Disclaimers
Tenchu and Tenchu 2 are copyright of Sony Music Inc., Activision, and Aquire. They own exclusive rights to their characters, places, and situations.
Blade of the Immortal is copyright of Hiroaki Samura, Kodansha LTD., Studio Proteus, and Dark Horse Comics. Hirokai Sumura and allied companies own exclusive rights to their characters, places, and situations.
Quotes after each chapter and chapter break are composed by me and by others. They are property of their respected owners.
In other words, some of the characters, situation references, and places in this story are not my creation. Also the title is not my creation, and exclusive rights are held by to whom it may concern.
Notes
This is a VERY SLIGHT crossover fiction between the characters of Tenchu 2, and Blade of the Immortal. This should not cause any confusion for those of you who don't read Blade of the Immortal, for I do not make reference to past situations or anything that a reader of the manga would not know, unless sorely needed. Some of the chapters in this story contain a good portion of Japanese words and references, graphic violence, foul language, and some suggestive material. If you find any of this offensive in any way, I suggest you not read onward. (Albeit this chapter contains little of the previous mentioned) However, if you do not have a good background in the Japanese language, or know nothing about situations recalled from Blade of the Immortal, I provide sub-notes at the end of each chapter for your reference. This is one of my first fan fics, so I hope you like it! ~_^
And Now For the Feature Presentation
Based on the events and characters of Tenchu 2
Broke Down Palace
Chapter I: The Calm Before the Storm
I "There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do."
It had been three months after the destruction of The Burning Dawn, and the rehabilitation's of Gohda's corrupted courts. Tatsumaru had not succeeded in suicide, but mortally wounded by his own hands. Ayame was intent on preserving his life, so Rikimaru and company had ventured back to their quiet training village in the northern mountains of Muko-jima for reflection, further training and good old fashioned R&R. Summer was at its peak, and that meant hot weather and related excuses for Ayame to lay off her training, and of course the village Gionmatsuri. Everyone gathered at this drama festival, where the celebration could easily last a week. Here, fabulous Noh presentations were given, masks were sold, and children ran about with bright coloured lanterns and begging their parents for a mask they could sport and show off to their friends. The afternoon sun had risen, and the villagers were busy setting up for the festival opening that evening. All seemed well to the weary eyes that watched from a cliff edge like those of a tatsunokuchi.
"Atatmaru, Rikimaru?" A shrill young voice called. "You've been sitting out here all morning! Karaboshi!!" They laughed.
"Sawagusu..." Rikimaru sat with his feet dangling over the edge of the small outcrop his former Master's house was built upon. He stretched his arms outward towards the sun and then placed them on the grass behind him, leaning back. He tilted his head from watching the busy villagers, to droop it back behind him watching the cirrus clouds flay out over the sky, their thin wisps reshaping in the wind every now and again.
"Nanekemono!!"
"WAI!!" Rikimaru now found himself staring into the snarling face of his classmate and partner, Ayame, who cursed at him only inches away from his own face. "Look who's calling the kettle black!" He grumbled, shoving Ayame's face away. "You're the one constantly bitching about having to do ANYTHING..."
"Hmph!" Ayame slung her black hair back and grunted, holding her arms akimbo.
"It's the truth..." Rikimaru sat up quickly, pieces of his bleach white hair flopping over his forehead and into his eyes.
"Well I've been the one keeping a constant eye over Tatsumaru. I've been useful!"
"That you have. But it doesn't give you an excuse to come out here and accuse me of slacking off just 'cause I'm resting a little. What's there to do anyway?"
"You could help me with Tatsumaru you know." Ayame flopped down onto the ground beside Rikimaru, sending the dry dust embedded in the ground flying.
Rikimaru coughed and scooted over to give Ayame room. He fanned away the dust clouds and turned his dark eyes back onto the village again. Ayame had been very helpful and responsible the past few months, keeping a constant vigil over Tatsumaru, who was mortally wounded to the point where no one but Ayame claimed he would live. Night and day, day and night he would go in and find Ayame knelt by the young Master's side, basin, cloth, herbs, clean bandages and everything else she could conjure up within an arms reach. Looking at them as the moons pale light steamed in from the windows almost made the scene look enchanting. Sometimes, leaning against the door frame on those nights, Rikimaru himself would wish he had been in Tatsumaru's place. Just the way Ayame looked down at him...But wishes were no good in reality, so Rikimaru's thoughts drifted away with the moonlight each morning, as a new day of training and mediation awaited. He would tell her it was a futile attempt to try and do anything...But he, and the rest had been proven wrong.
