A/N: Many thanks to George Leonard for writing his book The Way of Aikido, especially the chapter named "Under the Sword" where a lot of its samurai concepts were corporated into this fic. ^^ I do so love writing about combat.
"I am never defeated, however fast the opponent may attack. It is not because my technique is faster than that of the attacker. It is not a question of speed. The fight is finished before it is begun."
-Ueshiba Morihei/O-senseiNight.
The man sits unmoving, centered, at the edge of the tatami mat, the folds of his blue yukata silently rising and falling with his every breath. He faces the open shoji leading to the view of the moon, a torn fingernail on the dark mattress of the sky. Below the moon is a pond, where a gold carp or two occasionally flickers its tail and dives back into the dark waters. The trees whisper among themselves.
The man's hands are cupped together, separating only to brush away the graying strands of hair on his forehead. His eyes are shut and his face relaxed, almost eradicating the lines on his skin.
A minute passes. Then he opens his eyes. He picks himself up from the floor slowly and quietly makes his way towards the low table at the corner of the room. He settles himself beside it and, leafing through the voluminous pages at the center of the table, he picks up the brush and dips it into the ink.
Myoujin Yahiko begins to write.
In the very essence of bushido, I believe that the Rurouni was a far greater samurai than the Hitokiri.
Three decades ago, Kenshin challenged me into a single combat of swords on my fifteenth birthday. It was a rite of passage to my manhood. After a strike, a parry, and another strike, I lost. But even before the first strike, even before his wife had signaled us to start, I had already been defeated. The fight was finished before it had begun.
It is true that Kenshin's speed was likened to the gods; no one could surpass the lightning padding of his feet or the swift strike of his sword. One who heard his ki-ai shout would know that the blade would come no later. But it was not his speed nor his technique that had determined the end of the fight. It was not a question of who was faster or who was more skilled with the sword. Rather, it was the amazing sense of clarity and presence he possesed that had made him victorious time and time again over his foe. What made him the most fearsome of all were the considerations of failure he lacked when he stood before his opponent.
Many people think naturally that the outcome of the battle lies in the blows and the parries of the swords. But they have forgotten the moments of stillness that could span from half a second to half a day that takes place before one of the swordsmen make the step for the first strike. In these motionless moments, both swordsmen would wait for the break of ki of his opponent and an opening that would finally lead to the strikes and parries. It was in these motionless moments that Kenshin excelled. His mind was kept in a state of zanshin, of continuing awareness, yet at the same time of calm consciousness as he kept his ki in centered control. The samurai was trained to go into battle without considering life or death. He was ready to die. This made him more likely to live.
What then, you ask, makes the Rurouni greater than the Hitokiri? Surely, the Hitokiri had the same clarity and presence of mind as the Rurouni, and what was more, the Hitokiri was in the peak of his swordsmanship, not to mention also in strength and agility. Yes, these are true, but let me ask you: what was it that had driven the Hitokiri into this overwhelming ability of swordsmanship that could have rivaled Musashi Miyamoto himself? Was it not his unceasing thirst for a rain of blood and the thumps of lifeless bodies falling on his feet? Those ruthless thoughts were all that encompassed the Hitokiri's mind.
At the age of fifteen, I faced Kenshin, bokken in hand, body moved into the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu kamae. The Rurouni stood before me, unmoving, his sword hand poised camly. I waited for an opening, for the tiniest break of his ki that would launch me into total action. And then a wave of shock hit me.
I could find no opening in his defense. It was as if he was entirely in the present and thinking of nothing else, nothing that could break the universal flow of ki in his being. He wasn't plotting of what defensive action to do if I come charging in whatever angle my bokken is. No. All that was in his mind was that he was here and I was there. There was a space between us. Be alert, be ready to die, but there is no need to pull death towards ourselves. Live while you still can and make the best of it. Move away at the last possible moment. We are living under the sword.
I, on the other hand, was thinking only of one thing: I had to bring him down. And when I realized I could not penetrate his defense, I panicked. And Kenshin knew it. And I knew that he knew. We rushed in. There was a muffled clang of steel and wood, then a silence wherein I learned my mistake and understood Kenshin's true power. Then he brought me to my knees.
The Rurouni's mind had been pure, with nothing of personal interest. He was composed merely of harmony, the idea that the good of others was better than the defeat of one. And that thought of harmony, the thought that he was here not to resist but to blend and make the best of the battle for both sides, left me with nothing to attack but myself. Disoriented, one could only make a mistake, and thus be brought to his knees by the Rurouni.
The Hitokiri never had that harmony with himself and the universe. He was an assassin with an obssession to kill his target. In a sense, his steel-iron defense was flawed. His cold obssession for more meat was a vulnerability by itself; it left a hole on his cover. If someone could have understood this secret and had successfully acted upon it, it is highly likely that the Hitokiri would never had been as fearsome a Battousai as we would have thought.
The Hitokiri honored the traditional samurai virtues: loyalty, integrity, dignity, courtesy, prudence, and courage. But the Rurouni, remembering that a samurai does not mean "to kill" but "to serve", possessed the virtue that the Hitokiri had forgotten: benevolence. The Rurouni had grasped the true meaning of bushido, the Way of the Warrior. In doing so, he became a far more complete samurai than the Hitokiri ever was.
Many have a misconception that a samurai is all swords and ki-ai shouts, but Rurouni Kenshin brought back to the people he touched the original and most urgent code of the samurai: "cherish your life and conduct your affairs in a manner as to be prepared at every moment for death." A samurai's affair is to serve, not to squander life away, his or anyone else's. Prepare to die when you wake up in the morning, but live fully until the night if you are given the blessing to live one more day. For every samurai, there is a sword raised above him, ready to slash down. Kenshin fulfilled his samurai duties well until his death; the path to his grave had been a path of serving others. But look up! Are we not also living under the sword of death that had hung upon every mortal being since the beginning of time?
What made Himura Shinta great was not his legendary battles nor his godlike speed. What made him great was this: many times, he stepped aside that sword with the clarity and presence of mind that earned him the name of one of the most feared swordsmen of Japan. But when the time came that the sword above him drank his blood, he died a true samurai's death - with no regrets.
O W A R I