Not as light as most of the series. Fair warning.
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Pastpresent
by Susan Doenime
R1/2 characters and backstory are the creations and property of Takahashi
Rumiko. Used without permission. No challenge to copyrights should be
inferred or taken.
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Pastpresent homepage at: http://www.thekeep.org/~mike/pastpresent.html
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Pastpresent 9 - Echoes In Darkness
I was almost nineteen when I began to realize how
deeply dissatisfied I was with my life.
It was not something that revealed itself in a
sudden stroke of lightning. Rather, it was a gradual
awakening, as if from a light doze in a sun that was
rapidly getting too warm for comfort. I was not happy.
There was something fundamentally flawed with how I
was living.
It wasn't easy to grasp. I knew I wasn't content, but
I didn't know why. Sometimes I felt as if I could almost
say the reason. Sometimes it baffled me.
At first, I tried to ignore it. It frightened me for
reasons I could not explain, and my bravery has always
been limited to certain areas in which I excel. I fear I've
seen too much of this side of myself in you to please me,
but no matter. No child will ever be completely to the
liking of his parents, especially where their own
shortcomings are concerned.
When it became clear that my discontent wasn't
going to simply leave on its own, I tried to give it
plausible explanations. My job at the grocery was
miserable, low-pay slave labor. My mother was getting
more and more difficult to tolerate. A deadly opponent
had selected me for special attention. All were excellent
reasons to be unhappy with life, and I put my funk down
to them.
It wasn't, though. I couldn't tell what was bothering
me, but I was able to tell what wasn't. It was something
deeper.
I tried to seek answers in my training. And in less
vigorous pursuits.
-----------------------------
The Saotome family home was large for a house in
crowded Tokyo. The house itself was only of medium size, but
the garden was large and lavish, protected from the
surrounding area by stone walls.
It had been designed and arranged in some forgotten age,
probably during the early years of the Tokugawa era by a
Saotome returned from the wars and seeking solace. The whole
complex, garden and home, had been reduced to scorched rubble
during a American bombing run; the Saotomes had
painstakingly rebuilt it as soon as they were able to,
recreating even the shortcomings and imperfections of the
original.
The central feature of the garden was a roughly circular
pond, the home of several long-suffering carp. Saotome-sensei
was fond of aerial attacks, and Soun and Genma had wound up
toppling into the pool more often that they cared to admit. The
fish were very agile and rather stressed-out as a result.
Both of the two disciples of the master were familiar
with the garden in a way difficult to understand. Saotome-
sensei had raised them both up to favored status on the same
day, and informed them that they would no longer pay him a
weekly teaching fee.
"Money is proper for the lower levels of the Art," he had
told them. "That is fair value. But the inner secrets of the
Saotome-ryuu are more valuable that all the wealth in Japan.
To give me money and think it a fair exchange would be an
insult. If you will be my students, you will give me your
unquestioning obedience. That is a worthy payment! And you
will remind yourselves of this fact by keeping my garden in
order."
The words seemed to echo in Genma's ears as he
carefully pruned the hedge along one wall. When he'd first
heard them, he had thought it would simply be a matter of
keeping the grounds clean and the leaves raked.
He carefully snipped away the extra greenery, measuring
exactly how much to leave. It wasn't that simple.
Saotome-sensei demanded that his garden be perfect.
That meant that every blade of grass and every shoot of every
bush had to be exactly the right length, to the millimeter. And
the master could tell instantly if it wasn't.
Just as arduous were the history and philosophical
lessons. The master had a story or deep insight attached to
every single rock and tree, and expected his students to be able
to recognize and recite them on demand. He often tied the
secrets of exceptionally potent katas or techniques to the
geography of the garden, and had a maddening habit of failing
to mention that they were even there.
Genma chuckled sourly. He and Soun, on their own
initiative, had once spent an entire week comparing notes and
pouring over the koans, stories, and spatial relationships of
the elements making up a quarter of the garden. At the end they
had uncovered a sequence of powerful strikes that had since
become a favored attack, a beautifully simple blocking
technique, and a set of relaxation techniques designed for
developing ki. Both of them were firmly convinced that
Saotome-sensei would never have mentioned them.
