Preview

Every village has its myths and legends, and our little farmer village in the war-torn feudal Japan was not an exception.

“…flashed in the painter’s eyes, a scary image, of the mountain god descending to them to crush them for some incomprehensible reason. And a mountain god he may have been, rage was emerging out of him, soaked clothes were whipping around like a hurricane was hitting them, and underneath them, a katana flashed for just an instant, like a lighting reflecting the light of the bright sun…”

“…His aged fingers ached again as the man passed next to him, the remembrance of a storm that was brewing. And panicky he made a quick prayer to the mountain gods to not rain destruction on their small village….”

“…He felt a little feeling of success. Regardless of today’s outcome, he would leave his mark here; on the innocent eyes of the old man he would leave a minor legend, a rock to disturb the calm surface of the still pond that was this place.”

They said that the blood that was spilled on their plains was what made the rice fields so rich, that their dead ancestors were guarding their crops against all plights. And now is that time of the year, a time that people have forgotten in their recent peaceful period, the time for blood to run as if to keep watering their fields.

Will the blood protect the rice? Or will it pollute it and forever condemn the small village to non-existence. Will that blood be of their enemies or of their children? Above all… would that matter?

But when the masks fall, when the show ends, all that is left are men. Simple men with hopes and fears, ambitions and rivals. Men forced to make decisions that will shape them or break them. The edge of a katana is sharp beyond belief and the people who dance in its wild tempo are also the men who decide for more than theirselves. They say that a wound caused by such a blade is never healed. But is the sword the one that cuts or its wielder?

“…His clothes were torn, and wet, and filthy. But in the end it didn’t matter…”

“…He had been called a thug in the past, a brute, a bloodthirsty beast sent from the heavens to punish them, some even thought of him as a demon sent to torment them…”

“…He was a man robbed of his destiny, a struggler who had learned how to survive in the harsh mountains and the blazing wastes, someone that knew that…”

What one is willing to sacrifice?

Can a man fight the ghosts of his past?

Would he realize what needs to be done so as to undo what he had caused?

Can he, in the end, defeat himself and his creations?

Bushido and villainy, two paths completely different, but also two paths that almost always end in the same fate. Can someone change this fate? Are they so different? Can one achieve peace through one or the other?…

Chapter I