Disclaimer: I don't own Samurai Champloo or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos.
A/N: Rather than keep writing author's notes that read like the Webster's of fangirl Japanese, I'm going to set up a separate entry for vocabulary terms in my writing journal; check my author's bio page for a link.
Much love to FarStrider, beta extraordinary, and the comeek; this is as much yours as it is mine, guys. Did I mention I love you?
For LauraBryannan, 'cause she gets the why.
The Hanged Man
Prologue: the poisoned apple
"You want to turn mujushin kenjutsu into a band of assassins — are you asking me to walk a path of darkness?" The slim, angry figure kneeling before him was no longer a boy, and not quite yet a man; but for Enshirou Mariya, there was only one possible way to describe him.
My son —
"No. I am telling you there is no other way," the older man answered heavily. Those beloved dark eyes glimmered at him in the scant afternoon light of the dojo. Mariya had wondered when he would come to defy him, in the inevitable way of fathers and sons — but not now, not when the boy's life was in danger: please, Jin —
Mariya began again. "Serving Kariya-dono is the same as serving the shogunate itself."
"You're splitting hairs. It would no longer be a martial art." The boy was sullen, with tears like a thunderstorm threatening behind that controlled anger. Not that he would cry. The boy'd never cried, not once, not since he'd come to the dojo as a small child with milk teeth and the last traces of a toddler's plumpness in his cheeks. Even then, Jin hadn't had the eyes of a child; he'd always seen too much.
Mariya let his eyes travel over his adopted son, the thin shoulders held rigidly under the boy's white kimono. The anger was justified, he knew. Jin was nothing if not bushido's willing servant, shaped by it until he was as the katana to the warrior's hand. "We are no longer at war," he told the boy, more gently. "A peaceful land does not need teaching of the killing arts. All martial arts schools are in decline."
The boy closed his eyes, swallowing; Jin knew the trickle of students leaving had swollen into a small river, letter after letter conveying the necessary regret, as the paint of the sign faded and every month the older man pored over the books to see what expenses could be cut. He knew as well as Mariya that the Mujuu teetered precariously on the edge of a knife, and now there was a way out, a way for him to restore the dojo — what Mariya knew, better than the boy, was that to keep the dojo safe was to keep Jin safe.
"I ask that you endure this, Jin," the older man said. "Please." The boy's eyes flickered up to his and he knew that his fear was bleeding through into his voice. Mariya ignored the uneasy prickle in his gut that told him he had no right to ask that the boy give him this, that Jin had had little enough of childhood as it was.
The boy bowed his head, as his answer came almost too quietly to be heard — "Yes. Shishou."
Mariya exhaled, closing his eyes.
I am so sorry, Jin.
