by Lindvaettr » Wed May 22, 2013 8:24 pm
Just the one last roleplaying post from me. No metaphors here, though, so don't go diggin' for 'em! It's turned out to be a bit of a novel, so you've been warned.
The events of the last week, and especially the final night and day, had exhausted Lindochiro, the bartender, innkeeper, and Ame-no-Uzume. He had seen many of his friends perish at the hands of the samurai, and had nearly lost the place he came to call home. He had nearly died, himself, and in vain. The ninja had long ago accepted that his choices would lead to his death, but he hoped to do some good before that. Fortunately, thanks to the highly skilled Omoikane, Nakeda, that wasn't to be the case.
But as tired as he was, there was no time to rest. The village needed to be rebuilt in its new location, deep in the forest. The people needed homes and food. More still, they could no longer rely on trading with other villages to get what they needed. None could ever know the location of this new village. If they did, it would only be a matter of time before the samurai returned and slaughtered them all.
Lindo had learned that first hand. He had not always sought to fight for the innocent people of his home. His family were samurai. He was a samurai. He had slain his lord's enemies, and he had burned the villagers of peasants who opposed him. But in time, he recognized his mistakes. He left the life of the samurai to fight for the common people of Japan. In his early days, he had joined an army of rebels, practitioners of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism known as the Ikko Ikki. He had fought beside them through many victories as they liberated lands from the feudal lords. He had lead commoners and monks against the samurai, and stood atop the battlements of defeated castles. And then, he fought beside as they were pushed back, fighting to hold their final monastery fortress against the feudal lords even as the temples burned around him.
He had fought atop the walls of the fortress, but had been overwhelmed. A spear pierced his shoulder, running him through, and he had fallen from the tall walls of the monastery, crashing into the forest below. While all his brothers were slain above, he lived. Not through any intent of his own, but because he had been found, lying there on the forest floor, by another band of rebels who had come to do what they could. A band of rebels who fought from the shadows, who worked in secret. A band of ninja. They lived in a village far from there, in a place still firmly under the control of a daimyo, but the village had long ago abandoned those ways, instead embracing the ways of the ninja, and living in secret. If Lindo could not free Japan from the samurai, he would free a village from them. And so he joined them, and one day left, traveling with his new brothers, Rebo, Carp, and Nakeda, led by a wise, strong woman named Dottoe. They met other villagers, joined them, and when that village was destroyed, helped to rebuild. Protecting the village became their life.
So that is what Lindo now did again. He helped to rebuild the new village, now deep in the forest. He trained the villagers there to live in secret, and to fight the samurai if the need ever came again. At long last, Lindo had freed a village. He had lost many friends, including his leader, but he had succeeded, and he could live in peace, now. And so he lived there, in the forest among his friends, for two years. He could no longer run an inn, but he took joy in farming now, helping to provide food for the village. But when the village no longer needed him, he left.
It wasn't long before word reached the village, from messengers sent by the Ame-no-Uzume from other hidden villages through the land, that Lindo had joined another group of ninja in another village, and that he had once again fought the samurai, and once again defeated them. But he had not stayed at this new village, for word came again within a year that yet another village had liberated itself from the grasp of the samurai.
News continued to come. Sometimes good - another village freed, or more ninja joining the cause. Sometimes bad - the death of friends, the loss of villages to the samurai. For a decade, the news came, sometimes every few months, sometimes only once or twice a year, but Lindochiro kept contact with his friends, with his home. A messenger always came when Lindo had been to a new village, whether good or bad, and bad news is what is was one warm autumn day, as the villagers had just finished the last of a large, bountiful harvest.
Lindo had been to yet another village. He had worked alone, as he had a few times before, to spark revolt against the samurai. To get villagers to join the ninja, to hide their village away from the local lord, and they had. The village had fought back against the samurai, but this time the villagers could not win. The samurai had surrounded the village and slain the people fighting for it. The Ame-no-Uzume had fought until the samurai had pushed the villagers into the very center of the town. He had fought as he had in the rebellions of his youth, cutting down samurai after samurai as the daimyo's men burned the village. At the end, he was overwhelmed, and once again pierced with a spear. This time, there was no wall to fall from, and no band of ninja to steal him away and heal his wounds. Lindochiro, farmer, friend, and unwavering warrior of the common people, was dead.
But the ways of the ninja continued to spread. There were others to take up the cause Lindo had fought for in his life. There were always some defeats, but there were many more victories. Over many years, support for the shogun and the samurai waned. Slowly, the people of the land began to take power for themselves. Lindo's death was not in vain.