Twelve Lies I Told Shingen Takeda

Chapter Seven: Lessons in Swordplay

To my relief, the lessons in flirtation were considered enough of a disaster by all parties that they were not repeated. Shingen survived his week without dessert, but not without a few vague martyred sighs every time Yuki or I came into his presence. My life was getting busier at Kasugayama anyway, so there wouldn't have been time for another life lesson, even if anyone had been interested.

Mornings were given over to training. Since I rarely stayed asleep past sunrise, I used the earliest time of the day to keep up my archery skills. Sometimes Yoshimoto would appear and practice as well, but usually I had the field to myself, and, even when he was there, we both worked in silence. It was a relaxing way to begin the day, to stand and focus on nothing but the target in the distance, the twang of string and whoosh-thump of the arrows reaching their mark.

This was followed by the least relaxing part of the day – fighting skills. Thanks to Kenshin deciding kill me on a regular basis, I began to improve my technique. At least a little. I had been inspired to practice more, often slipping away during the nightly gatherings to head for the training room. There, I would go through katas repeatedly. While I wasn't interested in becoming an accomplished samurai, or even a ninja like Sasuke, I was interested in being stabbed less often. Bamboo swords aren't lethal, but they still leave a mark. I was currently sporting more bruises than I'd ever had in my life, and that's saying something given how banged up I got snowboarding.

In between training, there was the daily message round in the castle town. I learned the fastest and most efficient ways to do these deliveries, also memorizing the dead-ends and blind alleys, and even, a couple of afternoons, took the time to see how far I could get across the town via rooftop. Mostly that was simply for fun, but maybe someday such information would come in handy.

Privately, I continued an investigation into the origins of the sniper. Though Shingen had his own vast network of spies, I followed up on the little things that I could. I had spent an afternoon with a local gunsmith, studying imported muskets as well as learning the subtle differences between the guns manufactured in places like Sakai, Yokkaichi and Kunitomo. Maybe I couldn't learn where the sniper came from, but I could at least figure out where his gun was made. That would be tomorrow's task, if Shingen would allow me to examine the sniper's confiscated musket.

For tonight, though, I had made my regular escape to the quiet training room. The repetitions of rising and falling, stepping forward and back, and striking horizontally, vertically, and diagonally were starting to feel as natural as breathing. Until coming to Kasugayama, I hadn't found the same meditative focus in swordsmanship that I did in archery, but my nighttime practice sessions, though not yet paying off in my sparring, were becoming a comforting ritual.

A familiar beat of footsteps in the corridor alerted me moments before my solitude was interrupted. I glanced to the doorway, as Shingen slid it open. Tonight, he was without his regular arm candy.

"This is where you sneak off to every night?" He joined me in the training room. "I had hopes that you used my example as inspiration and were involved in a romantic intrigue."

"I'll be a vast disappointment to you in that respect," I said, trying to keep my mind focused on the exercise. "There's not enough time in the day."

"That's what night is for. And early morning." There was a smile on his face that I didn't care to contemplate. Then he gave me a look that could almost be interpreted as fatherly. "I have noticed you're looking a bit tired. Am I working you too hard?"

He hadn't given me much to do at all – I still had the feeling that he'd just been finding things for me to do out of pity.

"Not at all. I like work. It's when I add in all the time spent keeping up my archery skills, and doing this that it starts to pile up." What wasn't worth mentioning was that the bigger issue was that I always had trouble sleeping, even in the best of circumstances.