Worst of all, there were major elements in the garden
that the master had yet to identify or expound on.
Finishing the hedge, he moved on to the herb garden that
occupied a raised bank along one wall. The plants would have to
be culled and sorted, and the moss kept in check. Dealing with
slimy moss was not his favorite job in the world.
When he owned the school, he would make his own
disciples do the work. Well, most of it. Maybe he'd still trim
some of the bushes...
Genma shook his head in disgust. Getting nostalgic for
work he had yet to finish?
The serenity he had built up during his tending of the
bushes vanished. He had finally pulled ahead of Soun, both in
exploits and with Nodoka. The school and title of master would
be his. All of this would be his. He had a skilled new rival to
hone his Art against. He should be content - no, happy!
He wasn't, though.
The moss tore loose beneath his fingers, slick and furry.
This wasn't what he wanted.
Genma pulled mechanically at the moss, a dull, painful
panic rising inside him. He had devoted his entire life to this.
It was who he was. It had to be what he wanted. What else was
there?
"Gardening is supposed to be relaxing, Genma."
He jerked around, heart nearly slipping a beat, to find an
ancient face only a foot from his own. "G-grandmother! I didn't
hear you..."
"Because you were too busy brooding, young man."
Grandmother Saotome poked him in the chest with her cane.
"Don't brood in my begonias. It upsets them."
"I'm sorry. I suppose I've just been a little down lately."
"I've noticed. You always were singleminded, Genma, but
usually in a more sensible way."
He shrugged. "I don't know, Grandmother. I just haven't
been happy lately, and it's frustrating me. Especially since I
don't know why. I'm afraid... I'm afraid maybe I'm not in the
right place, doing the right thing."
The old woman examined him kindly. "You've decided that
perhaps the Art isn't all there is to life?"
"Yes. No. I don't know." He sighed, frustrated. "I love what
I do here. Learning from Saotome-sensei is such a privilege,
and such a joy... why would I ever want to do anything else? I
don't know anything else! There is nothing else!"
"Nothing?" Grandmother Saotome asked gently.
"No." He stared at the rocks, at the scraped moss. "I do
love it, but it's not enough. My life is missing something."
"You always were singleminded. Most martial artists are.
The Art is jealous." She chuckled. "But as beautiful as it is,
young man, it's never enough to sustain one's soul. Everyone
finds that out sooner or later."
"Then this is normal?" Genma said hopefully. "How do I
defeat it?"
The old woman laughed. "Listen to yourself, sonny! 'How
do I defeat it,' indeed! You sound as if you were facing down a
rival with a new technique."
"It may not be a rival, but I think it's my enemy," Genma
said grimly. "I can't focus like this, Grandmother, and I need to.
Kuonji Inji isn't a friend the way Soun is. He's out for blood."
"You've chosen a bad time to have your personal crisis,
then," the old woman said, smiling slightly. "It started after
you and Soun and Nodoka returned from that trip, didn't it?"
"Yeah." It had. He had felt the first faint stirrings of it on
the plane home. "At first I thought it was just me coming down
from all the excitement, but now..."
She shook her head. "Genma, what are you so unhappy
about?"
"I don't know," he said, trying to contain his frustration.
He'd told her this already. "If I knew-"
"You don't know, or you're afraid to ask?"
"I don't..." Genma trailed off, unsure. There was fear, yes,
mixed in and scattered throughout his discontent. A lot of it.
"Maybe I'm just scared of Inji," he mumbled, embarrassed.
"Nonsense," Grandmother Saotome said firmly. "I know
you and Soun. You love nothing better than fighting some
absurdly powerful and dangerous foe or technique. It's not in
you to be afraid of something like that."
He nodded; it was true.
"I think the garden could use some variety," the old
woman said. "Why don't you remove a bit more moss... say, four
inches lower than usual?"
