Sunrise

I'm bored.

That is not to say that my new life is not exciting. I have come to know that things that I was so certain were impossible are the truth after all. I practice kenjitsu and iaido so that I can battle demons and goblins and the enemies of my Court. I consort with spirits and ghosts. My lover is four centuries old.

But my training continues as it has been for weeks, and perhaps months. I have learned the katas and rituals and sexual postures and read the ancient texts. Yet I have not been deemed ready to take undergo the trial of Fire and Water. Meanwhile, out there in Anjiro, my friends - the first I could call that since I met Miko - are fighting House Sohei and the Empire of Jade without me. Wraiths strike at them during the day and the Arrow of Steel Uji stalks them at night. I feel like a caged tiger.

Then Flaring Grin calls me as the sun rises. I smile as I answer the phone. Flaring Grin is always an exciting man, engaged in something new and interesting. I think that perhaps he can stay on the line while the sun rises and we can appreciate the sinrise together.

But it is not humor or encouragement that Grin-san brings me this morning, though it is exciting. Something terrible has happened and my friends are in danger. Blood Red Thorn-san challenged and fought Enforcer of the Way of the Arrows, yet lost. My first thought is that he has died and my Demon whispers that the time has come to take his place in the Uji. The thought is cruel and I despise myself for it, but I cannot pretend that it is not my thought. The Shadow speaks with its own voice, but it is just my own dark side. I ask if he survived the fight, mentally apologizing.

Thorn-san lives, and I am relieved. What ire there was between us was exorcised long ago and I wish him well. I am glad that he is part of the Thousand Ri Scouts, and it is only because of him that my membership will make us an Uji of five. But my guts freeze in my belly as Grin-san explains what happened.

To save Thorn-san from torture and death, Yuki-san gave herself up and took his place. Ah, Yuki-chan, that is so like you.

I have been forcing myself to stay awake after the sunrise to continue my studies so that I can be of use, so I am awake when Grin-san arrives. Seven Beasts is with a lover today, so if she is awake herself, I know she is busy. Since she would certainly stop me from doing what I am about to do, I am glad. Whatever punishment I must suffer for this, it is worth it. Before I sat idle while my friends needed me. I will not let the Uji down a second time.

Zhizu-san fought the sun as well and waits for us, but Blood Red Thorn was too weak from his battle and must remain behind. Grin-san hands me Thorn's black leather coat, the better to protect myself from the sun and to hide weapons. I trace the Yamabushi dragonfly stamped into the thick leather on the back of the coat. The lapel bears the character for "thousand." I slip into the coat slowly, feeling like a child who sneaks out at night and plays with his father's tools. I have not passed the Fire and Water test and am no more than a hin, but tonight I am one of the Thousand Ri Scouts. I reverently take a katana from Flaring Grin-san, the very sword that Igurashi-sama giften him after the Uji's defeat of the Kumo witch. With the coat and sword of my friends we leave to rescue Yuki-chan. I hope I do not dishonor these gifts.

Grin-san calls up the Amida family and has them send us a little firepower. We will not fight alone. At the hotel where Yuki has been taken there are a dozen people checking out in the lobby; men, women, and children going about their lives. But not everyone there is innocent. I see a dozen men in dark suits, so much like the Amida men behind me, sitting and talking casually, but wathcing for danger. I grin and push my glasses up my nose. We are touble.

Guns and swords are drawn, but Grin-san comes forward and stills the room with a single command. My heart pounds and sweat beads on my face as he speaks to the Arrow's guardians, giving them a chance to surrender that they cannot take. They tremble before my mentor, unable to resist his authority, but so soon it collapses. Mounting tensions break and frayed nerves send deadly impulses to trigger fingers.

I run. Gunfire rips through the air arround me, pounding in my ears. I move from couch to chair to table to collumn, dodging the lead, stuffing and marble dust floating in the air like falling cherry blossoms. I slide on the polished floor as I round a pillarand come face to face with a yakuza goon from yokohama. I don't even know the name of their gumi. He reacts first, turning to shoot me. It is only because I am faster that I strike first, lashing out with Flaring Grin's katana. I am proud that the stroke is proper, even though I strike in reflex. I cleave the man from hip to shoulder with enough force to lift him from the ground and throw him back. He is the first man I have ever killed in combat.

After that the blood flows easier. Bullets rip into me, punching into my undead flesh and I am grateful for the brutal teachings of Terrible Thunder Talons. I duck and run, spin and slash. In moments it is all over. Two amida men are dead, and twelve of our enemies are scattered over the floor in death. But we must still reach Yuki-san!

Moments later Yuki-san is on the phone. She managed to remain awake herself and defeat her guards and now she awaits us to route out and slay the Arrow of Steel. Ah Yuki-chan! She stands before us in her black leather suit, as close as skin, bullet holes revealing perfect white flesh. What a woman!

Grin-san and Zhizu-san fill the halls with the thunder of their shotguns while Yuki and I rush the yakuza. The fight is even shorter this time. Soon we stand on the top floor of the hotel listening to the distant cry of police sirens. We don't have long.

One by one we storm the suites. The Devil Tiger fails to rise and dies swiftly. The others stand and fight, weakened by the sun as they are. Now I see how much I still have to learn. Fighting gaki is nothing like the yakuza I killed only minutes before. The Arrow's are powerful and cunning; each of them with years more experience and supernatural might than I. Winter Morning Light's crackling blood lash and White Incense Breath's swollen demon form are more than I have ever faced. I circle and slash, hoping just to create an opening that the others might use, while the Sohei warriors fling me aside. I pick myself up when the fighting is done. Incense Breath and Shakuhachi are dead, Winter Morning Light is trapped in little death by a wooden shaft, and Enforcer died by his own power to evade capture.

I can almost feel Yuki-san's sadness, though she refuses to show it in her face. This day we saved her from the dishonor of capture and torture, slew enemies of our House, and took an important captive of our own. Yet the First Principle of the Fivefold Way troubles her. It was not without disagreement that the Scouts attacked and dispatched the Arrows. Each of these dead gaki, and the one who awaits the torturers of our own Court, is on the same path of enlightenment that we are. Each of them seeks the same release from this curse that we do. Yet we are on opposites sides of a great conflict. Though they must be honored according to the Way of Origin they have allied themselves to a concquering army of wraiths who enslave our ancestors. I am not sure what to think, or who to agree with. In the short-term, we have done what must be done - killed an enemy who would have killed us.

Tomorrow the sun will set again and I will have to return to Yedo and answer for my actions. But for today, I am one of the Thousand Ri Scouts and victorious! Yuki-san offers me her bed, sadly to sleep in alone while she mediates. However, my blood is too high to sleep. Zhizu accepts my invitation and she closes the door behind me. I am sad that Yuki-chan cannot accpet, but I understand that slaying another Crane - killing one who is on the same mission as her - has affected her deeply. It is a matter that I, too, must think about. But I am a Dragon, and today I must live.

Women

I rise as early as I can every day. Nocturnal though I am, I still can’t help calling it that, and the more I see the sun, the less like a creature of the night I feel. And every hour of training is precious.

But as important as training is, my Uji comes first. I am not a Disciple yet, but one day I will be, and I see no reason not to give them my best now. In a way, it is like extra training. Blood Red Thorn came to the Scouts without ever having been in an Uji, with no idea of how to act or help, with no idea how they fit together. But I know their moods and how they think, how they work together. In a way, I am already a part of the Uji.

When they call, I am given a phone at once. Seven beasts is polite enough to slow down and stop screaming while I speak with them, even. Tonight it is the Yang Prana that is interrupted. I am trying to master the Dragon Dance, but the postures and movements are more difficult by far than those used to harness the Principle of Motion, or to summon the Eightfold Yang Mantle.

I take a towel and wipe the sweat off my face and chest as I answer the phone. It is Zhizu-san, to my mild surprise. Most often it is Yuki or Flaring Grin, those with whom I have most in common, who call for me. But tonight, Zhizu has asked my help for something. I have never turned them down before, and I never will. I failed to be of help in the Scout’s hour of need, so I will make myself of use whenever I can to make up for it.

When she arrives I am surprised when she asks me if I still want to fuck her. I can hear my blood rushing in my ears and my skin warms. Zhizu-san was the first of the Thousand Ri Scouts that I met, the first to care about me. When I was still struggling to master my own Darkness, she hurt me. I will never forget that, and I will always be grateful.

In her terse, straightforward way, she explains that she has to know something. Were her feelings for Shin nothing more than the attachment one forms with any lover? I understand the production and release of Oxytocin during orgasm and the strong bonding feelings it creates, though I am unsure if gaki were subject to such hormones. I find it doubtful, save perhaps in one overbalanced towards Yang, but this is not about science for Zhizu, it’s about peace of mind. Secondly, she needs to know if she can ever enjoy sex again, or if her heartbreak has ruined it.

