Blossom of the Samurai Read online

  Hirata cleared his throat. His face was deeply lined now. “No. You never were.”

  “Would that I had been there when Sozaemon entered your father’s dojo and moved within its walls.” He sighed heavily. “We all have that ability,” Sho went on. “There is no anma incapable of such perception. No trail that we follow ever goes cold. And we are everywhere. There is no porch of an inn, bathhouse, teahouse, or otherwise where information can’t be gotten. Please, don’t worry. Either of you.” Sho stepped up to Toho. “I will embrace you when I return, Toho. I would not let you feel the heat of my bloodlust right now. You need only your healing energy to come forth. Take care of Aoki-san.”

  Toho nodded. “I will, Father.” He pushed back tears that threatened. How glad he was Hirata would stay with him. He stood, watching Sho turn and go out the gate.

  A sharp breath nearby made him turn his head. Hirata had sunk onto the bench. Toho went and sat down next to him.

  To his surprise, Hirata took his hand. “He understands how small this event has left me. He knows what I am inside.” Hirata’s face reddened. A teardrop spilled onto his cheek. “He never wants me to feel ashamed.”

  Toho nodded. The pressure of his father’s hand was comforting and moving at the same time. In that moment, he felt his father’s heart in his own. In the face of Sozaemon, Hirata had never stopped feeling like the boy who’d been pinned under the ronin’s violent, perverse body. No doubt, Hirata had been physically smaller in stature even than Aoki, and at a far more tender age. As he himself had been when unspeakable violence had been visited on his own life. “I understand.”

  “I know you do, son. I know.”

  He sat with his father on the bench for what felt like a long time. In those moments, he was gripped by desire to rise and follow Sho, to aid him in his task of vengeance. After all, Aoki was his own dear friend. Yet, how would Aoki feel if he woke up to find Toho gone, knowing the reason for his absence? Toho reminded himself every few moments that Aoki needed him here, needed his healing abilities rather than his swordsmanship in vengeance.

  “Don’t you be ashamed either, Toho,” Hirata said suddenly, as if he’d been reading his son’s mind. “Yes, Aoki-san needs you here. And yes, you are too inexperienced at this time to face a man such as Sozaemon. Both things are true. However….” He paused, staring off toward the gate through which his life partner had just left on a deadly quest. “There is something more important than either.”

  Toho looked at him. “What is it, Father?”

  Hirata squeezed his hand again, never having released it in all the time they sat on the bench. “This particular fight belongs to Sho and to no one else.”

  Chapter Six

  Nearly a fortnight later….

  SOZAEMON SEEMED a master at disappearance. Sho pushed back his frustration and continued his search, driven on only by his one desire to end the man’s life. Perhaps the ronin was aware this entire time of being tailed. After all, if Toho’s assertion of the man’s occupation as a spy was true, then Sozaemon would certainly have a sense of someone following him. Even Sho’s most discreet inquiries to his fellow anma where they perched on the porches of bathhouses and inns, waiting to hustle up coins in exchange for a shoulder rub, had apparently not escaped Sozaemon’s notice. During Sho’s formative years with his master, Zatoichi, he’d learned to search people down within a few days using mostly his senses of hearing and smell. Indeed, his nostrils had become his only advantage in the search for Sozaemon, as not even the most skilled spy could cover his very essence as it radiated from within his body.

  The ronin’s one characteristic described to Sho by all the anma he approached had been a certain odor of stale sake mixed with something that could not truly be named. For, how could one put words to the smell emitted by someone whose demons chased them into the darkest reaches of their minds and hearts? Yet, to a man, the anma had mentioned this characteristic, and when he did, Sho knew the ronin had been there.

  Sozaemon’s course did not seem to have any particular objective except to avoid his pursuer. He moved from inn to inn, town to town, not appearing to conduct any particular business except to find lodging or visit a bathhouse and an occasional tea room run by the very type of young men Aoki had been. Sho expected to hear a report of a kagema’s having been violated and beaten, but none reached his ears. As if Sozaemon knew another rape would cause him to get caught.

