Chapter 19 – Nostalgia: the Champion

It was a quiet, sunny day at the small port town in Kyoto. A medium-sized European merchant ship was docked, a sign that Western influences reached even the most nondescript areas in Japan.

"Toki," a young boy called, tugging the sleeve of his retainer to stop his leisurely walk, "is that how they play shogi in the West?"

The young man frowned at the boy and looked upon the scene on which the boy gestured with his eyes. "Shogi...?"

Several meters to their left, a group of European traders was seen laughing and bending over what seemed to be a black and white checkered board, strange-looking pieces of wood rested atop, a burly blond trader moved a black piece. A young boy could be seen—a young boy?

"My lord!" the man called Toki hastily approached the group as the man with dirty blond hair noticed the young Japanese boy peering into the board with keen interest.

"This is called chess, little boy," the man spoke in his native Portuguese, not expecting the Japanese boy to understand and to scramble away. That was what most of them do, anyway, the curious little runts.

The young boy leaned closer to the board, observing the different shapes of the pieces and their placements.

"Is it the same as our Japanese shogi?" he noticed several black and white pieces were scattered outside of the board, on either side of the players. Defeated pieces, perhaps? The players seem to have prepared an identical formation on the board, it is likely that each player started with all pieces positioned within the board in an identical manner, just like shogi. And—

To say they were shocked was an understatement. It was rare to encounter a Japanese who could speak their language fluently, let alone a child. Looking closer the Portuguese traders could see the boy was of noble origin, with his fine clothing and a rapidly approaching man in a comparably modest attire—possibly his servant—calling out in worried Japanese that they didn't bother to understand.

The boy, pulling out of his focused observation, reassured the man who sounded scandalized over his choice of new company—even going as far as tugging the boy further from the traders—and turned to the awaiting Europeans once more.

"Can you teach me?"

...

"You're good at this," one trader grumbled as he tried to move his king out of check. The boy, it seemed, was exceedingly smart. He learned the basic rules and managed to win a game only one hour in. He was sure that he didn't hold back much on the boy, either.

The boy shrugged, "it is similar to shogi, after all."

He found out that the European brought the game of chess to Japan before shogi was invented, summing that their version was created after the initial introduction to the Japanese culture. He couldn't help but compare the strategic battle to a real one. In shogi, captured enemies are turned into the other player's own pawns. Somehow the boy never favored that rule. It signifies how quick loyalty changes in the face of defeat. He decided he preferred the quick cut action in this 'chess' game, even if it did make the game exponentially simpler to play.

Rather than have the enemy turned to his side, he'd make them his prisoners to spare his morality from witnessing such betrayals. He couldn't imagine what it must have felt like in a real war. To have your most trusted soldiers turning against you...

"Sousuke-dono, we should really be going..." the Japanese retainer once again managed to trail off hesitantly, urging the boy to wrap up his little game. In just a short time, they managed to entrance the occupying traders in the small area and their games proceeded to include going against the young genius who managed to beat their best players.

However, looking at the sky showed that the sun was about to set. They needed to get a move on if they wanted to get back to his little lord's family house before daylight was over. Perhaps, if the men were Japanese and not some Portuguese who were in the scandal of trading Japanese as slaves to their home countries and more, the young retainer would be more at ease. As it was, the retainer once again called for his young ward, who finally acquiesce from his focus on the chessboard and looked at the pointed look his retainer gave him.

"Ah yes," Sousuke perked up in reminder. It was rare for him to be so thoroughly focused on something that he lost track of time.

He stood up from the little wooden crate he was sitting on, garnering moans of disappointment from the jolly men of the sea. He offered a bow to the traders, who were once again taken aback by the display of demure maturity of a child no more than ten.

"I'm sorry but I must depart, misters. Thank you for teaching me how to play this game of chess."

As they walked away from the harbor, he could sense his retainer's curiosity and turned his head up towards him.

"Do you like it?" Toki smiled at his young lord, who was clutching on the gifted chessboard the kind traders gave him. The retainer felt constricted feelings in his chest, watching his young lord trying to subdue his happiness under an eloquent mask. It was one of very few small joys he had left for his miserable childhood, and Toki couldn't help but count his blessings. The boy needed it.

Sousuke smiled, gripping a white queen piece tight in his fist.

"I do."

