Right then, call the youngsters in, I can hear them crowding the door. Yes, I can hear you, you little squeaking mice with your loud whispers and thudding footsteps. You almost make me think that Benkei has come again.
The children swarmed in, not in the least abashed at their discovery. Even Kage looks excited, despite the interruption of the old man's narrative.
"Now, has any one heard of the the giant Benkei?" the old man asks the squirming audience.
They shake their heads solemnly.
"What have they been teaching you? Those silly tutors of your's?" he teases.
"Well then. I will describe him for you. As I have said, this Benkei was a giant. He was so tall that he could touch the roofs of the houses and the pole cutting across the shrine gates. And he was so strong that when he hit a tree, his fist went straight through the trunk. - No don't try and hit the wall boy, you will only get a bloody fist for your efforts. - Hmmph. As I was saying, Benkei was very strong, and he was proud of his strength. He used a naginata as his weapon, but since normal naginata broke when he used them, he made a special weapon for himself. The pole was the trunk of a pine tree, and the iron spear at the end was three feet thick and made of the strongest metal he could find. But that was not all. It was also imbued with magic, a magic that said his weapon would never break until he came up against the man he was meant to follow.
Since Benkei was so arrogant, he did not believe that he would ever find such a man.
Benkei was always trying to find a way to make him stronger and better. He realised that he did not have the social connections, nor the means to pay for tutors, so he decided to gain respect by his force of arms. He would be the best.
At first he started out as a warrior monk who enclosed himself in a cave on the mountains. He spent his days lifting boulders and punching trees, but he soon found that this was not enough. Nature did not provide a sufficient challenge. So he decides that he should be a robber. After all, most robbers rely on brute force to get their stolen goods. And what better place to challenge himself than smack in the middle of Kyoto.
"I want princesses" Sora suddenly exclaimed.
"Shush you insolent child. This is a traditonal legend of your heritage. There are men with big sticks, what more do you want?" the old man barked at her.
"Anyways, Benkei decided to set himself up on the Gojo Bridge in the center of Kyoto and challenge the warriors who walked past. If he won, he would let them live, but he would take their sword, the ultimate dishonor.
This was during the time that Yoshitsune was governing the capital, just after he had defeated his cousin, and such banditry would not go unnoticed for long.
By the second week Benkei had gathered nine hundred and ninety nine swords of varying quality. The warriors were now coming in swords to gain the honor as the one who had defeated the infamous giant. Soon they came in groups of two or three, then five, then ten, but none managed to defeat him.
It reached the point where the fights had begun to draw spectators, which caused the normal organization of the community to be disrupted even further. Finally, Yoshitsune came himself to see the challenger that so many spoke of.
When he approached, Benkei greeted him with the shout " You are the one hundredth victim!"
Either he did not recognize him, or he was too drunk on success to care, but Benkei failed to give Yoshitsune the respect he was due, not only as the commander of the Minamoto forces, but also as the de facto governor of the area.
Yoshitsune's face tightened and he drew his sword.
Benkei raised his naginata and swung it down. But no one was there. Then Yoshitsune attacked from behind, and Benkei turned and swung, but Yoshitsune had again disappeared. This went on for some time with Benkei swinging and Yoshitsune disappearing from where he had been targeted.
When I say disappearing, I do not mean by magic, as by this point the dark princess – yes Sora, a princess – had stolen his winged shoes. Rather, he moved so fast that by the time Benkei had finished his swing, he was already in the next position.
Now by this point Benkei was getting tired of swinging without hitting his opponent, and he had hit the iron railing of the bridge so many times that many were surprised that it was not yet dented.
Frustrated, Benkei gave one more mighty swing downwards, and an earsplitting crack was heard.
The naginata made of a tree trunk and magicked to be unbreakable, had broken.
As Benkei stood staring at his weapon, frozen in shock, Yoshitsune finally struck. It was not a hard blow, nor was it aimed in a deadly manner. Instead it only created a shallow slash on Benkei's forearm, but that was enough.
At that the giant's exhaustion hit him in force, and he fell to his knees.
"Oh mighty warrior. I am no match for your strength. Might I not know the name of my defeat, so that I can carry it with me on my journey to the mountains?" Benkei asked as he unlaced the ties of his armor, baring his neck to the death he was expecting.
He would not find it that day. Yoshitsune simply turned and left the bridge. Reaching the end, he spoke without turning.
"My name is Yoshitsune no Minamoto."
