I sheathed my sword unbloodied today. That's the 
first time I've ever done that, I think. Yes, I've never done 
that like today. I wonder, lying here, if that's an omen. Is it 
meaningful? Maybe. 

It was most peculiar, now that I think of it. The rain 
was falling fitfully, dry in some places, soaking in others. I 
think of it because the mud sucked at my sandals in places 
but not in all. I had been wondering if the street I was 
looking for would be wet or dry. Yes, that was it. It wasn't.

I was standing in an alley, listening to them come. I 
had been almost tempted to stand in the street, waiting. 
That wouldn't do though. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. 
In all things with the sword, efficiency must be first. That 
was the key to speed, speed the key to victory. Just 
standing in a street would neither nurture efficiency or 
improve my speed. So I stood, unmindful of the damp, 
waiting and ready.

Sure enough, shortly the moment was right. I heard 
the footsteps and lunged out to the way. My sword 
unsheathed before they knew I was there, I almost cut them 
down then. But I didn't.

My skill was not as strong as it could be. I had 
grown weak. It was so long since I fought a warrior skilled 
enough to give me pause that my highest techniques were 
growing slow. Still are, somewhat. But these three men, 
already dead though still walking, would be my training. 
Perhaps then there would be some purpose to their pitiful 
lives.

Examining the blade now, it looks thirsty. It's alive, 
we both know this. Lying here as it is, unmoving in my 
hands, it makes me wonder, wonder and dread what it 
would say if it could speak. What silent, temptuous and 
pleading voiced words would it bury in my mind, pushing 
them deeper and deeper. What begging commands would I 
be issued? I am glad it doesn't, for already the insidious 
voice that it doesn't have has told me everything it needs to. 
Perhaps more. Perhaps it's already whispered, for I know 
the words it would speak. Perhaps it is I whispering to the 
blade. My own dark voicings and vampiric tendencies are 
the origin, not this animate piece of metal.

Oh, it's silent now. Unmoving, innocent, harmless it 
lies here. Its not dead, for it was never alive to begin with. 
A cunning, convincing deception that. If I lied to myself 
enough, I might eventually believe it.

Only if I never lifted it again, though. If it danced to 
the tune of my own soul, played on the strings of the 
Honorable Way of Heaven by my hands, not once more, 
maybe I could cloud my mind enough to believe that this 
thing in my hands was inert. For in my hands, open and 
shining or ready and resting, it lives. It sells warnings and 
guidance, allowing me to read the wind and light for a sip 
of life. A hint of knowledge, to be used before known, is 
rewarded with a bath of blood. Sometimes, should it be 
especially hungry, I allow it to feed on its brothers, killing 
them as they danced in the hands of their owners. Or tried 
to, for many could not let their blades come alive. I almost 
couldn't understand that, mine seems to force my 
concentration to keep it asleep, not to lift it now and let the 
river flow. The red rain. 

Who was she that said that to me? I cause the red 
rain? 

I can't remember, and it doesn't matter, not to the 
living death that lies fat and satiated in my hands, reveling 
in the sensual glow of its last meal.

I allowed every inch of my skill to come out then. 
As I looked the three of them down, I adopted my favorite 
and fastest stance. It was beautiful. I had no stability, no 
balance, no strength of the earth. What I had was raw 
potential, the great grain house of speed, waiting to be let 
forth. With my weight ready, I was reigned lightning.
They knew enough, I think. They had a skill, and 
maybe something approaching the true knowledge. As I 
waited, letting them set themselves for the increased depth 
of my training, I judged every inch of myself, checking 
what was needing improvement. Nothing I could tell; I was 
perfect.

The two in the lead, samurai, hatamoto most likely, 
drew instantly. As I said, they knew enough to know I was 
here to send them on, and they knew that there was nothing 
they could do about. They almost rushed me.

"Wait." I'd never heard a fat voice before then. His 
was. As corpulent as the owner, the voice wallowed in the 
hair, singing those two to stillness. "You are the Battousai, 
aren't you?"

I did not respond, did not have to. He knew, and I, 
looking down the tunnel or wind and rain, knew that as 
well.