It just so happened that he and his relatives were staying in one of their distant relative's residence in Kyoto when it hit.

It wasn't one, big impact. It came in barrages. Tokiharu said that it was a misfire. He didn't know how he came into such a conclusion, and he didn't know how there would be one in such an enclosed private area, there was something else behind this. He was just glad that the main residence wasn't damaged too terribly.

The hundreds of meters of scorched land before him spoke otherwise though. And the older members of the clan... they were conversing very loudly behind closed doors.

"Why would they do this?! I thought they have let us go free!"

"Sojinmaru-dono has been making radical actions that may have gotten under Nobunaga-sama's radar, it must have been a warning fire."

"A warning fire of such scale is a bit—"

"Oh, Sojinmaru-dono..."

Sousuke was a child, but his perceptiveness was enough to tell that 'they' were of the Oda clan. They were the only ones who had made a direct assault contact to the Hojo clan before. Hideyoshi and his liege lord Nobunaga were most likely behind this. Sojinmaru was always bad at keeping his mouth shut, especially with sake around. Sousuke concluded that he would find out whatever his elder relative and clan leader had done to warrant such a response from the reigning clan.

European weaponry was one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's favorite, after all. They were fast, massive and dealt heavy damage in a single strike. Sousuke wondered if the financial costs justified the highly expensive use of those weapons and bombs. A couple of hundred meters walk would show him their base since the firing range wasn't all that long. But Tokiharu was gripping his hand tightly, a tremble in his posture as he ushered Sousuke inside. As if the wooden building could withstand direct damage from those weapons in the first place.

He decided to let it go. He would have his time.

Instead of the incident, what caught his attention the most was something else.

He found out that he could see ghosts. Spirits. The supernatural.

Any ten-year-old would have screamed and cried in fear at the sight of half-transparent, ghastly figures of the casualties of the explosion. But Sousuke wasn't any ten-year-old. And he was not stupid. He could recall that he didn't have the ability before the attack happened. Whatever happened during the explosions must have triggered his sixth sense to awaken.

And he talked to them. In secret, because he could clearly see that the adults weren't able to do what he did. They would see him for his lunacy if anything. He needed to stay inconspicuous and a charming, perfect prince to be groomed as the next clan leader.

Yet there was one spirit that stood out amongst the dull ones, like a red rose amongst thorny bushes. A drop of blood on pure white snow. Even he could see that they were different.

The red one saved him from the explosion. They said that he was different. That he could save... save what?

"You don't need to know that right now," the red one said in a sweet, sweet siren voice, surely they were not of this world and the next—

"Why?" he was glad that Tokiharu left to help with medical aid for the injured, leaving him in his room protected by three guards standing outside of his doors.

"It's none of your business," they said simply, their chocolate brown orbs shined brighter than the living beings of his world, "yet."

"You just made it my business when you told me that," Sousuke persisted, stomping the urge to cross his arms childishly, refusing to be held in trance over the otherworldly being before him.

"Ah, smart kids are really annoying," the red one muttered under their breath—at this point, young Sousuke was still unsure of the gender of the spirit, as if such a human notion exist in their realm.

"What—"

"Nothing," the red one cut him off rather abruptly, their tone was dismissive.

"Go play or something," they continued, waving their hand, "study." With that, the spirit floated away from his room through the shoji that led to the scorched land outside. When Sousuke opened the doors, the spirit was gone.

He was silent as he watched the dead expanse of burnt soil, his eyes searching for something entirely intangible. He sighed as he closed the doors again and sit on his desk, eyeing a white queen piece of his chess set.

He didn't realize it just yet. But since their chance encounter—if it was such a thing—his life had become more and more revolved around the redhaired spirit, Renji.

The spirit finally relented and told Sousuke his name when he kept on calling the redhead ridiculous nicknames such as Akane, a decidedly feminine name that Renji did not like one bit. He later found out that Renji was male, after all, confirming his belief.

Sousuke pointed out that he could simply make up any name he wanted and Sousuke wouldn't know better. He could almost see the redhead flush in anger at his remark, to which the spirit responded with "well maybe the name I gave you is made up!" petulantly.

Sousuke smiled at the decidedly adorable act of the spirit. He knew that Renji couldn't lie to save his life.

Well, his spiritual life, perhaps. If the spirit could still die.

