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The Gates to the Garden of Eden...
...tree of knowledge, tree of life...
...tree of knowledge, tree of life...
Feeling: All right
Location: Hanton, Earth Country Capital in the Royal House of the Empress San
Sleeping Chambers
Spring 1 of the year 105.
Morning
Men don't keep diaries.
We have journals instead.
San (...I...should not have done that...the Lords would most disapprove...)
...Yochi-jotei once said that writing was a good way of dealing with daily chagrin.
So I had received this journal some time ago from jotei-sama. It is very pretty, this fairly big leather-bound book with lots of pages to write in. (Ricepaper, I am certain, so I will have to be more careful with the ink...)
There is a painted image behind the cover. It is of a certain scene common to Western legend, the Garden of Eden, or at least that is what Huwei-sama says. There are these two big trees with red apples in the heart of the garden, guarded by these archangels with wings of fire. Supposedly, one of the trees bore fruit that gave knowledge, but death to those who eats from its branches, while the other tree bore the fruit of eternal life but came with the price of ignorance...
Huwei-sama asked me if I liked the painting.
I told Huwei-sama I liked our people's stories of the tenshis better.
So he asked why.
Well...people do not have wings of fire. The hagoromo winged dresses seemed more likely.
Besides, this God doesn't seem very nice... To choose between either knowledge or death?
I actually think it was not the tree but the garden as a whole... The painting was not there by coincidence, just like the image of the phoenix courting the sakura branch on the locket around my neck...
It was a reminder.
Something about being loved by God...or more so a reminder about the old imperial gardener's tree.
So I pointed this out.
Huwei-sama denied it.
...though I still think he is dwelling on that event (about three years ago). But I had never asked okami-sama for plants to react strangely...come to think of it now, it was not just plants...
Ah...I miss Fukushima-sensei. Yochi-jotei is very kind to me...but she is busy often. The matters of the state are many. I wonder what Fukushima-sensei would have said... But it would have probably been equally strange for him...he may have had been a traveling exorcist priest, but he was still a citizen of this Earth Country. It is a long story, but maybe I will write it here some day. That was what I would have told him anyways...but Sa-...jotei-sama would probably have said it was the other way around.
Occasionally, Huwei-sama still pokes fun at me.
Something about injured patients trying to escape through open windows on the second floor were a rarity nowadays...
Though now, they both say it might have been natural shinobi instincts... Something in the...blood... Though Fukushima-sensei would have been surprised...I do hope I will do well on the Civil Service Exam...I am only just a...few...years...
...short...
...I know, I will train hard so I can join Yochi-jotei's guard.
...
...I will first have to...grow...into that...general expected height...
...ah...I am straying again...I am not exactly certain why I started using this journal now of all times... I do write a lot, with regularity, just not in a...ah...what if somebody would read this...?
...but then again...there's that place...
See, I found this loose stone on the floor of my chambers...if I tug at it enough, it would come out, revealing this rectangular shaped indent beneath. I didn't tell anyone of that safe of sorts, though.
I wonder if the previous owner of this chamber hid things there too.
So that's where you will go...I'll just put a bit of cloth there as lining to avoid any possible moisture that might get in...
Should I name you?
I guess I should. How about Habaek? That is the name of the god of water, the deliverer of storms and rains. (Our people actually have a storm god too, but Susanoo seems too barbaric, going off decapitating great eight-headed snakes...) So the Korean water god would have to do.
Ah.
The tournament is going to begin soon...well, I will write more later tonight...
Feeling: Nervous
Location: Hanton, Earth Country Capital in the Royal House of the Empress San
Imperial Library
Location: Hanton, Earth Country Capital in the Royal House of the Empress San
Imperial Library
Afternoon
Right now, I am writing in the imperial library.
The tournament ended sooner than expected (and no, Habaek, that was not the unexpected part). The only match that occurred actually was amazing, but that was beside the point. Terrorists attacked Hanton, and planted explosives in the arena's gear chamber. There actually must have been at least a few that went off, because there were a number of explosions...not enough to seriously cripple the stadium's architecture but...
Mayhem.
People were terrified.
By the request of Yochi-jotei, the champion of the first match, this person by the name of Kun' Kumo Kana aided in the capture of one of the terrorists, a samurai. But not just that, the Kun' Kumo managed to save pretty much everyone in the stadium by engaging the terrorist. There definitely had been a plot to bring the whole stadium down, judging by that samurai's extensive arsenal of explosives...
It was the first time I saw a shinobi in combat, and, it was certainly a lot different from the match. Actually, I could not really even see clearly because they were moving at...at such speeds. So quickly and swiftly they had engaged each other, mockingly making the travel around the arena seem like a mere walk down the capital's streets... The samurai, too, I suppose but the Kun' Kumo was the one who managed to get the final hit in.
One last explosive went off, and part of the stadium crumbled...right where both of them were fighting.
I did not see the rest of this sordid episode, the guards Sa-...jotei-sama assigned to watch me were already tugging on my hand ever since the first explosive went off. But I wanted to watch. How many more chances would I receive, to watch a shinobi in action...? And the rubble...was that Kana person all right? Was he hurt? Questions were swimming through my head.
It would be awful...
It would be awful if...why...he had just helped save thousands of people!
We returned to the palace.
Guards were stationed everywhere, fortifying the grounds just in case. As we were allowed in, there was this person at the gates...a proud, scarred warrior... He was asking something of the guards.
The Kage of Shimagakure?
At first, I thought this person was the Uchiha Ichi.
...but he didn't at all match what jotei-sama said...
Later
It turned out that man wasn't the Dark Flame at all.
The guards were speaking unhappily, about how rude that new Kage was.
A weight dropped. I had been hoping to get a glimpse of that legendary Sage, whom had become the Shodaime Kage of Shimagakure no Sato.
What was I thinking?
Of course the Dark Flame couldn't have been that man. A leader do not make blind demands with an arrogant tongue, and expects them to be followed.
He is not like jotei-sama at all.
Even as I am writing this, jotei-sama would most likely be holding audience with him. I honestly hope that he does not give Yochi-jotei any grief...
Hm...the guards have lessened outside the library doors now. If I am quiet, I think I might be able to slip through unnoticed... Of course, I would not be using the main entrance.
Let me go now and replace you in my chambers.
It might not have been exactly open war, but the air in the palace crackles with tension. I have a sudden urge to go and visit the royal grove...
I will write again later, then.
...I cross now.
...the choice is mine to make...
Senju Yuurin
...the choice is mine to make...
Senju Yuurin
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