Musashi: Bushido Code (119 page)

"Yes, but he went straight to the house. How he got admitted, I don't know, but he's in the guest room talking with the master."

"The master?" echoed the group with a collective gasp.

"Are you telling the truth?" demanded Toranosuke, the look on his face close to consternation. He strongly suspected that if the circumstances of his brother's death were investigated, it would turn out that he'd been up to no good, but he'd glossed over this in relating the incident to Tadaaki. And if his master knew he'd abducted Osugi, it wasn't because he himself had told him.

"If you don't believe me, go look."

"What a mess!" groaned Toranosuke.

Far from sympathizing with him, his fellow students were annoyed by his lack of decisiveness.

Advising the others to keep cool while they went to see what the situation was, Kamei and Negoro were just stepping into their zōri when an attractive, light-complexioned girl came running out of the house. Recognizing Omitsu, they stopped where they were and the others rushed to the doorway.

"All of you," she cried in an excited, shrill voice. "Come right away! Uncle and the guest have drawn swords. In the garden. They're fighting!"

Though Omitsu was officially regarded as Tadaaki's niece, it had been whispered about that she was really the daughter of Itō Ittōsai by a mistress. Rumor had it that since Ittōsai was Tadaaki's teacher, Tadaaki must have agreed to rear the girl.

The look of fear in her eyes was most unusual. "I heard Uncle and the guest talking—their voices got louder and louder—and the next thing I knew ... I don't suppose Uncle's in danger, but—"

The four generals emitted a collective yelp and lit out for the garden, which was set off from the outer compound by a shrub fence. The others caught up with them at the woven-bamboo gate.

"The gate's locked."

"Can't you force it?"

This proved unnecessary. The gate gave way under the weight of the samurai pressing against it. As it fell, a spacious area backed by a hill came into view. Tadaaki, his faithful Yukihira sword held at eye level, stood in the middle. Beyond him, at a fair distance, was Kojirō, the great Drying Pole rising above his head, fire shooting from his eyes.

The charged atmosphere seemed to create an invisible barrier. For men raised in the strict tradition of the samurai class, the awe-inspiring solemnity surrounding the combatants, the dignity of the deadly unsheathed swords, was inviolable. Despite their agitation, the spectacle momentarily deprived the students both of their mobility and of their emotions.

But then two or three of them started toward Kojirō's rear.

"Stay back!" cried Tadaaki angrily. His voice, harsh and chilling, not at all the fatherly voice they were accustomed to, arrested all movement on the part of his students.

People were apt to guess Tadaaki's age to be as much as ten years less than his fifty-four or -five years and take his height for average, whereas actually it was somewhat less than that. His hair was still black, his body small but solidly built. There was nothing stiff or awkward in the movements of his long limbs.

Kojirō had not yet made one strike—had not, in fact, been able to.

Yet Tadaaki had had to face one fact instantly: he was up against a terrific swordsman. "He's another Zenki!" he thought with an imperceptible shudder.

Zenki was the last fighter he had encountered to have such scope and driving ambition. And that had been long ago, in his youth, when he traveled with Ittōsai, living the life of a
shugyōsha.
Zenki, the son of a boatman in Kuwana Province, had been Ittōsai's senior disciple. As Ittōsai aged, Zenki began to look down on him, even proclaiming that the Ittō Style was his own invention.

Zenki had caused Ittōsai much grief, for the more adept he became with the sword, the more harm he caused other people. "Zenki," Ittōsai had lamented, "is the greatest mistake in my life. When I look at him, I see a monster embodying all the bad qualities I ever had. It makes me hate myself to watch him."

Ironically, Zenki served the youthful Tadaaki well—as a bad example—spurring him to higher achievements than might otherwise have been possible. Eventually, Tadaaki clashed with the evil prodigy at Koganegahara in Shimōsa and killed him, whereupon Ittōsai awarded him his certificate in the Ittō Style and gave him the book of secret instructions.

Zenki's one flaw had been that his technical capability was marred by a lack of breeding. Not so Kojirō. His intelligence and education were evident in his swordsmanship.

