Reflections in the Dojo
A person can train forever and a day to learn how to be an efficient and lethal killer, but never can they train for the aftermath of what that savagery will bring. I spent the next day alone in the dojo, quiet and withdrawn, seeing the faces of the men that I killed in my mind. Over and over again I would see them standing there just looking at me, I would see the look of horror and shock in their eyes as my blade pierced their flesh, separating their life from their souls, I would see them fall to the ground dead. More and more I kept thinking of the families, if any, they had that were left because of my doing, my hand, my blade. I was sad, but more than that I was angry. I became angry at Nakagana for not warning me about this feeling that I would encounter, I was angry at Kashii for her even headedness and smooth temperament during this time, ultimely I learned that the person I was angry at was myself.
Nakagana did all that he could to leave me alone and let me figure out the feeling by myself, however he would stop in from time to time and see if I was doing alright. "Forgive me son, I know that you have asked me to stop pestering you, but as a concerned father I just want to know if you are fine."
I would look over at him and the first thought that I had whenever I saw his face hovering over my shoulder, his eyes piercing into mine looking for any sign of what my feelings held, I wanted to slap him and yell, make him stop doing that. I wanted him out of my head, yet I couldn't bring myself to do so because I was feeling another thing at the same time, I was feeling sorrow and empathy for him. I could only imagine what he must be feeling at this time, knowing that he not only killed other men, but he brought his son into it as well. He introduced the world of pain and suffering onto the one person that he swore never to show any to, his fault I was feeling this way, and he knew it. I would simply look back into his eyes suppressing all emotion and rage and tell him, "I am just fine Father, you may leave now. When I am ready to come out I will, for now I will meditate on their souls and pray for their release from evil." He would silently walk away and let me pray for each victim of my sword.
Kashii took another approach altogether, she would come in with a tray of food for me and leave it on the floor next to me. Before she left she would walk around to be in front of me and kneel down, coming down to my eye level. "Yoji, I am worried about you. You have not spoken to Nakagana about how you feel, he is concerned, as I am. Please tell me if there is anything you wish to talk about." Her eyes all full of love, misty, deep, powerful. Her mouth in a slight smile, sweet and welcoming. I could never turn her away, I told her what I was doing, as I had told Nakagana. She lowered her head and whispered a small prayer to the floor as well. Loosely tranlated she wished for the safe passage of the dearly departed souls from mother earth to the kingdom of heaven where they shall remain full of peace and light. I listened to her kind words fall from her beautiful mouth, I felt a tear come out of my eye and trail slowly down my cheek. I could smell the delicious food she brought out to me, my stomach took a turn and made a strange noise. She smiled and said she would be back with more once I finished off the plate, fifteen straight hours of praying and meditating can cause hunger I found out.
When she returned she had with her Nakagana ho had brough his own tray of food with him, he did not look in my eyes when he sat down, nor did he even turn his face towards me. I kept looking at him and made him look at me by saying, "Father, why do you wish to not look at your son?" I felt hurt that he was treating me the way that he was, did I truly offend him by not saying anything to him?
"If that is what you wish of me then I will, otherwise I do not wish to upset such a powerful man as yourself." It was the first time that he had called me a man and treated me as an equal with him, not as a teacher and student, but a warrior like him. He must have picked up on that feeling for he looked at Kashii, leaned over and kissed her cheek and then waited for her to leave before we had our talk.
"Yojiro I have watched you as you have matured. You came to me as a scared little boy, beaten and bruised from the world and the family that he had grown to know. I was afraid that you may become a product of that hate and anger, however you have exceeded my expectations and became a very powerful, yet troubled warrior. You have a presence around you that I cannot describe. This presence makes it so that you feel the sorrow and sadness of the world as it happens. You are capable of dynamic actions in battle, yet it troubles you when it happens. This is a normal reaction to the first fight that you are in. I can tell you that it gets better with each battle you live through. You have shown impressive skill and nerve with your movements earlier, you have also shown amazing power. To the amount that you showed in such a young body is unheard pf, in fact, it is something that I have never heard of. I would like to do something for you, for me, for all of us. Before I can do this I have to ask you, do you truly trust me?"
I was astounded and taken aback by what he had just said to me. Was he actually telling me good things about myself? No one ever does that, he had to of been talking about someone else. I must have missed it somewhere as he was talking, he could not be talking about me. Yet I knew that he was and I was more trying to talk myself into believeing it so that we could proceed with what it was he wanted to do. I looked at him to see if he was showing any signs what so ever of joking or anything, reaching for a way to get away from the seriousness of everything. I was not ready for philosophy or mysticisim and I knew it was going to be both that was going to happen. "Of course I trust you. I have some questions first thought."
