The Heart of the Warrior

The Village Strikes

I jolted up and off the floor and hit my head on the low ceiling.  My head started to bleed and I fell back down and tried to calm myself.  My heart pumped faster than ever before.  My nightmare had caused my mind to go into shock, could I be going crazy?

Sake, I could use some Sake right about now.  I'm sure Tsuyoi has some in the house.  I got up and opened the door to the dinning room.  I stumbled into the room with all the food, I scanned the room looking for sake.  I couldn't find a single bottle, I guess he doesn't drink.  It must take a ton of alcohol to get that guy drunk.

I wish he had something to help, my head was burning itself out by worrying.  I gave up on the idea of alcohol and walked out into the dinning room to find Kira.

"Good morning mister Noah."

"Morning Kira, is your father up yet?"

"Yes, he wants to ask you a favor."

"Ok, I'll go talk to him."

Kira showed me which door led to Tsuyoi ' s room.  Surprisingly the house had several rooms, which made it complicated for me to get around.  I knocked on the door and Tsuyoi yelled to enter.  The room was a bit larger than the others but still small.

Tsuyoi was kneeling on the floor in front of a suit of armour.  My fears came true, that armour belonged to an officer, he really could be related to the shogun.

"Noah, do you have children?"

"No, I'm still young."

"Well it is extremely hard to do on your own.  Honestly... I need help.  I was wondering if you would like to stay and help?"

"Uhhhhh, I'm not the best with kids."

"No I would deal with Kira mostly. But it is getting hard for me to take care of the farm."

"I could do that I guess."

Tsuyoi jumped up obviously happy at my decision.

"Thank you so much!  Let me show you what to do."

The jobs were simple, I would check on the rice, feed the cows, and kick kids off of the field.

I liked this place, it was calm and peaceful.  I longed for human interaction and Kira with Tsuyoi fulfilled that desire.  I missed home, I missed my family and friends.  But this world, this life is better than I could have imagined.

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Days turned to months, I was accepted into Tsuyoi and Kira ' s family.  I worked for hours a day to get all the work done so that we could all eat well.  Eventually Tsuyoi trusted me enough to tell me his heritage truth.  He told me about his father, my dream and assumptions were correct.   He was the son of the shogun.

He said if I told anyone that it could mean both his and Kira ' s life would be in danger.  I promised never to tell a soul and he just smiled in response.

Tsuyoi told me, every Sunday he would train me in the way of Samurai.  I couldn't be that stupid to deny this honor.  On Sunday we would practice for hours, I soon became better at it than Tsuyoi.  But I still preferred the fighting technique that I usually used, it was much more effective.

Below the house, off of Mt. Fugi, there was a small farming village.  Rumors started to spread about Tsuyoi.  They thought he was the son of the shogun, which was true.  The people of the village hated the shogun for sending hundreds of men to their death.  They quickly formed a mob to go kill Tsuyoi and Kira.  They wanted to hurt the shogun and the only way to do that was psychologically.  They wanted to end his family to give the shogun the worst pain possible.