by Nikita Thorn
Even before she had entered, Seiki dashed into the practice hall. “Master Tsujihara!” he called. It would be her Master Tsujihara, and maybe this old man would not even recognize him, but he guessed that would be all right.
The teacher in the practice hall turned around, and Seiki took a step back, confused. Master Fujita, in brown and gray, looked at him questioningly and smiled. “Ah, are you Chieko’s friend?”
The man looked and sounded different, and Seiki could only stare at him feeling as if he had been betrayed. Chieko had caught up after kicking off her shoes. “What’s this about?” she asked with interest.
“Master Fujita?” Seiki said, breathlessly.
Chieko turned to glance at the old man. “Yeah, what about him?”
Seiki shook his head and collapsed onto the floor. Of course, it would not be that easy. They would not give it to him. Once things were gone, they were gone forever. He gritted his teeth and cursed. It was not fair.
Chieko stared at him for a moment. “Uh, you okay?”
No, he was not. Seiki raised his hand by way of a crude apology and left the group without another word, which instantly transported him back into his half-completed dojo. The wooden floor was cold to the touch.
Seiki sprang to his feet. It was that boy’s fault. “Maeda!” he cried. “Maeda!”
At least, he should know what he had done.
“Okamoto!” Seiki yelled.
The dojo seemed completely empty and lifeless, and depressingly quiet. Seiki found it unbearable. He ran back across the courtyard, leapt onto the white horse and galloped off into West City. If he could not find Maeda, at least he would get his hands on Shousei. Seiki was not sure what he wanted to do, but he was angry and that man was somehow to blame. After all, he had been the one to send Commander Nakatani the letter and to start the whole thing, and he had been completely wrong about Master Tsujihara’s intentions.
Seiki felt confident he could locate back the alley, and he traced his steps from the large square he had once run across as he was trying to get away from the Shadow Manor. It looked different during the day, with the flowering trees in the luxurious mansions around in full bloom, waving their colorful petals above the top of the walls. Seiki recognized the places he had been to before and remembered his route. However, he had to ride up and down the streets a few times before a realization hit him: the alley had vanished. It must have been instanced as well.
Seiki wanted to laugh at himself but, at that moment, he was too furious. Somebody wrote the rules and dictated the flow of the story, and he had had absolutely no say in it. He recalled then that there was someone else involved in this: Minami the carpenter. With all his proclamation of their great friendship between him and the old man, it had not taken him much at all to doubt. Seiki had no idea what he was looking for, but he could not help but feel that someone somewhere owed him an apology.
He was tired, as was his poor white horse, when they got back to Market Street. For some reason, he glanced into the Kakigouri shop, with a bit of hope that someone would be there, and maybe yell at him to get a grip on himself.
“Cheap bag charms, luck charms, health charms,” cried Kentaro from his usual spot with a tray of crafted cloth pouches laid out on the table in front of him. “Two for the price of one for the next fifteen minutes.” Beside him, Mairin the kitsune, in all white and pink, was leaning on her arms with an expression of pure boredom.
Seiki almost dropped off his horse. It was a nice, familiar sight. The crowd on Market Street was buzzing happily in perfect ignorance of his mental state and, somehow, it was a massive relief.
“Seiki!” cried Mairin as she spotted him, perking up in a manner that could have very well been a real fox’s.
Kentaro frowned as Seiki approached their table. “What happened to you?” Seiki was taken aback for a moment, but then he understood the houshi was referring to the large tear across his Shinshioka chest piece. “Did you get murdered by some high-level samurai passing through?”
“Not quite,” said Seiki, sounding more tired than he had thought himself to be.
Mairin got him to sit down and quickly ordered him a bowl of syrupy ice, which Seiki guzzled in one go, grimacing at the overpowering cherry flavor. Mairin stared at him, and ordered him another.
“With this kind of damage, you need a Leather Smith to fix,” said Kentaro, observing Master Tsujihara’s precise cut across the front of the leather piece.
Mairin chuckled. “Which he is,” she said.
“Which I am,” Kentaro confirmed, proudly.
