sleepwalker, chapter 8: born in a dream
Usual disclaimer: I do not own the characters, situations, or any other minutiae of Samurai Champloo, which belong to Manglobe and Simoigusa Champloos now and forever, and I make no profit off anything I do with them. I just can't help doing it.
Thanks for waiting. ) Welcome to the second arc of Sleepwalker, and as always, a million thanks to my priceless betas, GeckoZero and Neko-san, sine quibus non. ("Without whom, nothing.")
"The former Buddha has gone, the latter not yet come. I am born in a dream, what shall I think real? I have chanced to receive this human flesh, so difficult of receiving." ---Noh drama
A minute has passed and it's still there before him.
Because he's asleep. He must be asleep. If he opens his eyes and this scene does not change--
He can feel the blood spray on his face. Scent of steel and blood, tea leaves, the air of a cool, calm spring night. With closed eyes these things still seem real…but distant as long ago, shades of a dream…
A voice in his mind: even dreams move on. What next? Move. Move or kneel in your
master's blood until morning. Or till Yuki arrives to be sure that
you're safe--
No. Not that.
His eyes are open.
Calmer now,
understanding that he works in a dream, he walks through the lake of
dark blood and takes back his sword. He must touch the strong
fingers that hold it, already half cold. His hands, his skillful
and beautiful hands that taught me so much, that gave me this life--
---that meant to
take it--
--how could he?…
--too terrible, he
wants to freeze, to do nothing, not ever again.
If he could only
sleep…when he wakes up the whole world is shattered, again and
again…
Keep moving, the
voice prompts, more firmly. You cannot be still.
He looks around the
room once, but he owns nothing now. How could he? What is he?
Kinslayer, avenger, heir to nothing at all--
--nothing at all--
it slides through his
fingers, like water, unreal--
There is blood on the
steel of his soul, and he wipes it off with his white sleeve. That
can stay at his side, that at least. His sword and the blue temple
beads on his wrist.
--it will remind you
of the teachings and keep you safe.
Safe…
With the same sleeve he
wipes the blood from his face, unties the stained juban, lets it
fall. Collects his wakizashi from the rack by the door, and leaves.
Cool and still as he passes the doors. All so calm, as though nothing had happened. The nanadan snoring as one in their room. The Master's quarters--
I should wake him and ask what to do-- Jin sets his hand on the door. Everything is so strange--
But he told you, his memory reminds him. He said your skills have improved. He knew you were ready to be head of the clan.
And of course he is, now. All his fathers are dead. He is Takeda-san, the last senior.
Jin nods to himself. That makes sense: he can wear father's clothes.
He slides the door and
steps in.But Mariya's not
sleeping there--
The room he just walked
from returns to him, and in an instant of cold shock, all dream
fragments merge.
…I can't ask his
advice. Not ever again.
…I know why he's
not here. I know why I must leave.
…all my fathers
are dead…
…the shock fades,
softly…
…so it's all right
for me to take their clothes.
He easily finds all he
needs. Clean juban and tabi, the formal montsuki--five mon on the
dark silk, the privilege mark of a clan lord--
In the polished steel
mirror he looks quite like Mariya-dono.
It will not hurt as
much if he really is Mariya-dono.
He picks up the reading
glasses from the dressing-table, sets them carefully straight on his
nose.
There.
Big mirrors are
expensive and rare: he's seldom seen his full reflection. He peers
over the lenses. They make him look older, more grave, more father
than son. Which is right; he is no one's son now.
The reflected face is a
stranger's. That's not Izumiyori. Mariya Izumiyori--the name he
gave me, so full of hope…
…something else I
no longer own..
That too seems right,
to leave bearing the name he arrived with. He names the reflection:
Jin. Only Jin.
There are braided silk ribbons in a bowl on the table. He carefully combs the dried blood from his hair, ties it back, picks a pair of straw sandals. He has no idea where he's going to go, but he feels fairly sure he'll need shoes.
He closes the door and sets off down the path. Time moving so slowly, moon clear in the deep western sky, the dojo at peace in its dreams. Killing with swords is so quiet. A gunshot is like an announcement of death, but here, we whisper…
He comes to a door he
knows. Yuki…
...could I see him
once more, for a moment…
But if he wakes Yuki,
will he wake himself? Will none of this have happened? Or--
He doesn't know, and to
the core of his soul he's afraid.
And inside him
something silently closes and locks.
He won't wake. He
mustn't wake. In this dream, he knows what he's done, and the pain
can be borne.
But Yuki's dream…he
spoke of it so often…
…he'll hate me. I
said our lives here would be happy. I said I would save us…and
look…
The last thread breaks. He owns nothing, not even a snowflake.
He passes on.
Nightmares all night and the last one worst, clear as a vision. He'd seen Jin, walking down the path outside the quarters, near naked--stripped to his fundoshi and barefoot--his hair loose, his two swords tucked under his arm: and doused in blood, hair dripping, blood on his face and his feet.
Yuki could not stay in his room one more minute. Let him be angry at me, scold me, say he told me to wait. If I can just hear his voice I won't care what he calls me. He made himself draw deep breaths, calming himself, retelling the story that he used as a lullaby, while he caught up his clothes: Jin will rid us of Kariya. The school will be saved. It will pass to Jin's hands, and I won't have to go back to Izu, and work in an office, and feel like a slave. The very idea--the Hojo are warriors, not shopkeepers. We'll live here together as samurai, sword-brothers and lovers, as long as time gives us. That's what will happen. That's what he told me.