"You two are gonna bake out in this sun!" A gruff voice called from the engawa.
Ayame turned around, a mile wide smile stretched across her bright lips. "Tatsuamaru! You're up!"
"Took me half an hour, but hey..." The tall, muscular young man limped from the akiya and stood alongside Rikimaru. He was still covered to some degree with bandages and poultices of various sorts. He took a deep breath and exhaled as if he had been holding his breath for those many weeks. Tatsumaru looked over Rikimaru and Ayame like a brooding hen and smiled just the same.
"Konnichiha, Senpai..." Rikimaru looked up and nodded at Tatsumaru. "You've played the fates a misleading hand."
"I'm alive kid."
Rikimaru smiled sullenly. That's one thing however he didn't miss about Tatsumaru...Always being called kid. Couldn't he have just picked something more formal...? He was after all, of age, and didn't need the title. But never the less he was a connection to Shiunsai.
Ayame's eyes glittered as she pointed down to the village. "They're getting ready for the festival!" People bustled about, carrying bright coloured ribbons, streamers and lanterns and hanging them from watch tower to watch tower to every other possible place. Several men were constructing a stage on which the dazzling Noh and Kabuki performers would display their age old dances. "Aren't the banners pretty?"
"Lovely. The festival is just what I need to lighten up and break in these old wounds." Tatsumaru held his arms outward and yawned, exposing some of the horrid scars that criss-crossed his chest and sides. Including the one ugly one that sat right above his heart.
Rikimaru winced and looked away. "I still don't see how you got through that..."
"Fushinkou..." Tatsumaru looked down upon him with sullen eyes.
Rikimaru nodded and absentmindedly picked at the dry grass.
"Lighten up!" Tatsumaru suddenly laughed and gave Rikimaru a sudden and hard slap to the back.
'WAI!!" Rikimaru nearly toppled over the edge on which he sat. Scrambling back up onto the grass he glared up at his elder. "GOCHUUI!!" He grumbled, his adolescent voice cracking as the pitch of the complaint rose.
Ayame stifled a little giggle and looked up at Tatsumaru with a quasi-reprimanding glare.
Tatsumaru chuckled lightly and surveyed the landscape, laying a callused hand on Rikimaru's slender shoulder. The mountains rose in all directions, looming in the hazy horizon like ancient guardians that would still watch over their ancestors in generations to come; their stony faces wrinkled and greyed with time. The bamboo forest to the east seemed to move as one creature, each tree swaying uniformly in the heat generated breeze that flowed down the mountainsides, as if the warm air were water falling from a cliff side. The rice patties glittered in the sunlight, little flares of light shining form each water ripple as those few who were not helping set up for the festival worked with the plants. Everything seemed to be in a uniform balance. The wind, the water, the earth, and even the fire. The four earthly elements that made up the world they all knew, seemed perfect today.
Rikimaru whispered, his words so quiet they passed unnoticed by his two companions as if it were the breeze itself. "Arashi no mae no shizukesa....."
II
"Sometimes we do not recognize the one looking back at us in our reflections. We see what is, and not what we would like to see. If what is, and what is our self-image are different...Then who are we?"
"Don't tell me you aren't coming along with us, Rikimaru!" Tatsumaru snorted. He stood by Ayame's side, adorned in a dark blue yukata for the festival.
Ayame ran up to Rikimaru and tugged on his sword sheath. "C'mon! What's wrong with you lately? You just...I dunno!" She sighed, emphasizing it with an impatient stomp to the ground.
Rikimaru sat on the edge of Master Shiunsai's koi pool. He had tended to the bright fish ever since his Master was slain. The young man held a piece of dried bread in his hands, looking down at his reflection. "Nothing is wrong with me Ayame. Although I must thank you for your concern. I just sense...Something...That's all."
"You were always one for bottling up your feelings..."
