Turning Swallow

Summary:

OR, One morning, four-year-old Sasaki Kojiro remembers a life not yet lived, and decides to do something about it. History changes. SI!Sasaki Kojiro. Expect general lightheartedness, but dark topics when the time comes.

CH. 2 START

While learning how to walk once more hadn't really been that difficult, for that was simply a matter of carefully putting one foot in front of the other, the truly difficult bit of the effort was making sure to continually do it. If Kojiro ever failed to do so and simply let his subconscious instinct guide him, he ended up face-first into the dirt. His mind kept telling him that he was an adult of about six feet tall, rather than a child of barely three feet. If his focus ever drifted away, or if he began to feel too confident, he would always habitually raise his leg a little too high, take a step that was a little too long, before his posture collapsed in upon itself. It was on his third visit to the forest floor that Kojiro finally found his feet again, and began to walk like a normal person, rather than the town drunk. Though the seven decades of habit and memory that he recalled weren't particularly overwhelming in terms of personality, they did come with minor things, like the way his other self had walked, and how sometimes, after he jumped, he braced for pain that never came. Kojiro had discovered that particular fact after he relearned how to walk, and began to put effort into testing his own mobility, swapping between running, leaping, and skipping. His body felt good, without the aches and pains that had become almost habitual, so long his other had had them. His back didn't hurt, his knees didn't give out after exercise, and most importantly, he could walk without limping!

Kojiro felt good, and funnily enough, he felt like he'd been reborn. It was amazing how much more alive he felt, without the cobwebs of age wrapping his mind. The sunrise was beautiful, and he could look at it without wincing at how bright it was. The wind was wonderful, and he could feel it on his skin without his joints aching from the cold. Though he and his body hadn't ever been old, Kojiro felt young again. He had so much energy, and it felt like he could run forever. He couldn't, obviously, and he ran out of energy quickly enough, but unlike in his other life, his strength came back rapidly, and he was ready to run within minutes of sitting down, rather than in the hour or so that his other self had taken. His other self hadn't been overweight either, but his body shape was similar enough to what Kojiro expected a rich noble to look like. Wide around the waist, but certainly not waddling. His other self had exercised too, just not enough for the decades of fast food and indulgences to not affect him. Kojiro was determined to not be like that. The age had certainly been different, but Kojiro also knew that old age didn't mean that you were tired and decrepit. Toda Seigen was the prime example, nearly as old as his other self had been, and still capable of trouncing his younger brother and the students of his Dojo with practiced ease. Kojiro had only seen a single exhibition match featuring Toda Seigen, but the samurai had moved like a man half a century younger. By the time that the match was over, Seigen's opponent, his nephew, was covered in sweat and was visibly exhausted. As for Seigen himself, he didn't even look like he was winded. Kojiro aspired to be like that. To borrow a term from his other life, physical age didn't matter to a badass.

Speaking of Toda Seigen, what could have inspired such a man to take in an orphan like Kojiro? Though the minka, the small hut, that was provided to him was a bit shoddy when modern constructions were taken into consideration, in comparison to the other architecture of the time, the free-standing room may as well have been taken directly from a noble's manor. The floors were made of padded rice straw and bamboo which formed tatami. They'd been sanded down manually to ensure comfort, even when touching bare feet. The walls weren't anything as fancy as rice paper, instead being made from thick and sturdy planks of wood, preventing wind and rain from piercing his home, whenever there was a storm. Though it was a single room, it was large enough for him to comfortably cartwheel across without fear of crashing into a wall, perhaps twenty by twenty feet. Kojiro wasn't even using most of the room, and aside from a small guest table a few steps from the door, the corner where he slept, and the corner he used for storage, the place was by-and-large empty. There was no need for a kitchen, for unlike in the yet-to-be-founded America, the meals of the Toda Dojo were largely communal. Residents of the Dojo hunted for the whole dojo. Kojiro had only been on hunting duty a few times in the past, and that was only so he knew what to do when he grew older and was actually capable of hunting. Though, unlike in America, food wasn't always available. If he failed to show up for lunch, then he wasn't going to get the luxury of food, unless he made an exception with the chef earlier in the day.