He belted his juban,
padded to the door--and suddenly remembered something. Tadayo had
offered to leave him a parting gift; he'd be departing at dawn, and
Yuki'd had no chance to speak with him. He should leave a note, in
case--how he hoped it--Jin asked him to stay.
--But-
--It'll only take a
minute. He said he might never return, I can't let him go with no
word.
So he got out paper and
ink, as quietly as he could, and wrote a quick note of sympathy and
good luck.
I'll remember what
you said about me and Jin. I know you'll find someone someday.
And: if you're
truly parting with your things, your netsuke Jizo Bodhisattva is
beautiful. I would cherish it always in memory of you.
He signed the sheet,
glanced around; Tada's chest was packed, standing by his futon wth
his swords on top. Yuki tucked the folded sheet under the
daisho--There.--and bowed to his sleeping friend
"Sayonara.
Be happy, Tada-kun."
And then slid
open the door, grabbed the oil-lamp off its hook, and dashed up the
path.
No candle, he saw as he
drew near. Of course, he'd be sleeping.
But what was that--that
smell---
--of course--
He stared at the mat by
the door, the mark on it: a single bare footprint, too dark to be
mud. His dream--
He was starting to shake. He reached out to the door, couldn't touch it. Jin had been right: the assassin had come by night, just as he'd guessed. Automatically reached for his sword--of course, he hadn't grabbed it--cursed himself, of all times to have forgotten the most basic of cautions--
Yuki marshaled himself. He would walk through that door, and there he'd see Kariya's body. He would tell the nanadan, and then he would search and find Jin. The danger was over. They'd all be all right.
He opened the door.
Late moonlight streamed in from the west window, making the room all too clear. So much blood--the floor a black pool, a long stain down the glazed paper wall--he followed dark footprints across the room. (The futon was ruined, and the tatami mats as well, he thought distantly.) Could just make out the body, a shadowy huddle in the pool between futon and window. He drew a deep breath and went forward, lifting the lantern, suddenly froze in his tracks--
What if the body was
Jin?
If his dream had been
wrong, and the one who had left the room was the assassin?
The thought spurred him
forward: it was far worse to wonder than to know. He walked over the
futon, a little mud no grief to it now, and raised the lantern high
to see the corpse's face.
The sight was like a
bokken blow to the chest, and he dropped, gasping. Not
possible--he gripped the mattress as if it were spinning, his
only coherent thought no--but this meant--
--the school was
supposed to be safe now--we all should be safe--
--Jin could not,
could not possibly, have failed so--
Somehow he still had hold of the lamp. He forced himself to breathe, crept across the futon as if to the edge of a precipice, and held out the lantern for a long steady look.
(His father had once said that what a man feels when he's stabbed through the heart isn't pain; it's surprise. Surprise, disbelief, and a slow, sinking chill. True mortal wounds often don't hurt at all, otosan told him; that's how you can tell.)
--where are you?
What happened?
(was Jin hurt? was he
dead? Had he done this?)
The Mujuu--we're
doomed--and his future, his plans for a life here---
--it's all
wrong--it's all gone so wrong---
--I trusted you! How
could you do this to me?!
He was so cold.
He set down the oil
lamp and huddled into the futon, hugging his knees to his chest. The
cover was mostly still clean; he pulled it up round him, tucking it
under his chin. It still smelled of Jin where the blood hadn't
spattered. His eyes filled with tears and he buried his face in the
fabric.
The lamp guttered and went out.
An insistent sound nudged him awake, familiar, but so out of place here--wheels crunching in gravel, and hooves? A cart? But we don't have--
Hai, of course: Master Sengai and Tada taking Torii-san home to his dojo. (Had that really all happened just yesterday?) He lifted his head from his knees; we should go out, he thought hazily, and say farewell.
And for just one more moment it was all right, and he and Jin would get up, and comb each other's hair, and walk past the fountain together, down the raked stone path.
Then he opened his eyes, and they were wide and dry. That dream is over.
He would go out alone and give Sengai the news.
Conveyance of the dead is a somber task best done in silence, thought Sengai, as he and Tadayo carried Torii Daisuke's body to the cart in the grey foredawn. They settled him gently in the bed of fresh straw that was the best they could give for his final journey, Tada's chest of belongings beside him. Drained and exhausted by grief, the boy made no sound. The nanadan master wasn't surprised when, rather than sharing the driver's seat, Tada-kun climbed into the back and curled up in the straw beside his late beloved. Sengai snapped the reins, and the spotted colt obediently leaned into the bit and stepped out. The poor boy's taking it terribly hard, he thought sadly; I hope the Muteki dojo will take him in as he wishes. Perhaps there's some peace for him there--
---what's that? -- raised an eyebrow at the sudden, unexpected sight of Yukimaru leaving Jin's chamber, and in such a state: barefoot, dressed only in juban, and dawn nearly broken at that--
Then he saw that the boy was heading toward the cart at a run, and the pale light clearly showed a line of dark footprints leading out of the room.
He pulled up the colt and waited, cold filling his heart.