Rikimaru looked into Ayame's reflection in the pool, broken now and again by a rising koi. She was dressed in a brightly coloured yukata, the obi wound her waist was not tied at the back, sending the two ends behind her drifting off into the breeze; her dark hair held back by two ornamental sticks. Ayame's face was contorted into a mask of concern and her bright eyes closed as she sighed. "Fine...Whatever. I'll bring you back a sweetcake." She turned around and walked back to Tatsumaru, and they descended together down the bank.
Rikimaru continued to look down into the dark waters of the pool. Impatient koi bobbed to the surface now and again, their large mouths opening and closing as they begged for the bread Rikimaru still held. He broke off a piece and crumbled it over the waters surface. The fish all swarmed for the bread, splashing and wriggling around trying to get their share. They looked so comical that Rikimaru couldn't help but laugh. A shallow smile played across his thin lips as he crumbled more bread and watched the whole process repeat. When he had used the last of the bread the koi, now fed and happy, settled to the bottom where they rested; except one. It still looked up at Rikimaru, it begging mouth pleading for something else. Rikimaru chuckled and stuck his finger down to the fish, where it immediately jumped up and bit it, hanging on with surprising strength. He was caught off guard and began trying to shake the fish loose. It finally let go and fell back into the water, where it joined the other. Rikimaru looked at his finger, and at the small serrated teeth marks from the fish's gullet that each bled a single drop of blood. "Easy way to catch fish..." He snorted to himself, "But even then it hurts..." Then, remembered were the words of his former Master. Sometimes the simplest things in life hurt the most. Rikimaru wiped off the blood and continued looking into the glassy waters. He had never really forgiven Tatsumaru for betraying everything Master Shiunsai had taught them. Perhaps that's why he was so pessimistic about his suicide attempt...Rikimaru wanted to say it. His heart ached and his mind burned with some heartless passion of hatred...He should have died...Rikimaru shook his head and screamed at himself aloud, holding his face in his hands. "No no NO!...I can't say that...He realized what he had done and was willing to take his own life for it...That's valiant enough..." Yet even then something deeper was boiling in his mind. Things just hadn't seemed right in the past year..Something ached within him, some lesson that his Master had never explained to him. There had to be more to life than...Than training...Meditating...Watching...Learning...Yes, those were components to his life...But he felt there was some lacking balance to it all.....
The deep beat of drums sounded off the beginning of the festival. Drummers had their huge instruments perched atop the watch towers, beating away in the ancient melodies of their forefathers. Singers and flutists joined in, adding to the tunes as old as time itself. Rikimaru didn't bother turning his head towards the village. He simply shut his eyes and sighed, trying to rid his mind of the ever-present entity that haunted his mind night and day. The words of the opening song to the festival echoed in the warm air of the valley, the notes' vibrato adding a melodic thrum even the tiny koorogi would find jealousy in listening to.
"Haritsumeta yumi no, furueru tsuru yo,
tsuki no hikari ni zawameku, omae no kokoro..."
"Seems ironic in a way..." Rikimaru chuckled, finally turning his head to look over the festivities. Lanterns shone in an array of colours, like fire flys who were careless enough to fly through the rainbow. Banners of the same hue's floated lazily in the evening breeze as dusk settled upon the people. Vendors had their carts and were milling around offering everything from newly sewn kimono, to sweetcakes...Something Rikimaru fondly remembered as a young boy before his parents were murdered. He caught a glimpse of Tatsumaru and Ayame near the small make-shift Noh stage, watching as several dancers recalled battles and dynasties of old in their faultless movements. The sky had turned a dusky mauve, gradually changing over to a magnificent royal blue as Rikimaru turned his eyes to the stars. The backbone of The Great Sky Dragon arched miles above him, thick with glowing light, while Ryuuza shone in equal glory in the Western skies. He noted several celestial bodies streak across the dome of night, dissipating far beyond the lands Rikimaru knew. "Nagareboshi..." He smiled and followed each one until their light died out. Suddenly, his eyes caught at what he first though was another. Bright and yellow...But wait! Rikimaru rose to his feet and looked around. Suddenly the piercing cry of a child broke everything enchanting. It was not the screech of an unhappy child, but the cry of a tiny body screaming forth its last breath. Rikimaru hurried to the edge of the outcropping and peered over onto the people with wild eyes. He finally saw the heart-wrenching scene he knew all to well. A mother crying and cradling the limp body of their little child, impaled by a longbow arrow. Another arrow flew by with a menacing hiss, taking down one of the drummers in the southern watch tower. They had no time to scream as their body plummeted into one of the rice patties. A dark demonic pool began to reach out in all directions, spreading and turning like the boiling clouds of a summer squall from the innocent body that lay half submerged in the waters. Rikimaru's stomach tightened and sank as a third volley of arrows flew into the crowd from the neighbouring bamboo forest. Rikimaru's heart pounded in his ears, beating its own ancient tune...A warning of danger. His breathing nearly ceased as he watched every one of the arrows take their mark in a human body.