Genma shook his head. "Saotome-sensei..."
"...doesn't actually own this house. I do," she said firmly.
"Remove that moss for me."
Swallowing slightly, Genma bent and did as he was told.
He was fairly certain that the master would accept his reason
for doing so, but doing anything out of the ordinary to the
garden went against the instincts he'd built up over years of
tending it...
He stopped suddenly, letting a clump of moss fall to the
ground. The stonework looked...
"There's something carved here," he said, turning to
glance at her.
Grandmother Saotome said nothing.
Working quickly, Genma stripped away the moss and used
a stone to scrape the residue away from the etched lines. After
a few minutes, he examined his handiwork.
SAOTOME MINATOKO
I MEAN TO RULE THE EARTH AS HE THE SKY
1940
"Grandmother?" Genma asked quietly. "Who...?"
"Minatoko was Nodoka's mother. My daughter," she added,
almost as an afterthought.
Genma nodded, thinking. He knew that Nodoka's mother
had died in a training accident when Nodoka was very young,
and had suspected for a long time that this was one of the
reasons that Saotome-sensei had never tried to encourage his
granddaughter to take her own skills any farther. Genma had
always looked on it as a reminder of just how serious and
potentially deadly the Art could be, but had never asked for the
details. Everyone who had survived the war had raw wounds
that decent people did not pick open with prying questions.
Still, he had been instructed to clear away the
inscription, which meant that the old woman wanted to talk.
"Is this a burial marker?"
She shook her head. "Perhaps the beginnings of one... no,
no it isn't. Minatoko carved it there as a sort of promise and
reminder."
"What does the inscription mean?"
"It's from a western opera about the Japanese. I suppose
she liked it." Grandmother Saotome absently touched the stone.
"She was in love with a young man in the Navy; an aviator. That
was very prestigious service, and required high skill, drive,
and natural talent. He had them. They were very alike; he in his
fighter, she with her Art."
"Then the war?"
"Then the war. He was based in Rabaul, and quickly
became an ace. Nishizawa, Ota, Sakai, Saotome... he was one of
our best. Fighter pilots are not so different from martial
artists."
She shook her head sadly. "Then the tide turned, and the
American planes grew more sophisticated, their pilots more
skilled, their numbers doubling, tripling... there could really be
only one ending. I think the dear young man knew it. We didn't -
because of the censorship, you know. It came as a shock. They
didn't even have a body for us to burn."
Genma nodded again. It was a familiar story.
"We survived, of course. My husband has a sixth sense for
knowing when danger threatens, and he moved us out into the
mountains before the bombs came. So we all lived, except for
my son-in-law. And a part of Minatoko's soul, which crashed
burning into the sea along with him."
"What happened?" Genma asked. "Did she commit
seppuku?"
Grandmother Saotome shook her head. "Our family has
never been eager to go that route, no matter how wretched or
disgraced our condition. No. She had been a person who lived
for the Art and her husband. He was gone. And so she turned
even more to the Art, discarding... important things as she did.
And it eventually killed her."
"Nodoka's told me that it was a training accident."
"That's not entirely true." The old woman sighed, looking
suddenly very frail. "Minatoko reached the point where her
desire for supremacy in the Art overwhelmed the kind, good
person that was the child I raised. All that was left was hate
and bitterness and ambition. She did some terrible things, and
then another martial artist stepped in to stop her. There was a
fight, and she was killed."
He absorbed this, trying to fathom it. "Does Nodoka
know?"
"No. We've told Nodoka that her mother died in a training
accident. She doesn't need to grow up feeling some ridiculous
need to avenge her mother's death."
Genma frowned. "Because you're afraid she might get
hurt?"
"That's part of it. The other part is that a vendetta is an
unhealthy thing to grow up under. And..." The old woman looked
away. "I loved my daughter. I still do. But she had become
something terrible, and brought her end upon herself. I wish it
had been different." A tear trickled down withered cheeks.
"Sometimes I still wonder if there was something we could
have done or said... I don't think there was, but still..."