She stands there, beautiful and a little frightening. Her broken heart doesn’t seem to have hurt her at all, but fed her in some way that I don’t understand. I know that the Devil Tigers learn from pain, but it is something else to see someone grow from it before your eyes. It would be like shooting someone pointblank with a large gun and finding that the gaping hole somehow made them stronger. I felt a slight shiver run down my spine and I saw a hint of the Devil that Zhizu would someday be.

Zhizu would have to answer her first question herself, but the second at least, I felt confident of. I am still Hin, but I have learned much, and one thing that Seven Beasts assures me of is that I have truly learned how to make a woman, to use her words, come like a fucking freight train.

Early dusk I wake with Zhizu in my arms. I am sore from last night, but I smile knowing that she will be as well. I’m proud for having, not just held my own with a Devil Tiger, but to have shown her unsuspected pleasure. I don’t have to sleep with Sweet Swallow’s Song again to know that this time it would be me walking away smiling leaving her dazed on the bed.

I squeeze Zhizu to me, feeling my heart beat weakly against her. One day this woman will be a part of my Uji, a blood family like nothing I have ever known. I stand now in the wings, like an actor awaiting my que, impatient to take my place on stage. I place a kiss on my co-star’s temple and then slide under the covers to wake her pleasantly.

She sits up on the futon and asks me to stop. She doesn’t close her thighs against me, or push my head away from her heavenly gate, but she may as well have thrown me through the wall. It wasn’t a lover she needed, just answers to her questions.

I smile through breakfast and as we bathe and wash away the scent of our sex and the soreness in our muscles and then she leaves to study her disciplines.

I hope she got what she needed.

I didn’t, my demon tells me. It is not true, I know. I fulfilled my passion, a felt desire towards a woman and I had her. But that doesn’t matter to the voice. I know enough about myself to know that my deepest need is to have someone to care about. What I neglected to do for Taka and Miko, I burn to do for the Scouts. And I need to feel cared about as well. I tidy up my room, making sure that Zhizu left none of her clothes behind, feeling used, my own dark voice telling me that I am nothing more than a stepping stone to Zhizu and to all of my friends. How quick they are to call when they need something, and how long it has been since they have come to help me in my learning, or simply to visit.

I tell myself that the Scouts have been busy, that their duties in Anjiro claim their time, and the demon laughs with my own voice. Zhizu had enough time to come here, fuck me and discard me.

I am saved by Yuki-san. I smile at her, ignoring the dark laughter in my head. It is all hypotheses with no proof anyways.

As always, Yuki returns my smile. She is truly not meant to be a Bone Flower. Her smile is like the sun.

In her shy, sweet way, she thanks me for all the help I have been, and acknowledges that she has not been grateful. Though I tell her truthfully that it is nothing but my duty, my honor, and my pleasure to help, my inward smile cows the shadow.

Yuki invites me to enjoy some reward of my choice with her. The reward is obvious and easy to choose. Some theater, dinner, a game of go and the chance to talk to her for hours. Perhaps more, but I will leave that up to the moment. We Dragons do think of other things besides sex, but Yuki has a way of stoking my desire that the most provocative Dragon would have trouble matching.

Just a night to call her Yuki-chan again.

The temperature in the room seems to drop a few degrees and Yuki-san grows more serious. She can’t quite keep the pain from her voice as she forbids me to make advances on her again.

I cannot even summon a smile to hide my own shock and pain. Inside the dark voice is silent and knowing. It does not need to speak to show me that I was wrong. Somehow, having been lifted by Yuki’s sweet friendship before being shoved away more completely than Zhizu had this evening hurts more.

If she had left then, I might have slipped into Shadow Soul. I could not summon my will to fight it.

But Yuki doesn’t leave quite yet. I have seen her slit her belly with an expression on her face as if she were composing poetry, but I see pain so clearly on her delicate features now. I would kiss her face until the lines on her brow went away and the corners of her sweet lips turned upwards again, but of course, I cannot.

The reason she cannot abide my advances – despite having spent a week as my lover, despite having sat next to me while I pleasured myself without being so much as mildly distracted – is because she could too easily fall in love with me. And if she falls in love with me, it may distract her from her enlightenment, she might forsake her learning for me.

I feel a swift swelling in my loins and a rush of heat and pleasure, but all of that is distant. For one week I lived as a man with a woman. We played and talked and argued and studied and pillowed and pillowed and pillowed. Like an actor and actress we took the roles of a normal man and woman, and we fell in love. When it was over, we left the little stage we had made for ourselves and we put aside the roles and put aside the love. But how true that the play might become real.

The essence of the Dance. The greatest drama of all to emulate life, to play the part of a living thing still part of the Great Cycle. I had achieved a measure of reality, of being a real man, with a real beating, loving heart. And Yuki had all but fallen in love.

Yuki looks at me with concern, noting the wet stain on the front of my thin cotton bathing kimono. My hair is still wet from the bath I took with Zhizu less than an hour ago. I wonder that years have not passed. I bow to Yuki-chan, the only expression that I can give her right now.

I need time to think about this, to read the reviews of my performance if you will, to collate data, to just let it sink in.

Yuki leaves quietly and the room is silent. In the stillness the clouds rumble and let loose a brief torrent of rain. It begins quickly, then passes. A wet patter on the roof as if the sky itself climaxed.

Kamikazi

There is a feeling in the Court of the White River. A feeling of victory.

I have begun new training under Seven Cloud Temple, a Hollow Reed elder. It was under his orders that the Thousand Ri Scouts were assigned to be my sensei for learning the Fivefold Way.

Now that I understand the Great Principle and my dharmic training has begun, the Wise Centipede begins my lessons in more detail. It is time to learn about the House I serve.

Rain drums on the roof of the tea house like impatiently tapping fingers, but Seven Cloud Temple-san is serene. He listens to the rain for a long time before he begins the story. I am amazed at his storytelling skills, so much like, but so much more than the theater I love.

The Hollow Reed takes on each role like, well, like a mask. His voice is exactly that of Igurashi-sama. Even his bearing, his carriage changes and he becomes the player in the story. History comes alive.

I listen and watch as Omi-sama stands shoulder to shoulder with Yoshinaka Sohei against the Koreans. I see Sohei break ranks and flee, leaving Omi-sama to die. I watch the blood-feud unfold, the wars, the assassinations.

Seven Cloud Temple shows me the course of our House’s history as we struggled with the treacherous Sohei all the way up until the present night.

This feeling I have is about the war. You can see it in the elders, their stoic faces hiding their pride. The Thousand Ri Scouts have established a strong presence in Anjiro and they have defeated a great evil and gifted the court with tribute and the Daimyo is generous in his praise.

I am proud of the Scouts. But as a scientist, I must look at all of the facts. They are but Disciples, and only four. How can they be the key to victory? It is the voice of my Shadow, as always casting doubt over me like dark clouds obscuring the sun. But the only way to shatter the illusion of doubt is to test it and prove it false.

I test my own dark doubts in my mind. My Demon-voice is right; the Thousand Ri Scouts have accomplished much, just like the Disciple Singing Snake who shook the middle kingdom with his koa. but for hundreds of years the Yamabushi and Sohei have warred in the shadows and in the open, and more powerful gaki have done their best to anihilate our enemies.

What I see is confidence. Igurashi-sama believes that we are going to win. The only explanation that makes sense, is that there is a plan. A secret plan for victory.

Failure

The voice of my demon is loud and it only gets worse. My failure burns and there is no excuse. Flaring Grin, Yuki, and Zhizu needed me and I could not help them. My shadow laughs because he knows this already. He has been telling me for a long time.

The stranger, Blood Red Thorn, steps in to save the Uji, keeping the Thousand Ri Scouts legitimate. I’m still a spare. The dark voice rasps in my head that perhaps the Scouts do not need five. Four has been enough, four have accomplished much. What need to they have for five?

Plugging my ears does not mute my own hateful voice. I devote myself utterly to my training, forcing myself to stay awake with the sun so that I can read just one more line from the Ki Chaun. A minute at a time I fight the irresistible lure of sleep. One more passage, one more kata.

I go to the dojo every day and train. I have been introduced to iaido, and the sudden movement appeals to me. It is like the pounce of a cat, of the sudden dive of a bird, the crack of lightning that is gone before you hear it. I push myself, attempting katas harder than I have tried before, trying to make myself worthy.

I drown myself in flesh. Seven Beasts-san holds me to her sweaty breast afterwards, stroking my hair. She purrs, deeply satisfied, but she knows that I am not. She tells me that not every hunt is successful and sometimes the tiger starves.

I don’t want to understand her, but I do. Failure is inevitable. But the tiger is the most dangerous when hungry.

My shame is deep. I know that the Thousand Ri Scouts will be hunting the kumo Spins the Night. I know they will succeed.

