Pastpresent 9 - Echoes In Darkness

		I was almost nineteen when I began to realize how 
	deeply dissatisfied I was with my life.

		It was not something that revealed itself in a 
	sudden stroke of lightning. Rather, it was a gradual 
	awakening, as if from a light doze in a sun that was 
	rapidly getting too warm for comfort. I was not happy. 
	There was something fundamentally flawed with how I 
	was living.

		It wasn't easy to grasp. I knew I wasn't content, but 
	I didn't know why. Sometimes I felt as if I could almost 
	say the reason. Sometimes it baffled me.

		At first, I tried to ignore it. It frightened me for 
	reasons I could not explain, and my bravery has always 
	been limited to certain areas in which I excel. I fear I've 
	seen too much of this side of myself in you to please me, 
	but no matter. No child will ever be completely to the 
	liking of his parents, especially where their own 
	shortcomings are concerned.

		When it became clear that my discontent wasn't 
	going to simply leave on its own, I tried to give it 
	plausible explanations. My job at the grocery was 
	miserable, low-pay slave labor. My mother was getting 
	more and more difficult to tolerate. A deadly opponent 
	had selected me for special attention. All were excellent 
	reasons to be unhappy with life, and I put my funk down 
	to them.

		It wasn't, though. I couldn't tell what was bothering 
	me, but I was able to tell what wasn't. It was something 
	deeper.

		I tried to seek answers in my training. And in less 
	vigorous pursuits.

-----------------------------

	The Saotome family home was large for a house in 
crowded Tokyo. The house itself was only of medium size, but 
the garden was large and lavish, protected from the 
surrounding area by stone walls.

	It had been designed and arranged in some forgotten age, 
probably during the early years of the Tokugawa era by a 
Saotome returned from the wars and seeking solace. The whole 
complex, garden and home, had been reduced to scorched rubble 
during a American bombing run; the Saotomes had 
painstakingly rebuilt it as soon as they were able to, 
recreating even the shortcomings and imperfections of the 
original.

	The central feature of the garden was a roughly circular 
pond, the home of several long-suffering carp. Saotome-sensei 
was fond of aerial attacks, and Soun and Genma had wound up 
toppling into the pool more often that they cared to admit. The 
fish were very agile and rather stressed-out as a result.

	Both of the two disciples of the master were familiar 
with the garden in a way difficult to understand. Saotome-
sensei had raised them both up to favored status on the same 
day, and informed them that they would no longer pay him a 
weekly teaching fee.

	"Money is proper for the lower levels of the Art," he had 
told them. "That is fair value. But the inner secrets of the 
Saotome-ryuu are more valuable that all the wealth in Japan. 
To give me money and think it a fair exchange would be an 
insult. If you will be my students, you will give me your 
unquestioning obedience. That is a worthy payment! And you 
will remind yourselves of this fact by keeping my garden in 
order."

	The words seemed to echo in Genma's ears as he 
carefully pruned the hedge along one wall. When he'd first 
heard them, he had thought it would simply be a matter of 
keeping the grounds clean and the leaves raked.

	He carefully snipped away the extra greenery, measuring 
exactly how much to leave. It wasn't that simple.

	Saotome-sensei demanded that his garden be perfect. 
That meant that every blade of grass and every shoot of every 
bush had to be exactly the right length, to the millimeter. And 
the master could tell instantly if it wasn't.

	Just as arduous were the history and philosophical 
lessons. The master had a story or deep insight attached to 
every single rock and tree, and expected his students to be able 
to recognize and recite them on demand. He often tied the 
secrets of exceptionally potent katas or techniques to the 
geography of the garden, and had a maddening habit of failing 
to mention that they were even there.

	Genma chuckled sourly. He and Soun, on their own 
initiative, had once spent an entire week comparing notes and 
pouring over the koans, stories, and spatial relationships of 
the elements making up a quarter of the garden. At the end they 
had uncovered a sequence of powerful strikes that had since 
become a favored attack, a beautifully simple blocking 
technique, and a set of relaxation techniques designed for 
developing ki. Both of them were firmly convinced that 
Saotome-sensei would never have mentioned them.

	Worst of all, there were major elements in the garden 
that the master had yet to identify or expound on.

	Finishing the hedge, he moved on to the herb garden that 
occupied a raised bank along one wall. The plants would have to 
be culled and sorted, and the moss kept in check. Dealing with 
slimy moss was not his favorite job in the world.

	When he owned the school, he would make his own 
disciples do the work. Well, most of it. Maybe he'd still trim 
some of the bushes...

