The Shadow of Issu

A Trial of Diplomacy: The Lingering Scent of Persimmons

“I never thought this day would come.” A familiar voice uttered.

The two were locked eye to eye, their hands resting upon the hilt of the sword that was yet to be unsheathed come the right moment.

Her hazelnut hair was already at shoulder’s length, and still, tied to a ponytail behind her.

The words of Akane had begun to ring inside his head, all the things that could go wrong in matters of diplomacy. ‘It is to be expected.’ Akane spoke.

 They were in a land that harbored a festering grudge against Ogana, and their coming to the city of Goundo would not be welcomed with open arms.

‘To underestimate our opponent is just as dangerous as overestimating ourselves. Goundo might not have a Shin that is half as close to the Ogana army, but the Tenshando in these parts of southern Issu have known to be keenly adept with the blade. An ancient teaching order known as the Discipline of the River Blade has been passed through the schools in Goundo through countless generations. This technique has taken inspiration from three aspects— the force of water, the resilience of stone, and the speed of wind.’

‘Tell me of these aspects’ The swordsman once asked in memory.

Akha remembers Akane tell him every detail. ‘The force of water, is a technique devised by the Goundo when they fought against the Ukumari in the Seven Year War. The soldiers of the Ukumari wore armor of steel, and it was almost impossible to cut through such without breaking one’s Kuratashi. The first Discipline of the River Blade is composed of many moves that focused on thrusts and quick swipes rather than powerful swings, it was by this technique that Goundo Tenshando were able to pierce through the necks and underarms of the Ukumari, where there was no armor, swiftly and efficiently.

The Goundo also never wore much armor in battle, and preferred lighter clothing, though this does not mean that they were vulnerable. The aspect of the stone was that of resilience. The Goundo would take on a stance, sword in front and steady just by the side of one’s chest. This thin piece of steel that you call a Kuratashi suddenly becomes a wall of steel in front of them, blocking even the swiftest of arrows.

The last aspect is the speed of the wind. They say this aspect was the most difficult to achieve, and it is rumored that those who have perfected this aspect could even take on a Kinu in a duel… But no one knows how true it really is. They say that those who do, become as swift as the wind, and sometimes even becoming the wind itself.

That is all I know about the Discipline of the River Blade.’ Akane once told him in memory.

Akha opened his eyes and he felt the cool sensation course through his body from the breeze that passed by. From where he stood, he was face to face with a woman dressed in a Tuzan, a traditional white apparel of Issu. A sword that gleamed blue in her hands was pointed to the ground.

“Iyone.” Akha calls. “I—”

“Save your words, Kinu.” A smile bore on her face. “We will share them as we part soon.” The twinkling in her eyes had been the same from the first time they had met. They belonged to someone who had found a deep longing, unclouded neither by hate or malice. There was purity in that smile, as much as there was strength in her grip that lifted the sword high and swung it low in a manner of grace that was astounding to witness. There was also the intent to kill.

Indeed, she had gotten stronger.

“Very well.” The swordsman whispered. “It cannot be helped.”

“Yes, it goes without saying, but it cannot be helped.”

With the cold autumn wind blowing over them, the two swordsmen clashed blades atop the roof of Goundo’s Kuzoboki.

------------------------------------

A memory? He whispers.

The swordsman looks at his sword for a long time, pondering. He shakes his head and returns his gaze back to the calm waters of the river. Pushing the boat with the pole in his arms, his gentle strokes breaking the waves as the stars reflected upon them shone like tiny pearls.

“By morning we would be able to reach the Goundo border, there we walk on foot and come to the city by noon.” Akane spoke behind him, reading under the light of an oil lamp.

“The valley of god’s blood.”

Akane looked up from the parchments and glanced to Akha.

“So you’ve heard of Goundo’s old name.”

Akha stayed silent, rowing at a steady pace in the calm shallow rivers of Hyuka, a snaking, narrow waterway that was filled with silver grass upon each side, swaying calmly in the wind.

