Sorry this a bit past the deadline.
I've tried for something chambara-style.
Please feedback by PM or thread as you wish.
Brief Encounter by autran
Lord Hirosaki knelt on the floor of his receiving room watching his eldest son's back as the young man stormed out of the clan residence. With a flick of his wrist Lord Hirosaki rang the tiny bell he kept concealed in the sleeve of his kimono.
Paper screens slid open to his left and Lord Hirosaki's closest retainer and closest servant enterred.
"My writing desk," he said, his eyes still looking in the direction that his son had taken. His servant bowed quickly and left.
After a gesture from Lord Hirosaki his retainer crossed the room and knelt to his right. The two men sat in silence until the servant returned accompanied by two boys carrying a writing desk between them. The boys put the desk on the floor in front of the clan lord and left. The servant knelt opposite and busied himself readying the brushes and ink.
The retainer spoke. "Young master Itaro seemed angry, my lord. I take it you did not approve his intended marriage?"
"My son does not know the girl's background," replied Lord Hirosaki. "It makes her quite unsuitable."
"Will you tell the young master her background, my lord?"
"Unfortunately that is impossible. I could only tell him that he must have the approval of his aunt in Tambu."
"Surely she will allow him to marry whoever he wishes?"
"I suppose so, but she will insist on him bringing the girl to her."
During the conversation the servant had finished his preparation and sat back.
"What a situation for a father," Lord Hirosaki exclaimed. "I must turn to poetry for solace." He picked up a brush and contemplated for a moment. Inspiration struck and he dipped the brush in black paint and wrote:
Wet with her man's tears
She lies on the Tambu road
A brief encounter
Reading the poem, the retainer bowed his head to hide his face from his master.
"My haiku is so poor I have to pay for an audience," the clan head sighed reaching into his sleeve. He withdrew his hand and placed a small pile of gold coins in the centre of the poem. Then he folded and tied the paper around the gold to form a compact, heavy packet.
"Please send it to my usual reviewer." Lord Hirosaki passed the packet to his servant, who bowed and left the room.
"You seem troubled," Lord Hirosaki said to his retainer, whose head was still bowed. "You are displeased with me?"
"No no, my lord," the retainer hastily denied any such impertinence. "It's only that I am shocked at the harshness of it all."
"The girl's background makes such harshness necessary. We will speak more of it later."
Three days later, at dusk, the paper with the haiku was being digested in the stomach of a clanless ninja. The ninja, Yoshi by name, ignored the pain of indigestion in his stomach in the same way that he ignored the pain of fatigue in his limbs as he ascended, vertically, the outside corner of a wayside inn on the Tambu road. He had a set of tiger-claw hooks laced to each hand. Upon reaching the roof, which was over the second storey, he pivotted his body so that his legs pointed towards the peak of the roof.
Once he was settled, Yoshi unlaced the tiger-claws from his left hand and hung them from his belt. Using just his left thumb he opened a tiny gap in the inn's shutters so that he could look down on the corridor within. Then he waited, confident that nobody would spot him, a black shape against the dark wood of the roof at night.
After a while a woman emerged from one of the rooms on the upper storey. Yoshi waited for her to walk past then flipped the shutter open with his thumb and dropped through the gap. He landed behind her with his right hand raised. Yoshi was poised to deliver the death strike with his tiger claw when something happened.
Startled, the woman had turned to face him, but she had no face. Above the neck her whole head was as featureless as a paper lantern. Yoshi was sure he had seen at least a nose and hair as he was watching through the shutter and for a moment could not comprehend what had happened.
In that moment the woman drew a dagger from the folds of her modest night attire and struck. Yoshi's reflexes saved him: his left arm, almost on its own, lifted to block the knife's slash. At the same time his right foot stepped forwards and his right hand lashed at his attacker, but he struck only air as the woman shuffled backwards.
In the next moment Yoshi became aware of two things. Firstly, that the thousand-power chain he had had wrapped around his left arm had protected him from the dagger blow but had been dislodged from its fastenings. Secondly, that the faceless woman in front of him was turning to run away; he could not allow her to escape. In response to these observations he lowered his left arm, catching the weight on the end of the chain in the palm of his left hand and counted two heartbeats as he caught a few coils of the chain on the fingers. With his eyes fixed on the featureless head of the woman, who had now turned to flee, he deflty rotated his left thumb to form a noose in the thousand-power chain.
Just as she was two paces from a corner in the corridor, and safety, he hurled the noose. For a moment his heightened combat senses allowed Yoshi a vision of a helix of metal links in mid-air with its axis pointed straight at the woman's head. Then the noose hit and tightened around her neck as he had intended.
Yoshi sank his weight and passed his right hand in front of hinself so that it caught on the chain. Braced against his weight, the chain transferred the running momentum of the woman's slim body to her beautiful slender neck, breaking it. Yoshi had a brief glimpse of her feet flicking upwards, carried by the impetus, before her whole body landed limply on the floor.
Making rapid hand passes as he moved forwards Yoshi maintained the tension in the chain as he wrapped it around his left forearm and at the same time approached the woman's body. Soon somebody would come to see about the noise of their brief struggle.
For a moment he looked at the blank head of the woman. Satisfied that it was not a trick, but some kind of supernatural manifestation, he dropped his right knee and delivered a mighty whirling slash with the tiger-claws on his right hand. Next moment he straightened his knee and jumped to the ceiling, then somersaulted out of a shutter.
"You see she was a monster, a mujina with no face of her own," explained Lord Hirosaki to his retainer late one night as they sat by the fire. "She could have taken any woman's face and would have had absolute control over my son, and hence the clan quite soon."
"Don't say quite soon my lord," said the retainer. "I'm sure you will live for many years yet."
"Perhaps the flames think they live for many years." Lord Hirosaki smiled as he threw a piece of paper on the fire. The message on the paper was visible only for a moment before it was consumed.
Nothing is told by
A face the tiger has stroked
Secrets can die too |
