ladyseishou.livejournal.com (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
ladyseishou.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
31_days2005-10-06 09:49 pm
ladyseishou.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-10-06 09:49 pm
[October 6] [Hikaru no Go] 1544
Title: 1544
Day/Theme: October 6 / Late night Betty
Series: Hikaru no Go
Character/Pairing: Touya (Harunobu) / Shindou (Kagetora)
Rating: PG-13 (non-explicit depiction of a relationship between a young teen and adult)
Word count: 2,160
Author’s note:
According to the journal Teppo Ki (“Journal of Guns”) written in 1606 by the Zen Monk Nampo Bunshi, the gun first came to Japan in 1543.
Boom Boom
song title from Late Night Betty
recorded by Pepe & Bottle Blondes
1544
The fallen yellow pine needles made for a comfortable bed and Harunobu rolled to his side, resting head on hand on bent elbow so that he could watch Kagetora. The boy was studying the Go board, his back to Harunobu, sunlight through the tree branches dabbling his naked skin with a pleasing pattern of light and shadow.
As if he knew the man’s eyes were upon him, Kagetora threw a stone from one of the baskets at him.
Harunobu found the white stone easily enough and tossed it back. “ What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease,” he teased, quoting from the scroll, unrolled at his feet.
“To lift an autumn hare is no sign of great strength,” the boy quoted in turn, returning the stone to its basket.
Harunobu smiled and let his head fall back so that the sun warmed his face. The afternoon was growing late and the cold came quickly to the mountains, he knew. It was probably time that they dress and return, Kagetora to his monks and he to his… worried friends. But he found that he was pleasantly sated, the woods safe and the company beautiful as well as possessing a fine mind, quick like a fox and as formidable as an any of the old Chinese Generals.
“You are in atari,” Kagetora announced suddenly with abundant self-satisfaction.
“You saw my trap then,” he answered, not overly concerned, hiding from the sun now, his arm a weight over his eyes. He heard Kagetora sigh, followed by his light footsteps coming near. He smiled again as the boy’s weight settled over his groin, resting his head on Harunobu’s chest, just under his chin.
“Our hunt has yielded very little, I’m afraid.” Kagetora’s voice was a gentle rumble through his body. “One poor rabbit and one well-killed pine sapling.”
“Yes, it seems so,” he answered lazily, drowsy with the boy’s heat. “But I’d wager to say that it is certain that the tree of which you speak will not live to produce any sons to take revenge on their sire’s better.” He had said it in jest but felt the boy stiffen and he brought his arm up around the boy’s waist before he could withdraw. “Tell me then what you think of Tokitaka’s gift, this arquebus?”
Kagetora resettled himself but Harunobu could feel his quick, unsettled breathing. He began to rub small circles over the boy’s back.
“It is loud enough,” Kagetora said finally. “I suppose one could try to deafen one’s enemies with it. Boom! Boom!”
Harunobu laughed at his companion’s attempt to mimic the explosive sound of the arquebus. It was indeed noisy enough to cause a ringing in the ear. But he had watched as Kagetora carefully fingered the smoking dark hole in the tree’s trunk made by the iron ball. Witness his surprise as he discovered that the hole was as wide as his thumb and as deep as his little finger. Guessed at his awareness of the burden that he carried now, knowing of a thing that could propel an iron ball with such easy killing force… force that could be used to take down hunted prey… or perhaps one’s enemy…
“It is cumbersome,” Kagetora finally decided. “And much too slow I think. By the time one has set fire to it, the deer will have fled.”
“Yes, you are right,” Harunobu agreed. “It sometimes refuses to fire at all. But I’m told that it is only a matter of fixing the right amount of charcoal and sulfur.”
“Truly?” He had managed to tickle the boy’s curiosity.
“Shall I show you how it works?”
Harunobu regretted his hasty offer as the boy happily left him to bring back the arquebus and the bag of powder and round iron balls and he forced himself to sit up as the boy handed him it all to him. He took a moment to admire the foreign craftsmanship of the thing… the dark smooth wood and cold rolled iron, the curving shape of the serpent shaped fuse, the weight of the small iron balls.