The sky was revealed above them without clutter from nearby canopies so the moon’s light that danced at the surface of the water paved a clear way. The fireflies at the distant shore had also played a part at the anodyne stillness of Hyuka.

 “It has not been called that for decades now. The story goes so far as a hundred years ago, when a man was hunted by a Yasu that had taken the form of a fiery tiger when he came upon this barren and ashen valley. There was nothing there save for an orchard that bore fruit with the same color as the hide of the demon—a persimmon, it was the only place that had not been scorched by the demon's flames.

 Tired, exhausted, and hungry, the man cut open one, and inside, a liquid, the color of blood, spilled forth.

After some time, the Yasu finally found him. The man embraced death as it stared deep into his eyes, when suddenly, between his feet, where the blood-red liquid had seeped into the ground, there emerged a stream that burst forth into the sky.

Rain fell from the sky and the land became dark. The world became still, and in that moment, the two were locked eye to eye. It was said that the Yasu’s eyes were filled with something that no man expected from a demon, benevolence.

‘Why do you follow me?’ the man asked the demon but it have no answer. Instead it coiled, slowly, and slowly, the demon shrunk, until it came to be the size of a child’s fist.

Amidst the rain, the demon had become a persimmon. The man opened the fruit, and he saw that the seeds inside them were different, they were the color of pure white, like silk.

The man planted one of the seeds in the middle of the valley, and it grew to full size in mere fifteen days. When winter came, it was the only tree that bloomed amidst all the death that blanketed all of Goundo. From its provisions, the man survived, and he came to call the tree Yasukagi, or Yasu’s Mercy. The gushing waters that sprung forth, continued to flow until a river was made that stretched to the western shores.

To this day, Goundo believed that rain drives away any form of malicious spirit, and the seeds inside a persimmon foretell of Goundo’s fate during winter.”

Akane sat back and stretched her hands outwards. “Some say that the Yasu did not actually intend to kill the man, but rather save him, while others say that it was the blood of the god that dwelled in that place that changed the demon. The stories varied from different parts of the region. But they all agreed that this god that saved the man is the same god that watches over Issu, a god draped in the color of the sun, the color of persimmons.”

“Why is it not called the valley of god’s blood now?” Akha asked.

Akane sat straight up. “For someone had cut the Yasukagi down.”

The river crickets stopped, and the soft creak of the raft’s hull against the water filled that quietness.

“The rumors said that it was a swordsman, a powerful one, who served under the Kuzaemon that cut the Yasukagi down.”

“Is not Goundo a state under Ogana?”

“It was— until Lord Yukono’s death. Goundo has never been in good terms with Ogana, but it was by decree that the city was to be a part of it, when the capital aided Goundo during the Seven Year War. The city served as the Ogana’s expansion to the south east, but now that Shida has taken his father’s place, Goundo declared its separation from the capital and rallied its own forces from neighboring clans and estates.”

“I see.” Akha spoke, and continued to row in silence.

“It is interesting to see you interested in such things, Master Akha.” Akane smiled from behind him.

The night was once again draped in a quietness as Akha rowed until sunrise, Akane had slept from under the covers that she had brought with their journey. The sun faced them from the mountains ranges that fell flat over the lands that were elevated from where the river ended to a dilapidated port somewhere far west from the city itself. Over these many elevations, the roadways snaked like white threads over the green expanse.

“Goundo is two miles east from here.” Akane spoke, pointing to where the sun had barely peaked from the tip of the mist-veiled mountains.

The two walked on, and the road was lined with trees that bore no leaves. Their tortuous branches hung low, as if they resembled arms that stretched pallid sickly fingers for water, for these branches seemed to be pointing towards the river from whence the two came.

“Persimmon trees.” Akane spoke. “Even though it is their time of harvest, these trees refuse to bear fruit.”

