Chapter 7

Placing a stone over the crypt that he had just dug into the ground, Takeda Katsuyori Yoshinobu Jin let his trembling hands fall to his side. As he sat in the wet, rain soaked earth next to the small grave he knew what he wanted to do, but could he?

A tear dropped from his eye and onto the stone before he raised his head towards the sky.

"Why?" he cried to the sun as it peeked its way out from behind the clouds. "Why me?" he cried again, but he got no answer.

"Buddha must really hate me right now," he thought as he turned his body around and looked out over the valley in front of him.

He had come to the forest to find a place for his family's grave. He sighed and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his indigo blue kimono. There before him stood Enkiri Dera Temple. It had been three years since he had seen that temple. Three long years of his life waiting for his lover Shino and he felt it was his fault for what had happened to her. He had sent Shino to the temple to protect her.

Becoming angry, he closed his eyes and thought back on how Shino had come into his life. He had met her on a bridge, in the rain, as she stood there with a red umbrella. As he passed he had sensed that Shino was considering suicide. Stopping, he had told her that the water was not as deep as it seemed, and if she was considering ending her life, that maybe another stream would be better. Shino had been unable to convince him that that was not why she was there, as he walked away from her. After all it wasn't his business what other people did with their lives. As he was walking he sensed Shino following him and stopped under an outside food stand's awning for her.

"Please hurry," he told her as he looked in her direction noticing that she had stopped too. "If you wish to walk with me you may do so."

Shino had quickened her step and hurried to his side. They had set out into the rain once more with Shino holding her red umbrella over them both. As they walked Shino had talked to him. He had found out that she was married to the owner of the town's dry-goods store and that her husband had a gambling problem.

He had told her about his life living in the dojo with his master Mariya Enshirou, where he was praised as a prodigy and a genius by Enshirou, but now he had left the school and found himself wandering with nowhere to go.

As the sun rose the next day, Shino and him were still talking as they sat under a tree to keep out of the night's rain. Shino had stood up and bid him farewell, as she set out into the light mist of day, without her umbrella. As she walked away she told him that the time she spent with him would serve as a good memory.

"Memory?" he had questioned her.

Shino had stopped walking. Her head along with her shoulders had fallen forward, as if she wanted to cry, before she stood straighter and spoke to him with her back facing him.

"Yes memories," Shino said in a disdainful voice. "You see my husband's gambling debts has dried up our wealth and I'm the only collateral we have. I've been sold."

He remembered watching as Shino turned her face towards him as tears fell from her eyes.

"I start working today in the brothel," she choked out as she ran away from him.

He had sat there shocked. No wonder Shino had wanted to drown herself. Her husband had sold his wife to cover his gambling debts. He didn't like it and wished that he could do something for her. Picking up her umbrella, that she had left, he went in search of her.

Shino was two years older than him and he knew that she didn't want to be 'man-handled' during love making. She had told him that her husband would force himself upon her whether she liked it or not. He had become angry at Shino's husband as he searched the town for her that day. He didn't like the way that her husband had treated her. And then to sell Shino to a brothel, where men could do as they pleased with her body, only set his hatred of the man deeper into his heart.

He had found her that night as it started to rain once again. She looked different now with a pink and white kimono open to show off the top of her breasts. Men were gathered around the open barred window, talking to the girls, when he had approached and tried to offer her the umbrella back.

"Oh it's you," Shino had cried out surprised that he had found her. "I'm sorry but I won't be needing that anymore," she said as she pushed the umbrella back out to him between the bars of the window. "If you wish you can keep it. Look at you," she said placing her left hand onto his right cheek, "you're soaked."

Shino tenderly removed a lock of his dark brown hair, that had fallen in his face, before she had been called by the brothel's owner. She had a customer to attend to.

"I'm coming," Shino sadly said as she withdrew her hand from his face and turned to leave.

"Please," he had called out to her, removing his hat to stand in the pouring rain. "Please before you go, can you tell me your name?"

"I'm called Shino, but I won't be needing that name anymore," she said as she turned her face to him, a sad smile upon her lips. "Tell me your name please?"

"I go by Jin," he replied, wishing he could get her out of that horrible place.