Each of these he showed in turn to Kagetora who took it all in with keen fascination. He let the boy strike the flint to light the woven cotton wick, explaining that it was soaked in saltpeter to provide a slow burning. He showed him how to pour the powder into the metal tube and demonstrated how the iron ball was set into the weapon between wads of seedy raw cotton.
“Would you like to try firing the arquebus, Kagetora?” he asked at last when he had showed the boy everything.
Kagetora was quiet a moment and then shook his head. “I think for the hunt, I would take only my bow. Perhaps a pike. This weapon seems…”
“Strong?” he prompted.
“Without honor,” Kagetora said instead. “Only my bow… or my sword…would I meet my enemy face to face and he would know my name and my honor…”
Harunobu set the arquebus aside and kissed the boy’s serious face, gathering his sweet body to his own, eager suddenly to share passion once again. “The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline” he whispered into the boy’s hair. He felt Kagetora nod agreement while gently gnawing the exposed length of his collarbone.
This boy, Harunobu knew, was indeed his true companion, his soul’s mate. Who else could he woo so well with words from “The Art of War”?
* * *
Kagetora rolled away to lie on their discarded robes, sated. Harunobu reached over to run his hand through the boy’s sweat soaked hair, lying loose over one shoulder. “We need to get back,” he said reluctantly.
Kagetora nodded, sadly, understanding too well.
“I’m going to go down to the lake and wash.” He smiled affectionately at Kagetora’s amused snort and reached over to pull an edge of one of their robes over his nakedness. “I should be back soon. You rest until I return.”
He took the time to dress in hakama, covering his own nakedness, eyeing his sword propped against the trunk of the pine tree while he fastened the ties of the hakama around his waist. He knew that Kagetora had only brought his bow and that the last arrow had been spent bringing down the rabbit, hanging now from the tree. And even though the woods were quiet, peaceful, their interlude uninterrupted, he didn’t feel right leaving the boy alone without protection.
He leaned down to steal one more sleepy kiss, laying the sword at his lover’s side. “I will be right back,” he said again and left to make his way down to the mountain’s lake.
* * *
He found the water cold but refreshing as he splashed it over his face and chest, cooling the places where Kagetora had bitten him in passion. He would be bruised for weeks yet he was glad for the small markings. Each would be a sweet reminder until he could manage to come back here again.
But now the sun hung low in the sky and this time was coming to an end. He took one last look at the setting sun floating gently in the lake’s calm waters and regretted not bringing Kagetora with him. It would have been another pleasant thing to share. He leaned down close to the water’s edge and drew up the sky’s fire in his hand…
There was movement...
The sword sang near his ear as he rolled to his shoulder, coming to his feet in a defensive crouch.
“Where is Lord Nagao?” his assailant demanded, readying his sword to strike.
“Who is asking?” he asked in turn, backing away cautiously, surveying the land near him for whatever might be at hand. A bone-white branch lay half buried in muck…
“I am Lord Nagao’s vassal…” the man answered as he swung his sword with deadly intent.
Harunobu pulled on the branch but it stayed stuck in the mud. He rolled aside quickly as the man’s sword came down, splintering the wood of the branch.
He backed away again, watching the other’s eyes. “I am…”
“Oh, I know who you are Takeda Harunobu… now tell me where Lord Nagao is before I send you to where you belong… to hell…”
The two of them had circled back around and the thick white branch was behind him now. He reached back, feeling for it. “So you know who I am!” he said as he worked his fingers around the place where the branch was thickest, feeling the raw cut that the sword had given it and pulled…
“All men loyal to the Uesugi know of the Mountain Monkey! It will be my honor to cut down the man that butchered Kuwabara of Suwa and Tozawa Yorichika of Shinano, honored allies of the Uesugi family!” The sword fell again but this time, Harunobu kept it from slicing into his breastbone by blocking it with the driftwood branch. But the force of the blow brought him to his knees…
The sword flashed through the air again, cutting deep into the branch. Harunobu knew that it would not withstand another hit and changed his grip on it to strike upward with the improbable hope that he could disarm the man of his sword…
But reading the other man’s eyes, he knew in his heart it was impossible.
He was going to die.
