Samurai, was the pinnacle of subtlety and obsessive-compulsion.
After all, when the slightest of detractions from custom could be misconstrued as a personal slight and result in a duel to the death, people were justified in being a bit jumpy.
Lin Feng passed the gates and was invited in by a maidservant in an extremely fancy kimono with the image of a flock of herons flying across a setting sun embroidered on it. She had one arm crossed in front of her, holding the elbow of the other in its palm. The other hand was held in front of her heavily made up face, the voluminous sleeve obstructing her visage below the nose.
She kept her eyes trained at his feet the entire time they spoke. As the potential leader of Suna, he too was a member of the Samurai caste and she had been ingrained with the idea of servitude towards nobility from birth. It made him quite uncomfortable. He made sure to not let it show, he didn’t want her to commit hara-kiri to apologise.
Following after her, he sealed away his katana into the storage seal on his cloth belt as per her request. Each step that she took was measured, placing the heel of one foot just a little in front of the toe of the other as she guided him towards the venue while traversing the corridors of the manse in a convoluted pattern.
He took note of the material used for the flooring, a beautifully polished wood, cherry if he wasn’t mistaken. Making a mental map of the route taken to the venue, he found that it spelled out a part of the character for winter.
So, the theme for the party was cherry blossoms in the winter.
Despite his extensive research in the weeks he had to prepare for this party, when he was faced with the extent of thought and effort put into the execution, he was still dumbfounded.
The time and effort needed to swap out all the floorboards with the required ones… he couldn’t help but shake his head in amazement.
Reaching the room, the maidservant got down to her knees beside the sliding door painted with the scene of an osprey catching fish. She pulled the door open, inviting him to enter.
Maintaining his poker face, he strode into the room and took in the sight of his intended company for that night.
There they were, the five most prominent Samurai lords in the country of Wind, the only five men who were officially of a higher status than him in this country.
Sitting in seiza on cushions embroidered with their family insignia, they meditated with their eyes closed, presumably preparing their minds for the party that was about to commence.
The height and arrangement of the cushions spoke of their relative power and relational dynamics.
Comparing their faces with the intelligence reports he had perused, their statuses were vivid.
Occupying the highest cushion was an aging man with a pure white topknot held together by an embroidered viridian ribbon. Continuing the colour scheme, his haori too was a limpid shade of green reminiscent of budding leaves and embroidered with a scene of the moon shining down on a bamboo grove. His kimono underneath it was a pearlescent beige, setting off the haori perfectly. His sleeves were embroidered with the motif of coiling vines in gold thread.
He was, Fuji Moritake, the lord of the largest agricultural province in the country of Wind. Located towards the south of the country, his province was the largest provider of agricultural produce.
Most of the grain supplied to Suna came from his province, either directly or after passing through multiple middlemen.
Despite the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, he wasn’t affable in the least, having recently doused the fires of rebellion on his land with the blood of the rebels. Gaining his vote would be essential for a successful bid for the position of Kazekage.
Maybe the promise of an increase in the number of escorts for the trade caravans would do… a lot of shinobi were idling due to newly improved defences of the city.
On his left sat a middle-aged man who had styled his hair into a braid that stretched back from the top of his head, the sides having been shaven cleanly.
Togashi Kazuhisa had gained fame through the munitions business. Cold weapons, explosive tags, high quality swords for the samurai classes, when it came to implements of murder, he was a one stop solution for all your needs.
His kimono was the colour of dried blood. Combined with his plain black haori, he projected a rather grim image.
The location of his territory adjacent to the border with the country of Iron ensured a steady stream of materials and business from what was basically a large agglomerate of ferrous mines run as a Samurai boot camp.
The insignia of his clan, a crossed daisho, was embroidered in crimson thread on his lapels.
To the right of Fuji Moritake sat an extremely muscular man who had his russet hair cropped close to his skull except for a ponytail at the back of his head.
Lin Feng walked over and occupied the seat reserved for him to his right. Due to the combination of his seat being the lowest and the man being a giant, his head came up to only his chest.
The man turned to him and gave him a slight nod, so Lin Feng returned the courtesy and he turned away satisfied.
That was Tanaka Mouri, the most famous blacksmith in the Samurai circles this side of the desert. He specialized in creating the armours which were like a second life to samurai. In recent years, he had started dabbling in the weapons market.
As such, his business overlapped with Togashi’s and thus, they were not on the best of terms. If their seats hadn’t been placed at an equal height, it might have been sufficient grounds for a duel.
Their arrangement on both sides of Moritake indicated that they were both courting him as a potential customer and Togashi apparently disdained to pay attention to ninja, like most Samurai who considered them a lower class, while Mouri was still open to extending his hands into the weapon supply business for Suna.
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Given that Suna had its own forges that made it self-sufficient, even a little surplus, in terms of weapons, he would have to be disappointed.
Lin Feng took in Mouri’s choice of garments: a pure white kimono overlaid by a sky blue haori with a motif of cranes flying from cloud to cloud. The clothes set off his tanned complexion and the expansive theme complemented his large build.