Blood Red Thorn can do what I can not have. Doubtless it is his fighting skills that will make victory possible. Fighting skills that I do not have. He is a Devil Tiger, and even now I can still hear the echo of the Howl. Is the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon a mistake? Would I have been able to help, had I plunged myself into a hell of my own making and thus become a self-made Lord of Yomi? With that power, the Fire and Water test would be easy, a kumo hardly an obstacle.

My inner darkness leaves no wound to heal, tearing open every shame and pouring in poison.

My rage is much like Yuki’s, swift and unexpected. I surprise myself. When the futon is torn apart, the shoji ripped, the screens shattered, the flower arrangement hatefully scattered the only sound is the laughter within. How proud Flaring Grin would be of me!

I need peace, I need to analyze this. There are facts that I cannot deny, that my demon-self cannot deny, if only I can find them.

But what good will a scientist do? Yuki is all they need. Dazzlingly intelligent and far more enlightened. The voice leaves me no wall to put my back to, no rock to cling to.

I doubt. And that is all the Shadow needs.

Duet

Sometimes it’s easier for me to look at my own existence as a playgoer would a performance.

I love the theater because I see mortals doing as I must. For my karmic crimes I am separate from the wheel of creation, denied the interchange of chi and barred from the give and take of life.

Gaki must take to survive, but to give, I must imitate life. My sensei once likened our dharma to an unruly schoolboy who was expelled from the classroom and now can only learn by peeking through a crack in the wall.

So the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon is like a play, and I must put on a role, some performances as a predator, some as a victim, some as a beast, sometimes as a force of nature itself. I love to watch the humans do the same.

Usagi, the young lead, is still very much the quiet man he was when we saw him die and return. He is respectful and thoughtful, but we can see now how hard he tries. He has learned some things and we can feel a little hope for what he might become.

He is bolder, and more willing to take chances reaching out to people, though he is still awkward. He speaks to the Uji that he is training to join, and tries to do what he never did with anyone in his mortal life: to get to know them.

He fights Keeper of Forgotten Temples and the older gaki shows him tricks of the blade. It would have been the first of many such hours, save for the death that will soon claim Keeper.

He speak to Zhizu, and here we can be pleasantly surprised! A success! He speaks with the Devil Tiger about the lover he heard the gossip of and he asks about her first breath. Here we are shocked, for Zhizu has been such a quiet and severely controlled character in this drama that to hear her give consent and to explain her life and death leaves us stunned! We can almost see the new understanding in Usagi’s eyes. He asks her to pillow, and he hold our breath. We’ve seen his attraction to the dangerous beauty since he first met her, and we know the respect he has for her. We know also how fierce she is and we sit on the edge of our seats to see if she will tear him limb from limb.

We laugh out loud in relief as she declines him politely. She seems to have respect for the Rabbit as well, and after all, her new lover is every inch as dangerous as she.

The next scene shows us in a large and perfectly ordered garden. Stones and weeds grow in careful disarray, perfectly hiding and highlighting the careful design. The Resplendent Cranes meditate and train here, but tonight, Yuki is here to commit seppuku.

Honor compelled her to make a deal with a vile goblin spider, but honor also demands that she cleanse herself of that shame. The drawn wakazashi flashes light out over the audience and on Yuki’s perfectly composed face.

We see the Frostwings Uji in attendance, stirring the plot, and we see the Daimyo of the House, overseeing her act. There in the back is Usagi, bravely watching. We can see that he would like to look away, that he cares for his friend and does not like to see this. And it is the first ritual suicide he has seen and he does not want to dishonor his friend by looking away, or by reacting.

Yuki dies well, her death poem received with thoughtfully closed eyes and her graceful cuts with an approving nod from the Daimyo. There is a sense of renewal. Honor has been satisfied, the shame has been wiped away and new challenges await the eager young gaki. There is no foreshadowing of the tragedy that will remove one player from the stage.

It is during the celebration afterwards that Yuki asks Usagi a favor: Will he consent to live with her for one week, to help her to accept men, and to conquer her fear? We can see doubt, or is that the whispering of the Demon in his ear? And he requests time to think about it.

In the next scene we see Flaring Grin and Usagi together drinking sake. We can see the calming effect the older Dragon has on the young hin. They speak about Yuki and about enlightenment and together they analyze the doubt.

When the men part, Usagi confidently gives Yuki his answer. Yes, he will live with her.

What a week it is! We see here what could have been with Miko, a relationship of shared joys and interests. They study together, sharing the katas of the Yin and Yang Pranas, they read books and see plays, and of course, they pillow. It is also a healing time after the death of Keeper of Forgotten Temples.

We can see how hard it is for Usagi to remember that this is for Yuki’s fear. His demon pours its poison in his ear. The voice from backstage whispers that she is using him, that he is nothing to her. The voice tells him that what Yuki really wants has more to do with domination and control.

At the end of seven days, Usagi is left alone on the stage.

…I watch the door for a few moments after Yuki leaves. The one thing that no sensei seems to be able to teach me is how to feel. I was never good at feeling before, thinking, yes, but not feeling.

When next I see Yuki, things will be different. I just hope this had made us closer, and I hope it has given her what she needs. Will she less fearful of myself and Flaring Grin? She revealed a passion that I respect as a Dancing Dragon. She has always turned it towards scholarship, and that is why she was instructed by the Shadow Songs. But people seem to think that the Bone Flowers are the only ones allowed to be intelligent. Yuki has a passion that was out of place in the Yin dharma. Now she can turn both her keen mind, and her strong passion towards the Way of the Resplendent Crane.

I hope I have helped her do that.

Broken Masks

I am sobered by the death of Keeper of Forgotten Temples. A terrible mistake in judgment and enlightenment becomes blindness. He slits his belly and dies, but I can tell that something is wrong, an expression of terrible loss briefly flashes across his face before he tumbles.

Yuki rages, her grief spilling out of her in hot tears and whip crack accusations. Everyone else is silent. I hold my tongue, it’s not my place to speak.

The aftershocks are more than emotional. Even as Yuki masters herself, the Uji itself comes under fire, principally from the Frostwings Uji, which has made itself a rival of the Thousand Ri Scouts.

I want so badly to help them. I have been promised this Uji, this family and now it will be taken away before I have even had a chance. I resent my new belief in karma. How can it be that I am dealt the same lonely hand in the second breath that karma dealt me in life?

I throw myself at my training, it’s the Scout’s only chance. The Court of the White River is debating disbanding the Uji entirely. Four was weak enough; three is no Uji. But I can make them four again. Four is enough.

The hard training and studying helps me forget my fear. Yes, I’m more afraid than I have been since I woke up in hell. I am only hin, not yet ready for the Fire and Water test, yet I hurl myself toward that trial in hopes of saving the Scouts. But Keeper’s death never leaves my thoughts. How much more did he know than me? How many more years of training in his dharma?

How can I survive with so little when he failed after so much?

I am spared the matter by a Devil Tiger name Blood Red Thorn. A Disciple from the Court of Five Bridges, willing to join the Thousand Ri Scouts. I’m relived that the Uji will live, but I’m…what? Angry? Ashamed? Probably both that this stranger steps in to do what I could not.

My Shadow wastes no time whispering to me that I am not needed. The shortest Re training period that House Yamabushi allows is one year and I am just nearing half that time. Blood Red Thorn has taken my place, and the Scouts – always successful even with only four members – has no need of a fumbling rabbit.

But then Yuki asked a favor of me.

Study Party

In college there are always parties. I know that the western world sees the Japanese as industrious and studious to a fault. Which is true. But we have always had our ways of balancing out. The businessmen who work endless hours for the company, cut loose in wild drinking binges and terrible karaoke. And in college, there are always study parties.

I studied hard, but I never really partied, not as Agito Tsubara. Miko would sometimes drag me down into the dorm common area, but I found the music and the talking and the crush of people distracting from my books. Maybe I was letting my books distract me from the music and talking and the crush of people. Miko got good grades too, but she knew how to laugh.

Sometimes I wonder why she ever loved me.

I wouldn’t call my learning now a study party, though some of it comes close. Seven Beasts takes me to bars and clubs and teaches me how to seduce, how to lure and entice. I don’t think I’m very good at it, but I will keep trying. But much of my new training isn’t much better than the merciless, but calculated, beatings of Terrible Thunder Talons-san. In the bamboo forest carpeting the hills behind the Court there is a range for shooting. I learn how to hold and shoot a gun, though my aim is slow to improve. I am also given kendo lessons, and again and again I am disarmed, cut and stabbed by my fellow Dragons.

It’s not all torture. Seven Beasts and my fighting sensei teach me what I need to know, and seek out my strengths and weaknesses. Each night the katana feels more comfortable in my hand. When I was young I was never swept away by the romanticism of the samurai, but now I think I agree that every boy dreams of being another Musashi.

There are also the disciplines to learn, the supernatural powers of which the Iron Mountain is only the beginning. Already my demon art has been brought out, but now I am ready for the more difficult learning of the chi arts and other powers. I am the proverbial kid in the candy store. Seven Beasts reminds me that our state is a curse, and these powers are nothing more than tool left to us by the August Personage as a way to help us redeem ourselves. I am chastened, but still excited.