BOOM
The man’s dead weight fell on him and he pushed it away, the body rolling part way into the lake, the swordsman’s mortal wound bleeding into water, the same as the spill of the sun’s own red death.
He watched cautiously as Kagetora came to him, dropping sword and arquebus before running into his arms, hiding his face against his chest, shaking and shaking...
Harunobu knew then that this was the first time for Kagetora. The first time that the boy had taken a man’s life.
“Gods… Gods… Gods…” he cried incoherently. “I thought… I was… He was…. Gods…”
Harunobu held him tight, knowing that he would soon come to himself. It was sometimes a terrible shock but one that they all had to endure given who they were. His only thought now was to take Kagetora away. Return him to the monks at the monastery. Send him home to his people.
But the knowledge left him cold inside. And such a cold could surely kill a man, he decided bitterly.
He pushed Kagetora away, holding him at arm’s length. “Why all this bother? You did well! And I am unharmed!”
Kagetora scrubbed at his eyes, wiping his tears away. “Yes. I am glad. You are all right.” He was still shaking but seemed reasoning again.
“Kagetora, we must go now. It is late. I know that you will be missed…”
The boy nodded but his face was still a mask of misery and guilt. “I must see the body.”
“Why?” Harunobu asked, surprised and unhappy with the proposal.
“I need to ask the spirit’s forgiveness. What I did had no honor…”
“What are you saying Kagetora? You saved my life!”
“Yes,” the boy admitted. “The act was necessary but there was no honor in how it was done.” He pulled away from Harunobu and walked over to where the body lay half submerged in the dark waters. “Please help me. I need to see his face.”
Harunobu frowned but did as the boy asked, knowing that there was no going back now. For either of them. The two of them pulled the body ashore and Harunobu turned it over, exposing the face of the man that Kagetora had killed.
“I know this man!” The boy fell down to his knees and covered his sudden white face with his hands. “I know this man! I know this man!”
There was no more time.
“I must go,” he said woodenly, wondering perhaps that it was his spirit that had gone from his body, so disconnected he felt from it all now, like a child’s puppet acting out a play. “Kagetora, I must go now.”
The boy grew quiet. Perhaps he was listening. Perhaps he wasn’t. It really didn’t matter, he thought.
“I never told you my name, Kagetora,” he said quietly. “And you never told me yours. But of course I know who you are… Nagao Kagetora. And I think it is time that you know who I am.”
“And who are you?” Nagao Kagetora asked vacantly.
Harunobu walked over to his discarded sword, taking it in hand. “I am Takeda Harunobu, head of the Takeda clan and sworn enemy of the Uesugi and Nagao people.” He turned away from Kagetora, enemy of the Takeda clan and spoke one last thing. “Know also that you still have your honor, Nagao Kagetora, no matter what you may believe now. For you have stolen your enemy’s heart.”
Then he walked away.
- owari -
Author's afterword:
In 1536, Nagao Tamekage a noted warrior and warlord of Echigo province, marched westward to Sendanno in Etchu where Tamekage was slain and his army routed. Harukage, Tamekage’s oldest son succeeded in claiming rule of Echigo after a bloody struggle for power which resulted in the death of one brother, Kageyasu and the exile of the youngest brother Kagetora, then seven years of age to the Buddhist monastery Rizen-ji.
Kagetora, later known as Uesugi Kenshin or sometimes as “The Dragon of Echigo,” spent seven years in study at Rizen-ji until he was 14 years of age at which time he was encouraged to take control of the clan from his older brother in 1544.
*
Takeda Katsuchiyo was the eldest son of Takeda Nobutora, the daimyo of Kai. Sometime after his “coming of age” ceremony, Katsuchiyo rebelled against his father, taking control of the Takeda clan and took the name Takeda Harunobu which he would change again later to Takeda Shingen, sometimes also called the “Tiger of Kai.”
*
And as in Chinese mythology, the Dragon and Tiger were life-long legendary rivals, one trying to defeat the other but always fighting to a draw. And although rivals, the daimyo were known to have exchanged gifts a number of times, the most famous of which was a precious sword, greatly valued by Shingen given to his rival Kenshin.
