The Floating World

by Elijah Stephens

  “The Art of Seduction from India. Buddhist monks bring interesting ideas from the mountains of their travels.”

  “So you were testing my resolve?” he sighed as he shook off the wasted energy.

  Rumiko’s eyes said more than her words in acceptance of his invasion. “Believe me, you could not have failed that test. I do have to say, though, not even a monk would have rejected that.”

  “And you blame nice men for being beasts?”

  “No,” said the Princess. “Women blame ourselves for being beasts.”

  “I’m going to sit in the corner until I grow up.”

  “What does that mean?” she giggled.

  “It means that when I’m around you, I feel like there’s so much I don’t know about the world.”

  “As if you’re a child?” She turned away to take off her loose cotton shirt and clean herself in a bowl of water.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that good or bad?” she wondered.

  “Both, because seeing something I can’t understand makes me gravitate towards the mystery.”

  “Yet a mystery by its definition cannot be known, otherwise it is just something undiscovered.” She looked over her shoulder and found his eyes. After slipping on a satin robe, she pulled off her thin pants. “I saw you carrying Yukio to bed tonight,” she said, fixing the blankets on her bundled mattress. “Why do you think you get along with her so well?”

  He looked at his feet. “Because I also know what it’s like to lose a mother.”

  Rumiko froze at his words. “You never told me that.”

  “I’ve expressed who I am.”

  “But you’ve shared so little of your past. Come here,” said the Princess, pulling back her sheets and crawling into bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Shinji sat on the floor. “There isn’t much to talk about.”

  “How did you lose your mother?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. I was very young, about Yukio’s age. My father was a metalworker for a provincial Governor of the southern region, building swords for their army.”

  “Did he construct this one?” she asked and touched the weapon on his belt.

  “Yes, this was the last one he ever made. Are you disappointed in me?”

  “No, why would I be?”

  “Because of the hierarchy,” he said. “I’m a peasant.”

  “I can see through the arrogance of civilized society, why else would I give my time to a ninja? So what happened?”

  “The Daimyo was assassinated and his nobles became ronin. After the protection of the ruling class fell apart, our province was ravaged by marauders.”

  “Is that when your mother died?”

  “Yes. My father and I escaped and wandered as homeless nomads for years, taking menial jobs to survive. Before her death, I remember that my mother was ashamed. She was superstitious and believed that the fate of the Shogun and the decline of our entire province was an omen caused by my father’s inferior skill as a swordmaker. She blamed his implements for not being able to defend our home.”

  “But you don’t remember how she died?”

  “I remember the way my father mourned her, so I don’t think it was natural. I subsisted on the fringe of society as a thief and it was just a matter of time before I fell in with a group of mercenaries connected to the Shinobi Guild.”

  She pulled the covers up to her neck. “What happened to your father?”

  “After my mother was gone, he lost his will to survive and never found work again, despite how useful his skill was. He faded away slowly and died.”

  She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “So you became an assassin?”

  “I was a thief as a child, but I only took from people who were not humble to what they had. This region is lucky to have a man like your father, there is so much corruption in other provinces.”

  “How did you eventually find your way here?”

  “I was caught up in the war a few years ago that broke out within the Shinobi Guild. Thieves fought against assassins and it was absolute anarchy, so I left.”

  “And you heard my father’s decree about hiring ninja as personal bodyguards with a stipend in exchange for their services?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled. “And then you met his beautiful daughter and fell in love.”

  “Yes,” he replied seriously.

  “It’s a good story. At least it has a happy ending.”

  “Does it?”

  “I assume that you told me this because you might die in battle.”

  “Your father gave me a place in this culture, everywhere else I was invisible.”

  “Then I guess we have a lot in common,” she noted.

  “There’s so much I wish I could remember.”

  “Of what, your past?”

  “Of my mother’s death.”