Finally, to Lin Feng’s right sat a man in extremely ornate clothes that still retained their elegance. He had square framed spectacles hanging off his nose and his jet-black hair was oiled and slicked back giving him a suave look.
Kenichi Himura was the lord of the westernmost province of the land of Wind. The black soil formed by the weathering of the volcanic rock around the extinct volcanoes in that area was extremely suited to the cultivation of cotton and the man had capitalized on it to become the largest textile producer in not only the Country of Wind, but the entire world.
Being an alternative as far as Samurai went due to his involvement in trade (merchants were considered a lower caste), he was shunned by his peers. If not for his extreme wealth and contribution to the coffers of the country via his taxes, he would probably have remained uninvited to this party. Thus, the height of his seat was only slightly higher than Lin Feng’s own.
After all Bushido didn’t equal stupidity and snubbing your source of income was the height of idiocy.
Himura eschewed silk for cotton as the material for his garments, a choice that fit his personality and advertised his wares at the same time. Truly a businessman. No inch of fabric was left uncovered by intricate floral embroidery in vibrant colours.
The beauty of the stitching lay in the artisan’s technique where he made it so that a differently coloured thread would be seen if one were to view the embroidery from a different angle, making it seem as if the clothes were shimmering in rainbow hues.
The matte effect of cotton as opposed to the sheen of silk came into play at this juncture, preserving the elegance of the clothes, preventing Himura from looking like a character straight out of a vaudeville.
Lin Feng’s own garment, though plain was made with Arachne silk, an extremely tough material extracted from the chakra active spiders that could only be found in the interior of the desert. The material was worth its weight in gold.
Lin Feng pondered over the dynamics between his fellow guests.
He still had the highest quality chakra conductive metal he had extracted from Hiramekarei and the Executioner’s blade.
Maybe, he should make an offering to both Togashi and Mouri if he wanted to toe the line.
It might result in two votes in his favour… or it might result in a gift given in vain as both abstained.
On the other hand, if he presented a gift to only one of them, he would surely draw the ire of the other, yielding a similarly neutral result of one for and one against.
The consequences though, would be more polarizing as Suna would be indicating its intention to join a certain faction, entirely reshuffling the power balance.
Moritake, as a puritan Samurai, would not like to see this happening while Himura might be receptive, leaving the final vote up to the host of this party: Shin Wu, the successor candidate for the post of the Daimyo of Wind.
He was currently visible only as a sitting shadow behind the paper screen with a beautiful watercolour rendition of a cherry blossom tree in full bloom.
Shin Wu moved and all of the Samurai in the room awoke from their meditation. He rang a series of bells in a particular order and a maidservant, clad in an unembroidered amber kimono, came in with a jade plate and presented it to him behind the screen.
As mentioned before, the art of incense appreciation was extremely intricate and the host prepared for his party weeks in advance, which included readying his entire mansion for the one room the party would be held in and burying his incense in a jar next to a river to keep it fresh so that it could be brought in by ladies at key moments. Even the colour of their dresses had implicit poetic connotation.
A few days prior to the event, guests were expected to fast, carefully eating light foods, and taking an especially hot bath for a prolonged amount of time. They had to be careful not to use any perfume or wear a sachet, as the point of this was to arrive as scent-less as possible, so that they wouldn't upset the delicate balance of the varieties of incense they would inhale.
The work of the host was to heat the incense on a burner and present it on in a censer to be passed on from guest to guest.
In front of the guests, there were ten tiles with a poetry corresponding to the ten incenses to be used in the game.
Using the combined information from the scent, the setting, arrangement of the room, colour of the dress of the maidservant delivering the incense, the number of bells rung, the order in which they were presented and even the time of the day, the guest had to guess which incense matched which tile.
The order in which the censer would be passed followed the seniority of relationships. So, the maidservant took it from Shin Wu’s hand and passed it on to Fuji Moritake.
The old man sat ramrod straight in a perfect seiza and raised the censer by cupping it with one hand, tilted his head down, and wafted the smoke towards his nose with the other.
After taking three small sniffs, he passed it back to the servant and chose a tile from the ten.
Another maid, the one who had brought Lin Feng in accepted it with both hands and brought it behind the screen.
Shin Wu struck a gong beside him once to show that he was correct and the maid brought back the tile and placed it before Moritake.
The maid with the censer, took it away and exited the room.
This time Shin Wu rang three bells and a maid in a sandy brown kimono entered with another incense on a jade plate.
This time, the round started from Himura due to there being a dilemma about who to give precedence out of Togashi and Mouri due to their rivalry.
It was also a slight slap on the wrist for placing the host in such an awkward position.
After sniffing it, Himura declined comment and the censer passed to Lin Feng.
He followed etiquette and wafted the smoke towards his nose and took in the smell. It reminded him of a fragrance Pakura was fond of and which came from the extract of a cactus that only grew near Suna.