"Jin," Shino said turning and walking away to her duties, "thanks for the memories."

Jin opened his eyes and looked once again at the temple in the valley. After Shino had left he had found part-time work. He needed to see Shino again, but he couldn't get inside without money. He had found that out the hard way. The next night when he had come back to try and talk to her, the brothel's owner removed Shino away from his presence. The third night he had noticed that she had been hurt. She had tugged at her kimono's sleeve, to bring it down past her bruised left wrist, telling him it was nothing. The brothel's owner noticed him that night and had sent his guards outside to deal with him. Jin had stood his ground facing the guards with his right hand on his katana. Out of the corner of his eye Jin noticed that Shino was being dragged away by a sumo wrestler. Jin had only one thing in mind and that was to kill anyone who got in his way.

Shino had seen the look in his eyes as she was dragged by her eri, the back of her kimono's collar, towards the door.

"Jin No!" Shino shouted before the sumo wrestler grabbed her already bruised left wrist and shoved her towards her room upstairs.

Jin had found that he couldn't disobey her pleas that night and had removed his hand from his katana as the brothel's guards attacked him. Normally he was lightning fast with his swords and no one could beat him, but tonight he let the brothel's guards inflict him harm as he lay on the wet, muddy ground and endured it all. Shino was probably going through worse with the sumo wrestler right now he told himself.

Shino, only twenty-two years of age at the time and a tiny woman, that only came up to his chest, was now crying from the second floor of the brothel. Jin could hear her pleas to stop it and he couldn't do anything about it. That's when he had made up his mind that Shino had to leave the brothel and soon. He had slowly picked himself up and walked back to the place where he worked, to find the owner and his wife up late that night.

"Takeda Jin what happened?" Hachi asked as she, and her husband Gorou, helped him out of the rain and inside the house that night.

Normally Jin slept in the horse stable out back, not wanting to bother the nice old couple that had given him work two days ago. As Jin tried to go back outside in the rain he had been stopped by Gorou.

"Where do you think you are going?" Gorou asked.

"To the stable," Jin replied as he tried to move around Gorou only to find his way blocked once again.

"Not like that," Gorou said pointing his finger at Jin's injuries. "Tonight you sleep in the kitchen by the fire."

Jin had humbly let Hachi and Gorou attend his wounds as he told them how he had gotten them.

"I'm surprised that you didn't cut them down with your swords," Gorou told Jin as he carefully helped him out of his black split hakama's.

"Shino asked me not to," Jin replied removing his kimono.

"Good thing you didn't," Hachi stated as she wiped Jin's legs down with a cloth and hot water. She was kneeling on the floor in front of Jin as he sat in a kitchen chair by the fire.

"Why?" Jin asked tossing his kimono onto the table nearby.

"Bantou would have had his way with Shino again if you did," Hachi stated as she reached for Jin's mud covered arm.

Jin knew that Bantou was the owner of the brothel, but how would Hachi know if he had laid with Shino or not? It was Gorou who asked the question in the end.

"Hachi," Gorou said holding Jin's white gi in his hands, "how do you know?"

"Risa told me," Hachi replied as she rung the dirty cloth out in the bucket of water at her feet. "She's Bantou's wife and she told me that he forced himself upon Shino the night before. Risa had to treat Shino's wrist the next day. Shino told Risa what had happen and Risa isn't happy about it."

Hachi carefully washed Jin's chest as she continued her story.

"Risa wants a divorce but she can't get one. Only Bantou can give her one," she said as she hit a tender spot and Jin wrenched.

"Sorry Takeda Jin," Hachi said as she dropped the cloth into the bucket of water and placed her right hand onto Jin's left arm.

"I wish there was a way to help Shino," Jin said, "I don't want to see her hurt. It should be her husband's responsibility to settle his own debts, not hers."

"Maybe many years from now," Gorou said as he collected Jin's kimono from the table. "But nowadays there isn't anyway for a woman to divorce her husband."

"Yes there is," Hachi stated removing her hand from Jin's arm and standing up to face her husband.

Gorou had been carrying Jin's clothes towards the back of the kitchen. Now he stopped and turned towards his wife. He knew what she was hinting at, but it would be dangerous for Jin to even attempt it.