“Yeah, hail Kentaro the great master of every trade.” Mairin giggled.
“Only legal trade,” Kentaro corrected her. “And only sophisticated trade. You won’t find me chopping wood or hauling piles of rocks up from a mine. Which reminds me, that I need to start woodcrafting, too.” He nodded at Seiki. “Take it off. I’ll fix it for free.”
“Free for him but nor for me?” asked Mairin.
Kentaro shot her an annoyed look. “It was free for you for the first twenty times, too, but then I have to start covering my costs.”
Seiki took off his chest piece and handed it to Kentaro, before gulping down the second bowl of kakigouri. It was again very strong cherry.
Mairin had started to notice something. “Uh, Seiki?” She was looking at him worriedly.
Seiki shook his head. “I just have a lot to think about right now.” He was not entirely sure what it was that he had to think about, except that he could not keep his mind from replaying everything that had happened since he had first stepped into the dojo. He was searching for a clue, but to what he had no idea. Master Tsujihara must have started suspecting Maeda was up to something after the explosion at the dojo. Seiki wondered if he had skipped any quests that he should not have.
Mairin blinked and decided to leave him to mull over his misery, and Seiki rubbed his hands over his eyes. He felt he needed sleep but, despite his exhaustion, he was far too agitated to do that right now.
The kitsune was talking to Kentaro. “Ten more minutes and we go do something else, all right?” The houshi shook his head as he busied himself with the leather armor. “Come on, we’ve been here for an hour,” Mairin said.
Kentaro did not sound happy. “But we only sold, like, four charms. Don’t forget rent’s due next week.”
“That’s why you need me.”
Seiki knew that voice. Ippei had appeared at the door, carrying his Hikari casually on his shoulder. He nodded at Seiki. “You’re now addicted to this thing too? Foxy here is trying to get everyone on it.”
“I see you’re here, so it must be working,” Mairin answered back.
“No, I’m actually here to make some money.” Ippei was beaming. “That night after you left, we had a good solid night of business, didn’t we, Kentaro?”
“Yeah. I’m production. He’s sales.” Kentaro nodded, his eyes still on Seiki’s leather armor. His hands seemed to be working some magic as he stitched the tear.
Ippei sat down at the table. “Your friend offered me a ten percent cut for every charm I sell,” he said to Mairin. “I’d say it worked out pretty nicely. Never made so much gold in my life.”
Kentaro waved a finger at them. “You two really need to consider picking up a trade skill.” He then glanced at Seiki. “You too, Seiki. Don’t be like them. They’re basically mooching off me.”
Despite claiming he was not there for the dessert, Ippei ordered a bowl of the sugary ice and Mairin ordered more for everybody. “What do you want?” she asked. “Sakura, plum, yuzu, azuki…”
“Not yuzu,” said Seiki.
Mairin blinked. “Sakura, then,” she decided for him and called to the shopkeeper Mami, who answered in her overly enthusiastic manner.
“What exactly is yuzu?” whispered Kentaro to Ippei. “I’ve had it and it’s pretty good. I just don’t know what it is.”
Ippei, too, had now taken notice
of Seiki’s mood. He studied him, then glanced at the leather armor Kentaro was working on, and back at Seiki, as he pieced it together. “Did you just get your fourth ability?”
“Yes.”
Ippei inhaled. “Oh.” He then asked, “Slide?”
Seiki nodded.
Ippei slammed his hand on the table. “Hah! I called it!” he cried with satisfaction. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a new ronin in town. Should have made you guys a bet.” Then he turned to ask Seiki, “Did it say congratulations?”
Of all the questions, Seiki did not expect this one. “Did it what?”
“Did it say ‘Class selected: Congratulations! You are now a ronin’?”
It seemed entirely trivial but Ippei appeared to be earnest as he waited for an answer. “Uh.” Seiki thought about it. “No. No congratulations.”
“What are you even talking about?” asked Mairin, as she passed the dessert bowls around.
“The class confirmation message,” said Ippei. “Like when you finish that ancient spirit grounds quest and you got ‘Congratulations! You are now a kitsune!’”