"I can't win this fight," thought Tadaaki, who felt himself in no way inferior to Munenori. In fact, his assessment of Munenori's skill was not very high.

While he stared at his awesome opponent, another truth came home to rest. "Time appears to have passed me by," he thought ruefully.

They stood motionless; not the slightest change was evident. But both Tadaaki and Kojirō were expending vital energy at a fearful rate. The physiological toll took the form of sweat pouring copiously from their foreheads, air rushing through flaring nostrils, skin turning white, then bluish. Though a move seemed imminent, the swords remained poised and unwavering.

"I give up," said Tadaaki, abruptly dropping back several paces. They had agreed it was not to be a fight to the finish. Either man could withdraw by acknowledging defeat.

Springing like a beast of prey, Kojirō brought the Drying Pole into action with a downward stroke of whirlwind force and speed. Though Tadaaki ducked just in time, his topknot flew up and was lopped off. Tadaaki himself, while dodging, executed a brilliant reprisal, slicing off some six inches of Kojirō's sleeve.

"Coward!" rose the cry from the students, whose faces burned with rage. By seizing on his opponent's capitulation as the opening for an attack, Kojirō had violated the samurai's code of ethics.

Every one of the students started for Kojirō.

He responded by flying with the speed of a cormorant to a large jujube tree at one end of the garden and half hiding himself behind the trunk. His eyes shifted with intimidating rapidity.

"Did you see it?" he shouted. "Did you see who won?"

"They saw it," said Tadaaki. "Hold off!" he told his men, sheathing his sword and returning to the veranda of his study.

Summoning Omitsu, he told her to tie up his hair. While she was doing this, he caught his breath. His chest glistened with rivulets of sweat.

An old saying came back to his mind: it is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor. He'd been enjoying the fruits of hard training in his youth, complacent in the knowledge that his Ittō Style was no less flourishing than the Yagyū Style. Meanwhile society was giving birth to new geniuses like Kojirō. The realization came as a bitter shock, but he was not the sort of man to ignore it.

When Omitsu was finished, he said, "Give our young guest some water to rinse his mouth out with and show him back to the guest room."

The faces of the students around him were white with shock. Some were forcing back tears; others stared resentfully at their master.

"We'll assemble in the dōjō," he said. "Now." He himself led the way. Tadaaki took his place on the raised seat in front and silently contemplated the three rows of his followers sitting facing him.

At length he lowered his eyes and said quietly, "I fear that I, too, have become old. As I look back, it seems to me my best days as a swordsman were when I defeated that devil Zenki. By the time this school was opened and people began talking about the Ono group on Saikachi Slope, calling the Ittō Style unbeatable, I'd already passed my peak as a swordsman."

The meaning of the words was so alien to their customary way of thinking that the students could not believe their ears.

His voice became firmer, and he looked directly at their doubting, discontented faces. "In my opinion, this is something that happens to all men. Age creeps up on us while we're not looking. Times change. The followers surpass their leaders. A younger generation opens up a new way.... This is the way it ought to be, for the world advances only through change. Yet this is inadmissible in the field of swordsmanship. The Way of the Sword must be a way that does not permit a man to age.

"Ittōsai ... I don't know if he's still alive. I've had no word from my master for years. After Koganegahara, he took the tonsure and retreated to the mountains. His aim, he said, was to study the sword, to practice Zen, to search for the Way of Life and Death, to climb the great peak of perfect enlightenment.

"Now it's my turn. After today, I could no longer hold my head up before my master.... I regret I haven't lived a better life."

"M-m-master!" broke in Negoro Hachikurō. "You say you lost, but we don't believe you'd lose to a man like Kojirō under normal circumstances, even if he is young. There must have been something wrong today."

"Something wrong?" Tadaaki shook his head and chuckled. "Nothing wrong. Kojirō's young. But that's not why I lost. I lost because the times have changed."

"What does that mean?"

"Listen and see." He looked from Hachikurō to the other silent faces. "I'll try to make it brief, because Kojirō is waiting for me. I want you to listen carefully to my thoughts and my hopes for the future."