It is an excuse to see more of the Thousand Ri Scouts as well. Flaring Grin-san teaches me the first secrets of the Jade Shintai – the art of sensing the ambient chi of the world and letting it flow through me. A year ago I did not believe in chi save as a superstitious word for a human body’s natural electrical field. Now I can see and feel the power that can be harnessed from that energy.

I also learn the first katas of the Yin Prana from the diminutive Shard-san. She is in the middle of a transition of her own, and I must learn to think of her under her new name, Yuki, but she finds the time to share with me. Seven Beasts suggests that the Yin Prana is an excellent lesson for understanding chi. Kyo-san disagrees with her, of course, scorning the motions designed to harness Yin chi. But I have learned much from the Yang Prana, and much about chi from the Jade Shintai, it seems that I should at least expose myself to the Yin Prana. And, as Seven Beasts tells me, it is at least a way to harmlessly dissipate excess Yin Chi.

I am delighted that learning the Yin Prana (the first katas only – though I continue to look for those tantric postures) is not the only time I get to see Yuki. More than any of the Scouts she seems interested in studying with me. Of course Yuki has just begun her own studies as well, so in a way we are students together.

A couple of times a week she comes to the Court, bringing her books. There’s a sadness to her that I know comes from the recent death of her lover, the geisha Kiku-san. She has had to endure the death of her lover twice now. Once when he lover was murdered, then when she passed into the Shadowlands she was slain again by the Empire of Jade.

Sometimes she cries. I’m not sure what to do. I’ve never been good with people, never let myself get close enough to really know someone. Maybe not even Miko and Taka. But I try. I listen to her, and hold her. I don’t tell her not to cry, or not to be sad. Her love for Kiku was passionate and powerful, and that should not be denied, but experienced.

But she is gaining a new strength as well. Unveiled Mirror Shard discovered that she had reached the limits of enlightenment listening to the Song of Shadows. Not that it is a dead-end path, just that there are lessons there that she can not learn, and that another road is calling to her; the Way of the Resplendent Crane.

Selfishly, perhaps, I’m glad. She is a passionate girl and that trait would have died inside the Black Metal Egg. Now she can pursue her passions in the betterment of herself, society, and creation. Not the path that I walk, but one that seems to suit her better. Yuki, the name she chose for herself means ‘snow,’ but it also means ‘smile.’ I like it.

We each have our studies, Yuki-san with her Crane texts and me with my volumes of Dragon teachings. But often we can share our knowledge, reading and discussing passages from the ki chuan that all dharma’s study. And Yuki seems almost eager to share knowledge all her own. Information and lore about the spirits on the Yin and Yang worlds, the cosmology of the great Wheel, and all the secrets of the shen she has learned. It’s a wealth of knowledge and I benefit from the instruction she received from the Bone Flowers, who know so much about such things.

In return Yuki-san wants to know everything that I do about math, science, and more mundane knowledge. Given the knowledge she holds I am not sure why she finds such things fascinating. When I ask her a silence descends and it is clear that she still remembers enough of the Black Metal Egg to hide her feelings well. But slowly and quietly she tells me about her first breath, how her mother raised her only to pretty and a good servant to a husband, despite her obvious intelligence. She was even removed from school. Now she has a doctor to question, so I do my best to satisfy her craving.

And I find myself subject to cravings of my own. Not that my needs are not satisfied in my training, but my partners in bed are more like sparring partners, even the mortals that I am learning to clumsily seduce. My interest in Zhizu-san as drifted to the background, an acknowledgement of her beauty and my desire, but it is no longer something burning in the fore of my mind. It’s not that Yuki-san is like Miko was. They have their similarities, but no more than any two, smart, women do. But Yuki is an intelligent women, the kind I like best. When we’re studying I feel myself drawn to her, aroused. I have never shared myself this way with anyone before. It is something like the deep camaraderie and respect I have for Flaring Grin. They are my friends.

My attempts to seduce Yuki aren’t as successful as my pass at Flaring Grin-san. She certainly notices, and I make no effort to hide my arousal, but she shows interest only in her studies. I act with confidence and take the risk of seeing to my need right then and there. I’m not entirely surprised that the sight doesn’t make her jump me, but I am surprised that she neither chastises me, nor leaves my presence. Ignoring it is the one response I hadn’t anticipated. Interesting.

I’m not upset that she ignores me, I’m happy to share my schooling and to enjoy the fruits of her knowledge in return. I’m happy to leave the confines of the Court and enjoy the city with the Scouts. I’m happy to be learning, and making myself ready for the Fire and Water test.

Sex

It’s an inseparable part of the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon. With a name like Rabbit, everyone expects it to be a large part of my search for enlightenment. It is, of course, but it’s hard for anyone else to understand why.

Each of us strive for that perfection of spirit which will atone for our past mistakes or misdeeds and free us from our curse. For those who are patient and wise and who survive in the World of Darkness, we may become bodhisattvas and reach the Hundred Clouds. It’s no accident that we call the moment of orgasm the Clouds and Rain. In the east we have long known what the westerners repressed; that the moment of transcendent ecstasy is a tiny, fleeting glimpse of nirvana.

Even the Shadow Songs know this. Second only to the Dancing Dragons, the Bone Flowers are the great seducers of the gaki. You will probably doubt that right up until you become the target of their cold, mysterious, allure. Personally, I hope some Bone Flower finds a reason choose me. They say that there are even tantric postures buried in the Yin Prana katas and more of them than you might think take their tenet to kiss the ghosts in their shrouds quite seriously and literally.

So, if those who listen to Song of Shadow echo within their black metal eggs can see enlightenment in that finite moment of bliss, then how much more might those who seek to learn the ways and secrets of life learn from such an experience?

Seven Beasts takes me as her lover, as she has certainly done with all the students who came before me. I am astonished at how much there is to learn just about making love. I memorize the karma sutra, the ­­ananga ranga, and other texts, plus volumes of books and scrolls written by gaki and containing positions, postures, and techniques that mortals have never imagined and sometimes cannot even physically accomplish.

I think of all the nights that I stayed so late at the lab before my death, only to come home and find Miko having fallen asleep waiting for me. I remember finding her sleeping in lacy things or leather, candles burned down to stubs and soft music playing on repeat. Did I even notice back then? It’s practically a miracle we conceived Taka.

I feel like I need to punish myself to make it up to her or something and I’m quite tempted to substitute a night with my voluptuous sensei for the cold kisses of a blade. But Seven Beasts-san does not allow it. She reminds me that I have been to hell and that I have been punished. The only way to atone and escape my state is to move on. All I can do is to swear to myself not to make the same mistake again.

It occurs to me that I cheated myself at least as much as I did my wife. I did not even let myself feel what she did. I deprived her of the chance to make love to her husband; I deprived myself of the desire to make love at all.

Seven Beasts takes my to the mansion-haven of Jade Snake, an established jina of the dharma. I spend several days learning the arts of bondage and masochism. The pain and pleasure remind me of my night with Sweet Swallow’s Song-san, but I have already decided that was not quite my path. I don’t think I’ll return to Jade Snake-san’s hospitality for more, but I cannot say I learned nothing.

As my confidence grows I know that there is something else that I must learn and experience. It has never been uncommon for men to find pleasure with men, or women with women in Japan. In fact, it was sometimes practiced by samurai with young boys under their care, the idea being that a boy could inherit some of an older warriors virility and power by taking their seed. I’d say that I’m not gay, or even bisexual, but then again, I’ve never really thought about it before. My instinct is to shy away from it, not because of the westerners blind revulsion, but out of disinterest. It takes very little experimentation to conclude that I am not aroused by men.

But at the same time I still find myself drawn to Flaring Grin. Will I ever be as vibrant and alive as he is? Like a young samurai, perhaps I can learn at his feet.

I choose a night when the Thousand Ri Scouts have been allowed to take me out of the Court. Yedo looks so different now… There is a spa outside the small city of Anjiro, and the Uji finds it a relaxing place to think and teach. I try not to be hesitant, after all I have been to hell and back, why be afraid to ask for this favor?

Flaring Grin thinks it over carefully. I am glad he is not taking it lightly, though his smile never entirely leaves his face. He agrees to grant my request but decides that Joko-san will stay with us. I haven’t met her before now, and I’m not sure what she is to Flaring Grin-san. A lover without a doubt, an assistant of some kind possibly, but I don’t know what the relationship is. I’m glad for her presence and her beauty, it will make this easier.

I actually find myself enjoying the evening. Joko-san was obviously a product of Jade Snake-san’s teaching, and I wonder how she met Flaring Grin. She handles both of us well as we both take her. I feel a closer kinship to Flaring Grin as we share his lover, but I’m afraid I’ll loose sight of why I came as we enjoy the woman. I touch Flaring Grin, his strange, bleached hair, his shoulder, his arm. I’m not aroused by him, but I explore the feelings I do experience. When Joko and I have reached the Clouds and Rain and it is Flaring Grin’s moment I am actually excited. Joko moves aside and I swallow it all.

