Night Is Her Friend

- "Mei-san? Will you ever truly grant me your heart, I wonder. We have kept company for months now... boating, practising archery, drinking tea... does it mean anything to you? Or are you just entertaining me as you would entertain any man at the court?" Ketori's expression was puzzled, but there was also some genuine pain in it.

- "Ketori! You are losing face!" Mei exclaimed. "The way of hearts is not to be flaunted in open. Such things may be said to courtesans, in the heat of passion that weakens a man, but not when honor is involved. I have my honor, and you have yours. I will not hear more."

- "But..." Ketori's voice trailed off. "I stand corrected by your wisdom, beautiful one." Saddened, the young man walked away.

Mei closed the door of her chambers with a little more force than was necessary, so that the rice paper walls shook. She grimaced at her own display of lack of face. Ketori was really getting to her right now. For two nights and days she had been busy gathering information on her newest mark. The one person she... well, not exactly trusted, but somewhat confided in, her yakuza contact Yukemori (if that indeed was his real name), had assisted her and she had made her own subtle enquiries. Oh, how much it is possible to learn in the court as well... observing, missing nothing, asking just the right innocent questions... made all the easier by the fact that so many imagined her to be nothing but a frivolous, fickle thing only there for passing time and amusement. Why Ketori irritated her that much was that her mark was representative of the same class as Ketori and his family were. Governmental officials, related to the emperor but not of a samurai bloodline.

While the samurai held power in many ways not just in Mei's mind, she also had a lot of respect for them. One sworn to bushido with a true heart held a lot of true honor. But bureaucracy and running it seemed to be nothing but lazying in the court, enjoying privilege and prestige not paid for with strict allegiance to bushido, the willingness to live according to its harsh tenets. Those people most often had their honor intact, as there was nothing difficult in keeping it so. And destroying the soul of a young heimin girl was nothing to sully that honor. It wouldn't even cause any great loss of face, if people found about it. Why, many would even see it as a sign of virility in the aging lord. Mei gritted her teeth in anger, squeezing her fist shut so that it hurt.

She realized it was not just to blame Ketori for the faults of his class and upbringing. But the mere fact that the boy thought like a would-be bureaucrat and a nobleman, knowing no alternative, caused her anger. She knew that Ketori's heart was kind and compassionate, and that he never would use his position to destroy a young girl, even a heimin, like that. All the same, the mere fact that he could, if he wanted to, made her want to be cruel to Ketori. Displeased, Mei sat at her bed, pouting. She felt a loss of face by her immature reactions, even though there was no one to witness that. She had ranted about her ideas to Atsuko, who had given her a half-hearted shrug and compassionate smile.

- "What else is there? That is the way of the world, so it has always been. No use fuming over what you can't change," she had said.

But that is where I think differently, Atsuko. Kozakurans are taught from the very birth that things can - and should - not be changed. The Celestial Order is there because it is the best for all the people, whether they can appreciate their lot in life or not. But in a way it is a blessing for me that I have always been a bit of an outsider. My mother a kami of a bamboo grove in Shou Lung, normally little concerned with the ways of the humans... my father, never quite the same after loving her and having to witness her painful death as the bamboo grove was hacked and burned down, escaping the wrath of the gaijin with his infant daughter in his arms... we never quite fit in, and that is why I can see alternatives. That is why I decided to seek the ways of the ninja, but use them to my own purposes. There must be someone for those who have nothing under the precious Celestial Order. That someone am I.

Mei turned her thoughts into the matters at hand. She never had doubted the words of the woman - she truly would have had to be a spectacular actress to deceive her - but her inquiries confirmed the nature of the lord of the manor. The man had two yojimbo guarding his step day and night. He didn't even relieve himself without those two. The house wasn't impenetrable, of course, but the plan required an unusual amount of stealth and cleverness. Mei was grinning in anticipation. This was so much like an exciting game that made her blood soar and her lips curl up in glee. She knew she was good - stealthy, perceptive, agile, deadly and fearless and ruthless when need be.

Mei's grin faltered for a while as she remembered her bushi father.

- "Mei-chan..." he had sighed for more than a few times. "How I wish I would be a samurai, not a mere bushi now too injured to do his job. Or even a man of a ninja clan, for in either case I could set you up with a sensei and a dojo. A sensei would make you show the necessary humility and respect, rebuke you and put you in your place when you get over-confident, which so easily happens to the talented young ones. I fear the very freedom you seem to enjoy so much will be the death of you."

At the time Mei had merely frowned, not understanding what he was going on about. It was nice to not have a sensei, not having to repeat the dull katas over and over again, fetch water and scrub floors, take all the punishments without complaining... who needed that? Sure, life was a bit lonely that way... but night was her friend.

Now was the night she would hit. She used matte black to dab the tiny part of her shiny skin visible through the slit in her ninja hood. Her eyes smiled at her reflection, and at Zetsubo, wherever she dwelled. She opened the window and began her slide.


heimin = a commoner