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...and other thoughts written by an outcast...
. . .
They march again, moving north back to the capital. Those who defy them are killed on their knees. Forgiveness is a commodity no one can afford anymore.
The new Shogun has risen, and like all others who came before him, he is the hammer in the hand of the Empire. The Emperor is not as kind and benevolent as they say, for if he was, this war would soon end.
Corpses do not make for good blankets.
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Previous:
Orion Kross
Current:
Rin Kyo
The pen for the pigs reeks worse than the daimyo. I dare not speak my mind again, else I suffer the stern touch of the hakamori tree.
It is so named for how it once overlooked the battlefield. I suppose it is, in a way, a place of interment for the dead. Now, its branches and planks are repurposed to their lowliest station: weapons and tools of punishment.
Never have I dug so many holes at one time.
The flowers on her grave have withered again. I await the chance to slip away to the nearby forest so that I may collect the white lilies that grow there, and replenish the sad dirt patch left behind.
I overheard the daimyo talking about a deal. A man from the Ichiyama wishes to purchase someone, but I do not know who. There are many of us here, eta and slave alike.
Is it me they were discussing?
"Monster."
"Beast!'
"Cursed!"
"Forsaken by the gods!"
"Spawn of evil!"
"Yokai!"
"YOKAI!"
"YOKAI!"
"Kill it!"
"SLAY IT!"
...
"Leave her alone."
White.
I have seen the cherryblossoms before. The gathering of vivid pink splotches of life freckling the ground in the botanical gardens of the daimyo's estate. I was fortunate enough to lay eyes on it but once.
This one, though...
It's white.
Blindingly white, like the silks of angels. Master says that it has stood the test of time for centuries.
The blankets of snow are hauntingly serene.
"Do you remember?"
The repose of the misty forest rose up around me. The lanterns, alight in the gloom, seemed to float weightlessly in the dark.
"No."
I could not pry myself from those eyes of bile yellow. Within them were many things. Many emotions, many ages, many torments.
Within them was a piece of myself.
"I was there."
I remember it now.
The waves crashed against the hull of the ship. Its wooden structure creaked as the wind pressed it firmly against the sun.
"You cannot undo what has been written."
"If I were to undo it, I would be nothing. Sometimes... the idea, it appeals. To be a normal person, with a normal life. To be... Human. Not this thing that I am; this thing I have resolved to be; this thing I have accepted; this thing I have embraced."
"Would that change who you might become? Would the blade not fall to your hands regardless?"
Perhaps the wisewoman was right. Perhaps fate is pre-ordained after all. Written in the lining of the womb.
"To watch the sins of the world, and not want to take up the blade myself? It would have been hard to resist... but I have fallen past that, now. Now, I am the greatest sinner of all."
"A sinner. A saint. It matters little. What has been written, cannot be undone. The road before us we must walk, 'till its very end."
I truly am a lost soul.
"Move with the flow.
Swing with your center, not with your arm.
Let the wind push you.
Be like the stone, smoothed by nature's calculated imperfection.
Be like the mountain, standing tall."
"Why was the castle on fire, Inashi?"
How vibrantly I remember the blaze of orange against the still fog of Deepwinter, the snowflakes slowly dancing to the ground like feathers on the wind.
"Who was in there?"
Stop. I did not want to be here again.
Not now, not here.
"Where now does that wailing come from?"
Monster.
Demon.
Yokai.
"Do you remember?"
Stop.
"I remember."
Leave me alone.
It was too late that I realized it was not only snow, but also ash.
"This was what I wanted," I thought.
"This was what I trained to do," I assured myself.
"This is who I am," like a needle through the rib cage and my aorta.
"You deny what I have made you?"
A hissing voice echoed in my head. The Progenitor was not unkind, but neither was it the loving parent it wanted me to believe it was.
"You deny the power I have gifted you?"
I am more than an animal.
I will be more than a monster.
This will never happen again.