Later, upon hearing of his rival’s death in 1578, Kenshin was said to have wept bitterly from the loss of so worthy an adversary.
This much is fact. What remains is speculation…
Day/Theme: October 6 / Late night Betty
Series: Hikaru no Go
Character/Pairing: Touya (Harunobu) / Shindou (Kagetora)
Rating: PG-13 (non-explicit depiction of a relationship between a young teen and adult)
Word count: 2,160
Author’s note:
According to the journal Teppo Ki (“Journal of Guns”) written in 1606 by the Zen Monk Nampo Bunshi, the gun first came to Japan in 1543.
Boom Boom
song title from Late Night Betty
recorded by Pepe & Bottle Blondes
1544
The fallen yellow pine needles made for a comfortable bed and Harunobu rolled to his side, resting head on hand on bent elbow so that he could watch Kagetora. The boy was studying the Go board, his back to Harunobu, sunlight through the tree branches dabbling his naked skin with a pleasing pattern of light and shadow.
As if he knew the man’s eyes were upon him, Kagetora threw a stone from one of the baskets at him.
Harunobu found the white stone easily enough and tossed it back. “ What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease,” he teased, quoting from the scroll, unrolled at his feet.
“To lift an autumn hare is no sign of great strength,” the boy quoted in turn, returning the stone to its basket.
Harunobu smiled and let his head fall back so that the sun warmed his face. The afternoon was growing late and the cold came quickly to the mountains, he knew. It was probably time that they dress and return, Kagetora to his monks and he to his… worried friends. But he found that he was pleasantly sated, the woods safe and the company beautiful as well as possessing a fine mind, quick like a fox and as formidable as an any of the old Chinese Generals.
“You are in atari,” Kagetora announced suddenly with abundant self-satisfaction.
“You saw my trap then,” he answered, not overly concerned, hiding from the sun now, his arm a weight over his eyes. He heard Kagetora sigh, followed by his light footsteps coming near. He smiled again as the boy’s weight settled over his groin, resting his head on Harunobu’s chest, just under his chin.
“Our hunt has yielded very little, I’m afraid.” Kagetora’s voice was a gentle rumble through his body. “One poor rabbit and one well-killed pine sapling.”
“Yes, it seems so,” he answered lazily, drowsy with the boy’s heat. “But I’d wager to say that it is certain that the tree of which you speak will not live to produce any sons to take revenge on their sire’s better.” He had said it in jest but felt the boy stiffen and he brought his arm up around the boy’s waist before he could withdraw. “Tell me then what you think of Tokitaka’s gift, this arquebus?”
Kagetora resettled himself but Harunobu could feel his quick, unsettled breathing. He began to rub small circles over the boy’s back.
“It is loud enough,” Kagetora said finally. “I suppose one could try to deafen one’s enemies with it. Boom! Boom!”
Harunobu laughed at his companion’s attempt to mimic the explosive sound of the arquebus. It was indeed noisy enough to cause a ringing in the ear. But he had watched as Kagetora carefully fingered the smoking dark hole in the tree’s trunk made by the iron ball. Witness his surprise as he discovered that the hole was as wide as his thumb and as deep as his little finger. Guessed at his awareness of the burden that he carried now, knowing of a thing that could propel an iron ball with such easy killing force… force that could be used to take down hunted prey… or perhaps one’s enemy…
“It is cumbersome,” Kagetora finally decided. “And much too slow I think. By the time one has set fire to it, the deer will have fled.”
“Yes, you are right,” Harunobu agreed. “It sometimes refuses to fire at all. But I’m told that it is only a matter of fixing the right amount of charcoal and sulfur.”
“Truly?” He had managed to tickle the boy’s curiosity.
“Shall I show you how it works?”
Harunobu regretted his hasty offer as the boy happily left him to bring back the arquebus and the bag of powder and round iron balls and he forced himself to sit up as the boy handed him it all to him. He took a moment to admire the foreign craftsmanship of the thing… the dark smooth wood and cold rolled iron, the curving shape of the serpent shaped fuse, the weight of the small iron balls.
