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.