AN: This, actually, was entirely inspired by a message written on the label of a squirt-bottle of non-descript hand soap. I kid you not. The line relating to "keeping one's head when others are losing their own" is a paraphrasing of one of the sentences written on said label, as is "faltering in weakness, not gloating in strength".
With every passing day, it becomes clearer that you would not have liked this place. When one has spent all his life in the mountains, the city is, by comparison, the heart of restlessness and exhaustion. One feels disconnected from nature and from the quiet peace of the universe as they look upon these gargantuan structures of steel and glass. They are testaments to man's capacity for arrogance, the fierce desire to monopolize not only land, but the sky.
All the money in the world now cannot soothe the pangs of weary homesickness. If circumstances permit me, I would leave - but I expect my colleagues to return shortly. Had you ever met them, you would have wondered how I have come to know such strange foreigners. You would have laughed, with a curious sparkle in your eye. And now, I would know to smile with you.
Under Momochi, I was a man filled with fury. I resented you. I cursed you. Perhaps more than Momochi himself. But if there is anything I resent now, it is that I never apologized to you when there was still time. For years, I held to the belief that you had abandoned me. Fierce anger sustained me, and gave me reason to live. And as time passed and as I found myself drifting further from your guiding light, my future hazy and uncertain, it became easier to convince myself to turn my back on you.
I was alone, Jinen Sensei; I was afraid. For five years, Momochi owned my soul. He owned my body. Nothing was my own. I never told anyone. What could I have said?
At last, I understand what it is you meant for me. You saw me off from the dojo wearing your long-suffering smile, wishing for me to learn from my carelessness, the foolish recklessness of youthful ambition. Experience was indeed the wisest teacher. You knew the treacherous nature of Momochi's school, and yet, you also knew you could not hold my hand forever. I never realized how tightly I was clinging to you until you were no longer there.
The last time I saw you alive, we were sitting at your kotatsu, our fingers restlessly toying with forgotten cups of tea. The words left unsaid hanging in the air. Too much had changed. You had tried to smile, your eyes creased with bittersweet weariness. I remember looking elsewhere, my throat tightening. I have done things which you would not have been proud of and yet you never denied me your warmth and compassion, even when I shut my eyes and blocked my ears.
Jinen-Sensei. You taught me never to falter in weakness and never to gloat in strength; never to hurt those who have tried to destroy me; to be patient when impatient; to keep a level head when those around me were losing their own*. Even in death, rather than compelling me to avenge you, you counseled me not to resent the man who had murdered you. I am sorry that this last lesson I could not even obey. Possessed with furious grief, I could not rest until I answered blood with blood.
Forgive me. Now you must rest, as you have long deserved; and be at peace. It is time that I live on my own, strong in the face of happiness and in sorrow alike, as you would have wanted; as my father would have wanted.
And with this, we arrive at the end.
Jinen Sensei. My mentor. You will always be... my friend.
Ishikawa Goemon (July 18th)