Even as a teenager, he could see that the redhead was beyond exquisite to look at. Perhaps it was because he was a teenager, that his hormonal thoughts and cracking voice could not hide his overwhelming interest in all things beautiful. The spirit had once told him to socialize and get close to the 'cute girls' as any teenagers his age did. But Sousuke insisted that he was not any teenager, that he was a young lord and he would not be distracted with young love and shallow desires.

But still. He was a teenager, after all.

Or perhaps because it was Renji that he was constantly observing. Everything that the redhead did, everything he said that made Sousuke hanged on to every single syllable. The way that long, long silky vermillion threads fluttered about, the transparence that was the nature of spirits becoming of the ethereal being. His voice was a siren call, and his body was a heavenly artifact to be worshipped.

It was beyond teenage hormones, as it turned out. Even as he grew older and ripened with life experience, he found that it was not a simple, petty desire of the untouchable.

He was not obsessed. He was...

He refused to name the feeling as 'love'. It was not an amorous feeling. He felt no desire to be reciprocated of the feeling from the redhead.

But it was more than simple companionship.

It was not because Renji became the only person close to him more than his closest relatives and his long time retainer, Tokiharu. It was not because Renji understood him more than anyone else.

It was not just because of that. It was more intrinsic, it was more...

It was preordained.

As if they were bound by the hands of fate.

Time and time again he wondered why the redhead stayed while other spirits pass along. He voiced his thoughts aloud.

"You're so persistent," Renji would say, but told him no more.

He couldn't help but think that maybe... in his deluded little mind—that he was special.

Why else would so many horrors—so main painful days came his way, broke through his innocent childhood and robbed his entire life from him? Why would they made him survive, albeit left his head a bit twisted and dark, and continued living his life as the next in line to lead his clan?

Why would they send him a guardian angel?

Because surely, surely, that was what Renji was to him. Why would he save Sousuke from the explosion in his childhood, otherwise? Why would he stay?

Because we are bound, he decided.

"Ah—dammit! I quit," Renji groaned, flopping onto his back rather unenthusiastically.

"Once more, Renji," Sousuke's light voice, withholding a smile, coaxed the grumbling spirit to look at the beholder.

They were playing chess in the late afternoon, one of Sousuke's favorite past time activity—if not his most favorite. With his position as a junior advisor on his clan, he was growing busier, and his time attending to his personal interests grew shorter by the passing as his workload grew and grew.

Sojinmaru-dono was getting reckless with his activities, and Sousuke acted as a barrier between him and the ultimate demise of their clan if he couldn't keep his illegal activities at bay. Those black market merchants who sold him illegal Western weapons held a susceptible role in Sojinmaru's plan to ultimately overthrow Hideyoshi and the Oda clan for good. They were a dark horse and a wild card at the same time. He knew when the Oda clan would be made aware of their existence and those merchants decided to switch loyalty in return for a higher margin, the Hojo clan would be doomed.

Even the little espionage and assassination plans that his elder relative had haphazardly arranged in the past would be easily detected by the current administration—it would be a waiting game until they linked those incidents to Sojinmaru. If not for Sousuke preventing those plans to be put into actions in the first place.

Sousuke supported the idea his older relative had in his mind, but his execution method was lacking intellectual elegance and was doing more harm than good to the clan.

In an unfortunate conclusion, it was one of the rare times that he got to spend with his personal little spirit, playing the game that he had been enamored with since childhood.

Renji glared indignantly, rearranging his limbs so he was resting on his side with a hand supporting his head. "You always win and I always lose!"

"At least let me play white this time," he suggested, eyeing the pristine and complete pieces of white pawns spread across the chessboard, the black pieces neatly put to the side of the board a completely opposite situation on the spirit's side.

Sousuke grew rigid at the suggestion and silently arranged the pieces again until everything was in neat order.

"No."

Renji eyed the silent brunet, knowing he had made the young lord upset. "You and your silly 'ideals'," he huffed under his breath but drew himself to a seated position anyway.

Sousuke gripped the white piece he held in his hand tightly.

His ideals, indeed.

White always goes first. It is the rule, see. Everyone who played chess knew of it. Everyone played by the rule. There was a certain rigidness in the order of which chess was played that drew Sousuke in. The rigid definition of the differing roles, and the sharp lines that alienated black from white.