	Genma shook his head in disgust. Getting nostalgic for 
work he had yet to finish?

	The serenity he had built up during his tending of the 
bushes vanished. He had finally pulled ahead of Soun, both in 
exploits and with Nodoka. The school and title of master would 
be his. All of this would be his. He had a skilled new rival to 
hone his Art against. He should be content - no, happy!

	He wasn't, though.

	The moss tore loose beneath his fingers, slick and furry.

	This wasn't what he wanted.

	Genma pulled mechanically at the moss, a dull, painful 
panic rising inside him. He had devoted his entire life to this. 
It was who he was. It had to be what he wanted. What else was 
there?

	"Gardening is supposed to be relaxing, Genma."

	He jerked around, heart nearly slipping a beat, to find an 
ancient face only a foot from his own. "G-grandmother! I didn't 
hear you..."

	"Because you were too busy brooding, young man." 
Grandmother Saotome poked him in the chest with her cane. 
"Don't brood in my begonias. It upsets them."

	"I'm sorry. I suppose I've just been a little down lately."

	"I've noticed. You always were singleminded, Genma, but 
usually in a more sensible way."

	He shrugged. "I don't know, Grandmother. I just haven't 
been happy lately, and it's frustrating me. Especially since I 
don't know why. I'm afraid... I'm afraid maybe I'm not in the 
right place, doing the right thing."

	The old woman examined him kindly. "You've decided that 
perhaps the Art isn't all there is to life?"

	"Yes. No. I don't know." He sighed, frustrated. "I love what 
I do here. Learning from Saotome-sensei is such a privilege, 
and such a joy... why would I ever want to do anything else? I 
don't know anything else! There is nothing else!"

	"Nothing?" Grandmother Saotome asked gently.

	"No." He stared at the rocks, at the scraped moss. "I do 
love it, but it's not enough. My life is missing something."

	"You always were singleminded. Most martial artists are. 
The Art is jealous." She chuckled. "But as beautiful as it is, 
young man, it's never enough to sustain one's soul. Everyone 
finds that out sooner or later."

	"Then this is normal?" Genma said hopefully. "How do I 
defeat it?"

	The old woman laughed. "Listen to yourself, sonny! 'How 
do I defeat it,' indeed! You sound as if you were facing down a 
rival with a new technique."

	"It may not be a rival, but I think it's my enemy," Genma 
said grimly. "I can't focus like this, Grandmother, and I need to. 
Kuonji Inji isn't a friend the way Soun is. He's out for blood."

	"You've chosen a bad time to have your personal crisis, 
then," the old woman said, smiling slightly. "It started after 
you and Soun and Nodoka returned from that trip, didn't it?"

	"Yeah." It had. He had felt the first faint stirrings of it on 
the plane home. "At first I thought it was just me coming down 
from all the excitement, but now..."

	She shook her head. "Genma, what are you so unhappy 
about?"

	"I don't know," he said, trying to contain his frustration. 
He'd told her this already. "If I knew-"

	"You don't know, or you're afraid to ask?"

	"I don't..." Genma trailed off, unsure. There was fear, yes, 
mixed in and scattered throughout his discontent. A lot of it.

	"Maybe I'm just scared of Inji," he mumbled, embarrassed.

	"Nonsense," Grandmother Saotome said firmly. "I know 
you and Soun. You love nothing better than fighting some 
absurdly powerful and dangerous foe or technique. It's not in 
you to be afraid of something like that."

	He nodded; it was true.

	"I think the garden could use some variety," the old 
woman said. "Why don't you remove a bit more moss... say, four 
inches lower than usual?"

	Genma shook his head. "Saotome-sensei..."

	"...doesn't actually own this house. I do," she said firmly. 
"Remove that moss for me."

	Swallowing slightly, Genma bent and did as he was told. 
He was fairly certain that the master would accept his reason 
for doing so, but doing anything out of the ordinary to the 
garden went against the instincts he'd built up over years of 
tending it...

	He stopped suddenly, letting a clump of moss fall to the 
ground. The stonework looked...

	"There's something carved here," he said, turning to 
glance at her.

	Grandmother Saotome said nothing.

	Working quickly, Genma stripped away the moss and used 
a stone to scrape the residue away from the etched lines. After 
a few minutes, he examined his handiwork.

	SAOTOME MINATOKO

	I MEAN TO RULE THE EARTH AS HE THE SKY

	1940

	"Grandmother?" Genma asked quietly. "Who...?"

	"Minatoko was Nodoka's mother. My daughter," she added, 
almost as an afterthought.