Genma reached out and squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry,
Grandmother."
The old woman shook her head. "It's all right. It was a
long time ago. Years. And everyone lost someone in those
years."
He looked at the stone, trying to get some sense of the
person who had carved the words. She would have been
Saotome-sensei's first disciple.
What he wanted to know, he realized, was how she
compared to him. Was he equal to her? What had she learned
that he had not? Had he surpassed her yet? If not, would he?
He felt the old woman's regard on him, and flushed,
somewhat ashamed. "I'm afraid I'm sizing her up," he mumbled.
"I guess I'm a bit obsessed."
Grandmother Saotome snorted. "That's nothing new. All of
the really good practitioners of the Art are."
"Even Saotome-sensei?"
"Especially my husband." She chuckled. "Although I've kept
him somewhat distracted for a few decades." She sobered
suddenly. "I mention Minatoko to make a point, Genma. The Art
is not enough to base your life on. It won't replace whatever it
is that you feel you're missing."
It was pretty clear where the old woman was going.
Maybe she was even right. "I don't know, Grandmother. I do like
Nodoka, I've told you that... anyone could tell that. I just don't
want..." He trailed off, confused.
"I'm not suggesting you get married tomorrow,"
Grandmother Saotome said. "But taking her to the pictures
would be a good first step."
He nodded absently, the usual mix of fondness, fear, and
ambivalence he associated with dating Nodoka coming up. "I'll
think about it."
She nodded. "In your own time, young man." She stood.
"The garden looks beautiful, Genma. You and Soun do a good
job."
"Thank you, Grandmother."
The wind picked up as she left. Genma shook his head, and
continued to tear at the moss.
****
It was almost dark by the time he left the garden and
started his walk home. The streets were crowded, which
seemed to lower his mood even further.
If giving in and throwing Nodoka a date would help,
perhaps he should consider...
He shook his head. Either he didn't want to, or he was so
afraid of doing so that it amounted to the same thing. And he
wasn't going to let several years work at fending her off go to
waste because of a little bit of angst.
The crowds started to melt away as he entered the
district his box of an apartment was located in. It wasn't a
good part of town, and it wasn't a bad one. It just... existed,
like the people it housed, crumbling placidly from new and dull
into old and dull.
He reached his front steps, hesitated.
His mother would be in the living room, watching the
telly. He would talk to her as little as possible, go to his room,
and go to sleep...
Genma turned and walked away.
One step, and then another, until he was moving in almost
a run.
The crowd blurred. The faces blurred. He stopped noticing
what streets he was walking along, where he was going.
It wasn't fair. He'd worked hard, he'd done his best, and to
be stopped by fear and weakness... His life was just work and
training and work, and he was going nowhere fast... nowhere,
with no-one...
Two people walked past, a boy and a girl, arm in arm,
laughing. Their faces seemed to veer at him out of the
watercolour blur of the crowd, and he felt a sudden fierce
flash of hatred.
The flash died, then leapt up again, sullen, burning. He
could date Nodoka. There was nothing stopping him. She'd leap
at the chance. Any day and time he chose, he could ask her out
and she'd go. Would beg to go. Any time he wanted.
"Okay, man, gimme your wallet and..."
Part of Genma's mind watched as he broke the mugger's
arm, dislocated his leg, and sent the ragged man flying into a
concrete wall with a moist crunch. He didn't break his stride.
Nodoka could be his any time he wanted.
He stopped several minutes later, staring blankly at
another set of steps. Joe's Garage.
The lights were on in the office. As he watched, a figure
moved past, black shape against shining yellow paper.
There was blood on his palm, he realized absently.
He looked at the bright lights for a few seconds, suddenly
very much aware of the darkness around him. Then he turned,
and made his way back into the night.
The anger was muted now, a dull burn in the back of his
mind. Part of him was beginning to realize that he was
seriously out of it, that he should go get some sleep and let a
night's rest drain the frustration and emotion from him. But
the thought of going back to his house made him almost
physically ill, and he couldn't let Kiri see him like this.
