Ganaji

The haughty young man looked very upset. The son of the aging lord, Mei knew.

- "My father, dead. After having two Lion yojimbo guarding him," he spat.

The younger yojimbo bowed his head in shame. His face almost crumbled as he spared a glance at his own dead father, but he didn't lose face by crying.

- "Well. There was a ninja, completely unexpected," said the third man. He was middle-aged, the captain of the bushi troops of the manor.

- "There are no ninja. Just excuses for imcompetent yojimbo!" answered the young lord of the manor hotly.

The captain didn't comment on this, but addressed the young Lion yojimbo.

- "You know what to do now," he quietly said.

The young yojimbo nodded and lifted his gaze. His eyes were large, and he shook barely visibly. He knelt in front of the young lord.

- "My lord. Allow me to restore the honor of my family," he said, his voice shaking just barely.

The young lord's eyes narrowed angrily, but he nodded stiffly.

- "Komahato shall be your kaishakunin," he said.

The young yojimbo started quietly to collect the hems of his dress neatly under his knees. Ganaji, his name is Ganaji, Mei thought frantically, biting her knuckles.

Ganaji's face was like a mask carved of stone. But there was a hint of defiance and fear in his eyes.

Komahato produced a sheet of rice paper and gently unfastened Ganaji's daisho from his waist. With gestures bespeaking respect and dignity he wrapped the wakizashi in the paper and handed it to the young man kneeling there. He drew the katana himself.

- "For the eternal honor of Lion Clan and my daimyo," Ganaji said quietly.

As he determinedly pushed the wakizashi into the left side of his abdomen, his large, wetting eyes betrayed hatred and some fear.

Ganaji, do you lament the sweet, sweet life you barely got to taste? Did you want to sleep with a girl, see the cherry blossoms once more, grow older and more skilled? Mei wanted to scream, to save him... but that would be even worse for him than having to give up his young life.

Ganaji yanked first right and then upwards. The faces of the witnesses were also set in stone.

As Ganaji pulled his own intestines out, his face was very pale and he almost moaned in pain. The captain Komahato acted quickly in order to allow the boy to save his honor by not losing face by letting the pain show. In a quick flash of steel he brought the katana down on Ganaji's neck with remarkable force, which he stopped abruptly so that the head was nearly severed, still kept in place by one sinew.

The body slowly collapsed on the floor. Komahato severed the head completely and held it high.

- "His honor is restored," he said, and bowed to the lord of the manor. The young man just nodded, his eyes betraying no emotion. As for Ganaji's eyes, they were glassy and unseeing already.

It was a perfect seppuku, a honorable act, but yet Mei was crying and shaking, willing herself to be quiet. It shouldn't have gone like this! I didn't want this!

Oh yes, Mei? You did know that you would kill someone. And there are always repercussions...

She would have to get out of the house now. They were probably done with searching the garden, and would move on the house next. The tears still flowing at her cheeks, her chest in gripping pain, she slid back onto the roof. She regarded the garden for a moment and decided how to escape. She produced a longish chain with a spiky ball attached in the other end. She threw that at a tree beside the house so that the chain tangled into the branches and leapt holding the chain. Soon she was down the garden, facing a group of bushi who barely had time to register the black shadow leaping down from the tree. She threw two eggshell grenades at them. The other was filled with dust, the other with pepper. They would blind and stun the bushi for long enough for her to make an easy escape.

After not too long Mei was sitting on the quiet stairs of a servant house in a side alley of the third ward of Dojyu. She panted, and a wave of nausea overwhelmed her. Oh father... I always thought it was FUN. It was... making the plans, outsmarting everybody, being so very clever and stealthy. And I knew that they died but I never properly saw it... and they were bad people, but this Ganaji was just a boy. She cried bitterly, clutching her knees still clad in the matta black suit. Father... why do you have to be dead? I can't speak with anyone...

Mei knew she should go back home to the court and get some sleep. But her heart was too heavy, her blood too restless. She would need to meet Yukemori now... someone who was so warm and young and alive. And had a clue of her darker identity.


kaishakunin = an appointed second whose duty is to behead one who has performed seppuku