"I was a careful governor. Even though nothing tied me to the people, I knew I needed to rule well to provide an example and because my brother was relying on me. This was the part of a good samurai. Loyalty, honor, endless days.

Noriyori was granted many honors and yet, when they tried to place such trifles on me, my brother refused to allow it.

People speak of the great rift that developed between us over this. The anger and resentment that tore our filial affection apart.

Pah! Why should I care for such things as titles? All it meant was further responsabilities and more enemies. True, they supposedly would have entitled me towards wealth, but I enjoyed the simple life. What I needed I had, or I could gain from foraging. That was why life in the Kurama Temple had suited me so well.

No, such angst was the product of another's manipulations. By this time, Kagetoki had already begun to whisper his poison into my brother's ears.

This is all in hindsight of course. At the time I was buried under legal minutia and paperwork.

There was a lot of paperwork. Everyone seemed to want to send me something, whether it was an introduction, a petition or some other drivel. Besides that, I also had to deal with the backlog that the Taira administration had left behind. It seemed they had been just as leery of dealing with such things as I was.

In addition to this, their structure was attrocious. They seemed to prefer to rely on fear and a show of force to keep their administration running. Throughout it their was the taint of corruption and bribery.

I was, at first, stuck trying to control the massive chaos while my brother organized the parade of heads. A gruesome ceremony that I did not completely approve of, but knew was necessary. The heads of the fallen served to warn off any would-be revolters as well as reassure our allies that we had indeed killed our enemies.

There was cavorting in the streets that night. My cousin had not been liked. And, while our soldiers partied hard and went through the local markets at an astounding speed, they were not nearly as bad as Kiso's forces.

That was also the time I gained one of the closest of companions. Yes, that was Benkei, loyal to a fault.

True, the first time I met Benkei he was waylaying people on the bridge and I had to pound some sense into him. But it was nothing like the climatic battle so many stories have made it into. He was strong, but too slow. I managed to trip him withing the first five minutes and from thereafter he decided to follow me around like a lost puppy.

If anything, Benkei was more like a brother than my actual kin. Yoritomo was wrapped up in his own concerns at the expense of all else, and Noriyori had little care for anything but his own pleasure. Benkei was one of the few who had a truly caring heart. He did not coddle me, but he was always concerned for my protection. He acted as a guard many times so that I would be able to sleep in peace and security. I had not felt safe enough to sleep for some time. While the capital was ours, it was a nest of poisonous intrigue.

It took me a while to warm up to him. After all, how often do you have a six foot man simply drop in your lap and declare friendship?

After a few close calls where he proved reliable, I began to lower my guards. My trust was fully established when he came and told me what he had denied for my sake. Apparently Kagetoki had made him a respectable offering of land in exchange for him spying on me and spreading rumors of my proclivities. Of course I could not seek retribution, at least not legally, as Benkei had merely described the man who approached him. No names had been given and it was only because I had recognized the description that I knew it was him.

He caught a glance of my ring and disolved into endless curiosity. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Benkei had the curious nature of a cat. If he wanted to know something, he would worry about it for ages. But he never asked me, no, that would have ruined the fun.

It always amused me how incredibly inquisitive the man could be. He was incredibly intelligent. Even though he could only read the bare minimum, he knew much about the ways of the world and was what you would call wise.

I think he watched me for a very long time, and he inevitably caught a few of the moments when I was lost in memory and lonely sadness. I never told him her name, but some of the things he said or the motions he made leads me to believe that he knew I had some secret lost love.

We did not speak much, each of us very private men. Content to keep each other company and, if necessary, speak of important matters, no idle conversation for us.

It was years before I realised that, while Benkei would be loyal to the point of death, I was equally staunch in my regards for him.

Perhaps it was because my brothers negation was so strong and his ire so obvious, that the court took it into their heads that it would be a good idea to grant me a few titles regardless. I was not happy at this. I did not want such baggage, they were more trouble than they were worth. Though I had little say in their granting, I tried to reach out to my brother to tell him of the absence of such ambitions within my heart. I fear my protestations fell on deaf ears, or on ears too full with the sound of others claiming my rampant ambition for power.

Well his revenge was my stiflement. While my younger brother went off to play soldier, I remained in the capital.

I was not the adament warrior many make me into, and normally I would not have minded missing the bloodiness of war, this meant I had to remain in the castle. The viper's nest was not only dangerous, but I had also suddenly become bachelor of the year.

The only good thing about this was that Noriyori took Kagetoki with him, and kept him out of my hair.

It was a long year.

I managed to get everything in order and the government settled as much as could be expected during the long wait.

