Chapter
One – Heaven’s Tears
All that
we see or seem
Is but a
dream within a dream
- Edgar
Allan Poe, “A Dream Within a Dream”
Always they return to him, gentle as
the rise and fall of the ebbing tide. Memories of a swiftly passing dream, a
silent dream of all that could have been, and all that has passed, and all that
has wilted over the years, crumbling into dust upon the barren plains of his
heart. He watches the dark clouds gather in the distance. Once more, the rain
comes. Washing away the blood. The
joy. The pain. Once more he falls, losing
himself within the savage beauty of the storm, the insanity, the truth and the
lies.
It is all that he has left.
- - -
It was raining. It was always
raining. He hated the rain.
He drew his kodachi
from its sheath, stroking the cold blade absentmindedly.
The rain pattered incessantly on the
glass window at his back.
The
rain,
pattering incessantly on the
dusty streets of edo. running
down his back in icy
trickles. across the road in muddy streams.
edo castle looms before
his eyes in all its glory, a ghost castle
rising from the mists. and then,
just as suddenly, he is
swept away in a sea of umbrellas, floating down the street in
a somber parade.
rain drips down his face
in rivulets. like tears,
falling
from
the
sky
the wind
whips at his soaking
clothes and at his hair,
pulled back in a high
ponytail.
okashira, okashira,
calls a voice in the distance. okashira,
okashira
"Okashira!" His eyes fluttered open. His head
was pounding with the sound of the rain hammering against the window at his
back. He hated the rain.
"Okashira,"
came the man's voice again. It was Hannya,
he realized. "Takeda is ready to see us now."
"Aa,"
he replied. He stood up, sliding his blade back into its sheath.
okashira, okashira
He nodded at the masked man in the
doorway and at the three others standing behind.
"Let's go," he said.
As they left the room, he reached
up, running his fingers through his hair, cropped short against his neck.
okashira, the castle has fallen
Takeda Kanryuu's
room was glaringly tacky, a sickening clash of the West and the Orient. There
was a brightly woven Persian rug lying on the wooden floor before the thick oak
door. In the corner stood a marble statue of a nude man, which Aoshi quickly averted his eyes from. An oil painting of two
gaijin women dressed in fancy ruffled gowns hung on one wall. From the wall
facing it hung a yellowed scroll on which was written a single black character:
"prosperity."
And Takeda Kanryuu
himself sat lounging in a velvet moss-green chair behind an elaborately carved
desk. A fat imported cigar dangled clenched between the businessman's teeth.
"My dearest Aoshi!"
exclaimed Takeda Kanryuu in broken English as he
removed the cigar from his mouth. "I am so glad that you could make
it!"
Aoshi
fought back a sudden urge to pace back and forth across the room. Like a tiger
trapped within a jeweled cage. Behind him, his men shifted uneasily.
"Takeda," stated Aoshi coldly. Slowly but accurately.
He too had studied the gaijin language. "My men do not understand
English."
A dark flash of something passed
swiftly over the businessman's face before it disappeared again. "Of
course, of course!" said Takeda Kanryuu before
switching back to their native Japanese. "Please, just call me Kanryuu."
Okashira? what have you
called me here for? he
asks.
he already knows the
answer.
ah, shinomori-kun.
you have arrived, replies the old man.
he waits. outside, the rain drums upon the roof. a
solemn tolling.
i am dying, shinomori-kun.
he bows his head in the
deep, long silence, marked only by the sound of the pattering rain.
i am dying, withering
as the flower of the tokugawa
wilts, as our country and
our people and the ideals we have fought for
crumble into dust. i fall
as the old era falls,
with the coming of the new age.
as spring comes at
winter's end, is his reply.
the old man smiles. i have taught you well. you are fifteen –
a man now. a flower that has only just begun to bloom. spring shall come
soon, heralded by the
winter rains...
lead our people
into the light of the new
era, shinomori. for
i am weary, and i have outlived my time. and
perhaps
okina was right -- perhaps,
in the end, it is in the hands of
tomorrow's youth that our future
lies.
do you
understand, shinomori?
"Do you understand?"
"I understand," he replied
tersely.
"Good, good," said Kanryuu. Light from the oil lamp on the desk glinted off of
the businessman's spectacles. "I shall speak to you again tomorrow with
more details -- alone, please. For
now you and your men may retire to your rooms. I trust you have all found them
comfortable so far?"
and please, take care of Misao for me
"And the money?" asked Aoshi quietly.
"Tomorrow, tomorrow -- we shall
discuss all of that tomorrow."
"Then -- I should prefer a
simpler room. And futons. Futons are all we
require."
"Are you sure? I made certain
to save the finest rooms and the most luxurious beds for you and your men, my
dear Aoshi... Ah, very well. The room where you were
waiting in will do, I suppose? I shall arrange for futons to be brought
there."
Aoshi
bowed stiffly and left. His men followed.
"Okashira..."
came a deep, low rumble. He looked up to see the scarred, muscular figure of Shikijou at his side. "Be careful."
He inclined his head slightly and
continued walking.
"Because..." There was a
strange tone in the large warrior's voice. "I saw... the way he looks at
you..."
Watch
out, aoshi-sama! she
squeals, soaked with rain and
mud, as she bounces into his lap.
you will catch a cold, he
admonishes. he sits there, watching the rain trailing
down
from
the
sky
in gossamer strands. water from her
braid and her clothes drips
down his front.
she pouts. you aren't gonna tell on me to jiya, are you?
of course not, he
answers. and the
rain continues to fall.
It seemed as if the rain would never
end.
His men had already decided to
settle down for the night. But he himself could not sleep. The sound of the
rain drilled itself relentlessly into his mind. He sat at a side door of Kanryuu's great white mansion, watching the water pouring
down.
It was cold. The harsh winter days
were fading already into calmer, gentler weather, speckled with the occasional
bursts of rain. Still, spring itself had not yet arrived. The world outside
remained dark and grey and misty. As if it were a world existing only in his dreams,
a world untouched by sunlight or stars.
Movement flickered in the corner of
his eye. He caught a sudden glimpse of a figure, slender and feminine, drifting
aimlessly through the rain. It was a young woman. A ghostly
specter with long black hair, a girl no older than himself. Ethereal, save for the aura of bitter sorrow about her that weighed
her down, anchoring her to the ground.
"What are you doing out
here?" he demanded, standing up.
Perhaps he was dreaming. Perhaps he
was living. Perhaps he was dying.
The woman whirled around, startled
by his voice. Water dripped, streaming down through her long black hair, over
her lavender kimono and haori.
Her lips were redder than freshly
spilled blood. She glared at him, but her dark mahogany eyes were empty.
"You," she said. Her voice
was smooth and calm, with an underlying fire he was able to detect only from
years of listening. "You're one of Kanryuu's
cronies, aren't you."
It was a statement, not a question.
He winced at her words, feeling a strange frigid fury rise in his heart.
"You will catch a cold,"
he said at last, ignoring it.
She threw back her head and laughed,
long and bitterly. "I like the rain," she retorted.
"... Why?"
"Because the rain is like
Heaven's tears..." And the rest of her sentence faded and was lost in the
patter of the pouring rain as she swept past him, back into the cold white
mansion.
you aren't gonna tell on me, are you
of course
not
(Artist: MiJ)