I am not sure if I want to repeat the night, but I am glad it happened. I allowed myself to move beyond what I thought I was capable of. Perhaps it’s small, but I feel like I have taken a step. Perhaps Flaring Grin-san and Joko-san will invite me back. I am done on my knees, but there a thousand other positions, much more to learn and Joko-san is quite pretty.

The Rabbit in the Garden

I kneel in an untidy garden with a stone in my hand. My new sensei is rearranging the rocks carefully. It’s probably not what most people have in mind when they think about learning the tenets of a dharma, and almost certainly not what the think of when imagining the studies of the Thrashing Dragons.

My first impression of Seven Beasts was much closer to my expectations. She is probably the curviest Japanese woman I have ever seen, with flaring hips and full breasts that most Japanese just weren’t put together with. So far as I could tell, it was all natural too. She met me wearing a long winding wrap that left more skin exposed than it hid, though it was sheer enough that you couldn’t really say it hid anything at all.

But the first thing she told me after introducing herself was to get changed and meet her in the garden. So here I am in dirt jeans and a t-shirt, holding a rock while Seven Beasts wears jeans and a flannel and examines the garden for the best place to put it.

Many Dragons, especially those who belong to what is called the Ten Seasons sect, carefully cultivate gardens of what they call “the second sort.” The first sort being the weedy place I kneel now, and the second sort being…a broader concept. A garden of the second sort includes businesses and families, generations of them and the Dragons tend them like a master gardener with an ancient bonsai. They trim and prune them, carefully directing its growth.

Interesting. But a normal garden has its lessons to teach as well, and so I help Seven Beasts-san move rocks. She takes the stone from my hand and places it on top of a clump of weeds. I ask her why and she tells me that there is something to be learned from how the weeds either prosper or die beneath the stone.

She tells me that gardens of both sorts have a much more spiritual purpose as well. You see, gaki are dead creatures, no longer a part of the ebb and flow of creation. We take to fuel our selves, but we cannot return anything to the world. Dragons often grow their own gardens in order to give a little something back. Each Dragon’s garden is like a mediation. The garden I work in tonight belongs to all the Dragons of the Court, a sort of practice garden for the young like me.

I don’t know much about gardening, and I don’t feel very confident of what I do, but Seven Beasts-san is patient and lets me fumble. My first instinct is to get rid of the weeds and leave the flowers, so I grab a handful of scraggly stalks, but Seven Beasts grabs my arm, her nails pressing into my flesh. She says that the weeds are as much a part of the garden as the flowers.

So when I see the rabbit parting the stalks and nibbling one of the weeds, I pounce. I barely catch hold of the rabbit, a single ear in my hand. I roll towards the struggling creature and pull it against my body so I can get a better grip. I tighten my fingers around its throat feeling the hurried beat of its heart at its neck. I squeeze.

Seven Beasts asks me what I am doing. I pause and lower my head. The rabbit is screaming. I was trying to protect the garden I tell her, though I can feel that somehow I have already made a mistake. But the rabbit is a part of the garden as well, the plants it eats, even the waste it drops. Killing the rabbit is just another form of weeding, and it makes the garden artificial. As she tells me this I can see the logic in it. How can I learn from life if I control its variables too strictly? Every scientist knows that controlled studies taint the experiment, even as they allow you to control the variables. Experimentation must be balanced by careful field study.

The rabbit jerks in my still hands, kicking out and scratching through my shirt. I feel the warmth of blood on my skin. I have felt far worse agonies than such a minor scratch, but I let the rabbit drop. It is running nearly before its furry feet touch the ground and in moments it is gone. Seven Beasts-san asks me why the rabbit attacked me. I grin when I answer her: I threatened the rabbit. Of course it was going to fight back until it could escape.

I look at the garden and see the tiny nibbled stalk of the weed the rabbit ate. Behind me is a swath of trampled flowers, and disturbed stones, all flattened as I leapt for the animal. I must be like the rabbit, acting naturally, without disturbing creation around me, doing only that which is natural under heaven. I kneel and bow and express my resolve to Seven Beasts who smiles.

But she reminds me, calling me rabbit, that hares do not become bodhisattvas. I must be more. I thank her and bow, not understanding. Not yet anyways.

The Cherry Tree

Today… well, tonight, I meet the tutors of dharma. I persist in saying and thinking today, rather than tonight. When I rise and bathe and eat I think of it as morning. If I had companionship of any kind, when I lay down to sleep at dawn I would tell them good night. I know that the sun would slay me and that as it rises, it forces me into slumber, but I can’t shake the old way of thinking of it.

I drink blood again and I smile. Irony follows my pride and I chuckle at myself ruefully – so proud for drinking blood. I don’t think that I will ever forget that I am no longer a natural creature. I know that I cannot partake of the omnipresent chi of the universe through eating, drinking, and breathing, but suddenly I crave real food.

The room here is stocked with the plain, simple gray kimonos that I have come to be familiar with. I bathe and wash away the taste of blood, then dress. There is a note waiting for me outside, an invitation to a small garden to meet with representatives of the five dharmas. My dead heart manages a few beats in excitement. I have come as far as I can without mounting one of the five roads back. Tonight I will be introduced to their mysteries.

The meeting is not set until moonrise, which I guess to be about an hour away. I’m impatient to begin, so I think about what I know of the dharmas so far. The books that Swallow’s Song brought to me were helpful, but limited, with no true insights. I read each in turn, but none filled me with a sense of purpose, none showed me which of the paths before me I was meant for.

But one thing was made very clear to me. Dharma is not something to be experimented with. It cannot be tried on casually, like a new coat, just to see if it fits, then discarded. Following a dharma is a commitment to my own soul. I know that mistakes occur, that sometimes one might venture down a path for a while and not discover that the way is blocked for some time. But I will not have the luxury to try out each dharma in turn.

So, with nothing to do but wait, I think about what I have seen of the dharmas so far. Seeing those who walk the path has shown me far more than the simple books I have read.

Zhizhu, Sweet Swallow’s Song, and Terrible Thunder Talons all cry the Howl of the Devil Tiger. It was their rituals that opened the way for my Wind Soul to return, their methods that broke my demon so I could face it. That there is truth in their dogma is something that I have felt.

Keeper of Forgotten Temples walks the Path of a Thousand Whispers. My books refer to their philosophy as the Broken Mask technique. One by one they live different lives, and when they have learned all of the lessons it will offer up, they kill that life and move on. This is a strange path to me and what I have seen of it in the form of Keeper-san, does not reveal much.

Unveiled Mirror Shard sings the Song of Shadows. It seems like a song with the meaning hidden in the melody and the lyrics. I know that they cultivate the Yin aspect and I’m a little turned off. I’ve been dead. In my life I may as well have been dead. Somehow, going back to that seems a step backwards, not forward. But at the same time I can see what they have to offer. I still hunger for knowledge and the Shadow Songs seem to share that need. If I take that path, that craving will never go unsated.

The last of the dharmas that I have any personal experience with is the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon and Flaring Grin is a student of their philosophy. Of the dharmas that I have met, the Dance seems the most…well…fun. Flaring Grin laughs a lot and seems to find humor in everything. If I didn’t know any better, I would believe that Grin-san was still alive.

Which leaves only the Way of the Resplendent Crane a mystery to me. I know only what I have read in the books I was given, and I learned only stereotypes and generalizations. Of course there is much to be learned from them, such as how they earned that stereotype, but I must try to remain open. If I had to guess from what I know of their moral uprightness and instinct for virtue I would say the venerable Fujiko-san was a Crane. She is proper in every way and what’s more she makes it look attractive and easy. I see how she holds herself and it makes me think that if I only tried just a little bit, that I could be as graceful, and as proper as she. It’s like she plays the role heaven meant for all of us, though everyone else fails.

I pace as I think about the dharmas laid out before me. I have to struggle to maintain impartiality and fight the preconceptions as well as the unknowns. I would be a poor scientist indeed if I did not keep an open mind and let the truth be revealed rather than trying to guess the truth before seeing the evidence.

The moon hasn’t quite risen yet, so I choose to find the garden early. They will likely assume that I am the eager pupil, and at worst they will know the whole truth that I was getting bored.

The garden is tiny, just large enough for a small and grassy hill topped by a single cherry tree. The season for best viewing cherry blossoms is past, but there is still a quiet beauty here. I’m a little surprised to find that I didn’t beat the tutors here. Five gaki sit on the grass, each of them holding a manila folder filled with papers like some kind of medical chart. I catch a glimpse of one page – covered in charts with what look like astrological symbols – before they each close them and set them aside. One of the teachers is an old man with empty sockets for eyes and I wonder how he could have been reading the chart, but I can’t think of anything that could possibly be more rude to ask, so I bow to them deeply.