“Actually,” said Mairin. “It was ‘Congratulations! Your memories have returned! You are a kitsune!’ You, of all people, should remember.”
Ippei shrugged as he went on. “For ronin, Ryuta always swore it didn’t say congratulations.” He quickly turned to explain to Kentaro. “That’s my ronin friend Ryuta, who used to play.”
“Why is that?” Mairin wondered. She shook her head. “And why does it even matter?”
“Because,” said Ippei, becoming aware he had perhaps stepped into sensitive territory. “The beginning of the class is rather… tragic.” He glanced at Seiki to gauge his reaction, but Seiki was too deep in his own thoughts to even pay attention.
Ippei added, “Well, it’s the same for obake, because to become one you kinda have to be dead, and it would be weird to say ‘Congratulations! You have died and your spirit cannot find peace in the netherworld, so you’re now an obake!’”
Seiki hardly heard the conversation. Until now, he had completely forgotten about the fact that he had a class. This was the great mystery everyone had been keeping from him on purpose, and while he could see why, for some reason he could not help but be angry at them for having kept him in the dark. “When did you even choose?” he cried, more angrily than he intended. Mairin and Kentaro turned to look at him in bewilderment.
“Whoa,” said Ippei.
Seiki took a deep breath to calm himself. “Sorry.”
Ippei explained to the kitsune and houshi. “The quest was kinda… intense.”
He turned back to look at Seiki. “Ryuta was pretty sore about the whole thing, too,” he said.
Then he seemed to remember something and hid a smile. “You know, that’s why he started insulting the Shogun. In the beginning, he did a lot of ten-minuters in jail for that, but eventually he got good and it became hilarious.”
Ippei then settled into a more serious tone. “The thing is, no one chooses to become a ronin, not even real ronin, when you think about it.”
Kentaro looked up from the armor and lifted his brow.
Ippei went on. “Essentially, ronin are samurai without masters. Most of the time, their masters have suffered unfair deaths, and I think they want this to reflect in the storyline.”
“But when do you actually choose?” asked Seiki, calmer this time. He did not remember being given options, but he must have chosen at some point, and now he wanted to know exactly when that happened and if he could have done anything differently.
“When you go find the old man on your own without giving the letter to Nakatani,” said Ippei. “And even then, the old man gives you about five chances to leave as he tries to kill you, so that’s why most people end up being samurai. If your health drops below ten percent, you have pretty much decided, so you get a quest and the old man teaches you Slide, which I’d say is the ronin signature move, by the way.”
Seiki only looked at him in anticipation, as a terrible thought crept up on him. Ronin and samurai started out the same, before diverging, as someone had told him. “In the samurai quest line,” said Seiki faintly. “Does he—”
Ippei blinked. “Oh, he dies either way.”
Seiki felt a tiny pang of relief, immediately followed by a wave of shame, and then more ire at whoever put him into this situation.
“If, at the Palace, you stay and listen to Nakatani’s pep talk on honor and duty, and give him the letter, that pretty much seals the deal for you to be a samurai, and the commander gives you a quest there,” said Ippei. “If you go into the cave but later decide to leave, you’ll run into Nakatani and Kato just outside, and you can pick up the quest then, too. Once you do, when you go back into the cave with them, the old man tries to blow up the cave, and Kato teaches you Brace to survive the explosion.” Ippei grimaced at the memory. “That’s a point-blank explosion that drops you from a hundred percent health to two percent in one go, with Brace active, mind you, which is pretty nasty.”
“Er, what’s Brace?” asked Kentaro
“Halves the damage you receive in the next two seconds,” Ippei replied.
“Oh, is that why samurai pretty much never bother to dodge anything?” asked Mairin.
“That’s just lazy play,” Ippei said. “You should always try to Parry, since it has a chance to cancel the lockout on Brace.”
Again, Seiki was not listening to the conversation. The alternate reality was hurting his head. “So ultimately whether Master Tsujihara is guilty or not depends on whether you believe him to be guilty or not?” Seiki asked slowly.
