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.