The old man points his sightless gaze at me and says that the tiger who pounces too early eats seldom. As I’m sifting that for meaning, one of the others, a young man, says that the early bird catches the worm. He tilts his head back and laughs at the night. I think that I have just met the teachers of the Song of Shadows and the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon.

The first is Known to the Ravens, the blind old man. I bow to him regardless, certain that he would know if I did not. I quickly learn that the Song of Shadows is the quest to reach the Black Metal Egg – a concept of total stillness and intellectual clarity. I have questions for him, though each of his answers are riddles. I feel that I understood my fair share of them, but after a few hours he holds up his hand and says “Fire and ice. Ice must melt or else the fire must be quenched.” It will take me some time to figure out all that meant, but I think we both know that the Song of Shadows is not my path.

I expect that the youth who’d bantered with Known to the Ravens-san would speak next, but it is not. The woman who steps up to me is without a doubt the sensei of the young Tigers. She introduces herself as Blackfire Tempest. She’s clad in black leather studded with spikes and wrapped with more straps than could ever be necessary to keep the outfit on. Though of course I will never say so. She speaks of pain and torment and the negligent kings of hell. The Devil Tigers fight the Lords of Yomi by stealing their abandoned jobs. I don’t have to look very deeply into myself to realize that I didn’t come back to be a demon.

The next to speak is an old woman wearing formal kimonos. The way she sits in perfect control of herself reminds me of Fujiko-san. I bow as properly as I know how as she gives me her name: Nightingale Silence. She tells me about the rules that were lain down by the August Personage of Jade, the rules which create and maintain harmony in all things. Obviously in these dark times, when those rules are not adhered to the world suffers. Nightingale Silence-san explains that the Cranes seek to restore that harmony, both in the world, and in themselves by following the tenets of their dharma and a special set of rules called the Eight Lotus Path. It is fascinating indeed, but I am hesitant. I want more life than the Way of the Resplendent Crane teaches. I struggle against growing certainty, trying to remain blank and receptive.

Through Sands Like Stars is just a child in appearance. He sits on his crossed legs smiling at me with the moonlight shining in his dark eyes and the jewel on his brow. Keeper-san practices the Broken Mask technique, but he has only begun his journey. Through Sands Like Stars-san has worn and shattered hundreds of masks. I smile as he tells me of his lives. Some are amusing and I cannot help but laugh along with him, while some are sad and I struggle not to weep. But this is not just storytelling. He is trying to teach me, and to open the Path of a Thousand Whispers for me to walk if I choose. When his time is done, I realize that though he has learned many lessons from his lives, a life has more than one lesson to offer. Having bungled my own life so badly, I don’t think I can bear to begin one properly only to abandon it.

When I turn to the last teacher and bow, he is smiling. Kyo is the opposite of Known to the Ravens in every way. Where Ravens-san is old, Kyo-san is young. Where the Bone Flower is weathered and lined, the Dragon is smooth and supple. Where one sits stiffly, the other relaxes, a smile playing about his lips. He asks me if I want to live. I do.

While Kyo-san laughs, Ravens-san places a gnarled hand atop the manila folder by his knee and remarks that shuttered lanterns cast bright light on the unknown. Nightingale Silence explains to me that when I was first brought to the Court my horoscope was cast. Shuttered Lantern, the foremost seer of the Court predicted that I would be drawn to Dance of the Thrashing Dragon. As I flip through the complex charts I see the other dharmas arranged around the Dance. I smile to see that the Howl of the Devil Tiger was predicted with high likelihood as well.

As a scientist I don’t believe in astrology. The thought that spheres of rock and gas orbiting the same sun as our world influencing the lives of human beings is patently ridiculous. However, as a scientist I must also accept the evidence I have seen no matter how skeptical I am. I have seen the Yang spirits dancing in the air. Given this new data I accept that if something were to happen to those playful spirits of the air, that the weather would be affected. It is possible that the spirits of the planets do affect us here in the Middle Kingdom then. It bears more thought.

Nightingale Silence-san calls my attention to the chart once again. It would take years of study to fully understand the indicators, but I listen eagerly to the explanations as the Crane sensei tells me that my horoscope faces East.

Direction is an important concept in Asian thought and tradition, and the books I have read so far all refer to direction with great frequency. The Dance of the Thrashing Dragon is said to be that dharma that walks the Eastern road. Kyo-san helps me to understand that not all Dragons face East, though many do. It is the direction in tune with the living, mortal world. When I think about the things I wish to do when I have proven myself and been made a Disciple it seems that I will be touching the mortal world often. Another piece of evidence to shed new light on astrology.
Kyo smiles and looks at me searchingly. After a brief pause he muses that I will need a female sensei. Tomorrow my real training will begin.

The First Step

When you think of the search for enlightenment you imagine shaven headed monks on mountaintop temples. Roaring waterfalls, chanting, gongs, that sort of thing. You don’t think of a flesh-eating dead man.

Enlightenment is hard even for those monks who dedicate their whole life to its pursuit in those far away and mysterious temples. How much more so for that poor ragged soul chewing on human remains?

Tonight brings me new visitors. I am pleased to meet the entirety of the Thousand Ri Scouts in a simple room. The tatami and shoji are plain, but clean. The books I have been reading are stacked along one wall and a laptop sits on a writing table. Ah, how wonderful that these ancient texts can be scanned onto a computer! I bow low to the Uji, but my back is straight with pride. This is the room of a civilized person, not a dungeon where an untamed and dangerous beast is kept.

I smile to Zhizu and Keeper of Forgotten Temples. My regrets that I have nothing to offer them are sincere. I do not even have tea to offer my guests. But of course they understand my position. They once sat in my place, having no control over their life because all of their effort was needed to control their own soul.

Keeper-san makes the introductions. Flaring Grin suits his namesake, for he’s been grinning since he walked into the room and probably since before then as well. He moves easily, casually, possibly even recklessly, but he exudes such warmth and confidence that anyone would forgive his swagger. He dresses in slacks and a jacket, but for some reason chooses not to wear a shirt. I’m sure I’ll have time to understand later.

The second of my new visitors is Unveiled Mirror Shard. Unlike the names of the rest of the Uji, hers is a riddle. What can I tell about her from such a name? She is a broken mirror? Perhaps that she does not reflect things as they are? Isn’t a riddle a shattered reflection of knowledge that must be reassembled into wisdom? Perhaps. Why is she unveiled? She certainly seems veiled to me for she gives no hint of expression as she greets me other than the formalities. But I do catch her eyes taking in the piles of books and scrolls I have been lent.

With a grin, Keeper-san tells me that there is another guest in the room. He obviously enjoys my confusion, but quickly tells me that he speaks of the Nushi of the Scouts. I remember that they have the patronage of a wraith, just as House Yamabushi is guided and aided by Omi-sama. I concentrate and reach for the stillness inside of me. It takes more concentration to feel my Yin side, but it is there and it comes when I call and the Wall parts just enough for me to see the ghost kneeling in the center of the Uji. She’s a beautiful woman as well, which is fitting so far, since Zhizu-san and Unveiled Mirror Shard-san are both just as exquisite. She wears a formal kimono in black, and like Swallow’s Song, death seems to have taken the color from her hair. But where Swallow’s Song-san is fierce and vibrant, Fujiko-san is elegant.

I smile as another piece of my training is completed. The Uji teaches me of the great principal, finally revealing the last of the Fivefold Way. I could recite them in order or backwards, practically in my sleep, just like any gaki in the country.

It is interesting that Shard-san does most of the teaching. This is her first visit to me, yet clearly she is at home with studying and she is a good sensei. If she is so natural a teacher, why did she not come sooner? Why wasn’t she the first of the Scouts to teach me? I might have expected Grin-san with his easy manner to take the lead. Or perhaps Keeper-san, who seems to love to quote tradition. I feel almost as if Shard-san is testing me, gauging me. She asks her questions repeatedly, phrasing them differently as if to disguise them. Perhaps she means to test to see if I learned from her the first time. So I answer her questions and meet her with questions of my own.

I can feel my interest stirring for her. She’s one of the most petite women I have ever laid eyes on. She wouldn’t reach my shoulder were we both standing. But even though the lure of her body is dimmed by her frostiness, I find myself intellectually attracted. I find myself wondering if she plays go.

While I’m not attracted to Grin-san, I do feel drawn to him. He laughs as he tells me that he died of a heart attack. I’m not sure if I should laugh along with him, or try to be more composed. When I think of my own death, my own heart attack, I’m filled with regret. After ignoring a woman who loved me and a child that needed me I died far away from them and left them alone in the world. How can I ever laugh at that? Still, just being around Zhizu-san and Shard-san reminds me of the life that my body craves, the old desires that I pretty much failed to tend to even in life. Grin-san is a man who is at peace with his desires. I have a lot to learn from him.