He wound up back where he had started, in the garden.
Exhausted, he made his way to the stone with the words
carved on it. He could barely read the etched characters in the
pale moonlight.
"I would have been better," he mumbled, staring at the
words and wishing she were alive for him to prove it.
He bent, and began to scrape away at the moss below it.
It looked uneven, ragged the way it was. If he was going to
break Saotome-sensei's instructions, he might as well do an
ascetically pleasing job of it...
Genma squinted. Was that another carving?
He fumbled with the stone, hand moving along the slick
moss. It wasn't a carving, more of... a handle?
With mounting interest piercing his fatigue, he groped
and fumbled at the stone. It was a handle, or a handhold, or
something similar.
Well, handles were made to be pulled...
With effort, he tugged at it. The stone slid slightly out,
just a crack... but smoothly, without the grating he'd expected.
Curious now, Genma pulled again, putting his back into it
this time. The stone rumbled free from the bank, revealing a
long, dark shaft beneath it.
He peered over the edge, noting the oiled metal runners
the stone had been set on. There were carved niches in the
shaft, obviously intended to give hands and feet purchase.
What was this? He had heard of similar vaults in old
ninja clan citadels, but the Saotomes were hardly that.
Moreover, he would have thought that the bombing...
The bombing. Genma nodded. Perhaps this had been a
shelter, a hiding place in case the bombs fell or the home
islands were invaded.
Carefully, mindful of his fatigue, he clambered into the
shaft and began to make his way downwards.
A sense of panic overtook him about halfway down. The
moon seemed to leer above him like a cold dead eye, and the
walls suddenly reminded him of a gaping maw. There was
nothing but darkness below...
He wanted to climb back up. He didn't, though, even as the
panic began to catch and spread. Instead he descended even
faster, the full moon seeming to beam greenly down on him, its
glow outlining him and the dank earth in blues and blacks.
It was silent, except for the scrabbling of his feet and
hands. He wanted to speak, to break the silence with his voice,
but was afraid to disturb whatever was here...
His feet touched bottom. All around him was blackness, a
dark hole, a yawning chasm...
There was a wall behind him, and he backed up against it.
There were shapes in the black, shapes tall and indistinct.
The panic was at a fever's pitch now. Why had he come
down? There was something down here with him, in the
darkness...
His gaze fell on something on the wall, and he almost
cried out in sudden hope and relief. It was a light switch.
Carefully, heart racing, he reached an arm out and quickly
flipped it.
For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Then, slowly,
electric lights flickered into life above him.
Genma blinked. He was standing in a small training hall,
the walls lined with cracked and peeling paper panels, dusty
tatami mats lying on the floor. A rack against the wall held
practice weapons.
With a slight sense of wonder, he stepped further into
the room. A thin layer of dust hung over everything, and the
paper was yellowed with age, but the hall otherwise seemed in
good repair. Still... it was rather more elaborate than he had
expected.
A door stood at the far end of the dojo. Genma paused, his
courage returning from his earlier panic. He was tired,
exhausted. He'd just open the door - a storage closet, probably
- and then he'd get some sleep...
The knob turned easily under his grip. The door swung
open, and Genma stared. Beyond it was another room, smaller,
with a bed, a writing desk, a sword rack, and a niche for a vase
of wilted flowers.
It must have been Saotome-sensei's invasion redoubt, he
realized. Genma had heard the stories... how nobody had known
how the victorious allies would treat them, whether or not
Japanese culture would be suppressed... it had not seemed
impossible that schools like the Saotome-ryuu - which, after
all, taught a fighting art - might have to go underground.
He chuckled. Literally underground, in this case. The
master could have continued to train his disciple here, safe
from the prying eyes of the gaijin.
Had she lived, anyway.
Genma suddenly felt very, very tired. The fear and anger
and adrenaline were almost gone, leaving him with a hollow
sort of fatigue.
He glanced at the bed, and shrugged. Why not? He had
nowhere else he felt like going at the moment.
