Ten Thousand Years of Battles
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Author: Jun-I

Notes:

This is the companion poem to my fic Retribution, in which the boy Kyuzo was raised as a female warrior (not by design, but by default – the key people in his childhood happened to be samurai women). It is partly from his status as the sole male (and youngest, lowest status person) among women that he develops an 'outsider' mentality.

The people Kyuuzou refers to as his sisters in this poem are not his biological sisters. They are his Sensei's older students. For background on them, see Chapter 3 (and later chapters) of Retribution. None of the female Ocs are love interests to any male characters. They are minor but crucial characters.

In Retribution, Kyuuzou's gender identity is somewhat ambiguous – he identifies with neither men nor women. Read 'third gender' person.

The "you" Kyuuzou addresses in the middle of the poem is the minor OC Ayame, Kyuuzou's Third Sister and near-villain (or more accurately, an anti-hero sort of personality). Is the adult Ayame a better warrior than the adult Kyuuzou? (When they were children, she was clearly his superior – but then she was older and more experienced in actual combat) There are hints in the Retribution/Wolf Warriors series that Kyuuzou might have the potential to surpass his fierce sister. But then there are also indications that he would not/could not surpass her. So readers can decide. ;-)

If you haven't read Retribution, you won't know exactly what people and events Kyuuzou is alluding to below. So, do check out the main fic first so you know why he says what he says. :-)

Ten thousand years of war
Of the battles of men
Fought on the bodies of women
They talk of their glory
But not of our agony

How many armies had mercy
On the very young and the very old?
There is none righteous, no one
Ten thousand years of pain
And what knowledge did we gain?

My first sister
Chose to be a man
To become what we fear
To seize for herself
What was denied to her

My second sister
Became a machine
She said it was better
To end as scrap metal
Than to live as a woman and suffer

My third sister
Turned into a demon
To be the one with the power
To be oni-goddess of the battle
To shed no more tears and make others weep

I was a child when Aunt fell
When the sword slew Mother
I was lost when I saw Sister
Oni-goddess with the golden eyes
Warrior dark as the night

I chose her path, she named her price
Without doubting, I made the sacrifice
Unmanned, I am not ashamed
For I find it no shame
To be a woman like you

Goddess of Death
To you belong strength and skill
The hymn of the battlefield
The thrill of the kill
My swords follow your song

Yet woman I have not become
Goddess I am not
The door remains shut
But I bear you no hate
Weep not for me for this was my fate

So many years, so much bitterness
But my blade knows no regret
I followed you down the road of redness
Together but apart
Rivals and yet sisters at heart

Not from the same womb
We stand before the same tomb
Of the sister we both loved
And had no power to save
But the power to destroy lies in us still

The cries of a million women
Tormented, downtrodden, ravaged, forgotten
The weight of ten thousand years of pain
My demon sister's swords sing their song
Possessed by the tears of foremothers unjustly slain

I am a warrior of the twilight
I am beyond male and female
I dance between the dark and the light
I walk alone between yin and yang
Such is my blessing, my power, and my curse