He then informed them that as of this day, he was retiring from the dōjō. His intention was not to retire in the ordinary sense but to follow in the footsteps of Ittōsai and go out in search of great enlightenment.

"That is my first great hope," he told them.

Next, he requested Itō Magobei, his nephew, to take charge of his only son, Tadanari. Magobei was also enjoined to report the day's happenings to the shogunate and explain that Tadaaki had decided to become a Buddhist priest.

Then he said, "I have no deep regrets over my defeat by a younger man. What does trouble and shame me is this: new fighters like Sasaki are appearing in other quarters, but not a single swordsman of his caliber has come out of the Ono School. I think I know why. A lot of you are hereditary vassals of the shōgun. You've let your status go to your heads. After a bit of training, you begin congratulating yourselves on being masters of the 'invincible Ittō Style.' You're too self-satisfied."

"Wait, sir," Hyōsuke protested in a trembling voice. "That's not fair. Not all of us are lazy and arrogant. We don't all neglect our studies."

"Shut up!" Tadaaki glared at him fiercely. "Laxness on the part of students is a reflection of laxness on the part of the teacher. I'm confessing my own shame now, passing judgment on myself.

"The task ahead of you is to eliminate laxness, to make the Ono School a center where youthful talent can develop correctly. It must become a training ground for the future. Unless it does, my leaving and making way for a reform will accomplish nothing."

At last, the sincerity of his statement began to take effect. His students hung their heads, pondering his words, each reflecting on his own shortcomings. "Hamada," said Tadaaki.

Toranosuke replied, "Yes, sir," but he was obviously taken by surprise. Under Tadaaki's cold stare, his own eyes dropped to the floor.

"Stand up."

"Yes, sir," he said, without rising.

"Stand up! This instant."

Toranosuke rose to his feet. The others looked on mutely.

"I'm expelling you from the school." He paused to let this sink in. "But in doing so, I hope there will come a day when you'll have mended your ways, learned discipline and grasped the meaning of the Art of War. Perhaps at that time we can be together again as teacher and student. Now get out!"

"M-master, why? I don't remember doing anything to deserve this."

"You don't remember because you don't understand the Art of War. If you think about it long and carefully, you'll see."

"Tell me, please. I can't leave until you do." The veins stood out on his forehead.

"All right. Cowardice is the most shameful weakness a samurai can be accused of. The Art of War admonishes strictly against it. It is an ironclad rule at this school that any man guilty of a cowardly act must be expelled.

"Nevertheless, you, Hamada Toranosuke, let several weeks pass after your brother's death before challenging Sasaki Kojirō. In the meantime, you ran around trying to take revenge on some insignificant melon vendor. And yesterday you took this man's aged mother captive and brought her here. Do you call that conduct becoming a samurai?"

"But, sir, you don't understand. I did it to draw Kojirō out." He was about to launch into a spirited defense, but Tadaaki cut him short.

"That's precisely what I mean by cowardice. If you wanted to fight Kojirō, why didn't you go directly to his house? Why didn't you send him a message challenging him? Why didn't you declare your name and your purpose?"

"W-w-well, I did consider those things, but—"

"Consider? There was nothing to stop you from doing that. But you adopted the cowardly ruse of getting others to help you lure Kojirō here so you could attack him en masse. By comparison, Kojirō's attitude was admirable." Tadaaki paused. "He came alone, to see me personally. Refusing to have anything to do with a coward, he challenged me, on the grounds that a student's misconduct is his teacher's misconduct.

"The result of the confrontation between his sword and mine revealed a shameful crime. I now humbly confess that crime."

The room was deathly quiet.

"Now, Toranosuke, upon reflection, do you still believe yourself to be a samurai without shame?"

"Forgive me."

"Get out."

Eyes downcast, Toranosuke walked backward ten paces and knelt on the floor with his arms before him, preparatory to bowing.

"I wish you the best of health, sir.... And the same to the rest of you." His voice was dark.

He rose and walked sadly from the dōjō.