Pulling back the dusty coverlet, he climbed under the
sheets. It felt slightly comforting and vaguely unreal - the
whole chamber seemed unreal, like a hazy dream.
He pulled up the blanket, turning over to a comfortable
position. The room seemed snug, cozy. The light had changed it
from a threatening void to a warm nest, a refuge.
Nodoka could be his, if he chose...
Sleep claimed him, inch by inch.
****
Genma lurched up into a sitting position, the sleep
receding like a black tide. There was something... where was
he... what...?
The room around him was dark. Not his room... he had
descended the shaft into the underground hall, and then had
gone to sleep in the small living quarters...
His eyes were unable to see anything but blackness.
Experimentally, he passed his hand in front of his face; a dim
outline went by. The electric lights had either failed or been
turned off.
He swallowed, trying to clear the haze of sleep from his
mind. What had he been thinking? If nothing else, leaving the
lights on would add to the Saotomes' power bill... he should
have gone back to his own home, and gone to sleep in his own
room instead of helping himself to his master's private
retreat.
Genma sighed. He wished that he were a Saotome. He
wished that Saotome-sensei were his real grandfather. He
wished that Grandmother Saotome was his real grandmother.
He wished Nodoka...
"If she were your sister, you couldn't marry her," he told
himself. His voice sounded loud in the darkness.
And since when had he been afraid of the dark? He had
gone to Sumatra. He had gone to Laos. He had ventured into
ancient, haunted temples in the middle of remote jungles past
the borders of civilization. A shelter in the middle of a
middle-class neighborhood in Tokyo was nothing to be afraid
of.
"Just me and a lot of dust," he said loudly.
"Glad to hear it," a voice replied.
Genma leapt to his feet, coming down in a fighting
stance. That had sounded like...
"Nodoka?" he called uncertainly.
A flame flickered into life at the edge of a lighter,
shedding a small halo of dim light. A face, grey and white
against the black, bent over it, touching a cigarette to the
flame. "No."
He swallowed, watching the lines of the face in the dim
radiance of the lighter. "I didn't think so."
She exhaled slowly, sending smoke sweeping about her
face in a cloud. The light shone greasily through it, rendering it
indistinct.
Genma didn't relax his guard. "What do you want,
sempai?"
"Sempai?" The tone was amused. "I'm not sure whether to
be pleased or insulted."
"You're the master's senior disciple, I suppose," he said
steadily. "That makes you Sempai."
"I am not his disciple any more," the face said, the grey
and white smiling sharply behind the roiling smoke. "Not for a
long time."
"I was told you were dead. Nodoka was told you were
dead."
She laughed, a painful, tearing sound. In the hollows of
her face, a ruddy glow blazed up, foxfire against the blackness.
"And do you think that is incorrect, disciple of the Saotome-
ryuu?"
There were kami, and things like those in Sumatra. He
had no trouble believing in ghosts. "No."
The glow dimmed somewhat.
"What do you want with me?" he asked.
"With you? You have come to my place, your mind full of
sweet thoughts and hate and life, and you ask me this?" Her
voice moved to a sibilant hiss. "You are like me, disciple of
Saotome. I can feel your spirit calling."
Genma shuddered. The last thing he wanted was to be like
this thing of shade and smoke. "I've heard about you. You
misused the Art..."
"No!" the face snapped, white against the blackness. A
hand moved up to adjust the cigarette. "I brought it to new
heights. I went beyond what the old man was willing to dole
out to me, slowly, like scraps to a well-behaved dog."
"Saotome-sensei teaches the Art at his own pace," he
replied. "We'll learn everything eventually..."
"Fool," the shade rasped, sounding amused. "You learn an
afterthought. What is it that you think he teaches you?"
"Saotome-ryuu kempo," Genma said, confused. "What else
would it be?"
"A pale shadow. A bastardized, watered-down version of
his true Art. He has never instructed you in the Musabetsu
Kakutou-ryuu."
Anything Goes School? "I've never heard of such a thing."