Finally, the news came. I had been ordered to make an attack on the Shikoku headquarters.

This would be a new kind of battle, a naval one and I wondered just how much the mystery of the sea would affect our plans. I called for ships."

And ships there came. I still remember the sight of them, that gallant fleet. We had been working to take Kyoshu with our own ragtag group of boats and we eventually joined up with Yoshitsune's forces. His were what could truly be called a naval force. Ours was more of a source of transportation. As they appeared on the sea, the colors of their sails shone brightly against the blue of the ocean. There were all manner of colors and symbols as befitting the power behind the ships. And they moved quickly, letting the wind catch the cloth of their sails as they skimmed over the water. It was almost as if they held the wings of the cranes within their grasp.

The skies were clear after the storm of the night before and there was a brisk wind making its way along the crests of the waves.?

"Did the crane woman sew their sails?" a bright voice called from the doorway.

I looked over without surprise to see an older version of the young girl that I once regailed with stories. Gone was the high pony and brigt dress, now a slightly slimmer girl in a clean blue smock stood, but she held the same brilliant smile.

"Ahh Sora-chan" I smile at her, "so you remember my stories?"

She pouts at me.

"Grandpapa..." she whines. Oh yes, she is "too old" to be called her childhood name now. Bah! When she gets to be my age she can call herself old.

"Grandfather, are you teasing Akina again?" the boy who used to silently watch from the shadows, now a dashing young man with the tea merchant's niece on his arm appears.

"Gah you are all still too young to get your grown up names, Kage."

"Ah ah ah, grandfather, it's Chitose now. Or are you getting senile?" he teases. The young lady on his arm giggles and he smiles as he looks down at her. So soon another generation, already off to go confront the world. It seems just yesterday that Sora, now Akina, was sticking her toes under my blanket to keep warm. But how time flies.

"I got the ships. They were indeed impressive. Now all I needed to do was find the men who were capable of manning them. No small feet. It turns out that, while I had sufficient men for a land army, few of them actually knew how to sail and the majority of them held a suspicious fear of the deep water.

It took the dregs of society and an exorbitant sum to get the ships ready for sailing. Then the storm came.

It was dark and windy, not a good night for sailing. The veteran sailors, the ones I had that is, told me en masse that we would crash against the nearby reefs and that we would all drown. A good thing to tell the men who were already superstitiously afraid of the clinging hands of the water kami, who loved men to such an extent that they would pull them down into the ocean depths, only to mourn their death.

At the sailors refusal to start out, my patience finally snapped.

I leaped up onto the prow of the ship I was commanding.

"If you do not start out to sea this very minute" I swore darkly, casting my voice out so that the nearby ships could hear, "I will let the water kami take me and set a curse on all who reside on these waters as well as any of their blood."

It worked and we were soon away from the coastline. The sea was as rough as promised. We tossed and turned as the waves crested beneath us, many of the men left the contents of their stomachs in the depths of that green-blue water.

As the rain lashed us, I watched the receding shores until they were out of sight. Death, at this point had little fear for me and I could barely feel the sting of the wind. I suppose to many this made me appear brave. I simply no longer felt connected to this world. It was the feeling at the brink, that ethereal place between here and the otherworld of the kami and death. Borderlands in shades of grey. I well understood the absence of color.

Benkei stood at my shoulder, his taller frame was affected more by the shifting of the ship under his feet. He hunched his shoulders against the rain, but he remained. If his footing was not sure, his resolve made up for it.

We landed on the shores of Shikoku the next morning.

I gave the men the day to regain their strength, hidden in the surrounding forests. Many of them could barely stand after emptying their guts into the sea, and we all had to regain our land legs.

Besides, I had a plan.

I knew that the fort of Yashima was not manned fully. The Taira forces had split off on an expedition elsewhere and left their headquarters at a third of its normal strength. But I felt that a little fear in the minds of one's enemy, no matter how improportionate to oneself, was never amiss.

I had the men make fires, many fires. Easily visible in the approaching night as an apparent blanket of flame. We appeared to be millions. True we were a larger force, but now we looked unstoppable.

It worked even better than I had expected.

The Taira commander did not even make the smallest effort at mustering the fort's defenses, which could have held us off for quite a while. Instead he immediately ordered an evacuation.

They fled for the ships.

We came across the channel in a roaring stampede. Men invigorated at the chase, crying for blood. We swept down on them and slaughtered them as they ran, the burning fort silhouetting our figures against the flames.

We caught the majority of them, but a large number made it to the waiting ships and cast off to waters out of our reach.