Breaths soft and calm…
Feet planted firmly on the ground…
Hand gripped tight on the hilt of my sword…
Readying myself for battle with the mighty beast that towered over me and hungered for battle.
*ROOOOOOOAR*
Claws bared, the ferocious beast of the woods swiped at me in an attempt to strike me down with only a single blow.
While an average villager or novice warrior would panic and have their life come to a swift and bloody end, for a samurai with decades of experience, such an attack was mere child’s play, as all I had to do was duck while the bear slashed at me with a horizontal strike.
Though confused for a brief second, the beast quickly followed with a vertical slash, though once again it was an ineffective attack since all it took was for me to step aside to avoid an otherwise devastating blow.
Bears make for quite an interesting opponent. Though their attacks are deadly if they can make contact and are considered fast by many with unrefined reflexes, they are in fact quite slow when it comes to their strikes and can be easily avoided if you make sure to stay calm and pay attention.
Not only does their massive size greatly hinder their speed, but it also creates what is their most damning setback, which is that once you are able to dodge their attacks, it leaves them open for a devastating counterattack since they easily stagger and have to regain their footing to prepare for another strike.
*ROOOOOOOOOAR*
A fact that is not an exception when it comes to this bear as it attempted to strike with another horizontal attack, giving me plenty of time to role under the bear’s attack and pull out my sword from it’s sheath and slash the beast’s face.
*ROOOWWWWARRRRGGGH*
The bear stammered back and fell on all four of its paws once more, growling at me as blood dripped from the cut I carved just above its eye.
I could have cut it’s eye clean off, but leaving my opponent with such a handicap could have neglected me a chance of a real challenge that I’ve been hunting for years now.
*Grrrrrrrrrr….ROAR*
Seems tonight wasn’t the one to give me that challenge I’ve been craving, for once the beast had glared at me with its blooded expression, it quickly turned around and ran back into the forest, unwilling to finish the fight it had started.
I could do nothing more than let off a disheartened sigh as I relaxed my body and re-sheathed my sword before taking a gaze at the wondrous full moon above.
It was pointless to be mad at the beast for choosing to escape our duel; unlike man, it can’t comprehend the importance of honour, so it wasn’t worth it to chase the beast down and punish it for ambushing me.
Not only that, but I had an important task that had to be completed, and wasting such precious time chasing after a simple creature could create a serious problem.
Taking only a few seconds to appreciate the glow of the rare full moon along with the feel of the cool breeze flowing in the air that the cheery petals couldn’t help but dance along with, I take a calming breath while whistling to summon my horse, who quickly came running to my side.
“My trusty Sora, were you injured during that encounter?” Giving my steed a good pat, I inspect his body for any battle damage from being pushed aside by that bear; thankfully, he came out of it without even a single scratch to his body. "Good, Sora, you protected not only yourself but me as well, and you didn’t even lose any of our supplies.”
I can always rely on my Sora to never let me down and protect me from harm's way, entrusting him with my life more than some of my own fellow men at times, despite being completely different species who can’t even communicate with mere speech alone.
Wish I could have such deep trust with everyone of my fellow men as I did with Sora, but I guess that’s just one of life's many cruel jokes. But as long as I had Sora by my side, that’s all that matters.
Rewarding Sora with a carrot and a couple of pats, I climb onto his back and head forth to our destination to complete our task at hand.
Honouring the family I was tasked to strike down
-
Weaving and galloping between the trees of the forest at full speed, as well as jumping over any of the logs that got in the way—with only the light of the moon to guide us, we had finally reached our destination.
A breath-taking wide open patch of land hidden deep within the forest that was not only a challenge to find but to get to in the first place, making it the perfect spot to get away from the world and meditate, along with being an excellent spot to bury away any important secrets.
The area itself was a decently sized oval area surrounded by a sea of white ajisai flowers with a large sakura tree resting atop a small hill that over looked a decent-sized lake where the pink and white petals from the flowers and tree danced atop the water together in great harmony.
It was the perfect piece of land I had discovered long ago as a child—the home away from home that always provides me with a great sense of calm along with great peace when I just need to get away from the world for a little while.
Taking the environment all in with a deep breath, I guide myself and Sora over to the sakura tree, hopping off from my noble steed and giving him another pat before taking off his saddle along with the rest of our equipment and supplies to give him a well-deserved rest.
With my equipment laid out carefully on the ground, my attention is now set on the bodies of the family whose souls have now long passed into the afterlife that lay lifeless on the back end of Sora.
I wrapped each member of this small family in a white sheet to hide their corpses from any possible onlookers, along with protecting the bodies from the elements during the long journey here.
One by one, I carefully lifted each body off Sora, starting with the young boy, then the mother, and finally the father, laying each of them down under the sakura tree while whipping a sweat off my brow once that task was done.
There was no time to take a rest, though, the longer I left the bodies out, the more they would start to decay. I wanted to give them the respect they deserved by returning them to the earth, looking as close as possible to how they were when they still held a pulse.
