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. 6 START

The moment Seigen had begun speaking and even after he had said all that he felt needed to be said, the crowd had gone, and still remained, absolutely silent. This sort of thing, where two highly-skilled samurai dueled for the pleasure of a crowd, was rarely done, and they treated it as the honor that it was. The crowd, Kojiro among them, had lasered in upon the two duelists. As the tension began to rise, Kagemasa swiftly drew his blade, bringing it to bear in one smooth motion. The old man remained still, arms crossed, simply staring at his younger brother.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Kanemake Jisai step out of the crowd and onto the field, taking on the role of the judicator for this match. His duty was twofold, to make sure that none upon the battlefield took 'unacceptable' injuries, dismemberment and fatal wounds, and to call or interrupt the match should one side be obviously disadvantaged. The man looked nervous, and Kojiro sympathized. Jisai was less skilled than Seigen and Kagemasa both, but as the next eldest member of the Dojo, it fell to him to be in charge when they were dueling. The man wiped his brow, gulping nervously before lifting his hand above his head and dropping it.

As it dropped, Jisai yelled, "HAJIME! Begin!" even as he edged towards the outskirts of the arena to avoid being caught in the flurry of blades that was sure to follow.

The two combatants remained motionless, at least until Jisai had moved away. Then, before Kojiro could even react, a blast of sand and dust was kicked up and the sound of displaced wind rushing into an now-empty space blasted into Kojiro's sensitive eardrums. He winced, palms coming up to cover his ears, then turning back to the battle once his ears stopped ringing. Already, Seigen was within seven feet of Kagemasa, despite his brother having been over fifty feet away to start with. With a blink, Kojiro stared, eyes going wide the next second. He'd thought it idly before, but just now, what Seigen had done wasn't humanly possible, was it? The farthest and fastest he could recall a human going had been a runner named Usain Bolt, who'd gone forty feet per second. That had been in the middle of a full sprint though, not from a standing stop. Seigen had just stomped on the grave of that record. How fast had the man moved? In the blink of an eye, Seigen had traveled over forty-five feet, which was about 30 miles an hour. The absolute fastest that a human could have run to Kojiro's knowledge was a measly 27.5 miles an hour. Any further action had been said to be too physically destructive for the human body to handle. Seigen didn't look winded.

The minute his older brother was in striking distance, Kagemasa's blade came down like an executioner's ax, cleaving apart the air between it and Seigen's head, disregarding the fact that Seigen hadn't even drawn his blade. No doubt that Kagemasa, like the rest of the Dojo, knew that Seigen was just as dangerous without his sword as he was with it. Unlike the rest of the Dojo however, he seemed to realize that Seigen was looking to put an end to the battle with a single strike. Kagemasa had no intention of allowing that, but a sharp and abrupt pivot by Seigen had Kagemasa slice open nothing but empty air. Seigen was now to the side of his younger brother, hand already on the hilt of his blade. Then Seigen's arm seemed to flicker, so fast he had moved it, and the blade flew from his sheathe and towards Kagemasa's throat in what he recognized as an iaido cut.

Yet, mere moments before the strike could eviscerate Kagemasa's throat, the black-haired man brought up his blade defensively, catching the blow. The younger brother lifted his blade, pushing his brother's blade up to open a gap in his defense, but Seigen quickly disengaged, hopping backwards.

Kagemasa took the chance to center himself, just in time too, for Seigen had already begun his next assault. Seigen took a step forward, slashing twice as he did so, once from the left and once from the right. The attacks came out so fast that Kojiro only noticed them when Kagemasa roughly deflected them, causing the blades to clang together harshly. All together, the assault had clearly rattled Kagemasa, and he forced himself to recover from his backwards stumble, rising to meet a vicious downstroke by Seigen. With an effort of will and no doubt adrenaline, the younger brother managed to straighten himself enough to lock blades with Seigen once more. Kagemasa broke the stalemate, forcing Seigen backwards with a shove through their interlocked swords.

