Chapter III: The origins of strength

Kenzo had already finished a bottle of sake and was ready to order another. He liked the quiet that this tavern offered. Of course, this was due to being the only customer here. All others left the moment they saw him enter, the few that came later didn’t even sat down, just looked and left.

A joyous voice shattered his dreams for solitude. “You were amazing”

Kenzo looked up with disbelief only to see the young boy that was looking at him during the duel. He looked straight to his eyes. They were like blazing bonfires rising in the night sky. Those fires, he felt as he knew them, they were similar to those he had prior to any fight…

“I killed Ryu, aren’t you upset?” He calmly asked.

“It was a fight, people die. You said it before didn’t you? Kill or die…” The boy seemed to ask for a confirmation. “Everybody here calls me just Hiro. They don’t even use my full name… They are weak; it reminds them of my parents. But I like my full name. Hiroshima. It gives me purpose…”

“Very well Hiro, but…” Kenzo purposely ignored the comment. He realized that the boy just needed an excuse to tell his tale. And he wasn’t in a listening mood. “…don’t you see you’re bothering me?”

Hiro stood upright. And then he bowed down. “Please Kenzo-sama, teach me how to fight. Ryu-sama was an excellent samurai but still, you defeated him. I need to learn how to fight and he wasn’t going to teach me. I need to Kenzo-sama…please…” His mumbled words came rapidly out of his mouth, like a stream.

Kenzo felt his anger rising. So Ryu had denied teaching yet another person. He felt like he was reliving his childhood. When he looked to the tear-filled eyes of Hiro, he realized that, once again, those eyes were like his. But he knew he wasn’t a teacher, he never hoped to be one. At least, he owned to this child an apology. Ryu never bothered to tell him why he had cut him off his dreams, he didn’t want to become like him.

“Why do you want to learn how to fight Hiro-kun?”

“I want to learn to kill, Kenzo-sama, not to fight. I want to avenge my family, that now lies dead. I want to learn to destroy those soldiers that took away my life.”

Kenzo felt hopeless. Kill…avenge…took away my life… It was a familiar tale, his tale. The boy struggled to remember his family name so as to remember his purpose. Revenge. So similar lives…

“I cannot teach you. But never forget your purpose little one. I was like you once, at your age, I was denied everything. But I struggled, and I persisted, and in the end, I banished my demons. I made myself what I am now, and it is your duty to make yourself too. This is the only lesson I can give you. All that I learned in my life is this. Here’s my story, grab what you want of it, and learn by yourself. No one is going to give you anything free; you must claim it with iron will and steel gleaming in your hands.

Ryu was a good swordsman, revered throughout the lands of his lord, in those lands I lived. When I was really young I saw him fighting and since then I always wanted to become like him. Disasters pillaged our village, and many perished, friends and family, enemies and trusted ones. It was then that I joined the military under the lord. A good life if I managed to become a soldier, a life free from the ravages of weather, a steady shelter above my head. I fought and learned, and when I was about your age every one talked of my might. Even Ryu, then the leading samurai of my lord, took notice of me. I fought for only one reason then. I wanted everyone to know that I would kill whatever came in the way of my happiness. And like this I fought Ryu. But I was only a kid. Ryu defeated me and for some reason banished me from the military. He stripped away the weapons that my lord has given me and sent me away with only little money on my pockets. Since that day, the day that my dreams shattered, I vowed to take revenge on him. To humiliate him for the life that he thrown me into. For it was a hellish life. I used to work for whoever gave me a plate of food and some shelter. Some of them were good. Some others are now dead. Because it was only after five or six years that I managed to acquire my first knife, my very first piece of weaponry. And then I started to take revenge on whoever had done me wrong. Some were stabbed in their sleep. Some others were poisoned. Some few I beat them fairly. One by one, all who had harm me perished. Of course the military took action. I had to live for most of the years as a fugitive, as a thug destined to be loathed. And when I grew up, when my strength was in its peak I went to face Ryu.”

Kenzo looked at the eyes of the boy. They were shooting fire.

“How did your family became outlaws Hiro?”

Hiro was startled. “Outlaws? My parents were never thugs. My parents were honest farmers. Simple people who had enough of them soldiers pillaging they work. They were alone when they demanded from the soldiers to leave. No one of those pathetic people that surround me now offered any assistance when the soldiers killed them. Those coward villagers are those who destroy the village, not the soldiers.”

“What soldiers?” Kenzo had never bothered to check anything for this village apart the fact that Ryu now lived here. As he inquired more about them, he felt like he should have done so before.

“We are in the border of two feuds here Kenzo-sama. Both Osamu and Sadao, the rulers of those feuds, want the wheat that grows here. Each and every year, their soldiers come here, pillaging the village and demanding that we give to them grain. They are too cowardly to face each other in battle, and in the end it is us who pay. People died, and farmers were tortured so that we will be intimidated to give the most to a lord or another. I prefer, a hundred times more, the thugs that used to descend from the mountains, before the soldiers drove them away. At least they were decent enough to call themselves thieves. But then Ryu-sama came. And he battled the soldiers. But when I was joyous that he would kill them, forever terminating the threat that they posed, he let them live. Those years that Ryu was here, he fought them and protected us. He never allowed a farmer to be hit, but he never killed the soldiers either. And as if he wasn’t there, we continued to give them our grain, less than what we used to, but plenty enough already. I bet that now that he is gone, their old anger would be even worse…”

So this is why the village hated him so much Kenzo realized. He had taken away their champion. A weak champion, but the only one that the village got nevertheless…

“Ryu was always weak… You know, Hiro-kun, Ryu was unable most of the times to kill. That was his undoing. In the battle between us he could have killed me, but he hesitated. In the battle with those soldiers you say, he probably pitied them, and now they will burst upon you. Even the reason he was a ronin was this weakness of his to kill whom he should. Let Ryu’s foolishness teach you.

When an opposing lord tried to kill Akihiko-sama, our lord, Ryu led the military against him. It was a glorious battle, I heard, and Ryu once again was displaying his sword and commanding abilities. But in the end, when Ryu faced the lord, he refused to kill him. He was an old man, depraved from all his army and all his money, the land he owned was passed down to Akihiko-sama and Ryu deemed his powerless, too weak to fight…

But that lord had friends, friends that loaned him enough to start over again. His hatred for Akihiko was now unending. And in end, Akihiko was murdered. All of his samurai died. They committed the most honorable act they could, to honor their dead lord, seppuku, hara-kiri. But Ryu couldn’t follow them. He knew that it was his coward act of leaving his opponent alive that cost his lord’s life. He wouldn’t be allowed to perform such an act, not when he had dishonored his vows. And all the lords now knew his weakness. No one would accept such a frail samurai in his service. And thus he left, to live the petty life of a ronin.

Compare my life young one with Ryu’s and learn. If you are too weak to kill then you die.”

Kenzo looked straight to the face of the young one. Yes, he would grow nicely; he would become a fierce warrior like himself. He searched though his few belongings.

“Here” Kenzo said, presenting to Hiro a flimsy, badly made, tanto. “This was my first weapon. It is useless to me now, I have fulfilled my purpose. It is yours.” Suddenly his calm voice became like thunder. “Now get lost of my sight, I want to rest.”

The boy grabbed the knife. Kenzo smiled to himself as he saw him darting out. A devilish grin was engraved in Hiro’s face.

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