“ This man next to me started going on about Honor and with a few words,” said the scruffy man in the black kimono and a longsword wedged in his obi ; “or perhaps gestures; I hardly remember–I offered to cut his throat. That’s when I knew that I had given myself my own calling.

“ Actually, I knew for sure after this man next to me grimaced at me, growled, and unsheathed his katana and started proclaiming the curses of Kami on me for my insolence. No, my mistake once again . . . I would have to say I knew for absolute sure that I gave myself my own calling when I heard myself chuckled inside as this fellow swiped at me, and I actually did cut his throat. And so with that newfound revelation, I smiled, finished my sake, and left. I felt a lot better for going in for a drink. My next stop, then, had I had my former status and income, would’ve been the brothels. Blood, sake, and women...that’s what it’s all about, right? I leave this teahouse and after enough surveying of this town realized there was nothing for me, here. It was about five hours later that I found a whole team of samurai following my paces in the dirt. If I can recall it just right, I believe what had happened was that the passionate fellow I’d downed in the teahouse was a retainer of the local daimyo , and so in classic bushido fashion, his comrades had been sent–as well as of their own accord, because a samurai and his loyalty are one–to avenge him. I’d surmised this much when I looked behind me and saw about five or six swordsmen squinting at me, and behind me again, another five or six. I think I sighed. I probably did.

I don’t recall exactly what they said, but I’m sure it was something to the effect of, ‘Disgraceful beast! You have felled a warrior of the Shikegoru daimyo!’ I don’t think I said anything back. I’m pretty positive I just went ahead and raised my blade and ran into the crowd of them, waved a few quick strikes across the lot of them, thrust a few hard slashes, swinging and running quickly enough to just make sure enough for myself that I was cutting through flesh and not air–until I’d downed about all of them except one. I looked at the last man standing and he looked back and pointed his sword at me and stepped around like a good little fencer until I raised my blade again, and then he tried a thrust towards me. I moved out of the way and swung my blade across his belly. I stepped over the bodies and swung the blood off my blade and walked off the hell away from that town.

“ So yeah, I figure that’s how this ‘Crazed Samurai-Killer’ thing started.” And with this, the fellow in the black kimono and longsword wedged in his obi scratched his scraggly excuse for a beard and sniffled at the old man talking to him.

“ So I take it the story about you having slain one hundred bushi single-handedly, with just your one sword, cursing God, the shogun, and bushido in the same breath and then drinking the blood gushing from their headless necks while urinating on the corpses’ gaping wounds isn’t true…right?” said the old man—chuckling, of course, as he said it, because surely the old man was too sensible to be serious.

“ Well how am I gonna drink their blood as I’m urinating on their corpses?”

“ How would one know that these stories speak of you?”

“ Well, I myself don’t usually know that these stories speak of me—as far as I can tell, they do not. But if they are, then another crevice in my obi is added when one of the local warriors see me and first notice no inscriptions or crests on my kimono, and then see the sword, and then figure just because I have a sword and they have a sword I’m gonna wanna talk to them. So, of course, when I don’t, and then when I don’t express any kind of loyalty to a lord, they’re like, ‘Oh, he is a wave man! He’s a ronin ! He is beneath us!’ and so suddenly they wanna fight. I’ve made it a point, now, to just go ahead and slice open their bellies before it even gets to this point.”

“ So things like this happen to you often?” asked the old man.

“ Only in towns.”

“ How many towns since you have left your Master?”

“ Hmm. I guess about eight.”

“ So you’ve been killing off daimyo retainers in whole towns for six months?”

“ I guess that sounds about right.”

“ And you are not afraid of retribution?”

This made the fellow in the black kimono snort, and scratch his beard, and reply, “A samurai is supposed to embrace his death. So I guess that’s why I’m not. Of course, that wouldn’t explain at all why I’m killing all these men to keep myself alive.”

“ Are you afraid of death?”

“ I just told you, a samurai, according to the bushido, is not to fear death, but run towards it.”

“ But you’re not samurai—you’re a ronin, now.”

“ I didn’t say it made any sense. You asked a question and I answered it.” The old man smirked.

“ Fearless without purpose, then?” he said.

“ Sure,” the man in the black kimono said.

“ What about the code?”

“ What about it?”

“ Why do you still follow the code of bushido if you don’t serve any master?”

