Chapter 2:

Past Deeds

Yoshimo wet his lips with his glass of ale, not really drinking in case worse came to worse and he ended up in an honor duel with Touga. He was acutely conscious of the many pairs of eyes on him, the way Haer'Dalis had his pen poised above his paper, and the concerned frown on Brynn's lovely face as she sat beside him. Of all the people he had expected or wanted to see again Touga Kurai had to be at the bottom of the list, right before Irenicus. Still, the man had shown up, and it was time to let the past be told.

"I am no storyteller," he began, "but I believe I can relate the tale accurately." He heard Touga make a noise of disbelief, but went on without calling the other man out. "I am not sure that any of you aside from Touga-san or myself are aware of the customs of my homeland, so I will tell you, because they are important to my story. The islands of Wa are ruled with an iron fist. Travel requires papers, all crimes are punished by execution, and the caste system is so rigid that it makes the West seem almost lawless by comparison."

"But it keeps the peace!" Touga cut in sharply.

Yoshimo nodded. "It does. At the cost of everything most westerners hold dear. May I continue, or do you have more to add?"

Touga looked like he wanted to say something, but instead merely folded his arms across his chest and tried to look diffident. "Please, go on," he said crisply.

"I was born into the highest caste, the samurai. Only those born samurai are allowed to use weapons, and they hold the power of life and death over all those beneath them, including lower ranked samurai under their command, and in some cases the command of others. While I was a boy I chose to reject the rigid system of my peers, and turned to the streets of my homeland, becoming ronin, a masterless, and therefore honorless samurai. It was there that I met my master, Hiruma Sabishii..."

Touga snorted in contempt.

Yoshimo ignored him and continued. "Master Hiruma taught me all I needed to know of bounty hunting and the life of a mercenary, which is the only place a ronin had in Wa. Most ronin tried to find other masters, or committed seppuku rather than continue to live in dishonor, but Master Hiruma chose a different path. You see, often enough a samurai lord will require extra troops to put down this uprising here, or stamp out that minor rebellion there, or just to keep his rivals in place. The peace of Wa is not easy, it is maintained by force, rigid discipline and by fear of dishonor and death. My path, and that of my master, was to exploit this system to the best of our abilities. We were not respected, but we had the things we desired, and were happy."

"And to do this you took the fruits of others' labors without earning them," Touga said in a deceptively mildly.

"Exactly what the samurai did under the Shogun's direction," Yoshimo pointed out, "Master Hiruma and I were just more intelligent about it. Instead of demanding from those who could not give, we demanded it from those who could. I would not be so quick to say that we did not earn what we acquired either, you would be surprised at how hard it was to get what we had."

"Enough conversation," Brynn said, "more story."

"Indeed, please make haste to the interesting part," Haer'Dalis urged. His paper was as yet unwritten on except for a few scribbled notes. "I fear my ink will dry in the bottle well before you are done at this rate." Imoen elbowed him in the ribs.

Yoshimo cleared his throat and took a small sip of his ale before going on. "It was not long before I was one of Master Hiruma's confidants, and he valued my assistance as much as many of his more experienced fellows. Not more than a year after I began working under his tutelage Master Hiruma told me of his... other... businesses. He was the ruler of the underworld in Wa, a very secretive one, and he kept his less than legal practices unknown through bribery, blackmail and other unsavory methods. He was very effective. Master Hiruma decided that I ought to be introduced to these dealings, and so gave me what I thought was a simple task. I was to slip into the home of one of the Daimyo, the lords who controlled the provinces under the Shogun, and retrieve piece of valuable information. I entered the compound easily, too easily, in fact, something I should have noticed then, but failed to. Once inside I found the documents I had been sent for, took them, and went to leave. I was almost away when a lone man, unarmored and carrying only a torch, and with his katana and wakazashi belted at his waist, stepped into my path. I am sure you are all capable of divining who that man was."

"Who?" Minsc asked, looking puzzled. Aerie and Dynaheir both sighed. The two of them had not exactly gotten on well at first, but after a while Minsc's two witches bonded over their protector's quirks.

"I believe Yoshimo is referring to Touga," Dynaheir said patiently.

"Oho! I see!" Minsc said, understanding now. "Why did he not just say so."

"Never mind, Minsc," Aerie told him. "Please go on, Yoshimo."

Yoshimo resisted the urge to chuckle at the addle-headed ranger. "You are correct, it was Touga Kurai that stood to block my escape, and much the worse for me. I was a hardly a man, and he was already a fully trained Kensai. Not a master of his art yet, but good enough to more than put me in a grave. It was mere luck that I survived, and even then I came out with this scar to show for it." He touched the scar that crossed the bridge of his nose and went on to mark his right cheek. "It was my lack of skill that saved me. I was trying to get my katana out when he came at me. A katana fits into its sheath so that it locks to prevent it from sliding out, as sometimes happens in western weapons, though not often, and there is a trick to freeing it that I had not quite mastered. Thankfully I was quick on my feet, or I would have had my hair trimmed at the level of my nose. As I dodged I managed to free my blade, and as I drew it Touga-san came in for an attack. The hilt of my katana hit him in the eye, and he stumbled backward. I would have finished him, had my blade not slipped from my hand and gone back in its sheath as tightly as before. Instead, I sufficed with knocking him unconscious with a kick to the temple, and ran."