"Oh God no...Oh God...Please no..."
Shimai Chapter I
Next Chapter II: Rising Waters
Glossary of Terms
Muko-jima: District in Edo and also present day Tokyo
Gionmatsuri: Summer drama and arts festival
Noh: Ancient Japanese drama where elaborate masks are worn and dances are performed.
Tatsunokuchi: Dragon-headed gargoyle, often placed on or outside shrines.
Atatmaru: Sun bathing; laying around in the sun
Karaboshi: Sun dried vegetable or fish
Sawagusu: Annoying; being an annoyance
Nanekemono: Lazy fellow!; Lazy boy!
Engawa: Verdana; wrap-around porch
Akiya: Vacant house
Konnichiha, Senpai: Hello, elder
Kabuki: Ancient Japanese drama where dancers and actors wear elaborate costumes and
paint their faces with bright colours, most often red and white.
Fushinkou: Bad faith; Umbrella term for "ye of little faith"
Gochuui: Be careful!; Watch it!
Arashi no mae no shizukesa: "Calm before the storm"
Koi: Large Oriental goldfish
Yukata: A light-weight cotton summer kimono
Obi: Long sash wound around the waist, used to close a kimono
Koorogi: Cricket
Haritsumeta yumi no, furueru tsuru yo,
tsuki no hikari ni zawameku, omae no kokoro: The trembling bowstring of a drawn bow,
Pounding in the moonlight, your heart. (Originally from Mononoke-Hime)
Backbone of The Great Sky Dragon: Oriental reference to the "Milky Way".
Ryuuza: The dragon constellation, Draco
Nagareboshi: Shooting star
Shimai: End
Tenchu and Tenchu 2 are copyright of Sony Music Inc., Activision, and Aquire. They own exclusive rights to their characters, places, and situations.
Blade of the Immortal is copyright of Hiroaki Samura, Kodansha LTD., Studio Proteus, and Dark Horse Comics. Hirokai Sumura and allied companies own exclusive rights to their characters, places, and situations.
Quotes after each chapter and chapter break are composed by me and by others. They are property of their respected owners.
In other words, some of the characters, situation references, and places in this story are not my creation. Also the title is not my creation, and exclusive rights are held by to whom it may concern.
Notes
This is a VERY SLIGHT crossover fiction between the characters of Tenchu 2, and Blade of the Immortal. This should not cause any confusion for those of you who don't read Blade of the Immortal, for I do not make reference to past situations or anything that a reader of the manga would not know, unless sorely needed. Some of the chapters in this story contain a good portion of Japanese words and references, graphic violence, foul language, and some suggestive material. If you find any of this offensive in any way, I suggest you not read onward. (Albeit this chapter contains little of the previous mentioned) However, if you do not have a good background in the Japanese language, or know nothing about situations recalled from Blade of the Immortal, I provide sub-notes at the end of each chapter for your reference. This is one of my first fan fics, so I hope you like it! ~_^
And Now For the Feature Presentation
Based on the events and characters of Tenchu 2
Broke Down Palace
Chapter I: The Calm Before the Storm
I "There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do."
It had been three months after the destruction of The Burning Dawn, and the rehabilitation's of Gohda's corrupted courts. Tatsumaru had not succeeded in suicide, but mortally wounded by his own hands. Ayame was intent on preserving his life, so Rikimaru and company had ventured back to their quiet training village in the northern mountains of Muko-jima for reflection, further training and good old fashioned R&R. Summer was at its peak, and that meant hot weather and related excuses for Ayame to lay off her training, and of course the village Gionmatsuri. Everyone gathered at this drama festival, where the celebration could easily last a week. Here, fabulous Noh presentations were given, masks were sold, and children ran about with bright coloured lanterns and begging their parents for a mask they could sport and show off to their friends. The afternoon sun had risen, and the villagers were busy setting up for the festival opening that evening. All seemed well to the weary eyes that watched from a cliff edge like those of a tatsunokuchi.