  In one small town along the Tokaido Road, close to sunset, Sho decided to stop for an evening meal and consider another strategy. Even with his ability to discern the ronin’s most recent whereabouts, as long as Sozaemon continued to slip away, this game of cat and mouse could continue indefinitely. Sho ached for Hirata’s embrace and knew his lover was worried about him and also missing him terribly, but Sho hadn’t dared send any correspondence, which he knew the wily Sozaemon would intercept.

  Sho entered a tavern and sat at a low table. A serving maid brought him a pitcher of sake and an assortment of dishes: a bowl of rice, fried fish, pickles, and a skewer of roasted meat. Sho poured himself a small cup of sake and took a few sips before setting the cup down and proceeding to pick up a piece of fish to add to his rice. Chopsticks midway to his mouth, he detected an odor that suddenly pervaded the space around his table. His hand froze while the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

  Sozaemon.

  “May I join you?” a deep voice said close by.

  Sho remained still, not putting his bowl and chopsticks down. “Yes.” He listened to the sounds of a large body, a combination of strength from many years of wielding a sword and fat from overindulgence in sake and rich foods, sliding onto a cushion across from him. By the flow of air around his guest, Sho could formulate an image in his mind of a fleshy-faced samurai with deep-set eyes that radiated a combination of anger and the charming humor that drew in his victims, and thin lips that often twisted from his own inner bitterness. Sho gestured to his pitcher of drink. “I will ask for a second cup for you,” he said.

  “No need. I have already requested.”

  The server came over and set down a cup, followed by the same meal as Sho had received, based on the increase of the scents of food and the number of bowls placed on the table.

  When she’d gone, Sho waited while Sozaemon poured himself a cup of sake and downed it in one large gulp. The cup hit the wooden table with a thud.

  “Have another,” Sho said.

  “Just the one, today,” Sozaemon said. “I will need my wits about me.”

  Sho continued to sit quietly, afraid that any move he made would ignite the fire of vengeance that had been burning in him, unrequited for so many years. He forced himself to take a bite of food and chew.

  Sozaemon seemed content to carry the conversation. “I finally decided to let you catch me. Once I had a chance to confirm your identity.” The ronin took up his rice bowl and ate several quick mouthfuls of rice with his chopsticks before speaking again. “Until then, you were simply an anma with an illegal sword in your possession, following me about with the intent of killing me.”

  Sho cleared his throat. His jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. “I am still such a one. What is the difference now?”

  Sozaemon chuckled and called to the serving maid for a pot of tea. “Now I know you are the one trained by Zatoichi. You can tell me where he is.”

  Sho’s blood heated to boiling. The only people who sought out Zatoichi who weren’t trying to kill him were those who needed self-defense. “I would not tell you where he is if he were sitting here next to me.”

  Sozaemon was silent a moment then chuckled, a gravelly sound. “Perhaps I could say something to make you change your mind.”

  “I can’t imagine what that would be.”

  “Can’t you? You who are so perceptive?” Sozaemon shifted in his seat. “You anma can smell a person’s very soul. So let me say, I don’t believe you.”

  Sho tuned in to the silence that followed the other man’s words. Sozae
mon was right, of course. If he concentrated enough, listened hard enough, he would know exactly what Sozaemon wanted from Ichi-san.

  I want him to kill me.

  The words rose suddenly in Sho’s mind. He set down his bowl and chopsticks. His sword hand moved toward the scabbard, as if with a life of its own. If Sozaemon truly sought death, he’d come to the right place. Out of care for the innocent in the place, such as the barmaid and unarmed patrons, he stayed himself. Firmly he pushed his mind into the deep mode of concentration his master had taught him. Now was as much a time as ever to honor the time and love Zatoichi had put into him. “Why?” he muttered.

  Again the ronin laughed. “You’re a swordsman, anma. When your time comes, will you want illness or decrepitude to overtake you like a piece of shit on the road? Or would you rather go out with dignity and honor, no matter what kind of scum you were in life?”