Beside him, Yoshimo felt Brynn shaking with the effort she was making to restrain her laughter. In hindsight the situation was humorous, but Yoshimo wondered if perhaps it would have been wiser for her to save her mirth until after his life was no longer in danger.

"What happened after that?" Nalia asked.

Yoshimo sighed and looked grim. "I returned to my master with the documents, only to find that he had betrayed me."

"Oo!" Haer'Dalis exclaimed eagerly, "intrigue! What a fascinating twist!" He quickly scribbled more notes on his now nearly full paper.

"Yes, indeed," Yoshimo said blandly. "As fascinating as it may seem to you now, then for me it was a shock. Master Hiruma had felt that I was becoming a threat to his leadership of his mercenary troops, and his control of the underworld in Wa. He arranged for the Daimyo's security to find out about my late night excursion, and was more than a little surprised to see me return all but unscathed. He was furious, and after taking the documents from me, he tried to kill me, giving me this." He touched the scar that ran almost parallel to the other. "I managed to escape from him, barely, by using the skills he had taught me, and knowing that my homeland was no longer safe for me, I fled to foreign lands where my master had no power."

"So..." Khalid said uncertainly, "...how did that ruin his life?"

Yoshimo looked at his fellow resurrectee -if that was even the right word- and said, "That, Touga-san will have to tell you."

"You want to know?" Touga asked Khalid directly, as if in a challenge. Yoshimo noticed that Khalid almost -almost- flinched under the Kensai's gaze, but he did not. Brynn had described Khalid as a good man, but not the most brave and prone to stuttering. It seemed that torture and then death had put a little steel into the man's backbone, for in the months since he, Khalid and Dynaheir had inexplicably been returned to life Yoshimo had only heard Khalid stutter once, and he had not seemed even the slightest bit cowardly.

"I want to know, Master Touga," Brynn cut in.

Touga was silent for a moment. "He was truthful in his tale," he said at last, nodding in Yoshimo's direction, "it was indeed merely a twist of fate that saved him and destroyed me. Because we had been warned of the upcoming attack the Daimyo's guards, which I led at the time, chose to allow the would be thief access, and then catch him as he attempted to flee. Because I was the best swordsman, I was chosen to face him. None of us, least of all myself, imagined that I would be beaten." He paused, as if to collect himself. "When I was beaten, I was brought before the daimyo, and he because he was the brother of the Shogun, not only made me ronin, but exiled me. I was put on the ship of a foreign merchant and told that if I could not do my duty I belonged among the barbarians to the west."

Touga's tale was much shorter; he had far less to tell, but it was explanatory enough for the Blades. Yoshimo, of course, knew that the Kensai had purposefully glossed over the cultural details that would have confused anyone who was not familiar with the laws and customs of his homeland.

"I understand," Brynn said. She bit her lip, and looked to be struggling with something. "But Master Touga, think of what would have happened if you hadn't been exiled."

Touga looked at her with narrowed eyes. "What do you mean, little one?"

"Well, you would never have had the chance to train me, and that would have been the end of the world," Brynn replied.

Anomen gave a quick bark of laughter. "Aye, and you say that I am full of myself, my lady."

Brynn frowned at him briefly and then turned back to Touga. "I mean it," she said earnestly. "I might well have never picked up a sword had I not met you, Master, and so I would never have left Candlekeep. I may well have died within those walls two years ago."

"Has it been two years already?" Imoen wondered aloud.

Brynn shrugged. "Close to it anyway," she confirmed. "I don't mean to sound over-proud, but I think without myself and the Blades this Sword Coast would be one huge burning, bloody mess right now, and Melissan would be the new Goddess of Murder." She leaned over the table and looked Touga directly in the eyes. "Really, Master, it looks as if it was fate that ruined your life and caused you to be exiled, because if you had stayed in your homeland Alaundo's prophecy would never have come to pass."

Touga regarded her with a cool expression, and to Yoshimo it seemed that master and pupil were having a war of wills. The funny thing was, Yoshimo realized, was that Brynn was correct. A whole string of events starting farther back than any of them knew had led up to this moment. He just hoped that Touga would realize the same thing.

At last Touga sat back and looked straight over at Yoshimo. Brynn straightened too, and Yoshimo sensed that a great deal of the tension she had been feeling was gone. He gave her hand a thankful squeeze under the table.

"I will consider your words, little one," Touga said regally. "Maybe you are correct."

Brynn broke into a smile. "You are very wise, Master."

"No, I am a simple Kensai," Touga replied, being appropriately modest. That was Kara-Turan custom; it was better to refuse a compliment, or refute it somehow, instead of accepting it right away and seeming arrogant.

"Well, we have a lot of catching up to do, Master," Brynn said.

Touga nodded.

"What do you say we go out to the courtyard and have a little spar?" Brynn suggested. "I remember only ever defeating you once, and I wonder how I match up now."

All around the room the Blades smiled confidently, sure of their leader and friend. Brynn had grown so strong over the past two years that no doubt she would mop the floor with her former Master.

"That sounds interesting, little one," Touga agreed.

That was the signal for the Blades to leave the audience chamber and assemble out in the courtyard. None of them wanted to miss this match.

To Be Continued

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A/N

Hi all. In this chapter I tried to give my hypotheses about Yoshimo's history pre-SoA, and also provide a link between him and Touga Kurai. Expect to see some action next chapter as Brynn and her former Master match wits and blades.

Blue