Jin looked into both Hachi's and Gorou's faces. They knew something that he didn't.

"What?" Jin asked.

"It will be dangerous," Gorou replied looking straight at Jin.

"Worse than the shogunate?" Jin questioned.

"Much," Hachi replied and told Jin about what she knew.

Jin now laid down, on his back, next to the grave and placed his hands under his head. He looked up into the sky and watched as the sun climbed higher and higher. The plan had been dangerous but there had been no other way to free Shino. Enkiri Dera Temple had been the answer.

During the Edo period of Japan, in which Jin lived, only men had the right of claim for divorce. The only way a woman was able to get a divorce was if they went to Enkiri Dera Temple and asked for sanctuary, Hachi had told him. There they entered into three years of training where even the men in power were not allowed to enter. After the three years the woman was officially divorced from her husband.

Hachi, Gorou, and Jin had formed the plan and set it in motion the next day. Sending Hachi to her family on the only horse that the family owned, to keep her safe, Gorou and Jin had collected anything of value and sold it all. At the end of the day they had gotten ten ryo for everything. Gorou had exchanged the small, round holed coins for a large gold plated coin called a oban.

"It will be most impressive if you hold it up like this," Gorou said as he showed Jin the gold coin held in his right hand with only half of it showing. "Bantou can't refuse Shino to you then."

"I wish I could take my daisho's with me," Jin said as he took the oban and placed it deep inside his left kimono's sleeve.

"Bantou would only take them at the door," Gorou answered him as he picked up Jin's two swords from the kitchen table. "House rules you know."

"Actually," Jin said a little embarrassed, "I don't know."

"You mean to tell me you've never bought a woman before?" Gorou asked.

"No," Jin replied, "I never found the need for one, but now it appears after twenty years I do."

"Well," Gorou said placing a hand on Jin's back, "I had better teach you what to do so that you can get in the door. Once you reach Shino's room you know what to do. I'll be waiting for you in the alleyway with your daisho's."

Jin smiled at the sun now high in the sky. It was noon as he remembered back to his first time with Shino.

Jin had followed Gorou's advice and Bantou had all but given him the shirt off his back to have his way with Shino. She had been surprised upon seeing him at first, until she realized why he must be there. Turning her back to him she slowly untied her obi and let it fall to the ground. Jin stood still, not realizing what she was doing, until she took her kimono from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor, revealing her beautiful naked body.

Mesmerized Jin stood watching her. How he wanted her just then, but resisted the urge as he walked towards her slowly.

"Please be gentle," Shino pleaded, her face to the floor.

Jin slowly picked up her kimono from the floor and covered her naked body with it, turning her around as he did so. Taking her face into his right hand, he raised her head up to face him.

"I'll always be gentle with you Shino," Jin told her before releasing her face and drawing her trembling body into his.

Jin had told Shino of the plan they had made, as she tied her obi once again around her waist. She had seemed relieved to hear this from him and he asked why.

"Because," Shino stated, "I no longer bleed."

Jin nodded his head. Even though he had never known a woman he did know what happened to them. His master Mariya Enshirou had explained it to him when he was twelve.

"There is a period of five to six days when a female will be fertile enough to conceive," Enshirou had told him.

Jin knew that if Shino was to lie with anyone in that timeframe there was a good chance that she would conceive and bear a child. "I won't let that happen to her," he said to himself as he took Shino's hands in his own.

"I'll protect you," Jin told her instead while they waited for midnight.

But waiting for midnight was when Jin had learned how to 'please' a woman. He hadn't wanted to do anything beyond saving her life, but as they sat and talked Shino had taken the initiative and had kissed him on his lips. Returning the kiss they had soon found themselves in passionate love making.

"I love you Shino," Jin replied as they lay in each other arms.

"I love you Jin," Shino replied as she snuggled up against his chest. "Thank you."

"For what?" Jin asked kissing the top of her head.

"For being gentle," she replied.

Jin blinked away the tears that were now forming in his eyes and rolled onto his right side. He placed his left hand onto the stone covering the crypt next to him. It was just so unfair. He had saved Shino that night but now she wasn't by his side.

