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?

A symphony of pain

Consciousness comes and goes like the tides. In fact, it’s like drowning. Drowning in darkness, drowning in blood, drowning in music. Take your pick.

Sometimes it’s easier to drift, to let go and let the darkness suck me down. Fighting is painful. But there’s not much peace in letting go. Down below the darkness hell lurks, waiting to take me back, and soon I’m thrashing my way back to the surface again, as frightened as when I first bolted out of Mikaboshi’s lab like a startled rabbit.

Of course, there at the brink, between darkness and light, between consciousness and the nightmares, is pain. I’m caught between hell below and agony above. Maybe between two hells, pulling on my soul like children fighting over a toy. It comes to me only gradually that there is a wall of pain keeping me from awareness because someone is torturing me.

The fact that I realize this denotes a degree of awareness. I retreat from the pain into the darkness, then push forward again. The results are the same, I am being tortured. It’s a different feeling than the torments of the Wicked City. There the whole hell was designed to inflict excruciation. The acid rain, burning the skin, the stomach cramping food, processed from weaker souls, the flickering fluorescents that seared the retinas, and the implants, deep inside, orchestrating the agony.

This new torture is different, not ubiquitous, but deliberate. We’re talking movie torture. Hot needles, jumper cables, scalpels. I bounce back and forth between the torture and my hell. I fear it’s driving me mad. But how does one objectively determine if one has lost his mind? There are no tests I can perform to gauge my sanity. Is the music real?

Yes. I determine that it is. I am hearing music every time I rise towards awareness and the torment in my way. This indicates a higher degree of consciousness than I previously possessed. I am in a room, perhaps ten paces square. The walls are dark stone or concrete, as is the floor. I can feel my arms wrenched above my head, though I can’t tell how I am tied because my wrists are numb and throbbing. There is a drain directly below my feet.

I am naked.

There’s a long table against one of the walls covered in the instruments with which I have been tortured, the ones that are polished reflecting the dim light coming from fixtures on the walls. Very few of the instruments are polished, most are dark with rust or blood. The music is playing lightly in the background. The atmosphere is somewhere between a medieval dungeon and a romantic diner.

My hostess embodies the contradiction. She’s a petite Japanese woman with porcelain white skin and a round face. However, her hair is bone-white, despite her apparent youth. If that were her only oddity she might have turned a few heads and nothing more, however, her black leather outfit exposed countless body modifications. Everything was pierced. Long needles were thrust through her skin in shiny rows, spiked studs were mounted on her hands, and her back had been slit open along her spine, then laced closed with black silk. She was terrifying and she was beautiful.

I retreat into darkness.

There’s no sense of time when you are drifting in and out of awareness, your mind not even fully your own. The passage of time is a backdrop against which I can measure progress and change and without it I am drifting. Moments are centuries, time slowing down or speeding up in relation to my perceptions.

I think I am aware again. I can hear the music and feel the pain. I hear a voice and I realize that I am speaking to the woman who tortures me. I expected it to be hoarse and cracked from disuse. My throat is a little raw from screaming, but otherwise smooth. I take a moment, the music fading as my awareness focuses inwards, contemplating what this means.

I have been speaking for some time. Often enough not to have lost my voice, yet I have been unconscious. I hypothesize that another awareness has been speaking from my mouth, but I need evidence to support this conjecture. My gut feeling is not enough. As I try to focus on the waking world again, I hear the woman asking me about the music playing in the small room and I hear my own voice answering it. I claim to recognize the music, a piece that played at my wedding, though I do not remember the name.

This isn’t true and the woman seems to know it. My hypothesis is supported, though I wonder at this awareness using my body and voice. The woman punishes me for my lies and the agony flares brightly. In the midst of the pain I understand.

I am me. I am the consciousness struggling against the darkness and the pain, and I am the voice which lies. That cruel speaker is the self that escaped from hell, the soul which forgot happiness and life. Somehow, when I escaped from the Wicked City, I found that part of me which remembered. But these two parts of me are not fully reunited. I am not one soul, but two.

My dark half is strong, toughened by the torments of hell and made bold by the victory of its escape. My light half is weak and confused, and perhaps would have been lost. I examine the few waking memories I have after hell and I conclude that something lured my higher soul out of the darkness. The music.

Every night it is the same, music and pain. My dark soul rages and it lies with every breath, but my consciousness clings to the music. I fight against my own soul and finally my body is my own, I am afloat on the darkness. I can feel the depths below, and the waves threatening to submerge me again, but for now, the fresh air gives me strength.

That is when my teaching begins. My new sensei is called Sweet Swallow’s Song, a strange, but beautiful name. I listen to the music and I understand. She gives me a choice as well, to endure pain and torment, until I am cast back into hell, or to rise above it and become a person once again. Music or torture. The choice seems simple enough, and it would be to anyone who’s soul was whole, whose internal darkness did not have a voice with which to scream lies and strength with which to wrest their very body from their control.

I learn what it is to be gaki, and I learn that Swallow’s Song is gaki as well. We both began in hell, and we both walk the Road Back. The difference is that Swallow’s Song is far along that road. My own feet drag with the weight of my inner demon, and if I stumble on this narrow and treacherous part of the path, hell is waiting to swallow me up again. That we are both the same is called the Way of Origin, the first of the Great Principles. It is this respect for all who walk the Road Back that prevents Swallow’s Song from destroying me outright.

Some nights I hear the music clearly enough to claim my body, and on those nights I learn. On some nights my darkness is too strong to be denied and on those nights I suffer.

On a night that my demon-self is strong and the music is loud there is a visitor. The door opens and I raise my head – I have not yet been outside that door, I have not earned that right. My wind soul rises to the surface and I feel shame. There is no reason to be ashamed of my nudity, but I feel shamed for this new person to see me as I am now, not yet in control over my own demon-soul.

It is ZhiZhu, a member of the Thousand Li Scouts. Swallow’s Song has told me that if I master my own soul, then I will join this blood family. I want to have an Uji. I crave that fellowship like I crave chi. But with that thought I am reminded that I must steal chi from the flesh of the dead, and my shame is renewed.

ZhiZhu watches me, gauging me. By her name I conclude that she is Chinese, rather than Japanese, supported by the slant of her eyes and the curve of her cheek. I wonder what brought this woman to Nippon, and what made her one of the Thousand Li Scouts. It gives me hope to see another cloven soul who has taken the first steps along the Road Back.

The conversation is mostly between my sensei and the guest. I do not wish to shame myself further by speaking and revealing my appalling lack of enlightenment. When she leaves I raise my head again.

I tell Swallow’s Song that she can remove the chains that hold me. They are no longer necessary. I am ready to learn.

My sensei smiles. The chains shatter without my ever having seen her move. She turns up the music.