Singling out a tile that bore a poem describing sudden rain in summer which allegorically referred to the internal moistness and external aridity of the cactus, he selected it.
After a brief confirmation, Shin Wu declared him correct and the tile was added to his pile. Moritake sent him an appreciative nod.
Thus, the game went on, and the incenses cycled through the room, filling it up with a rich mixture of fragrances, making judging the following incenses progressively harder.
After five cycles, the guests were allowed to drink from the small cup of straight vinegar to refresh their nasal passages.
The final tile went to Lin Feng automatically as Himura had solved the penultimate one. He had to explain the relation between the tile and the fragrance otherwise, it would pass on to the next guest in line.
Reverse engineering the relation from the tile wasn’t too difficult if he could recognize the fragrance, so he waited for it to appear.
He had two tiles already and if he obtained the last one, he would be tied for first place with Moritake, exceeding Himura, who had two, and Togashi and Mouri, who had only managed one each.
It would show his culture and would earn him a higher right to speak in the following discussion of political matters.
A maid wearing a pure white kimono entered with the final incense, Shin Wu lit it and she brought the censer to him.
He raised the censer by cupping it with one hand, tilted his head down, and wafted the smoke towards his nose with the other in the standard posture.
Just as he took the first whiff, a sense of crisis covered his soul.
Immediately discarding the censer, he called on his Void Force to try and teleport away.
The colours in the room dulled as space seemed to solidify and his Void Force failed to penetrate it.
In the flash that he had tried to escape, the maidservant had extracted her hairpin, coated it with wind chakra and plunged it at his eye.
Togashi had extracted a blood red katana and swung down at his head in a two-handed kendo strike, his blade glowing incandescent with fire natured chakra flow.
Mouri’s hands blurred as he ran through the seals for the summoning jutsu, calling forth a jet-black set of Samurai armour that encapsulated his massive frame. He immediately knocked out a fist at Lin Feng’s head, seals shining all over his armour as they activated and boosted his attack. A sonic boom rang out as his fist broke the sound barrier.
Himura lashed out with a whip, trying to bind his feet so he couldn’t move.
Moritake too turned into a blur, swinging his unsealed halberd at his waist in a bid to bisect him, tendrils of lightning sparked on it indicating his use of chakra flow on the weapon.
*Bang*
With a shockwave, all five of them flew off in different directions and slammed into the walls of the room, causing the brilliance of the protective seals to weaken.
There was a deep crater around Lin Feng in the area where the protective seals had been overloaded by the detonation of half his reserves of Void Force.
He had created the technique after emulating the detonation of Void Force upon the opening of the eighth Gate. Due to the lack of a mortal body to bear the load and direct the technique, the might of the blast was only about a quarter of the actual Eight Gates Released Formation and it was extremely inefficient in terms of consumption of Void Force.
Still, it was a terrifying technique.
It spoke volumes of the strength of the seals that as much of the room was left intact after the explosion.
It had also saved the lives of his five assailants as the seals had absorbed most of the damage, only causing them to faint.
The tables and all other furnishings in the room had been pulverised.
Only the paper screen remained suspiciously intact.
Lin Feng coughed out a large amount of blood as the poison began to take root in his body. Yet he didn’t dare to divert attention to treat himself because the main perpetrator was still behind the screen.
When he had realized what had happened after the space was blocked, he had been shocked.
Not because of the blockade but due to the method used.
It was Void Force of higher purity than his own which had been used to coagulate the space in the room and hide the suppressant seals from his sensation.
Right after he had failed to teleport, he had tried to draw upon world vitality and failed. In this room, the seals had evacuated world vitality. Forced to have no choice, he had unleashed the new technique: Void Collapse, to bail himself out of the difficult situation.
He would have preferred not to have used it. Even though it bypassed the body, it was, after all, a knock off of the self-damaging Eight Gates technique, thus, it had repercussions for its use. Repercussions that he in his poisoned state couldn’t withstand.
He coughed out another bloody gout and a trickle of blood ran down his left nostril.
There was only one being he knew was capable of utilizing Void Force so adeptly in this world.
His mind analysed and discarded numerous plans. He tried to stall for time as he drew upon the strength of his bond which was still un-zoned.
“Who are you?” his voice was hoarse from the poison.
The shadow behind the screen began to morph into a more feminine contour.
The figure stepped forward and through the paper as if it was an illusion.
Lin Feng’s eyes couldn’t help but widen at the sight of her.
Long flowing white hair, eyebrows trimmed to be short and round, clear white eyes, painted red lips, and delicate facial features on a slender physique. She was perfection incarnate.
Her voice seemed to echo down to the depths of the Void and out into the vast universe.
“Kaguya Otsutsuki” she said.
“As a guest to my world, it would be impolite of me to not greet you, now, wouldn’t it?”
Her forehead split a seam in the middle, revealing a rank red vertical third eye. When she opened her mouth, it seemed as if multiple people were speaking in a chorus:
"World of Infinite Dreams."