Kagemasa seemed to sag from the effort, having exhausted himself somewhat, and stood there, panting. Despite the man's obvious tiredness though, he kept his blade up. Seigen let his brother recover for a moment staring quietly before seeming to have decided on something.

"Focus, Kagemasa." Seigen warned, and his whole demeanor changed.

Much like what had happened to Kagemasa in the Dojo, Seigen seemed to vanish behind the visage of a tiger, one ready to pounce on what it viewed as weakened prey. A regal force descended upon the shoulders of all those who were viewing the battle, one that declared that it alone was above all else. They didn't dare look away either, fearing that if they did, the pressure would turn upon them. They felt as if a predator was sharpening its claws just behind them, just waiting for them to flee so it could lop their heads off. Kojiro felt the same, but inside, he laughed joyously. This wasn't just some ancient Earth, was it? This presence and this power were nothing less than supernatural. It wasn't charisma, for could a man's mere presence contain the type of charisma that was making him tremble and sweat right now? It was wonderful., this first peek behind the curtain of mundanity.

So this was what Embodiment truly was. Kojiro thought it had just been some abstract form of focus, but that wasn't true, now was it? He was awestruck. The beast that Seigen had become stalked forwards, its feet gliding across the ground as it neared ever closer to its target. Abruptly, another pressure fell upon his back, and startled, Kojiro's glance shot towards Kagemasa. The man had borne the brunt of the pressure, Kojiro realized, and he was still standing tall. He'd even made some sort of achievement, judging by the secondary force he was feeling. He let out a roar, but it was not the scream of a man. Instead, the bellow of a beast poured from the jaws of Kagemasa. Another tiger had risen to challenge the King. The man's eyes had narrowed into furious slits, and what he saw in them wasn't surprising, that mixture of fear, awe, and anger.

Kagemasa shot forwards, his forward thrust becoming the tiger's lunge, only for the other beast to turn it aside with a negligent swipe. Seigen's sword deflected Kagemasa's with a practiced ease. Seigen slashed twice, once from the left and once from overhead, to take advantage of the missed strike. The King moved to crush its smaller challenger, only for the challenger to use its size to duck under the blows. Kagemasa raised his blade, doing so at precisely the correct moment to parry Seigen's sword skywards. The beasts met again and again, lashing and biting and tearing at one another. Claws tore into flesh, teeth bit into fur, paws slammed into skin, blood flowed. The two master samurai met in a flurry of blows, sparks flying as weapons clashed over and over. Seigen's blade tore into Kagemasa's sleeve, the other pulling his arm too slowly, while Kagemasa's sword caught the front of Seigen's haori and tore it open. Had Seigen been a second delayed, he'd have been disemboweled. Their once formal and orderly clothing had vanished, only to be replaced with battle-scarred garments. Then, at long last, the King struck down the challenger, slamming its paw upon the smaller tiger's head. Seigen's blade swept down and with it, Kagemasa's sword was torn from his hands. The man raised his hands in surrender, and as Jisai stepped back into the arena to call the match in Seigen's favor, the crowd began to cheer.

Seigen wiped down his sword with a piece of cloth that Kagemasa's blade had partially torn from his hakama, before sheathing his blade and moving to pick up his brother's blade from where it'd flown after being knocked from Kagemasa's hands. He grabbed it from the ground, wiped it off like he had his own with his sleeve before making his way to his brother and handing the sword over, hilt first. Seigen leaned forwards to whisper something into Kagemasa's ear, likely congratulations of some sort, and the younger brother laughed happily, loud enough that even though he was near the entrance and Kagemasa was in the center, some fifty feet between them, Kojiro could still hear him. The man bowed to his brother, thanking him for the duel and Seigen returned a bow, making sure to match the depth of Kagemasa's own, as a way for declaring the two of the equals. Seigen's younger brother understood, if the smile on his face was anything to go by. When Seigen spoke a few words before pointing towards where Kojiro stood, the man just shrugged, before lifting a hand in greeting to Kojiro and mouthing the words, 'welcome!' Kojiro bowed in respect, before waving back with a smile.