At those words Benkei looked up and, seeing his old opponent so far off, he stood and followed. And from that day forward he followed Yoshitsune everywhere he could. It was an odd sight seeing the two together. The tall man stalking alongside the smaller, leaner man. People often said that they held a karmic bond because, even though they did not speak together of personal matters, they were intensely loyal to each other and would become what you would could consider friends of a sort.
And that is why, young ones, you should never insult someone simply because of their size, for often times they will eventually become your best friend."
The children crowded outdoors once the story had finished. Eager to begin playing robber and hero. The old game of leap over the stream to catch the princess had gotten old, this was a new source of fun.
Well, young Kage, did you enjoy the story? I suppose it was a bit ramshackle compared to what I have been telling you. But it has served to distract the others for at least a couple more days. Now where was I... ah yes.
We set sail the morning of the twenty fourth day of the fourth month, just as the cherry treees were beginning to flower.
We actually outnumbered the Taira ships now. The addition of the fair weather allies had brought our numbers to nearly double that of the Taira.
The battle that day would go down in history as Dan no ura. We were cramming the flotillas and as one man fell, he was quickly disposed of overboard, to be replaced by another.
It was a battle of archery until we reached the Taira's boats. The tide was in their favor, and their arrows killed many of us. At first our victory was somewhat doubtful as our opponents fought well and the elements seemed to be on their side. But suddenly one of their ships broke off and the Minamoto banner was raised on it.
All of us were somewhat disgusted at this traitorous behaviour, but our leaders were practical, and took the traitor Taguchi's information. He told us which ship among the many, held the imperial family.
Armed with this knowledge, and a favourable shift in the wind, Yoshitsune rallied our forces and leapt across the gap between our ships and theirs. He was the first, yet he did not bother to pause to proclaim his feat. He plunged into battle, a fury of sword and armor drove through the Taira ranks as we followed. Proud to have such a leader and eager to prove ourselves to him.
The battle turned to favor us and at last the Taira gave up hope. Many stepped over the sides of their boats, to lose their dishonor in the waves. After honor is lost, what more is there to do but to close this cycle of karma and allow for the next cycle to begin anew.
Their brightly colored kimonos wer like falling petals, drifting down to the water like the shower of cherry blossoms when the wind blows down the streets of Asakusa. How sad that this breeze of impermanence should scatter what were once such august blossoms. They move in an instant, spiraling downwards. Who can say how long they would have stayed, perched upon the uppermost branches, if not for this sudden breeze.
The warriors followed in droves until the sea was full of them. Our victory was complete, the Taira were vanquished and all was well with the world, or that was how it should have been.
With the Taira destroyed, the last obstacle to Yoritomo's power fell away and he declared himself shogun. However, one small factor disturbed him. His brother was the attributed leader of the Minamoto, at least in the perception of the warriors, if not the court.
Yoritomo willed himself to believe that the retired emperor was conspiring with his brother to take over the shogunate and dispose of the elder Minamoto brother. He flew into a rage and drove Yoshitsune out of the capital.
Some stories say he fled to the boundary world with the help of the kami, others say that he comitted seppuku. And still more speak of his murder, and how a certain forest will ever be haunted by his vengeful spirit.
Whatever the truth may be, the hero of the Genpei Wars was gone, and his younger brother soon followed. Yoritomo's paranoia was fed by his advisors to the point that he killed one brother, what was to stop him from killing the next.
Noriyori must have been thinking along the same lines, for he abandoned his post to go to his brother and protest his loyalty and everlasting love. This was the wrong move.
His loyalty was already somewhat questionable in the face of his own pleasure, and so his abandonment not only led his brother to question his stability as a reliable administrator, but his desperated protests only served to make him look guiltier.
He was executed as a traitor the day after he arrived. So as to dissolve all doubt of his death and the belief in his guilt, his head was mounted on a pole outside the main houses in Kamakura. No mercy for betrayal, even if it was only suspicioun of betrayal.
Of course these tidings, while they did not affect the regular soldier directly, eventually the consequences trickled down.
At the time of Noriyori's death, I had reached a higher office and was fearful that the commander's condemnation would cause my death. It did not do so, fortunately, but it did cut off any hope of reward and prestige. I was left with nothing except what I already had. My horse had been killed in the last battle and I was left with no means to travel except my own two feet.
So I set out on the weary road back to the province. Back to this very household. My road would take me through the mountains. It was either that or some how manage to gain sufficient coinage to buy passage by boat. The prices were already impossible at normal level, but since so many were heading home by sea, the prices had risen enormously.
There were no ties for me yet, and I reasoned that it would do me good to travel through Japan and see what I could see.
That is why, a month aftter the final battle at Dan no ura, I was cold, starving and penniless. And that is why, I was left wandering the mountain forests, completely lost.