"I shall spare you the effort." His knife did the 
double slittings perfectly. The crimson that my own blade 
thirsted so mightily for spilled across that little tanto, 
birthing his organs and life to the outside world. He was 
silent, ready to die honorably having already preformed his 
reclamation of face. I almost nodded, approvingly.
One of the other two acted as the second. Then they, 
unwilling to show less pride than their master, also 
deprived my poor blade of its meal. I glid my steel 
companion home, back to the land of inanimate dreams and 
calmly walked away.

Perhaps my living tongue had reached that point 
now. It, I won't name it he, was death, death from afar as 
well as near. I could kill by will alone now, my power had 
exceeded even my skill.

I'm sure which of us was elated at that. I know it 
was pleased but most likely disgruntled that it could not 
personally move to the feast. 

Perhaps its not reveling, but fasting in great 
training. It learns new lore and greater prowess in every 
new sip from that crimson chalice. Now, maybe it needed 
learn from a different drink. I'm not sure. It didn't tell me.
A practiced and unconscious flick of the thumb has 
a finger's breath of fang showing. My eye looks back at me, 
perhaps no longer my own. I know I've awoken it, as my 
hands bares the rest without orders. The sword is pulled up 
to my face, though whether by my hand or its own 
uncontrolled power I admit ignorance. I wonder if there's a 
difference any more. I wonder if it matters.
So seductive, I am lured ever deeper. But it is a he? 
I don't know that either. Regardless, it waits in my hand, 
knowing that as I watch it, I'm learning that bit of 
previously concealed lore it gleaned from the souls of those 
three men. 

I think I see. Death is more than I had thought and a 
greater servant of mine than I had ever expected. She was 
my lady in waiting, a handmaiden romancing my blade both 
behind my back and before my face. I believe she is my 
attendant as well. It wasn't the blade that seduces. It was 
Death's smiling face, beckoning me to come hither through 
the looking glass of edged hamon. She's beautiful.

Too beautiful, one small and ignored part of my 
mind screams, unheeded and unminded. No maiden is that 
beauteous and perfect; all have some flaw. What were the 
words of the lady? All women had some fallacy? What's 
hers, I wonder.

Christened with a bit of my own soul for a moment, 
he is cleaned again and put away. His life is young. I 
wonder if he will drink yet more? From who, that I already 
know.
====
It sang today. It sang for just one man. Another 
oddity, that was. He was not enough.

I am approaching another lesson. Some secret, some 
bit of long forgotten lore is hidden in blood, hidden 
somewhere close. I think that's why it sang today. It sang to 
lead me forward; it sang to lead me to my next insight. I 
grow eager for that wisdom.

That one man did not have it. 

He was a fool, I guess. Walking alone in the night, 
no guards to protect him, he was an easy mark. He carried 
himself as a bureaucrat, not a samurai. The heavy plod of 
his tread, his unawareness, that lack of finely honed 
dexterity crying out from every part of him, all came out 
and he might as well have been carrying a sign instead of 
that sword. Maybe his one blade would have been enough 
to stop a common thief, some foot pad with a knife and 
greed. But why would he not know that when you waltzed 
in the politics of the highest circles, it was not the thieves 
you must fear? 

I came from a small eatery beside the road, swept 
past him, and receive no knowledge in his wake. His blood 
splattered everywhere, almost getting on me as well, and 
bathing my sword in such a way that it had never been 
immersed before. The visceral bisection is always messy, 
but that was an extreme.

I had thought for a while that there was some lesson 
inscribed in that. Anything as unusual as the deluge of 
sanguine fluid that came from his innards in such profusion 
had to be in some way significant. I do not think so now. 
My meditations on the topic have been long and thorough. 
No other problem has been so elusive to the mind, so I 
assume I search incorrectly. 

Why did he fall to me? Why was he judged needing 
my personal attentions? It is clearly the case that his skill 
was not outside the limits of one of the other assassins. 
Still, while he would have been inside their strength, I was 
called. Message received, orders listened too, messenger 
departed, it was all very normal. His path, habits, and lack 
of guards, it was all there. I had assumed that in some way, 
this would be a matter like the others. This would be an 
affair which demanded my particular attention. I am the 
best, the Battousai they call me, and yet I see no reason for 
me to be given this.

A reward, perhaps? An easy mark to offset the usual 
level of difficulty I interact with? If so, it failed miserably. I 
need the lessons that this blood and life drinking blade 
teaches me. I need strong ones. Almost I am offended by 
this case.