  Sho remained silent, digesting this little speech. “Ichi-sensei will not simply kill someone because he requests it.”

  Sozaemon poured a cup of tea from the pot that had been served him and took a sip. “I’m sure that’s true, but that first reason is only a tiny part. The next is beyond even your powers of observation. You’ll need a hint.”

  Sho could not imagine anything Sozaemon said would elicit sympathy, but in order to get a sense of the ronin’s true motives, he had to listen. “I’m listening.”

  “I have heard tales of Ichi-san, of his willingness to help those in need. He will fight the powerful who abuse their power over the defenseless.”

  “Yes. All true.” Sho acted agreeable though his mind railed silently against what he was hearing. What could Sozaemon’s request for death at Zatoichi’s hands have to do with someone powerless?

  Then, suddenly, as if lightning had exploded within him, he understood. How he made the connections, as invisible as a spider’s web woven across two trees flanking a road, he didn’t know, but they were there. The simile came to Sho’s mind, a memory from long ago childhood before he’d lost his sight, of knowing a spider’s web was there only once the filament had touched and stuck to his cheek. After that, he’d always known to watch the angle of the sun, the way it glinted off the fine threads, alerting him to their presence so he wouldn’t walk into them and tear the spider’s labors…. “Your demons,” he said between clenched teeth. “You want Ichi-sensei to rid you of your demons.”

  Sozaemon was silent but Sho registered the change in breath, the increase in heat from the man’s body, the diffusion of his odorous darkness. “You know of my demons, do you?”

  Sho narrowed his eyes and sat forward. “My birthplace is the home of Morimasa Yoken,” he said. “My first sensei in the technique of the Flying Cloud. I know well who you are and what you did while you were under Morimasa-sensei’s roof.”

  “Do you now?”

  The ronin’s slight discomfort caused that odor of his to sharpen in Sho’s nostrils.

  “I do. I know how your demons chased you through the years and led you once again to one of mine. In Kai.”

  Another hesitation ensued, and then Sozaemon uttered a small odd grunt. “So, this is about the boy? The son of Morimasa Yoken, is it? And the kagema?”

  Sho felt the fire in his belly rage upward, into his cheeks. Under the table, he allowed his hand to grip the hilt of his cane. No, he would not dare unsheathe it in this public place, but his touch on the weapon grounded him, prevented him from lunging across the table and wrapping furious hands around the ronin’s neck. He cleared his throat in the battle for his composure. “If you wish to be rid of your demons, if you are truly so tormented by what you’ve done, then why not take care of the task yourself? Why burden another with your death?”

  Sozaemon was quiet a moment, this time with an unexpected air of thoughtfulness. “You make a good point, anma. If a man is truly ashamed of the acts that make him less than human, he should die with the shame he has earned. But I am still a samurai and though I may die carrying my shame, I have not spent a lifetime perfecting a skill only to take my own life in a quiet corner somewhere. I need some dignity to take with me into the next world. I have been searching for Zatoichi all these years just for this one purpose. I would think Zatoichi has enough compassion in him to allow me that much.”

  Sho took a deep breath. Never had he imagined the request before him. All during his pursuit of the ronin, he imagined coming upon him, sword drawn, and cutting him down, propelled by his rage and bloodlust to superhuman strength. Now the very man he sought to execute wanted a fair fight so he could die a proper samurai, in spite of the wickedness he’d committed.

  Truthfully, Sho did not know where Ichi-sensei was at present and would need time to locate him through the network of blind, nearly invisible anma that stretched across the land, unknown to much of the sighted world. Time Sho certainly did not want to take. And be robbed of his justice? “If you want to die like a samurai,” he said finally, “then fight me.”

  “Mmm, or continue on my search for Zatoichi. Which could go on indefinitely, in spite of the fact that you probably could find him quite easily if you tried.”

  Sho felt a tug in his chest, a threatening pang of compassion. Just what Sozaemon was trying to gain by playing him as if he were plucking the strings of a shamisen. Sho made his mind conjure an image of young Hirata struggling under the large stocky man, trying vainly to escape. “You dare try to play on my sympathy?”