"Atatmaru, Rikimaru?" A shrill young voice called. "You've been sitting out here all morning! Karaboshi!!" They laughed.
"Sawagusu..." Rikimaru sat with his feet dangling over the edge of the small outcrop his former Master's house was built upon. He stretched his arms outward towards the sun and then placed them on the grass behind him, leaning back. He tilted his head from watching the busy villagers, to droop it back behind him watching the cirrus clouds flay out over the sky, their thin wisps reshaping in the wind every now and again.
"Nanekemono!!"
"WAI!!" Rikimaru now found himself staring into the snarling face of his classmate and partner, Ayame, who cursed at him only inches away from his own face. "Look who's calling the kettle black!" He grumbled, shoving Ayame's face away. "You're the one constantly bitching about having to do ANYTHING..."
"Hmph!" Ayame slung her black hair back and grunted, holding her arms akimbo.
"It's the truth..." Rikimaru sat up quickly, pieces of his bleach white hair flopping over his forehead and into his eyes.
"Well I've been the one keeping a constant eye over Tatsumaru. I've been useful!"
"That you have. But it doesn't give you an excuse to come out here and accuse me of slacking off just 'cause I'm resting a little. What's there to do anyway?"
"You could help me with Tatsumaru you know." Ayame flopped down onto the ground beside Rikimaru, sending the dry dust embedded in the ground flying.
Rikimaru coughed and scooted over to give Ayame room. He fanned away the dust clouds and turned his dark eyes back onto the village again. Ayame had been very helpful and responsible the past few months, keeping a constant vigil over Tatsumaru, who was mortally wounded to the point where no one but Ayame claimed he would live. Night and day, day and night he would go in and find Ayame knelt by the young Master's side, basin, cloth, herbs, clean bandages and everything else she could conjure up within an arms reach. Looking at them as the moons pale light steamed in from the windows almost made the scene look enchanting. Sometimes, leaning against the door frame on those nights, Rikimaru himself would wish he had been in Tatsumaru's place. Just the way Ayame looked down at him...But wishes were no good in reality, so Rikimaru's thoughts drifted away with the moonlight each morning, as a new day of training and mediation awaited. He would tell her it was a futile attempt to try and do anything...But he, and the rest had been proven wrong.
"You two are gonna bake out in this sun!" A gruff voice called from the engawa.
Ayame turned around, a mile wide smile stretched across her bright lips. "Tatsuamaru! You're up!"
"Took me half an hour, but hey..." The tall, muscular young man limped from the akiya and stood alongside Rikimaru. He was still covered to some degree with bandages and poultices of various sorts. He took a deep breath and exhaled as if he had been holding his breath for those many weeks. Tatsumaru looked over Rikimaru and Ayame like a brooding hen and smiled just the same.
"Konnichiha, Senpai..." Rikimaru looked up and nodded at Tatsumaru. "You've played the fates a misleading hand."
"I'm alive kid."
Rikimaru smiled sullenly. That's one thing however he didn't miss about Tatsumaru...Always being called kid. Couldn't he have just picked something more formal...? He was after all, of age, and didn't need the title. But never the less he was a connection to Shiunsai.
Ayame's eyes glittered as she pointed down to the village. "They're getting ready for the festival!" People bustled about, carrying bright coloured ribbons, streamers and lanterns and hanging them from watch tower to watch tower to every other possible place. Several men were constructing a stage on which the dazzling Noh and Kabuki performers would display their age old dances. "Aren't the banners pretty?"
"Lovely. The festival is just what I need to lighten up and break in these old wounds." Tatsumaru held his arms outward and yawned, exposing some of the horrid scars that criss-crossed his chest and sides. Including the one ugly one that sat right above his heart.
Rikimaru winced and looked away. "I still don't see how you got through that..."
"Fushinkou..." Tatsumaru looked down upon him with sullen eyes.
Rikimaru nodded and absentmindedly picked at the dry grass.
"Lighten up!" Tatsumaru suddenly laughed and gave Rikimaru a sudden and hard slap to the back.
