Sureiyazu

Episode 23: The Three Painters

Dawn had just broken over the little village. The two separate groups of the team of demonslayers had stayed separate for now, to see if they could find anything useful.

"No, no, no . . ." Kasai said aloud as she dug through the stack of papers, scrolls, and a few bound books. "None of these seem very useful . . ."

"We'll find something in here, Kasai," Aya assured her optimistically, but she didn't quite sound like she believed that herself.

"There has to be something useful in here," Heishi added halfheartedly as he pushed away a tall stack of family trees.

"But if there isn't, we've still got nothing," Kasai reminded him. "Because this is all the village has for information."

"Maybe Akuma and Yuri and Mizuki found something," Heishi offered.

Silence settled itself around the three. The only noise was the ruffling of papers, the occasional sigh and, once or twice, a cry of joy at finding something useful, always followed by a groan at finding that it was not at all what it had seemed. (Once, Kasai found a book titled: "The Kidnappers: Classified" which looked quite promising, but when she opened it, it was a book of maps and notes made by children for a game where they had to "kidnap" children from the other team.)

"Look what I found," Aya said after a few minutes, holding up one of the few books with binding. The title read, "The Three Painters".

"What's that?" asked Heishi. "Isn't that - a kids' story?"

"I used to love this story," Aya told them happily. 

"What happens in that one? I forget," Heishi said, embarrassed.

"Let me read it to you," said Aya, opening it. She cleared her throat. "Once, there was a tiny village. It was so small that there were only three people living there. They were the Three Painters. Everyone knew that being alone in a tiny village gave them the peace they needed to make the finest paintings in the world. 

"One day, three paintings were found in the middle of the village. None of the Painters could remember painting them. They weren't sure what to do with the beautiful paintings. The first Painter said, 'Let's destroy them and make our own paintings. This art isn't ours; let's make things that are.'

"The second Painter disagreed. 'Let's take them and say that we made them. No one would ever know that they aren't,' said he. 

"But the third disagreed with both of the other Painters. He said, 'Let's take them and change them just a little, so that we don't change the beauty of the painting, but it becomes ours.' They continued to argue all day, and eventually decided that each would take one painting. 

"The first continued to make his own paintings. But people soon grew tired of his art, which, over the years, became predictable and all the same.

"The second presented his painting to the world, claiming that it was his. But everyone knew that the style of the painting wasn't like his, and they shunned him, distrusting him forever after that.

"The third took his painting and adjusted it to his liking and style. When people looked at the painting, they felt a sense of calm come over them. It quickly became his most famous painting, and he was revered for his abilities for the rest of his life. The End."

"My dad never liked that one," Kasai said with disgust. "He said it represented bad things."

"No it doesn't!" Aya defended the book. "It's about being more clever than your peers, and it bringing you to greatness."

"Still," Heishi pointed out, "only the first one got rid of the painting. The other two stole the paintings. Including the one who got rich and famous."