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He could still remember her, the one that he wanted to forget. She was his love, his hate, his desire, his betrayal.
"God damn......" Keiji muttered under his breath, slouching a bit.
His instructor glanced at him and whacked his back with a think wooden stick. As Keiji glared at him, his instructor whispered with his eyes closed, "Constant vigilance and you will gain peace....."
In revolt, Keiji whispered one more "God damn" before resuming his meditation pose.

"Damn it......... more brain damage," Keiji thought as he accidentally released his pose and let himself slouch a big. Surprisingly, though, the stick did not make contact with his head.
Keiji opened one eye cautiously, then hurriedly closed it as he heard a loud "Knock knock" on the door of the temple (?). He heard the scurrying of the dojo master's sandeled feet, and the low grumbling noise of the door opening.
"Constant vigilance," Keiji desperately thought as his hands threatened to leave his lap to scratch at an itch on his head.......

Keiji's thoughts went to Sakura. Her face... The odd and awkward manner at which she held her hands together whenever she was asked to tend to his wounds after a bad training run. The young woman was a commoner but the young man felt more at home with her then his fellow nobles. He didn't mind the training but most of the nobles had no perspective of the way in which they harmed the people that served them.
A whack of the board greeted his lapse in concentration as his hands slipped from their desired position. The samurai-to-be swore internally as he received another for opening his eyes to look over at the open doorway. It was at this point that he saw the master of the training grounds walking past the door toward whatever was going on.

>What next, guys?

Squinting through nearly closed lids, Keiji tried to sneak a peek at the commotion at the door while still seeming to be composed as a samurai should be. The board was raised, but he twitched his arm back into place quickly and it was lowered again. Keiji let out a breath of relief silently and tried to straighten his back more; not only for posture's sake, but to catch a better glimpse of what was happening in front of him. Resisting the urge to sigh irritably at the commotion, he closed his eyes again and began his mantra.

"Serenity. Peace. Vigilance. Sakura."

But only in his head, of course. Silence was also a virtue, especially with the eager-to-dole-out-punishment man watching him. Stupid midget with a bat.

After eating, Keiji took his much needed bath the pain of his wounds was dulled like the light of a lamp through the rice paper. It was there but diffused through the hours since it was created.
After the bath, Keiji went to bed and quickly fell asleep, much had happened on this day and the rest was well received. The sleep deepened and he began to dream of things, things of pain, things before the dojo, before the sword.
He was standing in front of his father, only the vision was wrong, his father wasn't that tall, or maybe he wasn't that short. He looked at his hands and at the green grass covered ground beneath his feet. Small hands, small feet. He was young again. He was still at his home.
His father was wearing a brown yukata, it had a white crane on the back, across the shoulders. It was his fathers favorite. He was looking across the hills at the setting sun, a burning red charring long black shadows away from it's light.
"Keiji, your mother is not here for you anymore, and I have my duties to do, these cities cannot run themselves you know." He chuckled a shallow laugh that hid his pain. "I can't take care of you by myself so I am going to have to send you away for awhile, but not to any place, an old mentor of mine has a dojo, he will teach you the way of the sword. You have enough bloodline of nobility you could become a samurai, or maybe more..." He sighed and turned to look at Keiji, the sun at his back made him an omnimus black figure surrounded by he orange fire of the sky. He knelt down and looked Keiji in the eyes. "As you grow older, you will grow stronger, when you become powerful, avenge your mother. I might not be here to help, but if I can only ask of my son one thing, this is that thing."
Then there was the heat he forgot so long ago. His father looked past him and exlaimed, "the house is burning!"
Keiji tunred to see their home engulfed in flames, paper becoming black ash floating down from the sky.
His father stood, stunned, watching the flames consumed almost all that was left of his life. And as he watched the fire an arrow came seemingly out of nowhere and pierced his heart. His father fell and began to cough, blood seeped out of the wound, quickly being absorbed and dispersed by the brown silk of his yukata. Keiji tuned towards the arrows origin to see a dark dressed ninja standing near a tree with his bow being drawn again.
All the sound seemed to fade away as the events unfolded in his mind, the fire his father, himself. memories of happiness burned like the flames that consumed the house a few yards away.
He watched as his fathers assailent was about to end his life also was cut down in a spray of crimson blood, the victor being hidden soon reavaled himself, and ran twards Keiji and his wounded father.
"Matsamura-san!", the older man cried, "Seems I could not prevent them from getting to you."
"Sensei, I take it your journey went well?" He coughed as blood continued pouring from the wound.
"Be still you haven't much life in you."
"Sensei, help Keiji be great, even greater than I."
"I will, with all my years, I will."
Keiji watched as his father closed his eyes and lay silently on the ground for a few moments and then let out a sigh, and never drew breath again.
The old man knelt in front of the lifeless body and deeply bowed.
"Matsamura-san, my training could not save your wife, and I myself could not save you. So I vow to you, that your son will recieve all the training that I can offer."
Keiji watched this, and then looked at the body, the blood, the man, the flames that were fading and the sun that was setting. Everything became cold.

Keiji opened his eyes and was quickly awake as a gentle breeze blew cold night air from a shoji that was still slid partly open. He got up and walked to close it, but looked out at the moon for a moment before doing so.
He wondered why would he have a dream like that now, was it a sign, did it have some meaning, or was it because his father still wanted revenge on the clan that took eveything he loved away.
"Someday I will find them, then you can rest in peace father, and then so will I."
He walked back to his bed and layed down, pondering the dream before once again falling asleep.