  Sozaemon bowed right there in his seat. Though Sho couldn’t see the motion, he sensed it in the play of air in the nearby space and the sounds of movement. “You are right, anma. I should not question your skill. If Ichi-san trained you, then no doubt you are as worthy an opponent as he. And… I will give you the justice you seek by my death at your blade. Perhaps in that way, I will expiate my sins.”

  Sho didn’t answer. He forced himself to breathe evenly and slowly. The impact of Sozaemon’s agreement to duel, to give him the vengeance he’d craved for so long, impacted almost like a physical blow. For a moment, he found himself questioning the ronin’s veracity. He’d been certain of Sozaemon’s game and now hovered with uncertainty as to whether his remorse was a show or not.

  Sozaemon chuckled. “I see you don’t know quite what to make of me. I have that effect on people often. They cannot reconcile the seemingly completely different people in one body.”

  Instead of answering, Sho decided the ronin’s veracity was of no matter. The basic truth was in the souls he’d injured, the bodies he’d violated, and the hearts into which he’d forced fear and mistrust. The task before him was necessary to prevent further damages.

  “I will take your silence as agreement,” Sozaemon said. “Well, I will now enjoy what may prove to be my last meal.”

  SHO WAITED for Sozaemon to finish his meal, and then they left the tavern. A short journey ensued, out of the town, to a dark field awaiting the moonrise. Sho’s senses detected a clear sky, the air redolent with the smell of the grasses. Sho came to a standstill. “I know night has fallen. I don’t need light for this task, but perhaps you do.”

  “Yes, I do need some light. A fire would draw attention from passersby on the road, so I would wait just a bit longer for the moonrise. The moon should be quite full. I won’t need more than that.”

  “Very well. We wait, then.” Sho knelt, his cane-sword laid carefully on the grass before his knees, and prepared to meditate. Nearby, he heard Sozaemon undo his weapons belt, set his swords in the same position, and take a deep breath.

  In deep meditation, Sho had learned, long periods of time could pass yet feel like only moments, so he didn’t know how long they’d been waiting for the moonrise when Sozaemon alerted him with a simple “It’s time.”

  Sho unfolded from his kneeling position, took up his sword, and turned in the direction of Sozaemon’s voice. “I’m ready.”

  “I can now see a bit up ahead,” the ronin said, “to a clearing at the forest’s edge. The grass isn’t so high there.”

 
; “I’ll follow you.”

  Sozaemon started walking. Sho followed the swoosh of his footsteps in the grass. He could tell when they drew closer to the forest by the increased volume of the nocturnal creatures’ choruses.

  “We’re here.” Sozaemon stopped.

  Sho listened to the other man removing his long sword from its scabbard, followed by the sounds of the other weapons being placed on the ground nearby. Accordingly, he slid the sword from the cane scabbard that kept it disguised as a simple cane for a blind man and readied his stance. As always, the habit of keen listening took over, and sheer unadulterated awareness flooded every sense, alerting Sho as to the ronin’s physical position, his stance, his own level of concentration. “Do you have any last words?” he asked Sozaemon.

  The samurai was quiet a moment, his silence filled by the calls of a night bird hidden somewhere in the trees nearby. “Yes. May my death have the desired result.”

  Sho let an appropriate moment pass. They were both ready. He stepped forward and muttered, “Engage.”

  Sozaemon did not rush in. Sho heard his footsteps moving carefully, circling, could practically hear the workings of Sozaemon’s mind, weighing, measuring. Sho rotated with him, by increments within the center of this potentially deadly orbit. Though Sozaemon had declared the desire to die, he was a samurai after all and would not get cut down without an engaging and likely bloodletting duel.

  Several more circling steps back to the original starting point and Sho sensed the moment the ronin decided to advance. Sho tilted his head in the direction that would best allow him to feel the very air move as Sozaemon came toward him, sword brandished.