'WAI!!" Rikimaru nearly toppled over the edge on which he sat. Scrambling back up onto the grass he glared up at his elder. "GOCHUUI!!" He grumbled, his adolescent voice cracking as the pitch of the complaint rose.
Ayame stifled a little giggle and looked up at Tatsumaru with a quasi-reprimanding glare.
Tatsumaru chuckled lightly and surveyed the landscape, laying a callused hand on Rikimaru's slender shoulder. The mountains rose in all directions, looming in the hazy horizon like ancient guardians that would still watch over their ancestors in generations to come; their stony faces wrinkled and greyed with time. The bamboo forest to the east seemed to move as one creature, each tree swaying uniformly in the heat generated breeze that flowed down the mountainsides, as if the warm air were water falling from a cliff side. The rice patties glittered in the sunlight, little flares of light shining form each water ripple as those few who were not helping set up for the festival worked with the plants. Everything seemed to be in a uniform balance. The wind, the water, the earth, and even the fire. The four earthly elements that made up the world they all knew, seemed perfect today.
Rikimaru whispered, his words so quiet they passed unnoticed by his two companions as if it were the breeze itself. "Arashi no mae no shizukesa....."
II
"Sometimes we do not recognize the one looking back at us in our reflections. We see what is, and not what we would like to see. If what is, and what is our self-image are different...Then who are we?"
"Don't tell me you aren't coming along with us, Rikimaru!" Tatsumaru snorted. He stood by Ayame's side, adorned in a dark blue yukata for the festival.
Ayame ran up to Rikimaru and tugged on his sword sheath. "C'mon! What's wrong with you lately? You just...I dunno!" She sighed, emphasizing it with an impatient stomp to the ground.
Rikimaru sat on the edge of Master Shiunsai's koi pool. He had tended to the bright fish ever since his Master was slain. The young man held a piece of dried bread in his hands, looking down at his reflection. "Nothing is wrong with me Ayame. Although I must thank you for your concern. I just sense...Something...That's all."
"You were always one for bottling up your feelings..."
Rikimaru looked into Ayame's reflection in the pool, broken now and again by a rising koi. She was dressed in a brightly coloured yukata, the obi wound her waist was not tied at the back, sending the two ends behind her drifting off into the breeze; her dark hair held back by two ornamental sticks. Ayame's face was contorted into a mask of concern and her bright eyes closed as she sighed. "Fine...Whatever. I'll bring you back a sweetcake." She turned around and walked back to Tatsumaru, and they descended together down the bank.
Rikimaru continued to look down into the dark waters of the pool. Impatient koi bobbed to the surface now and again, their large mouths opening and closing as they begged for the bread Rikimaru still held. He broke off a piece and crumbled it over the waters surface. The fish all swarmed for the bread, splashing and wriggling around trying to get their share. They looked so comical that Rikimaru couldn't help but laugh. A shallow smile played across his thin lips as he crumbled more bread and watched the whole process repeat. When he had used the last of the bread the koi, now fed and happy, settled to the bottom where they rested; except one. It still looked up at Rikimaru, it begging mouth pleading for something else. Rikimaru chuckled and stuck his finger down to the fish, where it immediately jumped up and bit it, hanging on with surprising strength. He was caught off guard and began trying to shake the fish loose. It finally let go and fell back into the water, where it joined the other. Rikimaru looked at his finger, and at the small serrated teeth marks from the fish's gullet that each bled a single drop of blood. "Easy way to catch fish..." He snorted to himself, "But even then it hurts..." Then, remembered were the words of his former Master. Sometimes the simplest things in life hurt the most. Rikimaru wiped off the blood and continued looking into the glassy waters. He had never really forgiven Tatsumaru for betraying everything Master Shiunsai had taught them. Perhaps that's why he was so pessimistic about his suicide attempt...Rikimaru wanted to say it. His heart ached and his mind burned with some heartless passion of hatred...He should have died...Rikimaru shook his head and screamed at himself aloud, holding his face in his hands. "No no NO!...I can't say that...He realized what he had done and was willing to take his own life for it...That's valiant enough..." Yet even then something deeper was boiling in his mind. Things just hadn't seemed right in the past year..Something ached within him, some lesson that his Master had never explained to him. There had to be more to life than...Than training...Meditating...Watching...Learning...Yes, those were components to his life...But he felt there was some lacking balance to it all.....