We talk nearly until dawn, the Uji filing out with a last bow that I do not yet deserve. The shoji are beginning to pale with the dawn light, so I close the heavy shutters regretfully. I miss the sun.

Shard has left me with a riddle as well, though I am not quite sure why.

My sensei, Sweet Swallow’s Song brings me a new corpse. I was no Buddhist in life and I don’t consider myself one now, but who wouldn’t find the task of eating human flesh repugnant? At least I no longer tear at the meat with my bare teeth in the grip of my Shadow; I maintain Wind Soul now and at least I am given a knife to carve with.

This evening, as I do every night, I try to be more than a monster. I cut the body and drink the blood. But tonight I feel the rush of chi in the blood. It is cold and slow, heavy with Yin, but it is chi! For a moment I loose myself in the hunger and in the joy of feeding and I take my fill. When it is over I feel mixed pride and shame, for even as I have elevated myself above the need to eat raw flesh, I behaved like a beast. I ask to be excused to bathe and Swallow’s Song gives her consent with a smile.

When I return from the bath and pull on a fresh kimono, Swallow’s Song is waiting for me. She leads me out of the room I have been given and to the iron door of the Demon Court. Is she going to let me outside? Perhaps in proving that I am above eating flesh, I have earned the right to that freedom.

The door pulls open and she leads me outside. I had no idea that the court was so large. It’s more of a complex than building and the architecture is carefully mixed: modern buildings with ancient reminders and of course the peculiar lines and shapes that show that someone has carefully applied feng shui to the place. But Swallow’s Song is leading me purposefully somewhere.

The room she shows me to is not much larger than the bare place I left, but there is no mistaking one for the other. Everything is of better quality, and there is even a flower arrangement in the wall niche.

Swallow’s Song tells me that I will have new books to read soon and the ones I have been borrowing have been returned. She turns to leave, but I know that this will be my last chance. I ask Swallow’s Song to wait and she turns, smiling again. I am nervous, but flushed with success I take the plunge.

My obi unwinds and falls to the floor as I admit my desire. Her grin is knowing and almost predatory. Of course she knows, she has seen me rise as she worked on me, taming my demon. But why hasn’t she said or done anything? She neither encouraged nor discouraged my need. Reluctantly I give voice to my Shadow’s doubts.

The training comes first, she says. Anything between us save for the music and the torture would only give the demon leverage and get in the way of the rituals. Besides, and now she grins again and I am uncertain what I have gotten myself into, a Devil Tiger gives themselves completely to whatever they do with no room for distraction. When they fight, they fight with all their body and soul, when they teach, the task consumes everything, and when they make love…

It has been so long… several years spent in hell, and even in my living days I can’t remember the last time I had sex with Miko. I know that we’d slept together since Taka was born, but that’s all I could say. What a failure as a husband I was!

Swallow’s Song makes love to me for hours. No…that gives the wrong impression. She fucks me. There is no other way to say what we do that long summer night, hands caressing flesh and metal piercings. Anyone who ever says that you cannot rape the willing has never had sex with a Devil Tiger.

She leaves me sore and bleeding. She smiles and thanks me and I thank her in return. I know that I may see her at the court, but that this night is never going to be repeated. As my chi heals the scratches on my back I decide that I can accept that. Indeed, I learn a new lesson tonight. Never again will I be a distracted and distant lover. I will make love like a Devil Tiger, giving my every thought and breath to my partner.

Tonight I have taken chi from blood. When the sun sets tomorrow I will meet my new sensei’s and I will have to decide which path to follow.

Seeing through the lies.

Each night I feel more…well, not human. In fact I feel less human with each passing night, I am some new kind of animal now. But I also feel less a monster. Infrequent now are the times when the Shadow fills my mind and blots out reason, replacing it with lies and a cruel desire to hurt.

Terrible Thunder Talons works with me once a week, inflicting terrible injuries upon me. Once I would have been shocked to even think that a body could survive such damage, but that was before hell. Now I know how to manipulate my chi and close wounds that would fatal to a human. Splintered though my soul may be, what humans do naturally, I can do consciously, and to much greater effect.

There are advantages to this new state.

After several nights Swallow’s Song brings in a new visitor. Since no one but Swallow’s Song and Thunder Talons has reason to see me, I assume that it will be a member of the Thousand Ri Scouts, most likely Zhizhu. I am partially right.

Keeper of Forgotten Temples is a young man, though I know that is deceptive. Swallow’s Song appears no more than twenty-five, but I know her to be centuries old. He wears undistinguished clothes, attire that could belong to anyone, though his hair is long and gives me something to identify him by.

As I have been told, in order to serve my Uji, it’s members will participate in my training. Swallow’s Song tells me this is unusual, but so is the accelerated training I have been going through. The Court of the White River wants to round out the Scouts and as quickly as possible.

Keeper is quiet, but confident. His voice is even and has an almost ritual cadence as he speaks of the Great Principle. The Great Principle, or the Fivefold Way, is the base law by which all gaki abide, regardless of their philosophy. I get the feeling that Keeper of Forgotten Temples is a religious man, in part because of his name, and supported by the way he lovingly describes the ancient traditions of the gaki.

I listen to him closely, eager to learn.

The next night Keeper returns and Zhizhu is with him. My interest is kindled even further. Now I have met two of the Scouts, and they have come to teach me. When the others arrive there will be more to learn, and I will be another step closer to belonging to their Uji.

Together they lecture me on the Way of Obligation and the Way of Integrity, two more of the Great Principles. Obligation and Integrity are important virtues for the Japanese, but I feel them more keenly now. Duty is so much more…intense…when it is not just the obligation to be a good son to one’s parents, but also an obligation to stand against the yama kings and fight the runaway terrors of hell. Integrity is not just the concept of Face, but the ability to master your own inner darkness and act in accordance with the will of heaven.

Zhizhu and Keeper lecture me for several hours, and both of them allow me to question them. I want to know what they know so badly. I ask about their dharmas as well, because this question has been much on my mind. So soon after rising from death, the road back branches and there are five paths to choose from. I can only go so far before I must choose one of those paths, and I need to go forward.

My demon tells me the answer, the path that lies right before me. I can hear the enlightenment in the Howl of the Devil Tiger, but I am not sure yet if it is my karma to let out that cry myself.

Zhizhu stalks that road, as does my sensei. Already I have felt their doctrine change me. But Keeper tells me of the Path of a Thousand Whispers. A philosophy that teaches you to live and shed mortal lives, learning the wisdom that one failed to do in the first breath. There is so much I did not do. I was not a good husband to Miko. I was not a good father to Taka. I died before I could finish my work in the lab. I could be a husband again, and do it right. I could be a father once more, and this time not fail.

And there are a thousand more things that I never attempted or experienced that I could learn from. Even my Shadow-self is excited at the prospect of living in ways I never did when alive.

Which way is correct for me? What is my path? I doubt, and my Shadow seizes me. I listen to myself as I talk to Zhizhu and Keeper, questioning them, challenging them. My voice has lost all of its respectful tone. I listen as my voice describes the loving agony of the tigers and I feel my foot hover over the first step of that path.

But I see what my demon does not. Swallow’s Song is watching me and she knows my demon. Zhizhu continues to question me and Keeper peers at me so hard I am sure he can see into my soul.

Unable to wrest control of my voice back, I silently plead for them to stop me. Perhaps Zhizhu hears me, or perhaps she recognizes the demon since she is one herself. In minutes the kimono I have been given in rags around me, soaking up my dripping blood.

I can tell that the Iron Mountain discipline that Thunder Talons has been training me in is a barrier to her, I can see the perspiration on her face, but the agony breaks through. I am grateful for the pain that subdues the Shadow, but its small wicked voice reminds me that this is what I have been waiting for – Zhizhu’s burning touch.

Yes, I’ve been waiting. Three times now she’s come to me, and always Swallow’s Song asks her to use her skills. Always before she stayed her hand. Was it because she sees that I am not good enough? Am I unworthy to be in her Uji? Or just unworthy to touch…?

My demon whispers inside where I cannot close my ears to block it out. Isn’t the pain wonderful? Isn’t her sweet touch excruciatingly wonderful? I desire the pain. I get off on pain.

Despite the blood loss I feel the swift hardening of my member, an instant, aching strain. I almost beg for her to touch it, even the steely caress of a scalpel. I am sure she notices. Keeper and Swallow’s Song must see it as well, but no one comments, though I do not care. I am filled with need. The need for touch, the need for pain.

They leave me sprawled on the floor, my Wind Soul dominant once again. Slowly I draw myself into a kneeling position and bow, grateful for their aid.

Alone, just before dawn, the hot water of the bath washes away the blood and unknots muscle and I think about what happened. That I lost control is regrettable, but hardly disturbing. It is something that I will struggle with until I attain ultimate enlightenment or am destroyed. I am more interested in my body’s reaction to Zhizhu’s torture.

