Only the physicians examining me had any sense of curiosity about who or what I was. My superiors’ object had been to kill me to satisfy the minister whose son’s death I had hastened. Failing that, they promoted me, and set me again in the square to train.
From that hour, I became Captain Nagaishi, a titled samurai in the shogun’s army, joining the Order of the Shoudou, an elite group of samurai, whose fame proceeded more from flamboyant tournament competitions than from any peace keeping function. This promotion was laughable, considering my untaught skill in swordsmanship. But they could do no less, based solely upon my peculiar survival. I wouldn’t last a day in my position—not a day, but I would learn the price of military resources and the perfect fungibility of the lives in the outer yard.
Perhaps to avoid shaming the dignity of the Shoudou Order, General Yamamoto assigned me special individual training, which was another way of saying:
You are worrisome and must be watched.
The general nodded to a stripling whose height and weight matched mine. “Ansei, this is Akihito—your superior in age, rank, experience and skill. He can easily out spar you in the field, so do not challenge him. He’s your trainer. Model yourself after him in every way.”
On its face, the fighting prohibition signified protection, in light of my untaught status. I was too much a novice for a fair match against Akihito, but I knew better. The general was more afraid of my unanticipated victory than my injury.
“Akihito can teach you much. Focus on the most basic skills. You have a short space to begin work this afternoon. Go to.”
I bowed, both to general, and then to Akihito, who offered a shallow nod and when the General had departed, and smiled a smile I found more disconcerting than assuring.
“Follow me.”
I followed him to an interior dojo larger even than the stone paved outer yard. Akihito indicated a wall hung with a greater variety of weapons than I had ever seen. “This is the weapons wall. A Shoudou warrior masters each of them.”
I stared at the bank of weapons sufficient to fit an army. They weren’t training weapons. They were real. Old, some of them, but fire forged steel, all. I glanced around the dojo where other ranks sparred with wooden swords and I got the impression these were not meant for training use.
“Don’t look at what anybody else is doing.” Akihito said, “Listen to me. We’re not sparring, and you need an introduction to all of our weaponry. Take the axe.”
My eyes widened at the sight of the large blade hung just within my reach.
“We’re not fighting each other.” He pointed now to a row of man-sized dummies at one edge of the hall. “I’ll demonstrate form. You’ll follow my stance. Now. Attack the target.”
I glanced at him. “Attack?”
He glared and repeated the order, pointing his sword.
I lifted the axe and lunged at the dummy, striking with a blow to the chest. I retrieved the blade with a thunk.
He pointed his sword at me. “This is a strength exercise. Hit again. Hit hard!”
I’d buried the blade in the wood of the target’s center. The one blow would have finished anyone and I glanced again at Akihito.
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Akihito stared, eyes empty. “Strike again.”
I struck, splintering the wood and sending raw chips flying into the air. In so doing, I had felled the target to the floor.
Akihito wouldn’t meet my eye. “Again.”
The target was ruined. What remained wasn’t a fight, but butchery.
“Decapitate him!”
Following his order forced my mind outside of body. From somewhere behind Akihito, I observed myself attacking the dummy. My stance was unbalanced. My strike sloppy. Grip untrained. Breathing ragged. Akihito never corrected me, but goaded me on to destruction, to a frenzy of unchecked aggression. And as I struck and struck again, a pair of arms seized me from behind, pulling me off the target.
“Stand down! What are you doing?” A harried command rang through the dojo. I stopped, turned and confronted General Yamamoto, his blazing stare trained on the axe in my hands.
I dropped the weapon and let my arms hang limp by my sides, then glanced around the dojo. Akihito had disappeared.
“Take him in for confinement,” the general muttered to a pair of officers behind him.
They handed me back to the cell I had come to associate more closely with freedom than any kind of prison. The instant I was certain of solitude, I transformed into spider form. Finally, I would be able to eat something!
I peered at the flat lying wings of a moth on the wall, spun a hasty trap and ensnared it in a trice. This done, I built another web and slept in its strands most of the afternoon.
The nap was an indulgence too far. With a crash, the outer door swung wide and the guard heaved his lungs, blowing his breath in my face as he leapt for the high vent in the corner of the ceiling where I crouched.
He shoved his arm inside the vent, ensuring its integrity, then jumped down to the floor with a thud, rolled his eyes in confusion as he circled the tiny cell, confounded by my apparent disappearance. Finally, he noticed my discarded robe in the corner of the cell, picked it up and studied it.
I grunted with some irritation when he snatched it up and stuffed it in his belt. That was the only stitch of clothing I had, and now I’d have to reappear to the guard naked when he came back to make his explanations, an event that would be awkward for both of us, though I hoped, more awkward for him.
I cringed at my mistake. Reappearing was a risk. There would be more questions. More examinations. More probing, but no matter how I loathed submitting to it, I couldn’t leave now. I couldn’t commit to a life of vagrancy.
As close to exposure as I dangled, quite literally from a fine fiber, escape offered no freedom for me. I’d staked my integrity on this ground. Everything I wanted flowed from it. Command of an army. Reclamation of the Nagaishi land. My uncle Jiro’s eyes looking at me and detecting my father, his elder brother and commander, staring back at him. I wanted my birthright and I would take it back!
I marked my breathing until it settled into a rhythm, then took my human shape and awaited interrogation.
When the guard returned, his eyes widened at the sight of me. Full-blooded material. Unwilling to risk a second disappearance, he bound my wrists where I stood and pushed me outside into a hall crowded with soldiers.
Standing there in only my skin, I scrambled into seiza and bowed low in front of General Yamamoto, as much for privacy as for any show of respect.
He took a moment to silence the murmuring soldiers. “Where is your robe?”
I gambled that the guard hadn’t mustered the guts to confess the fact of my mysterious disappearance on his watch—nor did I think he would confess it—even if I lied. “The guard stripped me.”
“Searching is protocol, but not removal of your robe.”
I let the general draw his own conclusions.
He tossed a coat at my feet. “Cover yourself.” Then he grunted, jutted his jaw and ground his teeth for several minutes before finally speaking again. “Why did you destroy our target men in the dojo?”
“I hit them on a direct order to do so.”
“Superior officer Akihito’s account differs from yours.”
I couldn’t answer this. I didn’t know why Akihito had set me up, unless it was because I was Nagaishi. It could be that.
“The damage you have caused is a bad example for a soldier of your rank. Replacing those targets is a heavy expense--and you must take responsibility for all of it. Furthermore, I am forced to reconsider your promotion.”
I heard all that the general said and I learned—mainly this—that the lives of the men in the outer yard were less than the wooden sparring targets in the interior dojo.
Maybe it was years of war that lead him to this low calculation of human life, and for an instant it checked my survival instincts and turned my thoughts to my uncle and his radical notion of bloodless war.
Ultimately, the general revoked my title and returned me to the outer barracks. I had come full circle, but was no better trained than the day I had entered.