Taking my shovel, I picked out a nice spot for the family I hadn’t already used before and began the process of digging up three graves side by side for each member. My first gift to them after taking their lives was to make sure they could be by each other's sides for the rest of eternity.
While I continued to dig, I reflected on my encounter with this family and how each of them demonstrated a true noble warrior spirit that is a vastly rare sight among the people I’m asked to eliminate on the emperor's orders.
I’m unsure as to the reasons why the emperor orders me to strike down these people, nor do I dare doubt or question them.
My duty to the emperor is to serve his wishes without question, one that I’m truly proud to carry out to not only serve the empire but to also prove my worth and continue to hone my skills as a samurai by striking down anyone our great leader declares undesirable for our community.
During my youth and early days serving the emperor as a recently appointed top general, it was admittedly quite a surprise to hear that he had tasked me with cutting down one of our own in the village, an older gentleman, who lived in a hut in the middle of nowhere.
While a part of me foolishly struggled to come to terms with such an order along with doubting our noble leader, another found the idea quite exhilarating to cross swords with the man and battle him till one of us drew our last breath.
At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what my personal feelings were; I was a trusted general to the emperor, so it was my duty to carry out my appointed task and take the journey without complaint.
Doubt still filled my soul once I arrived at the older man’s front door, still questioning if striking down an elderly man was morally okay even on the Emperor's orders.
Everything quickly changed the moment the older man, who still got around well despite his age, answered the door, only to quickly slam it in my face the moment he saw me.
Not wanting to give him a chance to escape, I slashed the door right down the middle to weaken it, then proceeded to kick it down and rush over to the man and put my sword to his throat just before he could escape through his back window.
I informed the man of my status as a general and that I was ordered by the Emperor to eliminate him, warning that he would suffer a slow and painful death if he decided to foolishly escape, only for the worthless coward to fall to his knees and begin begging me to spare his life, calming outlandish lies that our great Emperor is corrupted and selling out our own people to the enemy for huge profits and to keep his power.
Such insolence towards our great leader deserved not only the harshest of punishments but also to have his family name shamed and disgraced among our people for all eternity. It would have been my moral duty to end this snivelling worm’s life in a slow and gruesome fashion for betraying both our great leader and our great country.
Unlike him, I had a merciful heart and decided to give him the chance to fight for his life. Taking note of a sword he had hanging in his den, I assumed he had combat experience and demanded that he take the weapon and promised that if he could strike me down in a noble duel then he’d earn his freedom, also promising that if he was defeated then he’s death would be swift and that I’d make sure his family name would be honoured across the generations.
The older man agreed and stood to his feet to retrieve his sword, giving me hope for a fierce battle that would challenge my abilities, only to have my good will spat on when the man quickly grabbed a bag of flour on his shelf I didn’t pay any mind to and threw it in my face, temporarily blinding me, and tried to take advantage of my moment of daze to try and strike me down.
Praise to the holy spirits for watching over me that night, for my vision returned in the nick of time and I was able to dodge his attack that could have surely ended my life, allowing me to get behind the man and plunge my sword deep into his back and out of his chest.
He gargled a horrified scream as blood seeped both from his back and out of his mouth, frantically grabbing at my sword, trying to push it out in his desperation.
Seeing such a filthy traitor to our country and way off life in such agony filled me with such an indescribable amount of pleasure, made all the more satisfying when he turned his head to face me and could see the full extent of his suffering written across his face as he fought in a futile effort to keep himself alive.
I wasn’t going to let him pass in peace though; he had his chance to redeem himself through battle, and he squandered it, so I was going to make sure he suffered, starting by leaving him in the middle of the room with the sword still stuck inside him, picking up the rest of the reaming flour and shoving it deep into his eyes.
The man screamed in sweet agony and attempted to wipe the flour out of his eyes to try and mitigate the pain. I wasn’t going to allow this coward and traitor to ease his punishment, quickly grabbed his hands and snapped each finger one by one before breaking both his arms and continuing to shove more flour into his eyes until they became completely red.
Once all the flour were used up, I left him to rile in that pain for a good five minutes till his movements began to slow down and the life he once had in him began to fade. Before he could take that final breath, I grabbed the hilt of my sword and ripped it out of him, which caused a gush of blood to pour out of the man, inflicting one last moment of agonising pain on the coward, who let out one last tortured scream before finally passing on, his bloodshot eyes still left wide open.
Watching over the corpse of this pathetic worm laying in its own blood taught me to never lose faith in my Emperor, no matter how cruel his orders may seem, and to never let my guard down towards any of my targets.
Spitting on this scum of the earth as my final act to sully his name, I cleaned the blood off my sword, wrapped the body in the man’s own blanket, took his body to the ocean, and dumped it into the sea to leave as a meal for any of the sea creatures who happen across it.
A fitting resting place for a pitiful man, one who would have plenty of company over the years since he wasn’t the only coward who I had disposed off in the vast sea.
Only a rare few held that warrior’s spirit and faced me in a noble duel to the death. Despite their wrongdoings against our great leader, such honour-bonded warriors deserve a chance at redemption in their next life after falling to my sword.
May those noble souls truly reflect on their actions and find peace in their next life
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