	Genma nodded, thinking. He knew that Nodoka's mother 
had died in a training accident when Nodoka was very young, 
and had suspected for a long time that this was one of the 
reasons that Saotome-sensei had never tried to encourage his 
granddaughter to take her own skills any farther. Genma had 
always looked on it as a reminder of just how serious and 
potentially deadly the Art could be, but had never asked for the 
details. Everyone who had survived the war had raw wounds 
that decent people did not pick open with prying questions.

	Still, he had been instructed to clear away the 
inscription, which meant that the old woman wanted to talk. 
"Is this a burial marker?"

	She shook her head. "Perhaps the beginnings of one... no, 
no it isn't. Minatoko carved it there as a sort of promise and 
reminder."

	"What does the inscription mean?"

	"It's from a western opera about the Japanese. I suppose 
she liked it." Grandmother Saotome absently touched the stone. 
"She was in love with a young man in the Navy; an aviator. That 
was very prestigious service, and required high skill, drive, 
and natural talent. He had them. They were very alike; he in his 
fighter, she with her Art."

	"Then the war?"

	"Then the war. He was based in Rabaul, and quickly 
became an ace. Nishizawa, Ota, Sakai, Saotome... he was one of 
our best. Fighter pilots are not so different from martial 
artists."

	She shook her head sadly. "Then the tide turned, and the 
American planes grew more sophisticated, their pilots more 
skilled, their numbers doubling, tripling... there could really be 
only one ending. I think the dear young man knew it. We didn't - 
because of the censorship, you know. It came as a shock. They 
didn't even have a body for us to burn."

	Genma nodded again. It was a familiar story.

	"We survived, of course. My husband has a sixth sense for 
knowing when danger threatens, and he moved us out into the 
mountains before the bombs came. So we all lived, except for 
my son-in-law. And a part of Minatoko's soul, which crashed 
burning into the sea along with him."

	"What happened?" Genma asked. "Did she commit 
seppuku?"

	Grandmother Saotome shook her head. "Our family has 
never been eager to go that route, no matter how wretched or 
disgraced our condition. No. She had been a person who lived 
for the Art and her husband. He was gone. And so she turned 
even more to the Art, discarding... important things as she did. 
And it eventually killed her."

	"Nodoka's told me that it was a training accident."

	"That's not entirely true." The old woman sighed, looking 
suddenly very frail. "Minatoko reached the point where her 
desire for supremacy in the Art overwhelmed the kind, good 
person that was the child I raised. All that was left was hate 
and bitterness and ambition. She did some terrible things, and 
then another martial artist stepped in to stop her. There was a 
fight, and she was killed."

	He absorbed this, trying to fathom it. "Does Nodoka 
know?"

	"No. We've told Nodoka that her mother died in a training 
accident. She doesn't need to grow up feeling some ridiculous 
need to avenge her mother's death."

	Genma frowned. "Because you're afraid she might get 
hurt?"

	"That's part of it. The other part is that a vendetta is an 
unhealthy thing to grow up under. And..." The old woman looked 
away. "I loved my daughter. I still do. But she had become 
something terrible, and brought her end upon herself. I wish it 
had been different." A tear trickled down withered cheeks. 
"Sometimes I still wonder if there was something we could 
have done or said... I don't think there was, but still..."

	Genma reached out and squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry, 
Grandmother."

	The old woman shook her head. "It's all right. It was a 
long time ago. Years. And everyone lost someone in those 
years."

	He looked at the stone, trying to get some sense of the 
person who had carved the words. She would have been 
Saotome-sensei's first disciple.

	What he wanted to know, he realized, was how she 
compared to him. Was he equal to her? What had she learned 
that he had not? Had he surpassed her yet? If not, would he?

	He felt the old woman's regard on him, and flushed, 
somewhat ashamed. "I'm afraid I'm sizing her up," he mumbled. 
"I guess I'm a bit obsessed."

	Grandmother Saotome snorted. "That's nothing new. All of 
the really good practitioners of the Art are."

	"Even Saotome-sensei?"

	"Especially my husband." She chuckled. "Although I've kept 
him somewhat distracted for a few decades." She sobered 
suddenly. "I mention Minatoko to make a point, Genma. The Art 
is not enough to base your life on. It won't replace whatever it 
is that you feel you're missing."

	It was pretty clear where the old woman was going. 
Maybe she was even right. "I don't know, Grandmother. I do like 
Nodoka, I've told you that... anyone could tell that. I just don't 
want..." He trailed off, confused.

	"I'm not suggesting you get married tomorrow," 
Grandmother Saotome said. "But taking her to the pictures 
would be a good first step."

