Ataru
hawked his wares to the fools - the foolish who thought they'd make the climb
to enlightenment (even with the castle closed to visitors); the foolhardy
heading out from their safe little dragon holes to visit the plague ridden
world; and the fool-hungry, who always had enough of the fool's money to keep
Ataru round.
"White
Rice, Oranges, Sweet meats, Honey! Salt, Ginger and Cherries! Nori from the distant shores!"
It was
a hard business of late; people were hungrier than ever, and it was their own
damn fault. Didn't Ataru dig up
ginger? Pick his own cherries? Cook the candies? They should be feeding themselves, rather than complaining to the
merchants (then helping themselves to the product). Then there were the aristoctatic fools who still thought they ran
the show, that control was theirs and not this morbid pallor that had come over
everyone of late. Speaking of, here
comes one now: though a little worse for wear, the clothes still give him away. Must be another high-and-mighty Samurai
fallen to ronin. Fools.
"Honey..."
said the ronin.
"Sure,
honey, i have lots of it, little boxes, big jugs, how much does she want?"
"...where
can i find it?"
"Uh,
right here. Look no further. For a mere - "
"No,"
he interrupted, "where can i harvest my own?"
"What?!"
It all made sense now, a down-on-his-luck ronin looking to break into the
business. In otherwords, the
Competition. "Where i find honey
is my business, I don't sell in that volume."
"Are
these not strange times? How much stranger
need they be for you to meet a Ronin on a mission to acquire raw honey? A form of training, if you will. A battle with the bees! I don't need to know your secrets, but i'm
willing to pay and pay well if you could take me to a hive."
If
there was one thing that wasn't lacking, it was bees. The people's malaise had left their hives undisturbed, and now
there was more than even Ataru and his help could harvest. Of course, if this ronin really was willing
to do the dirty work himself, and he seemed honest about not becoming the
competition, it couldn't hurt to make some money on the side. After all, there was a nest just up the
road, the fool had probably walked right by it on his way into town. "Five Zeni (1/10 of a Koku), and my boy
will show you to a hive."
"That's
rather high, merchant, how about two Zeni."
"Five,
you seem desparate enough to find it."
"Fine,
Five," said the ronin, digging it out of his Gi, "if it comes with a
word of wisdom about dealing with bees."
Fool! He was going to pay it! "Good! Consider me the Honey Sensei for your little
training mission... heh, today my wisdom is 'smoke' - learn it well."
Ataru
called over one of his apprentices "Hidoki! Take this customer to the tree
up by old Matsaru's barn, he wants to fetch his own honey..."
On the
walk up to Matsaru's, the ronin finally introduced himself, "I am Kibagami
Kuno, thank you for helping me."
"You
must have paid Ataru well, he doesn't usually let me take people to any of the
hives." (Best not to mention they only just saw this one earlier in the
morning) "I'm Hidoki."
"You
look young to be tangling with bees."
"Ha! I'm twelve already, bees are nothing to
me! Look, I got four stings yesterday
and they don't even hurt" boasted Hidoki as he showed Kuno his hand, he'd
cried all last night as his sister pulled out the stingers. "Have you ever
killed anyone with that katana? That's
real strength."
"Hrmm. Maybe this old man will tell you... but
first you must tell me a thing or two.
Have you ever killed any bees?"
"Oh
yes, many! All the time. We put hemlock
in the fire then..."
"And
do you remember the face of each bee?"
"Uh,"
(dumb foreigner), "they're bees.
They all look the same."
"I'm
a warrior. I kill. I remember the faces of everyone i've killed. Sometimes i think i see them again in the
crowd, or they're faces in dreams.
Killing a person is different than killing a bee. They could be someone's father, or brother,
or son. All those people will remember
this dead man at your feet. And it was
you who chose to kill them - strength or cowardice? Who will remember the bee?"
"Sure
mister, whatever. Here's the tree, good
luck!"
The
tree seemed like any other tree, it had a scoop near the bottom and branched
widely five feet up, as if the top had come down in a large storm. The center was hollow and, as Kuno
approached, he could hear the hum of bees and began to notice them zipping in
and out toward the flowering fields across the road. Matsaru's barn was a few hundred feet away, and seemed long
abandoned, with the top partially fallen in.
Gathering pieces of wood, Kuno set about to follow Ataru's advice - he
slowly constructed a pyre near the base of the tree, facing the scoop, and with
flint and steel he started the blaze.
The bees buzzed about, but so long as he moved slowly and deliberately,
they did not sting.
Soon
the fire picked up, and with the aid of some greener leaves (which he would
normally have avoided for his campfire), Kuno produced a hefty amount of
smoke. "There, smoke," and he
sat down to wait. And wait. But nothing much happened. "Maybe if the smoke went into the
tree..." and so he took to blowing on the far side of the fire, then
fanning it with his bowl. This worked
much better and the bees lazily exited the top of the tree to escape the smoke.
There,
at the base of the tree, next to a fire, they found the cause of the
problems. Some beast with a bowl
blowing smoke up their butts. The bees
descended with utmost haste, and before Kuno realized it, bees were everywhere.
At first, he swatted them away with the bowl, but as the air grew denser, Kuno
grew more desparate. N-N-Niman
Zakura! It had been a while since he
had used 1000 cherry blossoms, and the cyclone was weak. But it did give him a moment to compose
himself for the next onslaught, he built up a mental armor between himself and
the bees.
This
time, as the bees dove, Kuno was ready.
Forget the smoke, with the added protection it was time for a more
direct approach: "KI-OP!" he shouted, and the blast knocked the first
wave to the ground. "KI-OP!" he shouted again, and those hovering by
the top of the trunk spiraled awkwardly off.
It was time to move in, but first, something to catch the honey - a
cloth inside the scoop of the tree.
With most of the bees driven off and only partially covered in red
welts, Kuno grabbed onto the tree and began climbing. It wasn't a pleasant task, the stingers bit into him, even
through the armor, and it took all his concentration to reach the top. But it was worth it. Nestled in the hollow of the tree was row
upon row of honeycomb. Using the
nagenari as a pruning hook, Kuno reached down into the tree and cut out several
of the combs, which fell to the cloth below.
In his excitement at success, the ronin nearly missed the familiar sound
of bees returning. Nearly, but not
quite. With a quick grab for the cloth,
Kuno fled off back down the road, bees buzzing angrily at his heels.