I must not get above myself. Maybe the reasons he 
was slated to be killed by me were not based on me. For 
whatever reason, he might have been judged worthy of 
receiving my personal attentions. An unusual way of 
showing respect but clearly understandable. I do not know. 

It does not matter. 

He is dead, and I am no wiser. I will mention it. If 
our foes are so weak, I think I will retire for a few days and 
ponder the edge of my blade. There is something it is trying 
to tell me. I may be able to pry the knowledge for it without 
more tribute. That I doubt.
==
I must have it. That final piece of information, that 
undisclosed piece of lore. My blade taunts me and jumps 
from my clutches now. It's in possession, it knows 
something. I must have that knowledge.

And I know how I must acquire it. Fine. If it wants 
satiation, bribery, to give me that skill, it will have it. I will 
purge the world in an ocean of blood. I will make a never 
ending font of crimson death that it may nourish itself to 
unknown ends. I will find out how much it desires, and 
supply it. Streams, rivers, oceans, whatever it may demand. 

It will be mine.
==
Now I understand. They died today, and I learned, 
though not the lesson I was seeking.

This was the fourth day in my frenzied attempt on 
that bastion of knowledge that was my blade. He danced 
and sang as no other could. Like wheat they fell. Bodies 
against the walls, hollow blades upon the ground, blood 
raining from the heavens, they all fell. I left carnage in 
alleys. I sowed the streets with corpses. I ran through the 
houses of those I fought and slew everything which lived. 
Samurai, high and low, those who learned the arts of war 
and those who simply carried the traipsing, they were all 
the same. Every one I met came down upon this earth.
I realized that the only way to pry this from my 
sword is by glutting it. Thus this I did. I irrigated the fields 
of my life with blood. I killed them all. The Hiten 
Mitsurugi Ryuu was my fife and drum. It spoke, screamed, 
whispered, and cajoled. I was drawn, moth like, before its 
shining light. This light, this undeniable light, it pulled me. 
Venomous voices whispering madness and wisdom. I 
listened.

First was the White Leaf faction. Eighty strong 
samurai lived in that mansion. Now there are corpses. I was 
unenlightened.

Then the masters of empty hands, a voice for the 
peasants they claimed to be. I don't care. I didn't care. They 
had taken refuge in their little town, that part of Edo they 
claimed as their own. How many were there? How many 
empty fists met me on the street? How many servants lifted 
knives and clubs and graced the walls with their lives? I do 
not know. It was myriad.

Supporters of the Shogun, haters of the emperor, 
presumptuous diamyo, and others came. When they would 
not come to me, I came to them. I sought them in rabbit 
holes and searched through the streets of the training 
grounds. I sought them all, and I found. 

Oh, the gods look down on me in awe now. For I 
have ascended. I fed the kingdoms of the underworld such 
that they had bounty like no other. Alone I danced with all. 
But through it all, that tempestuous and lying traitor 
of my blade remained mum.

The dark sheath is now red. My garments have been 
stained. My face bleeds and even that is not enough. 
Finally, kneeling before my master, it hit me. 

Maybe these were not enough. Hated enemies, perhaps my 
blade desired the blood of he who I served. He was saying 
something to me, my daimyo, but I paid no attention. I 
stared at his neck, watching the veins pulse and throb like 
one who was in love.

My blade was at hand. This blood, this sacred blood 
was here. It was all I needed to do. I knew the measure of 
those I served and knew they would come as the sounds 
echoed first. I had no desire to be silent, I wanted my 
companions. They too possessed the fuel I needed. I would 
make a pyre of them all. And by that light would I read the 
tome of mastery.

Would they be enough? I cared not. I had all Edo 
before me. More people than the stars of the sky, they 
could all be the price of my knowing. 

Noticed or not by he who thought himself my 
master, I placed my hand upon him who was my sword. I 
clenched it in my fist.

And then I understood. Then that bit of lore which I 
sought not but was supreme all the same was upon my 
mind. 

It's never enough. It would never be enough. Should 
I give the world to my blade, it would not be enough.
Staring at me as I had my epiphany, my ex-master 
spoke something I could not hear. He repeated it. I paid no 
heed.

"Good bye," I said. I rose and left, even as he 
ordered me to return.

I took my oath today. No more. That path is closed.
Who were you who named me the cause of the red 
rain? Why can I not remember either your name or face? It 
matters.

I will go and learn. For that knowledge may be 
greater.