Chapter 4
For those who may not know, Jinpachiro is Yuri's father, the same character who was called "Ben" in Shadow Hearts.
Naniwa
I am an old man now, and I often think I have seen too much. Our world has changed beyond our humble imagings and I – I have seen more of its changings than I wanted to. My home, my homeland, has changed – in some ways for the better, but we still make war on our neighbors for our neighbor's goods; we still kill haphazadly and wantonly in the name of Empire. When the Tokugawa age, the Shogun's and warring factions, all faded into the sane world of the Meiji, we thought we had changed with it. But it was still a world of might and right.
I have taught many men in my day; worked both within the government and without it, to better our country. But too many times men of limited visions... men with visions of ultimate power, have won the day. Kantaro Ishimura. Jinpachiro Hyuga. My two best students and my saddest failures.
Ishimura became the Foreign Minister, but his goals are more far flung than simply establishing relations with other countries. His goal is more toward conquering those lands; putting in puppet rulers, establishing an order that would put Japan in prominance over all the nearby countries. To protect us, he says. We argued, Kantaro and I. We argued long and hard for many many months. First over books, then tea, and then saki. We argued for and against many of the ideas he put forth, and I thought him a sharp and concise thinker with many a good plan for the future, if – IF he could control his fear of outsiders. I was wrong.
Sadly wrong, as Ishimura's dreams moved closer to reality, his visions wrought pain, and suffering for the innocent and blood… so much blood. Can anything every wipe our hands clean?
And Hyuga. Jin was another student, one of many, but one more like Ishimura than I would have thought. Sharp thinker, concise; he would argue just as vehemently, but not loudly. We shared many a quiet night under the stars, lamps burning low with crickets singing their mantras in the garden, argueing quietly about the direction Japan should take, both politically and economically. But Hyuga was a soldier, a dog of the army. And though he worked for a better Japan, and hoped for a better future, he still did what he was told, until that day he took the assignment that lead him to China. Then everything changed; he changed too. I knew when he came to bid me farewell that, even though I offered to share sake with him on his return, that he would not be coming back. Little did I know then...
Now I sit here in my garden and watch my young daughter, Yoshiko play with her dog and remember another who I would have liked to take as a student. Hyuga's son. Not a sharp thinker, but passionate about his feelings and what he thought as the good in mankind. His passion would have held him in good stead against my earlier students. It certainly did against Ishimura. I wonder what ever happened to him? If he has, as rumors say, defeated a great enemy out on the Asuka plains.
We may never know, but I think, like his father, he was defending what he believed in the most.