The deep beat of drums sounded off the beginning of the festival. Drummers had their huge instruments perched atop the watch towers, beating away in the ancient melodies of their forefathers. Singers and flutists joined in, adding to the tunes as old as time itself. Rikimaru didn't bother turning his head towards the village. He simply shut his eyes and sighed, trying to rid his mind of the ever-present entity that haunted his mind night and day. The words of the opening song to the festival echoed in the warm air of the valley, the notes' vibrato adding a melodic thrum even the tiny koorogi would find jealousy in listening to.
"Haritsumeta yumi no, furueru tsuru yo,
tsuki no hikari ni zawameku, omae no kokoro..."
"Seems ironic in a way..." Rikimaru chuckled, finally turning his head to look over the festivities. Lanterns shone in an array of colours, like fire flys who were careless enough to fly through the rainbow. Banners of the same hue's floated lazily in the evening breeze as dusk settled upon the people. Vendors had their carts and were milling around offering everything from newly sewn kimono, to sweetcakes...Something Rikimaru fondly remembered as a young boy before his parents were murdered. He caught a glimpse of Tatsumaru and Ayame near the small make-shift Noh stage, watching as several dancers recalled battles and dynasties of old in their faultless movements. The sky had turned a dusky mauve, gradually changing over to a magnificent royal blue as Rikimaru turned his eyes to the stars. The backbone of The Great Sky Dragon arched miles above him, thick with glowing light, while Ryuuza shone in equal glory in the Western skies. He noted several celestial bodies streak across the dome of night, dissipating far beyond the lands Rikimaru knew. "Nagareboshi..." He smiled and followed each one until their light died out. Suddenly, his eyes caught at what he first though was another. Bright and yellow...But wait! Rikimaru rose to his feet and looked around. Suddenly the piercing cry of a child broke everything enchanting. It was not the screech of an unhappy child, but the cry of a tiny body screaming forth its last breath. Rikimaru hurried to the edge of the outcropping and peered over onto the people with wild eyes. He finally saw the heart-wrenching scene he knew all to well. A mother crying and cradling the limp body of their little child, impaled by a longbow arrow. Another arrow flew by with a menacing hiss, taking down one of the drummers in the southern watch tower. They had no time to scream as their body plummeted into one of the rice patties. A dark demonic pool began to reach out in all directions, spreading and turning like the boiling clouds of a summer squall from the innocent body that lay half submerged in the waters. Rikimaru's stomach tightened and sank as a third volley of arrows flew into the crowd from the neighbouring bamboo forest. Rikimaru's heart pounded in his ears, beating its own ancient tune...A warning of danger. His breathing nearly ceased as he watched every one of the arrows take their mark in a human body.
"Oh God no...Oh God...Please no..."
Shimai Chapter I
Next Chapter II: Rising Waters
Glossary of Terms
Muko-jima: District in Edo and also present day Tokyo
Gionmatsuri: Summer drama and arts festival
Noh: Ancient Japanese drama where elaborate masks are worn and dances are performed.
Tatsunokuchi: Dragon-headed gargoyle, often placed on or outside shrines.
Atatmaru: Sun bathing; laying around in the sun
Karaboshi: Sun dried vegetable or fish
Sawagusu: Annoying; being an annoyance
Nanekemono: Lazy fellow!; Lazy boy!
Engawa: Verdana; wrap-around porch
Akiya: Vacant house
Konnichiha, Senpai: Hello, elder
Kabuki: Ancient Japanese drama where dancers and actors wear elaborate costumes and
paint their faces with bright colours, most often red and white.
Fushinkou: Bad faith; Umbrella term for "ye of little faith"
Gochuui: Be careful!; Watch it!
Arashi no mae no shizukesa: "Calm before the storm"
Koi: Large Oriental goldfish
Yukata: A light-weight cotton summer kimono
Obi: Long sash wound around the waist, used to close a kimono
Koorogi: Cricket
Haritsumeta yumi no, furueru tsuru yo,
tsuki no hikari ni zawameku, omae no kokoro: The trembling bowstring of a drawn bow,
Pounding in the moonlight, your heart. (Originally from Mononoke-Hime)
Backbone of The Great Sky Dragon: Oriental reference to the "Milky Way".
Ryuuza: The dragon constellation, Draco
Nagareboshi: Shooting star
Shimai: End