“Well, not exactly,” said Ippei. “Even in my samurai quest line, the old man didn’t break his vow, so in a way he’s not really guilty of anything.” He paused for a brief moment before clarifying. “His oath was to the last Shogun, and he believed the present Shogun was messing things up for Shinshioka.”
So, the Maeda storyline did not even factor into it. Seiki had not realized he had said it out loud when Ippei answered. “It does, a little. In the samurai version, the old man chose to do it now, because Maeda just turned sixteen, and he had raised the boy into adulthood just as he had promised Hanae.”
Of course, everything was about Maeda, Seiki thought bitterly.
Ippei looked at Seiki again. “So, in the end, it was a moral question. The ronin one is about personal loyalty, the samurai one is about public duty.” He shrugged. “In my version, Morita was doing it for the greater good, and he had a pretty good exit speech, too, about doing the right thing and all that.”
And, of course, the old master had randomized names for everybody. Seiki drew a deep breath that did not seem to give him any air. “Isn’t that kind of…” He could not quite think of a word opposite of pre-deterministic. Even the old master’s motivation got decided in retrospect after a specific choice, although for Seiki it had been no choice at all, as there was no way he would have handed over that letter.
“… cliché?” Mairin offered.
Seiki buried his head in his hands again. “Messed up,” he said in a hoarse whisper, taking it into a different direction entirely.
Anger burned in him. They had made him a promise and had him go through all these hoops, and he had believed his efforts would at the very least have some bearings on the outcome. In the end though, it was all pre-determined. There had never been an alternative in the first place, or even if there had been, they never told him when it was coming and when he was even choosing. Instead, they let him blissfully walk toward it at complete unawares until right at the very last second, when they plunged him into it head first. Did he complain? No. Did he even blame anyone? No. He just took it, the best as he could, as he struggled from bedtime to bedtime, therapy to therapy, suffering through bouts of debilitating nausea that reduced him to a gasping lump of flesh clinging to the side rails. But, no, that was not enough. Even after all that, they still had to deny
him this little scrap of what he had left of his old life. Perhaps it should not matter, since it was not even real. But it mattered to him. And did they care?
Seiki clenched his fists and tried not to break things.
His friends were looking at him with a mixture of concern and puzzlement. Ippei then made a quick decision. “Okay,” he said. “Get up, everybody.” He addressed Seiki. “You’ve got to do something right now.”
“What?” Seiki had not meant to sound so harsh.
“Presumably, you have something to settle with Shousei?” asked the samurai. Apparently, he knew exactly what Seiki needed. He did not have to wait for an answer at all, as Seiki was already on his feet.
“But you’ve got to be Level 9 for that,” Ippei pointed out.
He was already so close. Seiki grabbed his sword from the table. “I’m sure there will be things to kill on the way.”
Ippei grinned. “That’s what I like to hear.” He turned to the kitsune and houshi. “You two are coming, too. Foxy’s Level 9, so that’s fine. You, my friend, on the other hand, need to go kill stuff with Seiki.”
“I’m not really here to kill stuff,” said Kentaro, uncomfortably.
“We need a healer,” said Ippei. “Come on. Seiki needs to do this right now.”
Mairin was already jumping up and down. “Finally! Thank God for whatever happened in your quest line so we can finally get out of here. Come on, Kentaro.”
Seiki thanked the houshi as the latter handed him back the fixed chest armor. He did not know what Ippei had in mind, but he started entertaining a ridiculous thought that perhaps they would let him kill Shousei. Immediately, he highly doubted it would happen, but at the very least the man would have to admit he was wrong about Master Tsujihara.
Mairin, out of excitement, popped into fox form and dashed over the tables and benches out the door, before turning back into human to ask Ippei, “How the heck did you get to Level 9 so fast anyway? Last time, you were, like, 7.”
“While someone’s getting himself a fancy horse, some of us have been putting in work,” said Ippei with a wink. Seiki noticed that he had forgotten to dismiss the snowstepper again, and it was standing patiently in front of the shop, attracting fondles from strangers.