Is it true that pain excites me? Is the Howl truly my path? I lift my left hand from the water and take my forefinger in my right hand. With a sharp twist I snap bone. I blink at the sudden pain, but I have felt more during my nightmare memories of hell than this small hurt. But pain is all there is to it.

Such a small amount of pain though. I heal the finger, then break it again with no different result. I take a firm grip on my wrist and place my elbow over the lip of the tub. Blood spurts as the bone tears through flesh and my jaw clenches against greater pain. But still only pain.

I think back on Zhizhu’s torments, thinking that perhaps it was some special thing she did, the use of hot tools, or blunt trama and I feel the rush of blood to my loins again. I recall images of Sweet Swallow’s Song, her lips against my ear, telling me to choose the music not the pain while her hands wring screams from my flesh.

I feel a quiet rush steal through my soul and see my climax drift away through the water. But it was not the heady spike of orgasm, but the subtle burst that appears only occasionally. The same shining moment as when I first conquered the demon and took control and responsibility for the first time. A spiritual thing.

It wasn’t the pain. It was my body crying out for life. I have had two beautiful women as close to me as lovers. Yes, they were torturing me, but it was with every kindness. Both women hoping that they could help me master my darkness. My arousal was not because of the pain, but in spite of it. It was not pain, but intimacy.

Swallow’s Song is waiting for me when I dry and dress. I tell her that I would like to learn about the dharma’s that await me. It may be a short time before the Jina teachers can arrange to meet with me, but in the meantime she promises to bring me some books to read.

As I follow her back into the chamber where I am kept, I smile and enjoy the view.

The limits of pain

The torture continues, though the lucid periods are more frequent and they last longer. However, the demon within is not quiet. Even without my throat it speaks to me, but I am thankful that only I am subject to its lies.

Zhizhu, the pretty Chinese girl, returns again. Sweet Swallow’s Song asks her if she wishes to torture me herself. I have seen the two women interact twice now and I believe that they are of the same philosophy. I have been told that there are five paths to enlightenment I will be able to choose from, and these two women are fellow travelers on one of those paths.

This time, I am not ashamed. My Wind Soul is dominant, and I listen to Swallow’s Song and learn her lessons. My chin is lifted and my back is straight. I do my best to learn, hoping to impress Zhizhu. Will she think me worthy to join her blood-family?

But it’s not to impress her alone that I learn. I have always loved learning, and what lessons these are! A human being exists in harmony, even the most frail or sickly among them. Their soul is whole. A gaki is a splintered being. The Chinese call it the hun and p’o, the Wind Soul and the Shadow Soul, which are not one, but two. Yin is also cleaved from Yang, and the virtues are in imbalance. When I wake each evening, I must choose to use Yin or Yang chi, and my body is colored by that choice, either more living or more dead.

I have found over the rapid training of recent nights that my body and soul are tilted in favor of the Yang principle. Unless I concentrate each dusk, it is Yang chi that animates my body, burning hot and fast and giving me the semblance of life. A pulse and almost-warm skin.

I experiment within myself, black cycling my own body to feel the coldness. I have to consciously draw breath even to speak, for my lung will not move on their own. My demon whispers that this coldness is peaceful, a soothing balm for the still-burning torments of Hell, an icy shield to protect me from the torments of my training. There is logic in this…but I am beginning to learn that logic and truth are not the same.

I scarlet cycle myself the next evening and the rightness of it is palpable. I black cycle and scarlet cycle to reproduce the results of my experiment and I must conclude that my demon has lied to me once again.

But on that night as I perform for Zhizhu, the demon takes me by surprise. She has refused to torture me, it whispers. Clearly I am nothing to her, she would not touch me, does not want me to join her Uji. I doubt and the demon pounces. I am pinned to the wall by my beautiful sensei, shame threatening to spark Fire Soul, the uncontrollable rage that might be to enough to challenge the Shadow that dominates me now. I have earned pain once again, but still Zhizhu declines Swallow’s Song’s offer and leaves. My dark-self laughs inside.

Can I be right about myself? Do the eyes of demon soul see what I cannot? For a time, I believe. I am unwanted. My efforts are wasted, my intelligence and my progress mean nothing to the beautiful Chinese devil. Unwanted, I will surely be destroyed.

My pain gives my demon strength and I see something new in Swallow’s Song’s eyes. My very flesh is resisting her torments. But my sensei has met this obstacle before, and she knows ways of inflicting agony that could earn her a place as an official of hell. When I am subdued, when the pain has driven my demon inside and the music has lifted my Wind Soul up, she puts down her dripping tools.

She smiles at me, and it is sweet. I would like to kiss her. There is pride in her voice as she tells me that it is time to meet the Oni.

As I am led out of the basement for the first time, I examine what happened. My demon displayed some power, and this pleased my sensei. Of course, the path she walks is one where pain is elevated beyond agony and into enlightenment. The powers of the demon are dear to her. I have seen the abilities she draws from her own darkness and they are formidable.

This is new evidence and I feel a hypothesis forming in my mind. There is much to consider and the ramifications to my soul are astronomical. However, I am missing out on important information as I turn inwards. I have my first glimpse of Outside.

I find myself in a court like an ancient samurai home. There are high walls, made of thick stone and the tops are lined with concertina wire. The only gate I can see is made of thick steel and I suspect that it is barred from the outside. I am not meant to be able to leave this place at will of course. The walls surround a garden, the arrangement of stones and bamboo is simple. Of course, gaki like me, not in total control of themselves, would easily tear apart this garden, ruining the tranquility here. There buildings, much like I would expect in the ancient home of a samurai. The tatami mats and the shoji screens easily destroyed by infant devils like myself, but easily replaced and repaired, a lesson learned from the earthquakes and tsunami’s ages ago.

I follow Swallow’s Song into one of the buildings, which looks like a large dojo. This is where I will meet the First Oni, of whom Swallow’s Song has spoken. He is sometimes called the Demon Daimyo, for he rules the demon court where those newly birthed by hell are taken, just as the Igurashi-sama I have heard about rules all the gaki of this city. Swallow’s Song leaves me there alone.

I find myself missing my sensei. I feel that she is almost a lover to me. Though she has never touched me erotically, there no place I have not felt pain at her hands. I have been closer to her than to anyone since my death. No I am alone, and waiting for the Oni.

I can almost feel him approach, as if my demon recognizes a greater power. My darkness cowers inside myself, but also draws strength from the presence of another’s demon. I try to center myself, to maintain Wind Soul. The shoji opens and he enters.

Terrible Thunder Talons. He is the First Oni, the greatest master of the Demon Arts in city. He stands half again my height and his skin is a coat of thick black armor. His feet and hands are tipped with long jagged claws. I marvel that his demon is fierce that the talons he bears are actually serrated. Wings fold against his back, but they lack membrane or feathers. Long stalks flex and settle behind him as if twitching to lash out and take flight, or perhaps to reach out and seize me. But my gaze focuses on his chest, broad and armored and split by a gnashing mouth. Ivory fangs the size of my fingers point crookedly in every direction, clicking against each other as the jaw chews on air. Blazing orange orbs sit above the mouth, completing the demon face on his body. My eyes move up to his head as an afterthought.

My demon-training begins. On the second night, the dojo collapses after I am thrown through a third wooden pillar. There is pain, but the purpose is different that the sweet excruciations of Swallow’s Song, designed not to suppress my darkness, but to draw it out. I cling to the memory of music, trying to feel the power Terrible Thunder Talons is drawing out of me without letting the demon seize my mind.

I learn that my Demon Art is has been named the Iron Mountain. Unlike the swiftness and speed of the Black Wind or the terrifying power of the Demon Shintai, it is not something I can consciously control. I cannot summon a demon form, or call upon speed and strength. The implants, the tortures of the Wicked City, all toughened my dark soul. All Terrible Thunder Talons can do to teach me is hurt me, and empower my demon to strengthen that resilience.

Already I have made progress. Thunder Talons slashes me and I am thrown across the room. I punch through two shoji walls and crash into a bamboo thicket outside. My new sensei is there before I can rise and he smiles. My stomach is bare, my whole kimono ripped away by the force of the blow and y skin is laid open in a long gash. Raw muscle is visible and blood sheets down my legs. But that blow should have eviscerated me.

My training continues. Most nights I listen to quiet music and learn at the small white feet of Sweet Swallow’s Song. When my demon rises, more infrequently with each passing night, she tortures me and I must conquer the demon and my pain to grasp at the music and true consciousness. Occasionally I am sent to Terrible Thunder Talons, who teaches me the strength of my demon.

Pain has taught me so much. I battled agony to escape hell and return to the Middle Kingdom, seeking a second chance. I overcame torture so that my Wind Soul could blow the Shadow from my mind. Torment unsealed my demon’s power and made me stronger. The way forward seems obvious.

Is that the Howl of the Devil Tiger I hear?