Because white is good—and black is not. He was white, he was good, therefore he always goes first. God favors His champion, after all. He was born with an advantage, despite the unfortunate events that occurred in his childhood. He was a born leader, he was strong, he was a genius mind amongst mediocrity of his time. In time he would conquer his evils, and create a utopia for his people. He was their savior, their white king. He would be their guardian angel, just like Renji was to him.

He stopped his train of thoughts, and the corner of his lips quirked ever so slightly, a warm puff of breath escaped his mouth, the chilly autumn weather made the smallest puff of warm air visible to the naked eyes.

It was a silly notion. He knew it was a game. It wasn't as if Renji was bad for playing black when he was clearly the complete opposite of it. His guardian angel.

But it was his ideals that drove him forward.

"Your move," he said softly after moving a white pawn, waiting for the spirit to make his call. Since Renji was a spiritual being, he couldn't interact well with tangible objects, instead, he had to tell Sousuke of his move, and the brunet would move the pawn for him. To naked eyes that could see no supernatural, they would simply see Sousuke playing chess with himself, as he always did.

He found his eyes zeroing onto the black king, as they often did inexplicably.

It had become the very epitome of evil in his mind. An evil that he alone must defeat. It was his destiny. No matter what path he must take to defeat it, even at the risk of becoming the very thing he wished to destroy...

Taking one look at the glowing being before him, he knew that he would take that risk.

Him and his silly ideals.

One more step and he was closer to his goal. His entire being rippled with the power to conquer a nation, his eyes could see the glimmering future his conquest would bring.

"Congratulations, Sousuke," Renji greeted him with a warm smile as he stepped into his study.

"It's just formality," the brunet shrugged even when his eyes were radiating his pride.

"Still," Renji offered him a crooked smile, given he couldn't exactly pat the man on his back.

It was the day of his appointment as the new head of the Hojo clan. Sojinmaru met his ultimate doom when he arranged for a sudden coup without consulting Sousuke—who had been the one responsible for the actual clan decisions since his appointment as senior advisor five years ago. He suspected the clan would have fallen to its demise much earlier and Sojinmaru died an even early death without Sousuke taking charge.

The coup was planned behind his back, with Sojinmaru gathering the support of the few elders who were in conflict with Sousuke and foot soldiers to storm Momoyama castle where Toyotomi Hideyoshi resided, with Sojinmaru overconfidently leading the night operation.

They were ambushed by an infamous band of bandits not even close to the location of the castle. Some twenty soldiers made it back out of the hundred that went, Sojinmaru counted as one of the casualties—his body was burnt along with the dozens who were killed, leaving no unrecognizable trace and valuables stolen.

It worked in our favor, Sousuke had thought, even if the outcome was highly unfortunate. If Sojinmaru's troops were to reach Momoyama, Hideyoshi would most obviously realize it was the Hojo clan who arranged for the backless coup and would order to annihilate the Hojo clan once and for all. Of course, he was rather annoyed that Sojinmaru did it thoughtlessly, and the elders who supported the coup committed seppuku. With their careless act, the sacrificed the lives of dozens of good soldiers.

With his official appointment as the clan leader, he promised himself not to throw away the sacrifices the soldiers made and lead their clan with his cunning intellect and strategic brilliance.

And so for the years to come, he led his clan into glorious battles against backstabbing allies and little by little, conquered smaller clans into submitting to his rule. He grew his authoritative power amongst the groups and clans who were ruined by the Oda clan, earning their respect and fear not through unnecessary manslaughter, but by showing his benevolence and good leadership, offering help against attacking mercenaries and bandits, and in turn, given the utmost control over their manpower. He was patient as he was garnering allies, no matter if his clan council pushed him to act faster and grander and simply more. He took his time, knowing that hasty acts would lead to their downfall, as what the late Sojinmaru had fallen into.

All that was done under Hideyoshi's and Nobunaga's sniffing noses. He sworn the clans to secrecy, in turn, he offered them protection against Hideyoshi's troops were they to find out. In a short few years, he had garnered an army capable of fighting off the Azuchi-Momoyama troops combined.

And little by little, he arranged his chess pieces to their designated spot. In time, he would be ready to fight against the black enemy looming over the horizon.

They said that he wasn't human. That he was a godsend. There was no way a simple man could be so powerful, could be so brilliant and all-encompassing perfect. The reverence he received from his supporters was borderline religious, as they treated his words like gospel and his actions as an act sanctioned by God as if he was the Emperor himself.