Kojiro met his grandfather's eyes, and Seigen looked at him carefully, before nodding and mourning the word, 'go.' He smiled at his grandson before turning to fend off the eager questioning of Kanemake Jisai, who had all but leapt forwards to get answers. Kojiro took the dismissal for what it was. Seigen was telling him that he'd gotten all he needed to know from the demonstration, how far he could go, what Seigen had shown him was possible. Any technical discussion about technique would fly straight over his head, and Seigen had decided that it was better for Kojiro to avoid filling his own head with things he didn't understand. As the crowd around him rushed to gather around Kagemasa and Seigen, Kojiro turned and left with a jaunty wave. Even as he moved away calmly though, his mind began to race.

Seigen had already laid out what differentiated normal samurai from those a cut above their peers, that "State of Enlightenment" that made seemingly normal men superhuman. Roughly, Kojiro understood what came before. As Seigen had made clear enough in his speech, one was not a true samurai until they'd taken their first life, proven their worth upon a battlefield. Once that barrier was passed, one's skill with a blade could range from novice, adept, expert, or even master, when one was worthy of the official title of kengo, denoting mastery with a blade. After that, Kojiro's thoughts had instantly been to place the title of kensei, Sword Saint, there, but that was just a title, given by other men. A kensei wasn't a level of skill, just an acknowledgement that one was the best swordsman in Japan. After his duel with Kojiro, Miyamoto Musashi had achieved this epithet, which had made him famous, enough so that the first thing that came up when a list of famous Japanese samurai was referenced was the man's name. Certainly, as politicians and leaders, Oda Nobunaga and the Great Unifiers that would follow(ed?) were more famous, but as samurai? Only Miyamoto Musashi could have claimed that title. Musashi's skill with a blade hadn't made him undefeatable, it had been his fame. After Kojiro's original death, none dared to challenge him lightly. But fame didn't denote skill.

To Kojiro, to be a kensei meant to be more than human. Not just a swordmaster but a saint, a demigod born from not ancestral might, but skill. The in-between, then, was the stage of Embodiment, when one began to become superhuman. Except there was a difference between one Embodiment and the next. The old man's Embodiment seemed also casual, while Kagemasa's seemed only to appear when he was under great duress, and vanished just as quickly. In truth, there were two stages of Embodiment, the first where one unlocked the power and the second where it became as natural as breathing. Everything between the first and the second was just a matter of proficiency, Kojiro decided. Only after surpassing that stage, that undefinable barrier between mortal and immortal, was one really worthy of the lofty title of Sword Saint. When one held the ability to make one's own blade work seem holy, to make the mundane skill of swinging a sword into divine art.

Kojiro came back to himself. He was nowhere near even the first stage of progress. His own actions as he drew his kodachi proved it. Even when Kojiro pulled with all of his might, his arms were simply too short to actually unsheathe the blade. He had to first pull the sheath back, in the process ruffling his hakama, before he could actually manage to draw the blade. He grimaced at the fact, a sense of despair welling up within him, but he stomped it out. It was yet early, had been this very day, that Kojiro had received his new memories. Until he could unsheathe his blade and wield it as easily as he breathed, he would practice and practice. Even once he was able to, he wouldn't stop. Not until he became a Sword Saintfor real. By now, his thoughts had carried him back to his humble hut, and as he crossed the threshold, he returned his sword to his side. Moving towards the corner that he seemed to store everything in, he pulled out a pair of scrolls, which like the rest of his belongings, had been underneath some spare bedsheets. The first contained the very basics of swordsmanship, how to move, breath, and the basic cuts. The second contained the foundational skills of the Toda-ryu. He sat down and began to read the first scroll, placing his sword across his lap. He was still reading, by the time the sun went down, simply lighting a candle to see.