The man in the black kimono tugged at the hilt of his katana and sniffled and said:

“ A while back, in one of these towns I was passing through—I think it was Oenisha—I was doing just what I’m doing here. Looking for some food and sake and a place to sleep when the usual scene happened—a group of swordsmen started eyeing me, thinking, I suppose, that just because we’re all swordsmen that we’re all kinsmen. I avoided them, like I usually try to, until one of them steps up to me in the middle of the street saying, ‘Hello, stranger. I am called Hideo Hanosaki.’ I told him that that was very nice and kept going, and then he said, ‘I’m without a master, as well.’ And then I told him that’s too bad, and he kept stepping up to me, smiling, saying, ‘These,’—pointing to the fellows walking around with him—‘are all without masters, as well. We’re all ronin here.’ I looked and said, ‘So I see,’ and then I figured it wise to ask this man what exactly it was that he wanted. He said, ‘To fellowship with you, fellow warrior.’ I told him that I was flattered and that it was appreciated, but that I’d rather be on my way. He asked me what was so pressing that I could not sit in fellowship with wave men, and I told him nothing, I just prefer solitude. He laughed at me and said,

“‘ Surely you must be a man of great fortitude to spit in Fate’s eye like that. Men like us are not very beloved by any of the castes—not those peasants—these farmers and so-called self-made merchants who can’t even read, nor have the full capacity in their minds or souls to appreciate the beauties of Zen, to which they claim devotion—our sniveling inferiors—and not even our former brethren, the samurai. It’s best, if men like us are gonna survive, to come together and live as a caste, free from those who would spit on us and become our enemies!’ I said, ‘That’s very noble of you, Hanosaki-san’ and I tried to keep on walking. And then Hanosaki-san said to me, ‘We always call it a blessing when another wave man is found. Do you agree?’ And I said, ‘Depends too much on that particular wave man….’”

“ So he was asking you to join him and his boryokudan ?” interrupted the Old Man.

“ Yes,” said the Man in the Black Kimono. “That’s pretty much what it came down to. And I can’t say I disagreed with him all the way, and it wasn’t the first such offer that came my way since I had lost my master.”

“ Why didn’t you take up on any of them?”

“ Those boryokudan gangs don’t attract a pleasant caliber of men. They talk about fellowship and brotherhood but it’s about fear more than anything else. Men join them to feel like they’re samurai again, but I can tell from the outset that it’s just a group of killers who don’t see beyond themselves.”

“ So you avoid them?”

“ Yes. And so I made it a point to avoid Hanosaki-san and his brigands as well, but he had a special brand of persistence that reminded me of the old days. That day, he came up to me, with a huge smile on his face, and took out his blade, kept it downward, of course, and he said, ‘This is Kamigeisha, my blade. She is a fine blade—worthy of a seasoned bushi. Lord God Himself resides in my blade. But I am this blade’s Master, and it is my Retainer.’ I looked at his sword. It really was very nice. All shiny and everything. I said, ‘Well, God—being God—would probably not make a very smooth transition to a Way such as bushido, so in all likelihood He would probably make the mistake of choosing a jackass for a Master.’”

“ Harsh words,” said the Old Man.

“ I didn’t mean them to be harsh, I just meant them to be true,” said the Man in the Black Kimono. “But Hanosaki-san didn’t take it that way, so I found myself bolstering my reputation again. He didn’t attack me himself, of course; he had all of his boryokudan brethren to do so first. One of these fellows had a Miyamoto daisho —which I thought was funny, because that meant he got royalty in his little ronin fellowship. It didn’t matter, though, because the man couldn’t fight, and got both hands with both swords cut off along with his head.”

“ So you downed them all?”

“ Not all of them. I thought it would be wisest not to turn this scuffle into something epic, so I didn’t try to fight them all—I just ran up to Hanosaki-san and took a few good swipes. He blocked most of them—which almost surprised me, but I didn’t let it (one of the few things I learned from the Way of Bushido)—and I took an aim across his hand and cut it off. I picked up his ‘divine sword’—his hand was still holding it—and told him, ‘Domo arigato, Hanosaki-san.’ I pried the hand off the sword and told him that God must not have transitioned to bushido too well, indeed, because He doesn’t serve His master very well.”

“ My goodness,” said the Old Man.

“ So yeah—sorry, that was a bit of a tangent…To answer your question…I like to use that story as an example to say, well, I’m still all for bushido, but I think it works best if your ‘Master’ serves you.

“ I have God Himself in my daisho, now. So there’s a plus.”

“ Interesting, sir,” said the Old Man. The Man in the Black Kimono put down his rice-wine and stroked the hilt of his God-katana as he said, “Is there any reason in particular you’re so interested?”

“ I wanted to see if there was anything to those stories, and if so, what about his man made him what he is,” said the Old Man.

“ Ah,” said the Man in the Black Kimono. “Well, hope I answered your questions well enough.”

“ The ones I’ve asked tonight are answered fine. But before I ask more, I have a request.” The Man in the Black Kimono stroked at his hilt again, and squinted, “What’s that?” The Old Man chuckled at his response and said, “You’ve been wandering around looking for food and pay and all you’ve gotten are fights you didn’t ask for and a bad reputation that’s not your fault…”

“ Thank you for paying attention,” grumbled the Man in the Black Kimono.

“ Yes, well, the people of our village are willing to grant you what you need, and we think that the Crazed Samurai Killer is the one who will give us the help we need from him in return.”

“ Mm-hmm?”

“ We need you to kill a demon.”

The Man in the Black Kimono raised an eyebrow and scratched his bearded chin. “Hmm. More blood work. And with pay this time…”

And thus begins our story…

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