The Floating World Page 9

  “You helped me keep my innocence from those ronin,” she said. “So if you have the honor, we make a great team.”

  He nodded. “I’m just a ninja.”

  “So what, I’m just a girl!” she said loud enough for the samurai to hear.

  “No,” he smiled. “You’re a Lotus.”

  She held the origami dragon that was eating its own tail. “This is delicate, I’m not delicate.”

  “I didn’t say that you were delicate, I said that you were beautiful. Do you think it’s easy to be beautiful and innocent?”

  “It is if you live like a monk, like my sister,” she said. “Do you think she’s okay?”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Are you going to leave me now?” she asked him.

  “Not for long.”

  “So you’re coming back?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you have time for one more thing.” She grabbed his hand and took him to her room. “Wait here,” she said before going in and retrieving her birdcage. “It’s wrong for me to keep her trapped, she belongs in the open.”

  “There are falcons in the area,” he warned. “She could be in danger.”

  “That doesn’t matter, she needs to fly.” Yukio opened the cage and the small bird hopped out. It took to the air and disappeared over the rooftops. “She’ll be back, she knows who feeds her.” She declared in a mock-regal voice, “You can go now, I don’t need you anymore.”

  “I’ll be back soon, Lotus,” he promised her.

  “Prove it,” she replied. “And tell my sister that I miss her, okay?”

  * * * * *

  Shinji passed the bronze gates of the Governor’s compound and saw the nobles riding into town, with Katsushiro leading a convoy of injured soldiers near death from terrible wounds. “Send out messengers and declare the Southland reunited,” he told the General.

  “Not everyone will believe our boasting. The west will be seen as a capitol in ruins.”

  “Not everyone has to believe it, only the other Shoguns. I’ll journey soon to find ninja who can hold off bandits until we’re strong again.”

  Katsushiro smiled. “We? You want a place in my army?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Do you think we can maintain this lie?” Satsuma asked, nodding to the peasants who were helping the incapacitated warriors.

  “It doesn’t have to be forever. If they find out eventually, they will know what they can accomplish without a Daimyo. Hopefully they can understand that their freedom is their living governor.”

  “What about Hideyoshi’s daughters?”

  “I’m going to check on Rumiko at the healer’s river. I pray she’s doing well.”

  “And what about Yukio, can she handle this?”

  “We’ll see. I think it’s clear that she won’t be relegated to the compound, though.”

  “You know her that well?” Katsushiro asked with respect.

  “It isn’t difficult to see. She’s strong and restless, that combination of traits sends people out into the world to find a type of comfort not found at home. She needs excitement to stir her blood. Stability to her is stagnation, so perhaps focus will come later in life.”

  “She’s your sister now, isn’t she?”

  “She’s my responsibility, yes.”

  “You’re an odd ninja to have such roots,” said the General.

  “We’re in a different war now. It requires a different kind of connection.”

  “Hope?”

  “Hope doesn’t ground people in reality, pain does.”

  “But people run from pain of all kinds.”

  “Not all people,” said Shinji. “We have to lose everything, and in doing so we learn that what seems to be insignificant has the greatest value. I am not a samurai, those who run into battle are the ones who die first. Pride is victory for the weak, people should value what destroys them as what they have to overcome.”

  “Your victory is revenge, how does it taste?” Satsuma wondered.

  “As bitter as sea-salt. My job was to protect Hideyoshi and I failed.”

  “But with your plan, this province will remain strong. What was left from Yoshimizu’s defeated mercenary army will supply both provinces with enough food to get through the winter. It took a ninja to find the lie that saved us.”

  “I think I can be happy without knowing how everything in this world works,” said Shinji. “Just have faith in yourself, because the answers are bigger than all of us.”

  Katsushiro searched the landscape and felt at peace in the sunshine. When he looked back, the ninja was gone.

  * * * * *

  “The birds told me that you were here,” said Takeda, wobbling on thin legs to greet his visitor.

  “Is Rumiko okay?” Onozawa pressed.

  The healer nodded his round little head. “Now she’s a deer.”

  “Is she okay?” he asked again.

  “A deer is not timid, it has swords on its head!”

  “So she’s alive,” Shinji said, and walked with the healer to his hut by the river.

  “Yes, but she ran away.”

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “Small minds cannot see that women can never truly be held.”

  “And what did you see in her?”

  “I told you, she’s a deer. What does a deer do?”

  “Graze and escape predators.”

  “Exactly,” said Takeda. “She left to find nourishment.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told Rumiko that her sister is safe. She knows that her father is dead, though.”

  “She couldn’t know about my vengeance upon Yoshimizu. Did you talk to the panther as well?” he teased.

  “Nobody talks to the panther, the panther speaks and you listen. He is the spirit of Hideyoshi’s father, taking back the illness he brought to this land. Yoshimizu went over the waterfall, but when he follows the current into the ocean, bitter salt will be his eternity.”

  “You truly are a visionary,” said the ninja.

  “Some plants make you insane if you’re insane, others give you sight if you have sight.” The healer clasped his hands in front of him. They reached the river where it disappeared over the cliff. “A lot of families are broken and many more innocents are going to die. There will be much pain, but I see people making shadows solid. They will build their hearts into monuments. We need vision to see those monuments.”

  “Where would Rumiko go?”

  “She headed north to find sustenance.”

  “I killed the men who harmed her.”

  “But you didn’t replace her loss, she must do that herself. She has to find stars in daylight,” said the healer. “She does not know the forest, but the forest knows her. Find the warrior monks north of here, they have more power than I do. They can walk through walls, see through stone, and they commune with spirits who won’t speak to me.” Takeda looked shamefully at the dirt and walked into his hut.

  Shinji scanned the water and listened to it crashing far below. Before heading home to gather supplies and inform Yukio of his journey, he dipped his fingers into the stream until leaves were pushed against his hand. When he stood again, they disappeared over the waterfall.