He raised one eyebrow and looked at me with his head cocked to the side, a small half-smile across his mouth, "By all means let me hear them so I can give you my answers, I pray that they are helpful for you."
I looked down at my lap for one second, maybe longer than that, and after staring at my fingers for a short moment I looked back up and started asking questions. "Why did you decide to show me the ways of the samurai, if you really did not want me to ever use them?"
He waited to see if I was done before he answered my question. "Yoji, I showed you the ways of how to defend yourself because of concern. I wanted to make sure that you would be able to take of yourself if you were ever attacked, or if you were ever being hurt. What I showed you was how to handle yourself in any situation. I hoped that you would learn from this what to do in a time that is sticky. I wanted you to learn how to avoid being a spot you did not want ot be. I did not show you how to just kill people when you are in battle, I hope that you understand I showed you how to see the right choices in life and give you the power to make the right decisions. That is why I showed you the ways of the samurai my son, to help improve the already remarkable person that you are."
"What made you see that I was right for that when no one else could see that?" I was trying to avoid showing any emotion or surprise by his answer. It was something that I needed to know for myself, it was something that I was thinking about in between prayers.
"I saw in you the opportunity to help you grow. I saw the power you showed when taking care of those two boys when they tried to hurt the girl. I saw the determination and sheer rage pour out of your being when you saw an injustice being done. I saw myself in you. Only when I saw you then I saw a boy that was confused and unaware of what his potential was. So what I saw was a chance to not only help you, but help the world by giving to them the person that is before me."
As you might imagine I was a little confused by all of that, again up until I became a part of Nakagana and Kashii's life, I never heard one positive word of encouragement or affection from a single person in my life. I looked away from him for the briefest of seconds, but he knew everything I felt just by that one sideways glance. He could read all of the love, the happiness, the pride I felt in myself and him by my not looking at him, it is to this day a talent that I have tried to learn. With the steadiest voice I could find I asked him, "What exactly have you given the world with my being trained?"
His smile was full of pride and amusement, "I have given them the world the most incredible warrior for justice that I could find. I have given them a reason to feel safe when they are on the streets. I have given the world the gift of hope. I have given them a person to believe in. As I have given all of those gifts to you. I only ask that you use them with the best intentions in mind."
I had one more question for him, one more thing that I had to hear out loud. I knew the answer, but still had to hear it out loud, so with that in mind I asked him, "Can I still call you my Dad even though you are accepting me as an equal?"
"It would break my heart if you did not do so, son."
Nakagana did all that he could to leave me alone and let me figure out the feeling by myself, however he would stop in from time to time and see if I was doing alright. "Forgive me son, I know that you have asked me to stop pestering you, but as a concerned father I just want to know if you are fine."
I would look over at him and the first thought that I had whenever I saw his face hovering over my shoulder, his eyes piercing into mine looking for any sign of what my feelings held, I wanted to slap him and yell, make him stop doing that. I wanted him out of my head, yet I couldn't bring myself to do so because I was feeling another thing at the same time, I was feeling sorrow and empathy for him. I could only imagine what he must be feeling at this time, knowing that he not only killed other men, but he brought his son into it as well. He introduced the world of pain and suffering onto the one person that he swore never to show any to, his fault I was feeling this way, and he knew it. I would simply look back into his eyes suppressing all emotion and rage and tell him, "I am just fine Father, you may leave now. When I am ready to come out I will, for now I will meditate on their souls and pray for their release from evil." He would silently walk away and let me pray for each victim of my sword.
Kashii took another approach altogether, she would come in with a tray of food for me and leave it on the floor next to me. Before she left she would walk around to be in front of me and kneel down, coming down to my eye level. "Yoji, I am worried about you. You have not spoken to Nakagana about how you feel, he is concerned, as I am. Please tell me if there is anything you wish to talk about." Her eyes all full of love, misty, deep, powerful. Her mouth in a slight smile, sweet and welcoming. I could never turn her away, I told her what I was doing, as I had told Nakagana. She lowered her head and whispered a small prayer to the floor as well. Loosely tranlated she wished for the safe passage of the dearly departed souls from mother earth to the kingdom of heaven where they shall remain full of peace and light. I listened to her kind words fall from her beautiful mouth, I felt a tear come out of my eye and trail slowly down my cheek. I could smell the delicious food she brought out to me, my stomach took a turn and made a strange noise. She smiled and said she would be back with more once I finished off the plate, fifteen straight hours of praying and meditating can cause hunger I found out.