  “It’s only important that she’s gone. My mother died of illness, a fever burned her away. There’s no consolation no matter how a person ends, it’s who is left behind and how they choose to live that matters.”

  “But there may be a reason for my mother’s death and that might bring me peace.”

  “There is no peace,” said the Princess. “Even in my cloistered life, I have seen and studied enough to know that the strength of the intellect is found in conflict.”

  “You’ve not seen what I have seen.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “If I can’t grasp it, how can I describe it?”

  “Then don’t tell me with words, tell me with your lips.” Rumiko propped herself on her elbow and pulled him in for a kiss. The charge soothed the rampant decay of Shinji’s thoughts as her touch stole all concept of time. When they parted, she said, “Now what could be more peaceful than that?”

  “First thing tomorrow, I’m going to travel into the mountains. After the war, I’ll find a way to come back to you.”

  “Then you don’t have to say goodbye just yet,” Rumiko said as she lifted the covers and invited him into her bed.

  * * * * *

  The clouds reached high in the atmosphere and broke the sunrise into bright rays across the sky. Shinji and a dozen messengers left the Governor’s compound carrying scrolls to declare the intentions of Hideyoshi’s army to surrounding provinces. He had offered to protect the runners from bandits until the crossroads to the north, then he would disperse them in different directions and continue into the mountains to find a spot for solitary meditation.

  In the city center, they saw nobles getting ready for war by emptying the storehouses of leather armor and weapons for the infantry, who were citizen-soldiers conscripted for the battle. The archers were polishing their skills while groups of samurai considered strategic battle plans designed by Katsushiro and Hideyoshi. When they entered the wilderness, Onozawa noticed the tension of the messengers, but as always he felt at home.

  The enemy Shogun Yoshimizu would likely try to stop them from reaching their intended destinations, but Hideyoshi decided against sending guards because everyone was preoccupied with preparations for war. He trusted Shinji to protect them, even if he was the only member of the group who knew how to fight.

  * * * * *

  Their pace was relatively slow during the first hour of the journey, and they spoke in nervous conversation to distract themselves from danger. Whenever caravans of heavily armed men moved past them while transporting supplies to the capitol, they hushed their voices, anticipating the need to scurry off the path. They decided to stop for a quick lunch near the crossroads, before each man would travel on alone.

  Onozawa suggested that they rest briefly in the forest. They all agreed and followed him into the shade, to a giant oak tree with protruding roots. The rations they were given were meager, but for hungry travelers it was better than nothing. As they munched on dried meat and told jokes, the birds in the trees suddenly grew quiet. Shinji dropped the fresh fruit he wa
s eating and disappeared into the shrubbery.

  “Where is he going?” someone asked, listening for the sound of cracking twigs.

  They stood up to survey the area for a threat before a bowstring whipped. An arrow landed in the tree above their heads. “That was a warning to get your attention,” said the leader of a group of mercenaries, who stepped from their hiding places with bows pulled tight.

  “Now that you’ve got it, what do you want?”

  “Who is your lord?”

  The messengers looked at one another, not knowing what answer was going to keep them alive. After a few moments of deliberation, one of them said proudly, “Hideyoshi Murai.”

  The mercenaries shared the same expression of victory to have found what they were searching for. One of them let his arrow fly, but it barely left the string before a metal star split the wooden shaft. Onozawa appeared behind the bandits and ripped his katana across the leader’s back. He threw another shuriken into the nearest man’s throat and a wave of blood covered the others. The messengers felt emboldened and tackled the remaining archers to the ground, where they beat them to death with rocks and branches.

  As the last bowman turned to run, Onozawa took an eggshell from his belt and threw a fine mist of broken glass into his eyes, blinding him as he charged forward into a tree. The survivors were happy to be alive and thanked the ninja for his protection. They finished their meal and took to the road again feeling absolutely blessed. After they made it to the crossroads and parted ways, Shinji followed the foothills of the mountains and climbed swiftly towards the sky.