"It is a powerful Art, the basis of my father's form. Once
he was a powerful adept of it, before renouncing it to build his
own style." Minatoko laughed, the sound again making him
cringe. "He would never have taught me it, and once I would
have been happy to learn his pathetic dilution. Weak old man!
He left his scrolls in a bookcase in his study, never thinking
that his daughter might view them without his permission. I
read the works of Master Happosai, the first disciple of Master
Fuhai, and saw their strength. I asked my father to teach me
their Art. He refused."
"He must have had a good reason," Genma said defiantly.
"Saotome-sensei is a great teacher."
The shade sneered, the red glow forming deep pools in
the depths of her eyes. "He will teach you nothing that may
threaten his own greatness, disciple. I went in search of
Master Happosai myself, but he was nowhere to be found. I
became convinced that my father had defeated him, sent him
fleeing. So I sought Master Fuhai instead, who taught Happosai,
and perhaps my father as well. I found him."
"You took a new sensei?" Genma said, appalled. "You could
have studied with my master, been his heir..."
"He would have denied me my birthright. Master Fuhai
was willing to teach me. I became his last disciple." She took a
long drag on her cigarette, sending the oily smoke billowing,
leaving her for a second as only two glowing points of red in an
inky sea. "It was hellish, but I learned. The terrible purity of
it... it made what I had learned before look like a child's
frightened flailing. Fuhai-sensei died before he could finish my
training. His heart had grown weak, and I struck him down in
his own hermitage, and claimed the title of Master of the
Musabetsu Kakutou-ryuu for myself."
Genma just stared bleakly, sick at heart. He knew now
why Grandmother had told Nodoka that her mother had died in a
training accident. Far better a comforting lie than this reality.
"That was my mistake, really," Minatoko's shade mused,
the gray face going angular with regret. The dim light of the
cigarette bobbed as she adjusted it again. "I was too arrogant.
He arrived at the hermitage after I destroyed the Nara branch
of the school - another weak, watered-down version. He was
not weak. I never saw his face, just the white robes of the
executioner. Master Happosai."
She sighed. "I don't believe he even meant to kill me, just
bend me to his will. Stupid, really. I had taken some young
people to use in my Art, and I tried to make use of them when I
realized how much more powerful than me he was. He was
forced to use a terrible attack to stop me. I do not remember
seeing the end of it. A pity. It was very good."
"'Use' them?" he asked reluctantly.
"Use up would be more accurate. Their deaths would have
allowed me to defeat him, I believe... it was my focus, you see.
The door that opened my true potential."
He shook his head, appalled. "I can see why Saotome-
sensei refused to teach you this horrible Art. I'm amazed he
ever learned it himself."
"You are young, as I once was," Minatoko told him,
sounding somewhat regretful. "You have not yet devoted
yourself to your Art. You will. I can sense the void in you,
waiting. You sense it yourself. It was that which drew you
down to me."
"No."
"Do you know why my mother preached at you today? Do
you?" The white face leered around the cigarette. "It was
because she saw her daughter in your eyes and in your hands."
"No."
"You have blood on your hands, disciple. I can smell it.
And it was spilled in hatred. I can smell that also. You begin to
tap the sources of your true strength."
"I don't want any of your 'true strength'," he shot back
angrily. "Look what it's gotten you! You could have had the
school and your daughter! We would have honored you as our
sempai!"
"They were never what I wanted," the shade said coldly.
"Nodoka looked too much like him. Holding her was like holding
broken glass. My sun went out when he fell into the sea, and all
that was left was my Art. I should never have loved him to
begin with."
Genma started to refute that, but hesitated. Someone
afraid to have a simple date was in no position to defend the
costs of loving someone. "You could have had your family."
"Like you have yours?" Minatoko said mockingly.
He flinched. "The Saotomes are my family," he whispered.
"You had so much that I want."
The shade's pale features softened. "Sometimes we do
not see how precious something is until we lose it."
"I just want them to be my real grandparents," Genma
said miserably. "I want to be able to relax with Nodoka without
the school hanging over my head. I don't want to feel like I have
to marry her for them to be my family."