The pair had ripped and tied the bed sheets together to form a rope. Jin had tied it to the window frame of Shino's room and had gone down first in case there was any trouble. As Shino climbed over the window's sill and was attempting to climb down to him, Jin heard her scream. Bantou had come to tell Jin that his time with Shino was up an hour ago. As Shino faked love making noises, Jin had asked for an extension. Bantou had given him an extra hour, like Gorou knew he would by showing him the oban, but now that time was up. Bantou was reaching out the window to try and grab Shino and Jin knew that he would eventually catch her and pull her back inside.

"Let go!" Jin shouted up to her.

Shino had looked down at her lover. She knew that she could trust him. He had 'pleased' her in a way that even her husband had not and had been gentle in doing so. Trusting him to catch her, Shino released her hold on the rope.

Jim remembered catching Shino's falling body and carrying her to where Gorou was waiting for him.

"Thank you," Jin said, as he placed Shino on the ground and took his daisho's from Gorou.

"'Til we meet again," Gorou said, placing his pack over his right shoulder and rounding the corner, disappearing into the night.

Jin and Shino had made it to the edge of town when Bantou's guards had caught up with them. Placing Shino behind him, Jin had battled with the two guards but they were no match for his swordsmanship. In the end they lay dead at his feet as he placed his katana back into its scabbard on his left side.

"Hurry!" he told Shino, as he took her hand with his blood stained right one and stepped over the dead men's bodies.

Shino's face had been white with fright when she saw Jin kill the two guards. He had protected her and he was a force to be respected she knew.

A short time later the pair stood on the shore of a lake, with Enkiri Dera Temple on the other side. Jin helped Shino into the boat that Gorou and him had placed there earlier that day. He was going to take her across the lake, but only Shino could 'run-into' the temple. As Jin was about to step into the boat, another three guards came up behind them. In one swift move Jin pushed Shino's boat out into the lake, dropped the pole he had used, and drew his katana out cutting off the nearest man's arm with a powerful blow.

"Jin!" Shino had called as she drifted away from the shore.

Jin had heard her cry, but he didn't let his guard down as he confronted the other two guards and made short work of them. Turning his head behind him to make sure that Shino was safe he couldn't see the boat. All he heard was her voice crying out to him through the fog.

"Thank you."

Now here it was three years later and he had returned. Returned in hopes that Shino would be his wife. He had lived thinking about no one else and loved her more and more as each day passed. He couldn't get the vision of her standing there in the boat drifting away from him out of his head. He loved her dearly and wanted to protect her at all costs.

Jin had approached Enkiri Dera Temple three days ago to find that Shino was sick. Japan's contact with Europe had brought not only unique goods into their isolated island but foreign 'demons' as well. Shino had what the Japanese referred to as hososhin.

The nuns had allowed Jin inside to see his lover, prostrate on her bed with a high fever, headache, and muscle pain. Next to Shino was a small child of about two years of age in a similar position. Others in the temple had been affected as well so the nuns had left Shino in Jin's care.

Jin had set his swords aside to care for Shino and he did the only thing that he remembered from his childhood; that was the Red Treatment. His master had used it on him, a year after he had come to the dojo, when he had fallen sick. Jin hung a red cloth around the bed of Shino and the small child, offered them flowers, and burned incense in order to please the demon god. But instead of getting better, as Jin had done, Shino and the child had only gotten worse. Then yesterday, in the morning, Shino had opened her eyes to see Jin setting a red doll next to the child.

"Jin," she weakly called to him not trusting her eyes.

"Shino!" Jin called out turning to her and taking her lesion covered hand into his.

"You came back?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Shino," Jin said as he smoothed her damp hair away from her face, "it's been three years. You're free now. I've come to take you home."

"Home?"

"Yes," Jin replied smiling, "I've come to ask you to marry me. I love you. I will be gentle to you and protect you at all costs."

"I love you too, Jin."

Jin smiled bigger and then told Shino that he had thought of no one else for three years.

"Shino, I want you to bear me children."

"But I have Jin," Shino said as she closed her eyes and painfully moved her head to her right.

"What do you mean Shino?" Jin asked confused.