Each of these he showed in turn to Kagetora who took it all in with keen fascination. He let the boy strike the flint to light the woven cotton wick, explaining that it was soaked in saltpeter to provide a slow burning. He showed him how to pour the powder into the metal tube and demonstrated how the iron ball was set into the weapon between wads of seedy raw cotton.
“Would you like to try firing the arquebus, Kagetora?” he asked at last when he had showed the boy everything.
Kagetora was quiet a moment and then shook his head. “I think for the hunt, I would take only my bow. Perhaps a pike. This weapon seems…”
“Strong?” he prompted.
“Without honor,” Kagetora said instead. “Only my bow… or my sword…would I meet my enemy face to face and he would know my name and my honor…”
Harunobu set the arquebus aside and kissed the boy’s serious face, gathering his sweet body to his own, eager suddenly to share passion once again. “The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline” he whispered into the boy’s hair. He felt Kagetora nod agreement while gently gnawing the exposed length of his collarbone.
This boy, Harunobu knew, was indeed his true companion, his soul’s mate. Who else could he woo so well with words from “The Art of War”?
* * *
Kagetora rolled away to lie on their discarded robes, sated. Harunobu reached over to run his hand through the boy’s sweat soaked hair, lying loose over one shoulder. “We need to get back,” he said reluctantly.
Kagetora nodded, sadly, understanding too well.
“I’m going to go down to the lake and wash.” He smiled affectionately at Kagetora’s amused snort and reached over to pull an edge of one of their robes over his nakedness. “I should be back soon. You rest until I return.”
He took the time to dress in hakama, covering his own nakedness, eyeing his sword propped against the trunk of the pine tree while he fastened the ties of the hakama around his waist. He knew that Kagetora had only brought his bow and that the last arrow had been spent bringing down the rabbit, hanging now from the tree. And even though the woods were quiet, peaceful, their interlude uninterrupted, he didn’t feel right leaving the boy alone without protection.
He leaned down to steal one more sleepy kiss, laying the sword at his lover’s side. “I will be right back,” he said again and left to make his way down to the mountain’s lake.
* * *
He found the water cold but refreshing as he splashed it over his face and chest, cooling the places where Kagetora had bitten him in passion. He would be bruised for weeks yet he was glad for the small markings. Each would be a sweet reminder until he could manage to come back here again.
But now the sun hung low in the sky and this time was coming to an end. He took one last look at the setting sun floating gently in the lake’s calm waters and regretted not bringing Kagetora with him. It would have been another pleasant thing to share. He leaned down close to the water’s edge and drew up the sky’s fire in his hand…
There was movement...
The sword sang near his ear as he rolled to his shoulder, coming to his feet in a defensive crouch.
“Where is Lord Nagao?” his assailant demanded, readying his sword to strike.
“Who is asking?” he asked in turn, backing away cautiously, surveying the land near him for whatever might be at hand. A bone-white branch lay half buried in muck…
“I am Lord Nagao’s vassal…” the man answered as he swung his sword with deadly intent.
Harunobu pulled on the branch but it stayed stuck in the mud. He rolled aside quickly as the man’s sword came down, splintering the wood of the branch.
He backed away again, watching the other’s eyes. “I am…”
“Oh, I know who you are Takeda Harunobu… now tell me where Lord Nagao is before I send you to where you belong… to hell…”
The two of them had circled back around and the thick white branch was behind him now. He reached back, feeling for it. “So you know who I am!” he said as he worked his fingers around the place where the branch was thickest, feeling the raw cut that the sword had given it and pulled…
“All men loyal to the Uesugi know of the Mountain Monkey! It will be my honor to cut down the man that butchered Kuwabara of Suwa and Tozawa Yorichika of Shinano, honored allies of the Uesugi family!” The sword fell again but this time, Harunobu kept it from slicing into his breastbone by blocking it with the driftwood branch. But the force of the blow brought him to his knees…
The sword flashed through the air again, cutting deep into the branch. Harunobu knew that it would not withstand another hit and changed his grip on it to strike upward with the improbable hope that he could disarm the man of his sword…
But reading the other man’s eyes, he knew in his heart it was impossible.
He was going to die.
BOOM
The man’s dead weight fell on him and he pushed it away, the body rolling part way into the lake, the swordsman’s mortal wound bleeding into water, the same as the spill of the sun’s own red death.