Perhaps any normal human being would succumb to such narcissistic values, lavish himself on the luxuries and underlings who would die for him. But Sousuke did not gather such respect if not for his utter conviction of justice and his feet set firmly on the ground.

He fought not for his own glory. He fought for the weak. He fought for the victims.

More than anything, he fought against injustice. Against the evil who crushed his family, killed his parents and violated his childhood. He fought against the evil of humanity. Because if the beautiful guardian angel standing by his side was of any proof of his strong heart, he was a man striving for the heavenly thing that is good.

He fought for Renji.

For his smile. For his joyous laughter as he returned from a fight in victory. For his pride as he watched Sousuke as if he was Renji's champion returning from a grand battle in his honor.

Perhaps he was too invested in the European tales he read as a child.

Too bad those tales never taught him of heartbreaks and betrayals.

Renji was gone five years after his appointment as the head of Hojo clan.

He left without a trace.

His room, his study... even the chess set untouched for months on ends. The silence was deafening.

At first, he thought that the spirit was simply wandering around, probably lost in the human world. For days he waited for his spirit to return without fail. But the tingle of energy, the caress as soft as the wind that trailed across his very being whenever the redheaded spirit was around, it was not there. It left him empty.

Even as he chipped off Hideyoshi's forces bit by bit, taking pawns left and right, incapacitating the enemy's knights and bishops. Even as he breached within the enemy line without qualms of who he had taken.

He was an empty king devoid of a queen even before the game had started. He was fighting with a handicap all along.

"Toki... haru," he gasped, blood dribbling down his lips in copious amount. His eyes unfocused as he searched the face of his beloved retainer. He couldn't see his face clearly, but he could feel the slick warmth of water dripping on his bloodied hand, as he scrambled to grip the knife that was struck deep into his chest cavity, he knew the elder was crying.

"Forgive me, my lord." A sickening twist and crunch of bones cracking under the knife's pressure. More warm tears dripping on his own.

The traitor.

He was so...

close.

He could taste Hideyoshi's fear as he cowered in his heavily protected chamber. He could smell the burning flesh and woods of the once-mighty fortress castle, Momoyama, as one after the other soldiers fell under his sword and his might.

Ah.

I understand.

He fell limp to the ground, taking the knife embedded to his chest with him, even as he slipped his sword into the stomach of the sobbing man above him, drawing a strangled choke.

He had thought that he was playing a game of chess.

Blood steadily dribbled from his mouth and the painful throbbing in his chest growing dull as he cradled Tokiharu's dead body to his own, searching for warmth that the dead could not give him.

He had thought that he was the champion of good.

The wooden beams atop the castle roof cracked and fell down around him, debris flying violently. But he could not feel them. His hands grew slack and his body fell limp.

Maybe that was why his guardian angel left him.

He couldn't feel the wet stickiness of the blood that trailed on his face and from his chest. He couldn't feel the dead weight of his former retainer that was draped across his chest, driving the knife further into his already mangled heart.

In the end, what he searched for was not justice...

But he could still hear the sound of shouting in the distance. His blurred vision showed him for the last time, as the cowardly lord Hideyoshi was escorted safely out of the burning castle by his guards. They never even spared him a glance, as the structure collapsed in on him and his dead retainer.

It was petty revenge.

A blood-stained white queen rolled out of his loosened armor. Its crown cracked.

Checkmate.

.

- to be continued -

So this is Sousuke's side of the past. You can see that the tone gradually became less interactive and more contemplative, less descriptive and more exploratory as the chapter progressed.

Renji was very real to human Sousuke, but his vague representation and lack of impact in this chapter showed more along the lines of Sousuke's imagination, his 'view' of what Renji was to him, rather than showing and telling the story of the character himself. It was as if Renji doesn't exist outside of his imagination.

The story itself is purposefully left to be more narrative than an actual retelling, so I was thinking maybe I can make a spin-off story about the actual story of Sousuke's and Renji's past. Not that I want to be too ambitious lol

And just a disclaimer; while I do use the elements of Japanese history of the Sengoku period here, by no means am I reenacting or reusing the actual incidents that happened. If there are any Japanese or any history enthusiasts that are reading this story, just want to make it clear.