When she returned she had with her Nakagana ho had brough his own tray of food with him, he did not look in my eyes when he sat down, nor did he even turn his face towards me. I kept looking at him and made him look at me by saying, "Father, why do you wish to not look at your son?" I felt hurt that he was treating me the way that he was, did I truly offend him by not saying anything to him?
"If that is what you wish of me then I will, otherwise I do not wish to upset such a powerful man as yourself." It was the first time that he had called me a man and treated me as an equal with him, not as a teacher and student, but a warrior like him. He must have picked up on that feeling for he looked at Kashii, leaned over and kissed her cheek and then waited for her to leave before we had our talk.
"Yojiro I have watched you as you have matured. You came to me as a scared little boy, beaten and bruised from the world and the family that he had grown to know. I was afraid that you may become a product of that hate and anger, however you have exceeded my expectations and became a very powerful, yet troubled warrior. You have a presence around you that I cannot describe. This presence makes it so that you feel the sorrow and sadness of the world as it happens. You are capable of dynamic actions in battle, yet it troubles you when it happens. This is a normal reaction to the first fight that you are in. I can tell you that it gets better with each battle you live through. You have shown impressive skill and nerve with your movements earlier, you have also shown amazing power. To the amount that you showed in such a young body is unheard pf, in fact, it is something that I have never heard of. I would like to do something for you, for me, for all of us. Before I can do this I have to ask you, do you truly trust me?"
I was astounded and taken aback by what he had just said to me. Was he actually telling me good things about myself? No one ever does that, he had to of been talking about someone else. I must have missed it somewhere as he was talking, he could not be talking about me. Yet I knew that he was and I was more trying to talk myself into believeing it so that we could proceed with what it was he wanted to do. I looked at him to see if he was showing any signs what so ever of joking or anything, reaching for a way to get away from the seriousness of everything. I was not ready for philosophy or mysticisim and I knew it was going to be both that was going to happen. "Of course I trust you. I have some questions first thought."
He raised one eyebrow and looked at me with his head cocked to the side, a small half-smile across his mouth, "By all means let me hear them so I can give you my answers, I pray that they are helpful for you."
I looked down at my lap for one second, maybe longer than that, and after staring at my fingers for a short moment I looked back up and started asking questions. "Why did you decide to show me the ways of the samurai, if you really did not want me to ever use them?"
He waited to see if I was done before he answered my question. "Yoji, I showed you the ways of how to defend yourself because of concern. I wanted to make sure that you would be able to take of yourself if you were ever attacked, or if you were ever being hurt. What I showed you was how to handle yourself in any situation. I hoped that you would learn from this what to do in a time that is sticky. I wanted you to learn how to avoid being a spot you did not want ot be. I did not show you how to just kill people when you are in battle, I hope that you understand I showed you how to see the right choices in life and give you the power to make the right decisions. That is why I showed you the ways of the samurai my son, to help improve the already remarkable person that you are."
"What made you see that I was right for that when no one else could see that?" I was trying to avoid showing any emotion or surprise by his answer. It was something that I needed to know for myself, it was something that I was thinking about in between prayers.
"I saw in you the opportunity to help you grow. I saw the power you showed when taking care of those two boys when they tried to hurt the girl. I saw the determination and sheer rage pour out of your being when you saw an injustice being done. I saw myself in you. Only when I saw you then I saw a boy that was confused and unaware of what his potential was. So what I saw was a chance to not only help you, but help the world by giving to them the person that is before me."
As you might imagine I was a little confused by all of that, again up until I became a part of Nakagana and Kashii's life, I never heard one positive word of encouragement or affection from a single person in my life. I looked away from him for the briefest of seconds, but he knew everything I felt just by that one sideways glance. He could read all of the love, the happiness, the pride I felt in myself and him by my not looking at him, it is to this day a talent that I have tried to learn. With the steadiest voice I could find I asked him, "What exactly have you given the world with my being trained?"
His smile was full of pride and amusement, "I have given them the world the most incredible warrior for justice that I could find. I have given them a reason to feel safe when they are on the streets. I have given the world the gift of hope. I have given them a person to believe in. As I have given all of those gifts to you. I only ask that you use them with the best intentions in mind."
I had one more question for him, one more thing that I had to hear out loud. I knew the answer, but still had to hear it out loud, so with that in mind I asked him, "Can I still call you my Dad even though you are accepting me as an equal?"
"It would break my heart if you did not do so, son."
posted by Yojiro at 12:57 PM
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