He watched cautiously as Kagetora came to him, dropping sword and arquebus before running into his arms, hiding his face against his chest, shaking and shaking...
Harunobu knew then that this was the first time for Kagetora. The first time that the boy had taken a man’s life.
“Gods… Gods… Gods…” he cried incoherently. “I thought… I was… He was…. Gods…”
Harunobu held him tight, knowing that he would soon come to himself. It was sometimes a terrible shock but one that they all had to endure given who they were. His only thought now was to take Kagetora away. Return him to the monks at the monastery. Send him home to his people.
But the knowledge left him cold inside. And such a cold could surely kill a man, he decided bitterly.
He pushed Kagetora away, holding him at arm’s length. “Why all this bother? You did well! And I am unharmed!”
Kagetora scrubbed at his eyes, wiping his tears away. “Yes. I am glad. You are all right.” He was still shaking but seemed reasoning again.
“Kagetora, we must go now. It is late. I know that you will be missed…”
The boy nodded but his face was still a mask of misery and guilt. “I must see the body.”
“Why?” Harunobu asked, surprised and unhappy with the proposal.
“I need to ask the spirit’s forgiveness. What I did had no honor…”
“What are you saying Kagetora? You saved my life!”
“Yes,” the boy admitted. “The act was necessary but there was no honor in how it was done.” He pulled away from Harunobu and walked over to where the body lay half submerged in the dark waters. “Please help me. I need to see his face.”
Harunobu frowned but did as the boy asked, knowing that there was no going back now. For either of them. The two of them pulled the body ashore and Harunobu turned it over, exposing the face of the man that Kagetora had killed.
“I know this man!” The boy fell down to his knees and covered his sudden white face with his hands. “I know this man! I know this man!”
There was no more time.
“I must go,” he said woodenly, wondering perhaps that it was his spirit that had gone from his body, so disconnected he felt from it all now, like a child’s puppet acting out a play. “Kagetora, I must go now.”
The boy grew quiet. Perhaps he was listening. Perhaps he wasn’t. It really didn’t matter, he thought.
“I never told you my name, Kagetora,” he said quietly. “And you never told me yours. But of course I know who you are… Nagao Kagetora. And I think it is time that you know who I am.”
“And who are you?” Nagao Kagetora asked vacantly.
Harunobu walked over to his discarded sword, taking it in hand. “I am Takeda Harunobu, head of the Takeda clan and sworn enemy of the Uesugi and Nagao people.” He turned away from Kagetora, enemy of the Takeda clan and spoke one last thing. “Know also that you still have your honor, Nagao Kagetora, no matter what you may believe now. For you have stolen your enemy’s heart.”
Then he walked away.
- owari -
Author's afterword:
In 1536, Nagao Tamekage a noted warrior and warlord of Echigo province, marched westward to Sendanno in Etchu where Tamekage was slain and his army routed. Harukage, Tamekage’s oldest son succeeded in claiming rule of Echigo after a bloody struggle for power which resulted in the death of one brother, Kageyasu and the exile of the youngest brother Kagetora, then seven years of age to the Buddhist monastery Rizen-ji.
Kagetora, later known as Uesugi Kenshin or sometimes as “The Dragon of Echigo,” spent seven years in study at Rizen-ji until he was 14 years of age at which time he was encouraged to take control of the clan from his older brother in 1544.
*
Takeda Katsuchiyo was the eldest son of Takeda Nobutora, the daimyo of Kai. Sometime after his “coming of age” ceremony, Katsuchiyo rebelled against his father, taking control of the Takeda clan and took the name Takeda Harunobu which he would change again later to Takeda Shingen, sometimes also called the “Tiger of Kai.”
*
And as in Chinese mythology, the Dragon and Tiger were life-long legendary rivals, one trying to defeat the other but always fighting to a draw. And although rivals, the daimyo were known to have exchanged gifts a number of times, the most famous of which was a precious sword, greatly valued by Shingen given to his rival Kenshin.
Later, upon hearing of his rival’s death in 1578, Kenshin was said to have wept bitterly from the loss of so worthy an adversary.
This much is fact. What remains is speculation…