The other trees surrounding them were nothing short of ordinary, their canopies heavy with the colors of red and gold, as falling leaves covered the ground in almost a surreal blanket. The gentle wind began to pick these leaves and carry them to places unknown, that very same breeze also shook the branches of the barren persimmon trees around them.

 “Did you know, Master Akha, that one cannot really truly tell the difference from which seasons come and go?

We have the distinction of spring, from when the ice begins to melt and the plum blossoms. When wheat flourishes, we know summer has come to wreathe the land in sun. Autumn is herald by the golden leaves that fall from the trees, and the start of winter is come by first snow.

Strange, but why do the seasons come by this order? Has not the sun been rising from the east and returning to the sea in the west for a thousand years or more? Will there be a day for which spring will last for years, and winter, for a hundred lifetimes? If that is so, then how can one truly distinguish the difference of these seasons, if not only for the pragmatic purposes that entails with it?

The cold, the heat, the ripening of certain fruits. Without these, who can tell the difference of these seasons?

More so, Goundo accepts that there is no reason for such repetitiveness. The valley of which Goundo lies is a land of autumn and winter. Here no spike of wheat grows, and no cherry blooms in the presence of spring.

When the Yasukagi was planted, it became so that even in this barren land, life may come out of it. But even in a valley of fall, for no persimmons to grow from it. What good is the soil that which we tread upon?”

Akha looks upon these dead trees and pondered on what Akane had spoken.

 “Is it because the Yasukagi was cut down?” The swordsman asked.

Akane held her hand out, and a golden leaf found its way in her soft palms.

“This land has long been dead since the Yasukagi fell.” She answered. The wind took the leaf from her hand as it flew to the sky, carried along with the others in the cold autumn draft. “It has tried to become something that it isn’t, and it will soon become its downfall.”

Carrying on two miles from the river, they come upon the gates of Goundo, where the Tenshando had already stood watch, as if expecting them. Before conversing with the Tenshando, Akane had a conversation with Akha, her expression filled with a serious countenance.

“You will wait outside the city gates.” She spoke.

Akha’s eyes widened for a moment but he nodded without question.

“Do not worry, I will try to make this as quick and efficient as possible. If I were to bring someone like you into the city gates, and someone might recognize you, it would stir unease and might put this whole diplomatic missions in jeopardy.”

Akha said no words, but after a moment, he finally spoke. “It is my duty to protect you.”

“I do not doubt that you will be there when the moment comes that I will be in peril, and it is the same why I am confident of my safety even when I must leave you here outside the city gates.”

As if there was no trouble, Akane smiled. “Even if you are no longer a Kinu, still your loyalty is something to be beheld with awe, Master Akha.”

The two reached to a small clearing by the roadside directly facing the city gates. There Akha stood under the shade of a fig tree, watching from a distance. Akane continued on towards Goundo.

As she predicted, there were no complications that followed. It had exactly fallen according to her plans that the Tenshando would question Akha’s presence. They already expected a diplomat from Ogana, but something tells Akha, between the suspicious gazes of the Tenshando, to the unnerving atmosphere that is cast upon the city of Goundo, that this plan was already compromised from the start. Still, Akane walks towards that city, as if she was walking straight into darkness until his eyes could no longer see her.

Akha begins to remember fragments of his time when he first reached Ogana. It was all the same, every city, every region. No matter how vibrant they may be, they always harbored some dark twisted secret. Something that should not see the light of day, the intentions and schemes of those who struggled for power, as to come so far as to burn a whole clan down and m******e everyone in it.

He turned a blind eye against them, for these were matters that did not concern the Kinu, or at least, when he once was… That very night, the flames of Kobeka estate blazed like the eyes of a demon. Until now it haunts him to this day, the death of his young master circulating, trapped in his thoughts, until most of his memories before them has become ash like the estate from which he once left.

 The very same night that Akha was to complete his Rite of the Blade.

Maybe the dreading atmosphere that seeps from Goundo came from that very moment, and that he was only reading into things too deeply.

Yet still, he wished for Akane’s safety.