Speaking of luxuries, Kojiro's minka even had for itself a small outhouse, for his personal use. For a moment, all Kojiro felt was relief, as he recalled that his outhouse did indeed have toilet paper, nade from the fibers of mulberry tree bark. Lucky that he hadn't regained his other self's memory in some distant era. He shuddered at the thought of having to use something as uncivilized as a leaf, or heavens forbid, his hand. He didn't even have to clean it himself, for the night-soil collectors handled waste disposal and the replenishment of toilet paper. As the thought passed, Kojiro paused, his thoughts coming to a halt. The Toda Dojo didn't really need a chore boy, did they? Really, if the Toda Dojo could hire night-soil collectors for an orphan, they could hire janitors. The fact that there were none and Kojiro was given the duty instead was simply giving him a reason to stay at the Dojo. He'd even been told that he was only responsible for cleaning the Dojo. Whenever he did show up to clean, the day's lessons would always take place in the form of sparring. All that did was give Kojiro experience in seeing how people moved and reacted as they fought. The more that Kojiro looked into his experiences at the Dojo, the more and more he saw Toda Seigen's hand in all of his experiences. Hell, he'd even been taught to read and write by Seigen himself, despite his own reluctance to learn. At the time, Kojiro had insisted that as a farmer, he'd have no need for writing. Despite his whining, Seigen had sat there and guided him through the Japanese language with the patience of a saint. As Kojiro recalled, it hadn't been until the 1800s that literacy had become commonplace in his home country. That wasn't even to mention the practice blade and the set of martial forms that he'd been given, handed down to him directly by the man himself. He'd realized that the thing was a work of beauty, after finding it gathering dust beneath a couple of spare bedsheets. He hadn't even unsheathed it before, simply stowing it away after receiving it. He pulled the blade loose from its sheath, and the sword came free with the pop of empty air rushing into a formerly sealed space. The thing was a work of beauty, and distantly, Kojiro recalled hearing rumors that the blade was made from an expensive type of mulberry, the type used in real swords as hilt wood. To use such material for a practice blade was a luxury. The sword itself wasn't too long, and realistically, was a kodachi, a shortsword with a blade roughly two feet long. In Kojiro's hands, the thing might as well have been an odachi, a full length longsword, given how tall it was in comparison to him. If he set the sword to the floor, sword tip first, the hilt would come up to his chest. He made his way to the door, and brought the thing into full light. Ah, the sword had been covered in wood lacquer too, to ensure that the elements would have minimal effect on it. Engraved in the blade, in the place of a fuller groove, were the words '佐々木,' Sasaki, his surname. It meant wren, which all things considered, was close enough to a sparrow. All in all, the blade was expensive, and considering he was an orphan, it was far too good a treatment.

As a child, Kojiro had understood none of that, simply seeing Seigen as a kindly old man. With the benefit of his new knowledge, Kojiro was truly aware of who Toda Seigen was. He was famous, with enough influence to command and bring order to the entire presence of Echizen. To think he'd been taking all of this for granted just yesterday. It seemed that he had much more to repay Toda Seigen for than he'd initially assumed. What Toda Seigen was doing was setting up Kojiro to be a full-blown samurai. Literacy and skill with a blade were some of the most basic factors that separated a samurai retainer's skill set from that of a lowly merchant. Though he hadn't wanted to be a samurai a day ago, now, he was aware that the only way to be anyone of importance was to be a samurai. That was how one gained fame and prestige, and without fame or prestige, one had no way of making history. That's what Miyamoto Musashi had done, he'd made himself famous by stepping on Kojiro's own corpse. It seemed that Kojiro had more to be grateful to Toda Seigen for than he'd originally thought.

Kojrio resheathed his blade, the weapon sliding smoothly back into its home. He rose from his kneeling position and exhaled once, before breathing in deeply. He turned himself around and took in the building he'd called his home for the last four years. He bowed deeply, before readying himself mentally, and straightening. From within the house, he retrieved another thing that'd been left to gather dust, the complicated set of sashes and cords that held a samurai's blade to his side. He shrugged the ropes on, and slid his blade through his obi, a belt sash, and secured it, cutting edge towards the sky, with a sageo cord by attaching to cord the saya, his blade's sheathe. The sword's sheathe now secure on his waist, Kojiro stretched and twisted, only to find that the blade wasn't all that heavy, nor did it restrict his movements. As a student of the Toda Dojo, he really ought to have carried his blade with him no matter where he went, but he'd been a lazy child, and after the first time, no one had called him on it. That changed today.

The immature little boy that Kojiro had been had died out there in the forest, the moment the memories of his other life had returned. There was no such thing as childhood when one knew how history said they were going to die. Not that childhood was really a thing, given the century in which he now lived. The fortunate lived until their fifties, while most died young in battle as victims, aged around ten to twenty or thirty. Only the truly wisened lived for as long as Toda Seigen did. One and all, they were monsters, able to face down death without even blinking. Able to greet death like an old friend, as the storybooks had said. Kojiro wanted to be like one of those old men. His memories put him on the first steps, not only to changing his history, but on the first steps to a new future. He remembered something called the Butterfly Effect, a theory where a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan could cause a storm across the world. It had been used to describe how small actions could have large effects. Now that Kojiro had gained all of these memories, he was the butterfly, cluelessly flapping away. Who knew what would change as a result? He shrugged, however, putting the thoughts aside before checking that his blade was secure and once he was sure that it was, began meandering his way to the Toda Dojo.