  The outlying boulders created huge stepping stones to the clouds, but he had to traverse a sheer cliffside with climbing claws to reach the apex. At the top, he tasted the salty air and looked over the grasslands leading to the ocean in the south. The marshlands in the west were dense with greenery, but occasionally a long-necked crane would take to the air like a graceful white phantom.

  He watched a falcon circling high, a speck on the canvas of the heavens that watched for mice that made their home on the Yamato Plains. Since he would need energy for the upcoming war, he took a sack from his belt and ate while watching the bird dive for rodents. It eventually caught a meal and flew its furry cargo into the woods, it found its home.

  Onozawa wondered if there were baby chicks to feed and closed his eyes to follow the falcon beyond his line of sight. Images of the nest containing the fuzz of the predator’s offspring came to him, with the first chick getting free from its shell and calling for its mother. When its sibling broke loose, it began to viciously peck away at its only competition.

  Like the war between Hideyoshi and Yoshimizu, the first-born murderer struck Shinji with its immediate impulse to destroy as a survival instinct. Apparently upon the moment of birth, even for an animal whose meals were brought by parents that would never allow it to starve, the baby’s first thought was to tear the life from its brother. Yoshimizu was going to battle against his sibling with a similar impulse, sacrificing his lesser nobles and calling upon mercenaries to retrieve the jade key and unlock a mystery that could never be more important than their lives. In place of fashioning an alliance that could mutually benefit the inhabitants of both provinces, he chose war.

  Onozawa originally assumed that Hideyoshi was denying the theft of the key out of stubbornness. Giving up the heirloom might have sedated his brother, but it seemed that Hideyoshi knew that the key was never intended to be an end to anything. Their father only sought to unite them as co-rulers under the collective desire to unlock the golden case, not turn them against each other in competition for the prize.

  According to the Shogun’s reaction when he retrieved the jade key, it was not the kind of relief someone would have for the return of a great treasure. He reacted more like a man who knew that war was inevitable. Although he did not instigate the tension with his brother, he had no choice but to defend his birthright against the arrogance of a sibling who would risk their populations to expand his own rule.

  Harmony sang with the insects and the stars surrounding the crescent moon moved in slow orbit around the Earth. As the final glow dipped into oblivion, he closed his eyes and let his mind wander beyond his fallible senses. Cooled by a chill up his spine, he contemplated the upcoming battle, but he hesitated to examine the tragedies and miracles that he might betray by taking them out of context. After all, if he saw his own death, his courage might wane and become a distraction to cause whatever harm he had envisioned.

  The grasslands flowed like waves in the moonlight, and before the first light of day, Shinji began his descent. Something pulled on him that wouldn’t be denied, and the harder he tried to keep the war from his thoughts, the more he fanned the flames that scorched him with impatience. The mental fragments like pictures haunted him with clarity while the sound of heavy horses pounded in the mud, but he struggled to keep his grip on the imperfections of the mountain to gauge his distance to the ground.

  With banners held aloft behind the nobles, he saw faces drawn tight by recognition of death. He realized that they were the samurai in his childhood province, who had been banished after the Daimyo was murdered. In the end, the same assassination that made them ronin turned Onozawa into a ninja.

  Knowing that the grass would soon be stained by the blood of thousands, he walked onto the green fields between the rival capitols of the Yamato Plains. The region had first been united by Hideyoshi’s father after he took the territory from a competing Shogun, whose marshlands were more fertile than the tracts in the east. Hideshi Murai had urged his people to war and won ownership of the Southland, doubling his rule in the span of a day after the dishonored enemy nobles gutted themselves in shame for their defeat.

  The Murai family prospered unlike any time in its history. Upon his deathbed, Hideshi proclaimed the shared rule of both provinces to be passed to his sons, with the intent of making his good fortune end the rivalries of their youth. Despite the fact that he had been given a greater responsibility for being the elder son, Yoshimizu felt like an outcast. The lifeblood of the Murai dynasty was found in the resources of the underdeveloped agricultural center to the west, but instead of feeling grateful for the chance to concretize his father’s dominion, he felt exiled from his home.

