Chapter 3: The pursuit

Memories while in pursuit

His search for the place named “Muguro's” found him little more than a cheap boarding house near the west gate. The ronin had left this afternoon traveling along the west road. With those words the youth had taken to the road and pushed on and on, he had a description too now from the owner. The man known as Hinada Ayomi was stout man in his late thirties with dark unkempt hair and brown eyes, he had entered Sanada in a rotting brown kimono and left in bright green expensive silk. He had been paid well for something he had done in the castle town.

Ronin were common through Wa, as warlords fell or samurai broke their honor they were cast from their clans and families and wandered through the isles as outcasts. With no skill but violence to sell they took employment as mercenaries, bodyguards and occasionally took to banditry. They were all viewed with mistrust by house samurai and peasants alike. The ronin had the right to bear the swords of a warrior and to kill. However the samurai who protected a house would seek to avenge their own if a ronin killed one. The ronin found better employ in the southern islands of Wa, where the battles still raged hot and warlords would pay dearly for skill. Why was he so far to the north?

Fuyukaze had many thoughts as he traveled and as the sun set around him leaving him in darkness he traveled along the road with only the starlight to guide him. He wondered what he should say to the ronin, who had killed his friend. He thought of telling him what a villain he was, how he had taken the life of such a good man. He recited these things over and over again and they did not ring true. He remembered his sensei's words, when entering a duel he should announce his name and his intention, so that even if he was slain he would be remembered. “I am Taeshimo Fuyukaze! You killed Goshiro Yoshio, a student of the Katsukana academy, you stole his sword from his dead body. Now I have come to avenge him!” He recited those words, stumbling over each at first, but the thoughts of his friend's dead body haunted his memory. The thought of drawing the blood of the ronin, to avenge Yoshio through blood, as duty demanded.

He pressed his journey through peasant villages, and though he was greeted, he found that the one he sought had passed through before him. He took rice and water but no rest, pressing onwards until the sun goddess pressed her face above the horizon again, and with his legs shaking, he pressed to the fourth village.

This village was larger than the three he had passed through during the night. A small roadhouse in the center gave weary travelers a place to stay the night and the sound of laughter came from within. This was a far cry from the castle town, small houses known as minka dotted the landscape with several larger homes based upon the road. The villagers wore burlap and rough cottons, and politely ignored the youth who lurched ragged from his travels towards the roadhouse. He pressed onwards to the roadhouse and there within, kneeling near a low table was a man wearing a bright green kimono.