“You’re Kojiro?” Ishi was shocked. Ishi wasn’t sure what was going on. Surely this tiny man who claimed to be Mishimoto Kojiro, his cousin, son of his Uncle Kenshin and Aunt Ayana wasn’t even human. He must be some sort of spirit. However, Ishi had met many spirits deep in the wild on the trips he took when he was younger under the tutelage of his grandmother, and this little “cousin” of his didn’t have the same feel about him to Ishi’s mystical senses as any spirit to whom his grandmother had ever introduced him.

“Yes. I am afraid that you are too late to visit with your aunt and uncle, my parents. They have been killed by a mountain oni. I have been giving their bodies the proper ritual respects.” The minute warrior indicated that two cairns he had almost finished assembling. “Would you care to help me finish adding the final stones?”

Ishi only hesitated a moment before he instinctively decided to let his sense of propriety overcome his shock at the surrealness of finding an inch-high youth claiming to be his cousin Kojiro. “Of course.”

Ishi dismounted and moved over to the cairns. The smaller one, Aunt Ayana’s surely, was already complete, but Uncle Kenshin’s still needed the dozen final stones in the pile that Kojiro had gathered before Ishi and Sha’nom had arrived. Ishi imagined the tiny being ki’ai shouting and hopping like a grasshopper all the way from wherever he had fetched these stones from. What manner of creature was this? And why did it pretend to be his cousin? And why did it not feel to Ishi’s mystical senses like a spirit? He looked over at Sha’nom Sha’ori, who was to be his official advisor once he had been installed as the newest Togashuma daimyo in Wa’ay. The cat yokai shugenja had also dismounted his steed and was moving into a position to bless the funerary activities. Ishi resolved to question the Sha’nom thoroughly for his opinion as a shugenja about this supposed “cousin Kojiro” as soon as the two of them could be alone.

Softly, Sha’nom began to pray. Kojiro looked up at the young-looking shugenja. The tiny man was close enough to Ishi’s eyes, since Ishi was bending over at the moment to pick up another stone for his uncle’s cairn, that he could see a little surprise on Kojiro’s face. As Sha’nom’s long time friend, Ishi was used to that. Most shugenja were older humans. However, since Sha’nom wasn’t human, but a yokai, Sha’nom was a lot older than he appeared by human standards. Sha’nom, despite his appearance, was no mere acolyte or apprentice, though he was often mistaken for one, as evidenced by his command of an entire forest to attack the forces of the Oni Overlord on behalf of Clan Mishimoto.

“He prays well,” Kojiro sounded a little emotionally choked up, pausing his work to listen. “My parents are honored.”

Ishi could see a tiny tear, smaller than the finest droplet of dew, roll down Kojiro’s cheek. Ishi wondered if this diminutive being could really be his cousin Kojiro, and, if so, how.

Ishi’s attention was suddenly seized by the most beautiful voice he had ever heard singing from somewhere beyond the wall at the back of the compound, opposite the oni-wrecked gate through which he and Sha’nom had ridden earlier. It was a woman’s voice, haunting, hitting notes in both the soprano and alto ranges.

“What is behind the estate?” he asked Kojiro.

“The cherry grove. She has come.” Kojiro pointed to the back wall of the compound.

Ishi turned, looked, and beheld the most beautiful woman he had seen in his life so far, standing at the top of the compound’s wall. She was dressed modestly in garb appropriate for funeral attendance, though that did nothing to diminish her breathtaking beauty. Such a woman could never be merely plain no matter what she wore. The song she sang was sad, also a song appropriate for a funeral. It blended perfectly with Sha’nom’s prayers. Ishi had no doubt that this cherry tree spirit, this kodama, knew exactly what ritual Sha’nom was performing and was singing the exact music that went with his prayer.

During a pause in the song, the woman lightly leapt down from the top of the wall, landing as gently as a butterfly might. She slowly walked forward toward them, still singing in accompaniment to Sha’nom’s funeral ritual. The yokai shugenja and kodama tree spirit had reached a call-and-response part of the prayer. Sha’nom chanted his lines and the kodama spirit responded in her melodious voice. Ishi’s eyes moistened as he himself almost began to weep also along with Kojiro.

The kodama reached them just as her song and Sha’nom’s prayers ended. Ishi knew, he could feel without any doubt whatsoever, that this cherry tree woman was a spirit, not a human. This only made Ishi wonder even more why he could not sense Kojiro as a spirit as the impossibly small young man surely must be.

The kodama bowed to each of them in turn, first to Sha’nom. As a shugenja, it was one of Sha’nom’s duties to be a liaison between the human world and the spirit world. Next, she bowed to Ishi. Ishi knew that his grandmother’s training had not made him a shugenja like Sha’nom in the eyes of the spirits of nature, but he knew that he had some kind of connection with them that they recognized, as they had with his grandmother. Finally, she bowed to Kojiro, who, if he was indeed Mishimoto Kojiro, would be the master of the estate with his parents being dead.

“Greetings. I am so sorry that such sad events have brought about the circumstances of our meeting.”

“My lady, I think I know you,” said Kojiro. “My parents told me about you, that you lived in the trees of the grove behind our estate. You must be Miharu.”

“Yes,” Miharu smiled. “That’s right, young warrior. I’ve come to pay final respects to your parents and to see you off on your journey with your cousin to Wa’ay.”

“Wa’ay?” Kojiro looked surprised.

“Honorable Kodama Miharu,” Ishi began formally, “is this tiny person really my cousin Kojiro?”

“Yes, he is, Daimyo Togashuma.” Ishi realized that this kodama spirit had just become the first person to address him as Daimyo Togashuma. He supposed that was a good omen indeed.

She smiled, her beauty radiant. “I shall tell you your cousin Kojiro’s story, including some things he himself doesn’t even know.”