  After he was sent to the conquered land to rule, he committed all of his income to restore the army his father had defeated. As he financed a war machine to bring against his old province, he paid mercenaries from distant lands with wealth harvested from the fertile soil. The civil strife was about the golden case and jade key meant to stabilize their bond through collusion, but it quickly became the unpleasant torment of an unknown but relatively inconsequential mystery. The golden case could not contain anything other than the spirit of Hideshi Murai, and that would soon be spilled in an ocean of blood upon the rolling hills of the land he had conquered.

  Shinji saw an unnatural glare from the corner of his eye and his instinct measured the gore of the battlescene. Nothing but the constant wind crossed the tall grass, until he saw the shadow of an ancient soldier and thought he was being attacked. When he threw a shuriken, it passed through the ghost with a trail of smoke. The darkness moved over him and his vision went black.

  * * * * *

  He opened his eyes in the deep thicket as the Sun began to rise. The ground was vibrating with the heavy cavalry as the two armies entered opposite sides of the grasslands. Onozawa stayed low within the weeds until reaching the sand of the shoreline. He went to the water’s edge and dunked his head in the cold current to jolt his senses.

  From beneath the camouflage of waist-high grass, he looked upon the hordes of enemy troops coming from the west. Yoshimizu’s Generals settled in a line on their warhorses as their congregation of soldiers filled the field. Each samurai of upper class then rode his horse into the open and stood before the opposing army of around four thousand men to declare his exploits in battle. When
the boasting warriors finished their grand display, they returned to their ranks and conversed about how to lead their regiments with a flexible strategy.

  Hideyoshi’s army collected on the northern side of the grasslands, and since Shinji had no way to get to them, he decided to ambush the enemy nobles waiting behind their troops. They obviously wanted to prove themselves, but their infantry was filled with Yoshimizu’s mercenaries. They were hired without loyalty to dignify their paychecks, so obviously they would be sent into battle first.

  When Hideyoshi’s proud samurai began their charge on horseback, the enemy archers lobbed a volley of arrows into the sky. They spurred into a gallop and shot ahead of the projectiles, meeting the mercenaries with suicidal bravery. Onozawa exploited the distraction of the Yoshimizu’s Generals, who were watching their infantry being cut to pieces. He climbed the dirtmound at the edge of the beach and tossed a shuriken into the meaty hindquarters of a horse. It bucked violently and threw the rider to the ground, where he was stifled under the weight of his armor until Shinji slashed his throat with a knife.

  When another noble saw this happen and rode towards him in a full sprint, he dodged and left his sword stuck upright. The heavy beast tripped on his protruding katana and crushed the samurai underneath. Onozawa retrieved his weapon and stole the dead man’s helmet, then he grabbed the reigns of the shaken animal with the intent of infiltrating the enemy while dressed as one of their own.

  The sound of war was deafening, with blunt screams and ripped flesh as he rode west along the beach. The western Generals realized that Hideyoshi’s cavalry kept their civilian infantry behind, and sent orders for their riders to circle the battlefield to attack the vulnerable conscripts. Onozawa launched himself forward with his blade already swinging and the nearest noble barely reached for his weapon before he was decapitated. As four of the men in the cavalry broke from their charge to chase the assassin, Shinji jumped down into the sand and waited at the water’s edge.

  The wind dropped, leaving a stagnate warmth to the lapping of the ocean waves as the call of seabirds high above signaled their intent to salvage a meal from the dead. Their trotting animals kicked clumps into the air, then the samurai dismounted and inched towards him carefully. While stepping into the shallow tide, Onozawa tossed his stolen helmet at them and broke a hollowed eggshell with it. He got one with a dose of chili powder, forcing him to his knees where he splashed saltwater in his eyes.