"You are not yet ready for the true Art," Minatoko said, a
frustrated hunger in her voice. "I can see that now. This night
was an echo, a fluke."
"I told you so," he made himself say.
"But you will be, in time." She smiled horribly at him. "I
can see the marks within you. Perhaps you shall be greater
than I."
"I will never be like you," Genma told her.
"You will be."
He bowed low, heartsick. "I'm sorry, sempai. I'm very
sorry for you. I would have liked to have trained with Saotome-
sensei's first disciple."
The cigarette bobbed, sending the shadows dancing
across the white face. "I would have liked to have taught you."
"Is there anything I can do for you? Are you unhappy
here?"
Another cloud of oily smoke was blown. "You ask the
fatal question, Genma."
He blinked. "I don't understand."
"Saotome Minatoko has long since departed to her rest,
beyond this world. All I am is just a vivid memory, awakened
by your own hate and fear and desire. You have called me, and
once you are done, I will return to the dust of the past, where
memories belong."
Genma hung his head. "I'm sorry." He was. It had been
cruel to call this wretched, twisted thing back from the
echoes of time.
A thought occurred to him, and he closed his eyes.
He thought of the recovery of the sword guard, of how
Nodoka had gone to so much trouble for him. He thought of her
bravery in Laos. He thought of all the walks they had taken, the
sparring they'd done, the jokes they'd shared.
He thought of the stories she'd told, almost reverently,
about her mother, memorized from her grandmother and
grandfather. There weren't many of them, but they'd painted a
bright picture.
A hand touched his shoulder, and he opened his eyes.
"Thank you," Minatoko told him. The red glow was gone,
the gray and white less gaunt, gentler.
He nodded, hesitating. "When Nodoka told those stories, I
wished... I wished that you were my mother too."
"You would have been a good son." She smiled, and it was
a warm, genuine thing this time. "Take care of my daughter,
Genma."
"I'll try."
"I know." She sighed. "Let me leave, Genma. This brighter
self that you've spun for me is painful. I can feel and care
again, and it hurts..."
"Go," he told her. "I won't disturb you again."
"Thank you," she said again. "Some memories are best left
in peace."
She took the cigarette from her lips, examined it for a
second, and then crushed it between her fingers. Darkness fell,
swift and complete.
****
Genma opened one eye to the glare of an electric light.
Slowly, he sat up. He was in the small bedroom off the
underground hall, still tucked into bed. Outside, he could hear
the calls of birds.
Slowly, he stood, paced a few times about the room.
Then he left, turning off the lights as he did so.
He returned a few minutes later, then left again, leaving
the new, bright flowers in the vase.
The stone went back into place, and earth and moss was
carefully tamped around it to hide the handle and inscription.
Genma examined his handiwork, nodded, and left. The
grocery and the day's work were waiting.
-----------------------------
The melancholy I'd felt vanished after that. It
would return from time to time, periodically, but never
as strong, and never lasting.
I was never really sure if it hadn't been a dream.
Later on, as the things that Minatoko had told me began
to rear themselves, I became convinced that I had,
indeed, awakened some echo that had been better left
undisturbed. Perhaps it has faded with time. Perhaps not.
The underground training hall is still there, undisturbed
and best left so.
It was the first time I heard the name of Master
Happosai. I suppose it should have warned me, but there
was more, far more to it than that...
I really did learn almost nothing from it all.
Minatoko's shade knew me too well, I fear. But she
was not right, son. I am not her. And should the memory
of me rise to speak to some future disciple of the
Saotome-ryuu, in a dark night of the soul, it will not be a
twisted thing like her, curled around her empty Art like a
serpent around a ball of thorns.
I am fiercely proud of that, because it could have
so easily been different...
I get ahead of myself again.
The name of Happosai would return, soon enough.
And the trouble it put us to... well, I suppose some things
never change...
C&C, as always, requested.
- Susan Doenime
Brisbane, U of Q
"I hit the streets / They watched me in the monitor..."