Chapter Five Sen #2
his god. It was the only book he wouldn’t burn, and he had fed Sen its passages when they had no food to eat.
The Hagakure was a compilation of thoughts recorded by a samurai over a century ago.
He had endeavored to describe the proper beliefs and trainings for any samurai, and Sen’s father had used it as his guide when the military academies closed down.
Even a century ago, the author had known that the age of the warrior was waning in the absence of war.
But he had believed, just as Sen’s father believed, that the loyalty that defined the samurai could not be eroded by time.
The world would change, but the soul of the samurai would remain the same.
Others thought her family foolish. For decades now, samurai had inherited titles but used them to hold bureaucratic positions
rather than military ones. They toiled not on battlefields but in offices. They weren’t even allowed to show their katanas
in public, or they could be jailed. Don’t unsheathe your katana unless you’re prepared to die —that was what the other samurai always said. They all thought her father was caught in another time. And maybe they were
right. But Sen was her father’s shadow, and she could do nothing but follow his every step.
The heart of the Hagakure was in its first chapter, the words that Sen’s father had made her write over and over until they were seared into her mind:
The way of the samurai is found in death.
Samurai were supposed to abandon the concept of a soul, and fear along with it. Only when they lived as if they were already
dead could they truly be free to fight—not like humans, but as cold, faithful weapons.
And for years, Sen had tried.
But her soul clung to her hands like tree sap, her fear screaming bright across the horizon every morning, shocking the birds
away from the trees. It was her shadow, and it would not leave her, no matter how fast she ran.
Her father walked toward the house, his back turned to her because he only showed his back to those he thought weak.
Sen curled deeper into the dirt as the sound of his footsteps faded.
Even now, though she knew the war had ruined her father, Sen could not help but press her fingers to the imprints his shoes left in the dirt, to bow before him even though he would never see it.
Sen could never be the daughter her mother had wanted.
If she was not her father’s child, then she was alone.
When the front door slammed shut, Sen rose to her feet, her knees stiff. Sweat pooled in her collarbone from the humidity,
plastered her hair to her forehead. Only yesterday, gnats had buzzed around the warmth of her skin when she entered the forest,
but today it seemed they couldn’t bear the taste of her. Sen remembered the blood on her chin and licked her parched lips.
Sen did not get dinner that night. Her mother saw the line her father’s sword had left on her neck and did not set out a bowl
for her. Her father sent her back to the forest to hunt, even though he knew as well as she did that there were no animals,
no insects, no plants they could eat without being poisoned.
But Sen was a sword, not a soul, and so she obeyed.
She tucked her sword into the ties of her hakama and walked into the forest, now blue-black with night. Around this hour,
the cicadas should have come out, brightening the forest with their high-pitched chirps. But that evening, the silence screamed
at her, like the night was full of secrets it wouldn’t share.
Sen had only ever hunted in land so barren once before.
Once, when Sen was a child, winter turned all the sugarcane black, and it didn’t grow back when the snow thawed. The pigs
died and rotted before they could be eaten. The fish rose dead to the surface of the river, and Sen’s parents feared to even
drink its water.
Sen grew used to hunger, held it tight in her stomach.
We suffer but we endure , her father said again and again and again.
Every night, he went out hunting, and Sen knew that if not this night, then the next, he would return with food for them all.
Sen trusted him, for she did not yet believe in endings.
Back then, Sen had a little sister.
Her name was Kura, and she was born the year before Seijiro. Sen used to cut sugarcane for Kura and show her how to draw out
the juice into her mouth and spit out the chewy fibers. Kura always asked Sen for sugarcane, to the point that Sen’s name
became Satō , for “sugar.” Seijiro was her mother’s baby, but Sen thought of Kura as hers.
But there was no sugarcane that year, and no matter how often Kura’s pitiful voice called out Satō Satō Satō , Sen could do nothing at all.
As always, their father found a way to save them.
There was no grand announcement, no explanation of his reasoning, no word at all. The next night at dinner, there was no bowl
set out for Kura.
When Kura turned to her mother, she avoided Kura’s gaze. Kura turned to their father, who only told her it was not a mistake.
Sen tried to share her food with Kura, but her father struck her across the face and told her to eat what she was given.
As she got older, Sen began to understand—her father had wanted the best chance at most of them surviving, so he’d prioritized
the children who could be the most useful to him. Seijiro was a boy, and Sen was the oldest, so they could hunt and scavenge
and hold swords, albeit clumsily. But Kura was still too young to be helpful, and she was only a daughter anyway. She was
weak, and their father despised weakness.
Kura cried all night, so their father shut her in a closet, where her cries were muffled but still kept Sen awake.
In the morning, Sen walked out to the field to dig for berries, or leaves, or anything her sister could eat. Even tree bark could sate hunger. But the bark crumbled in her hands, for death had ravaged the land. No matter how long she searched, the barren land offered her nothing.
It was Sen’s job to dig Kura’s grave.
Her mother cried a bit but stayed far away. The land was so desolate that there weren’t even flowers to place as decorations.
Death begot death.
“I’m sorry,” Sen whispered to the parched dirt, to her sister’s bones. Sorry for not being able to find enough food, sorry
for failing her sister, and sorry for the small part of her that was grateful her father had chosen Kura and not her.
Now, in the house behind the sword ferns, Sen stomped over red spider lilies and belladonna blossoms, branches breaking like
bones beneath her as she followed the path of the river. She wondered how far the silence stretched, how far she could walk
toward the horizon before the forest woke up.
She had never ventured this far before, afraid of being seen by someone from the village. But now, it was dark, and her father
was in the house, and there was no one to stop her from walking deeper and deeper into the night.
After a few minutes, the trees thinned and she spotted a clearing. She hurried toward it, brushing aside the prickly leaves
of sword ferns. She stepped into the clearing and gazed across the garden at...
... her house.
Sen frowned. She looked over her shoulder, then back at the house behind the sword ferns. Her footsteps were still fresh in
the wet dirt from when she’d first headed into the forest. Somehow, she’d gotten turned around and circled back home.
But Sen was always aware of her movement beneath the stars.
She knew how to find north even in murky darkness.
She recognized the giant boulder that her brothers climbed, the low-hanging branch with the crooked arm, the thicket of pokeweed berries the color of night.
She knew the forest perfectly, and yet she had somehow ended up back where she started.
She stood in the clearing and glared at the window where the white man had appeared, but it was only a small square of darkness.
I need to clear my head , Sen thought, heading back to the house. She hadn’t meditated enough that morning, and this was the consequence. Her mind
was stuffed full of silk and smoke.
She entered the house, locked the door behind her, then headed to her room. Her steps roused servants from their futons in
the hallway, but she waved them away, stepping carefully around them until she reached her room at the back. She cleaned her
blade, untied her hair, then changed into her sleeping kimono. It was just as cheap and stiff as her training dogi, but her
father insisted that samurai needed different clothes for sleeping, for she couldn’t wrinkle her day clothes at night.
She had just lain down to rest when a shadow moved across the paper door.
That in and of itself wouldn’t have been a problem—her brothers were restless and often wandered around at night.
But the shadow came from behind the door to her closet, the door with only cement behind it.
Now a pale light burned behind it, outlining the silhouette of a figure cast in deep gray. They turned their head to the side,
and as the light flickered, Sen caught a glimpse of curly hair.
The man in the window , she thought, seizing her katana.
The ghost was here to torment her, but he would have to try harder. Samurai only struck once.
She primed one hand on the handle of her short katana and took a steadying breath.