How could Shino have born him any children, they weren't even married yet.

"Haven't the nuns told you?" Shino asked as she opened her eyes to look upon the small child next to her.

"No."

"This is your daughter Jin," Shino said smiling weakly at the child. "She was born nine months after I entered the temple. You were my last. Her name is Sanjo after your great-grandmother that you told me about. Love her as I do," Shino said weakly before closing her eyes for the last time.

Jin reverently stroked the stone covering the crypt where the remains of his lover and his daughter lie. He couldn't bear to be apart from them. It was his fault that they both were dead. Sanjo had lived only an hour after her mother had died. He had sent Shino to the temple to be safe, but they had both died. Jin couldn't go on living alone and there was only one way to be with the ones he loved.

Sitting up Jin turned to face the small crypt and removed his wakizashi from its scabbard. Jin pulled his knees up under him. Knowing what he had to do he pulled open his blue kimono with his left hand. He was the last samurai of the Takeda clan and he intended to perform the ritual of seppuku. Jin was loyal to the bushido honor code as he raised the wakizashi into the air.

"Buddha forgive me," Jin cried as he went to plunge the sword into his abdomen.

"STOP!" a voice yelled at him.

Jin stilled his hand and looked behind him. A woman was standing behind him. Slowly lowering the sword in his hand, he turned his body to face the celestial Buddha. She wore her brown hair loose, down past her shoulders, instead of up on her head. The celestial Buddha had on a white kimono with the right side crossed over the left. As Jin looked closer he swore that the kimono was the one that he had put Shino in and then placed her body in a casket.

During life one would cross the front of the kimono with the left side over the right but in death, when the corpse was clothed in the traditional kimono, it was crossed right over left. Jin had done this for his lover Shino and had placed white sandals on her feet. He had then placed six coins inside the casket for her crossing of the 'River of Three Crossings'. Placing Sanjo into her mother's arms, Jin had stood and watched for an hour and a half as they cremated the bodies together.

Being her only relative, Jin had been allowed to pick the bones of his beloved out of the ashes, transferring them into an urn using large chopsticks. Carefully Jin had picked up the bones of the feet first and placed them into the urn. The bones of the head were last. This was to ensure that the deceased was not upside down inside the urn.

Jin looked closer and dropped his wakizashi to the ground. It was Shino standing before him. He sat there, not knowing what to say or do, as a wind came up suddenly and started blowing around him. Looking beyond Shino, he saw a round glimmering picture of another place. Jin saw that it was night and there was someone standing there looking at him. A young girl that had on strange clothes. A purple kimono that was opened, revealing her breasts that were tied up with a black and white cloth. She had on what looked to be light brown split hakama's of some kind.

"Protect her," Shino said to him.

"Why?" Jin questioned Shino as he slowly got to his feet.

"Because Buddha has given you another chance," Shino said, as she took a step backwards so that Jin could see the young girl clearly.

She reminded him of Sanjo, only older, and Jin hesitantly took a step towards her.

"Don't be afraid Jin," Shino said as she faded from his view, "Protect her, love her, like you did for me."

The young girl had turned to look to her left before she turned to face him again. A beautiful thin girl with slightly wavy, light brown hair, with black tips, that hung loose to her shoulders, and a heart shaped face. Jin smiled at her and held out his hand. The young girl took it and Jin squeezed her hand tightly. She wasn't a dream. She was real and as she stepped through the round picture, she fell into his arms.

The place where she had come from vanished as she wrapped her arms weakly around his neck. Jin could see that she was severely burned on her face, arms, and chest and he knew that she needed help.

"Hold on," Jin told her as he carefully reached down and picked up his wakizashi and placed it back into his scabbard on his left side.

The young girl muttered something that he didn't understand. It wasn't Japanese, he knew, as he placed his left hand under her legs and lifted her up to his chest. The only place to go for help was the temple and Jin carefully walked down the hill.

The young girl muttered something else. It sounded like 'Nokomis' but he didn't understand the language. She sounded like the foreigners that came from the European ships, and Jin wondered if she had strayed too far inland and had become lost.

"I'll protect you," Jin said as he walked towards the temple and help for his new charge that Shino had placed him responsible for.