The sun was high and the heat burned Keiji's shoulders.
He sat balenced somewhere between meditaion and sleep on a sone in the garden of the dojo.
The grass and sand of the garden made the air hot and humid making him all the more uncomfortable in his meditations.
Sweat poured down his face into his closed eyes, stinging them as he tried to maintain a certain amount of posture, becasue his sensei was almost always watching.
A shrill crack could be heard in the garden, the sound of a shinai against Keiji's shoulder, Knocking him off balance.
"You are not focused. You need a special conditioning exercise, come with me." The sensei's voice was calm but demanding.
Keiji got up from the garden and started following his sensei out past the boundries of the dojo. He followed until his sensei stopped in the middle of a bamboo grove.
"You have not trained your blade in this grove for a long while," He made a gesture towards the surroundings, "It needs thinning and you need practice, start cutting"
Keiji was thinking of a quick way to get out of this, "Sensei, I did not bring a blade."
His sensei smiled, "Just as I expected, I brought this bokken ::wooden training sword:: for you to use just in case."
Keiji was furious, "How am I supposed to cut bamboo with that!"
"Focus," Sesei was still smiling. "You need focus, and if you have it, this will be no challenge."
"Even with focus this is not possible."
"Anything is possible, look beyond what you see." He held out the bokken.
Keiji took the bokke nfrom his sensei's hand, "This is heavy."
"Might as well train your arms and your mind"
Keiji's face showed he did not find this amusing.
"If you can cleany cut down one stalk you can quit, if not you will resume this tommorow.
"Just one and I can quit?"
"Cut it like a sword would, and you can go." The sensei grinned.
Keiji stood in front of a stalk of bamboo closed his eyes, and raised the sword. He took a breath and brought it down with amazing speed.
It struck the bamboo hard, splintering it where it was struck. But the impact only made the bamboo tilt and his sword slide off of the stalk.
"Focus." the sensei demanded.
"this might take awhile" Keiji thought to himself.

Keiji looked around at all his efforts, mangle bits of bamboo scttered across the ground. He looked at the sky though the thick growth of bamboo that almost blocked out the setting sun.
"hmmm... I will be leaving soon for dinner. If you do not hurry, you will miss it." His sensei had been standing there watching and pushing all day.
"This is impossible," He held out the bokken,Which was slightly cracked at the abuse. "Even this is breaking and nothing has cut at all."
"Continue, or no food."
Keiji was angry, he stomped to a stalk of bamboo and prepared.
"Focus, like it was a real blade."
Keiji tightened his grip and let the handle of the bokken rest in his palms. He swung the bokken fast and he heard a loud crack and then was caught off balance by the momentum of the bokken.
He looked at the bamboo, it was cleanly severed at a perfect angle.
"Keiji, took you long enough." Te sensei stood unimpressed.
Keiji was stunned at his own work, " how did I do that sensei?"
"look at the bokken you are holding"
Keiji looked down at his bokken. Half of the wood was broken away revealing the bright blue steel of a blade.
"It was a shirisaya?" ::a sword with no fixtures, looks like a bokken::
"Yes, all you had to do was give everything you had, and the scabbard would break away revealing the true blade."
"What does that mean for me?"
"It means you get to eat dinner, and that you finally may realize, everything is not as it seems." he smiled, and Keiji with him.
"But tommorow Keiji, you need to cut down some bamboo with a real sword."
Keiji sighed. "Yes sensei"

"Keiji," The sensei's voice rang across the polished wooden floors of the dojo.
Keiji heard his sensei as he was practicing his strikes in the main room of the dojo.
"Sensei I'm here." Keiji put up his kendo stick and slid open the shoji to the hall.
"Ah, Keiji, come look at this." His voice was urgent but not frantic.
Keiji followed him out into the garden aways where he stopped by a tree. He pointed at a the large tree at the side of the garden.
"Do you see that?"
"See what sensei?" Keiji implored.
"There," He moved in closer and pointed out a cicada clinging to the tree, shedding it's skin.
"You called me out for this?"
"Keiji, a lesson can be learned from these insects of summer."
"And what is this great lesson?" Keiji remarked sarcasticly.
"Patience should never end. because waiting never ends."
"What do you mean?" Keiji asked. A bit more serious than before.
"This cicada is many years old, it has been maturing in the ground for a long time. It came out with wings, but it had to wait for them to dry before it can use them to take flight." The master paused. "It's waiting is met by more waiting, and if it lost it's patience it would lose it's wings."
"But what does that mean?"
"You train here and mature, you always want things to be done quicker, faster, and easier. One of these days you will be out of here, in the world. If you do not let you wings set up and dry, they will fail you." He looked keiji in the eyes. "Katas and practice will do you nothing until you are seasoned in real fights. Do not trust yourself until you are certain of your true skill."
Keiji nodded, "I understand sensei."
The master made a gesture towards the dojo. "Now go finish your katas, or better yet, start them from the begining."
"All fourty nine of them?"
"Ten times each."
"Yes sensei." Keiji sighed then bowed to the mster before rushing off to complete his katas.
The master watched as he ran into the dojo.
"Remember the cicada Keiji, don't let your wings fail."