	He nodded absently, the usual mix of fondness, fear, and 
ambivalence he associated with dating Nodoka coming up. "I'll 
think about it."

	She nodded. "In your own time, young man." She stood. 
"The garden looks beautiful, Genma. You and Soun do a good 
job."

	"Thank you, Grandmother."

	The wind picked up as she left. Genma shook his head, and 
continued to tear at the moss.

****

	It was almost dark by the time he left the garden and 
started his walk home. The streets were crowded, which 
seemed to lower his mood even further.

	If giving in and throwing Nodoka a date would help, 
perhaps he should consider...

	He shook his head. Either he didn't want to, or he was so 
afraid of doing so that it amounted to the same thing. And he 
wasn't going to let several years work at fending her off go to 
waste because of a little bit of angst.

	The crowds started to melt away as he entered the 
district his box of an apartment was located in. It wasn't a 
good part of town, and it wasn't a bad one. It just... existed, 
like the people it housed, crumbling placidly from new and dull 
into old and dull.

	He reached his front steps, hesitated.

	His mother would be in the living room, watching the 
telly. He would talk to her as little as possible, go to his room,  
and go to sleep...

	Genma turned and walked away.

	One step, and then another, until he was moving in almost 
a run. 

	The crowd blurred. The faces blurred. He stopped noticing 
what streets he was walking along, where he was going.

	It wasn't fair. He'd worked hard, he'd done his best, and to 
be stopped by fear and weakness... His life was just work and 
training and work, and he was going nowhere fast... nowhere, 
with no-one...

	Two people walked past, a boy and a girl, arm in arm, 
laughing. Their faces seemed to veer at him out of the 
watercolour blur of the crowd, and he felt a sudden fierce 
flash of hatred.

	The flash died, then leapt up again, sullen, burning. He 
could date Nodoka. There was nothing stopping him. She'd leap 
at the chance. Any day and time he chose, he could ask her out 
and she'd go. Would beg to go. Any time he wanted.

	"Okay, man, gimme your wallet and..."

	Part of Genma's mind watched as he broke the mugger's 
arm, dislocated his leg, and sent the ragged man flying into a 
concrete wall with a moist crunch. He didn't break his stride.

	Nodoka could be his any time he wanted.

	He stopped several minutes later, staring blankly at 
another set of steps. Joe's Garage.

	The lights were on in the office. As he watched, a figure 
moved past, black shape against shining yellow paper.

	There was blood on his palm, he realized absently.

	He looked at the bright lights for a few seconds, suddenly 
very much aware of the darkness around him. Then he turned, 
and made his way back into the night.

	The anger was muted now, a dull burn in the back of his 
mind. Part of him was beginning to realize that he was 
seriously out of it, that he should go get some sleep and let a 
night's rest drain the frustration and emotion from him. But 
the thought of going back to his house made him almost 
physically ill, and he couldn't let Kiri see him like this.

	He wound up back where he had started, in the garden.

	Exhausted, he made his way to the stone with the words 
carved on it. He could barely read the etched characters in the 
pale moonlight.

	"I would have been better," he mumbled, staring at the 
words and wishing she were alive for him to prove it.

	He bent, and began to scrape away at the moss below it. 
It looked uneven, ragged the way it was. If he was going to 
break Saotome-sensei's instructions, he might as well do an 
ascetically pleasing job of it...

	Genma squinted. Was that another carving?

	He fumbled with the stone, hand moving along the slick 
moss. It wasn't a carving, more of... a handle?

	With mounting interest piercing his fatigue,  he groped 
and fumbled at the stone. It was a handle, or a handhold, or 
something similar.

	Well, handles were made to be pulled...

	With effort, he tugged at it. The stone slid slightly out, 
just a crack... but smoothly, without the grating he'd expected.

	Curious now, Genma pulled again, putting his back into it 
this time. The stone rumbled free from the bank, revealing a 
long, dark shaft beneath it.

	He peered over the edge, noting the oiled metal runners 
the stone had been set on. There were carved niches in the 
shaft, obviously intended to give hands and feet purchase.

	What was this? He had heard of similar vaults in old 
ninja clan citadels, but the Saotomes were hardly that. 
Moreover, he would have thought that the bombing...

	The bombing. Genma nodded. Perhaps this had been a 
shelter, a hiding place in case the bombs fell or the home 
islands were invaded.

	Carefully, mindful of his fatigue, he clambered into the 
shaft and began to make his way downwards.

	A sense of panic overtook him about halfway down. The 
moon seemed to leer above him like a cold dead eye, and the 
walls suddenly reminded him of a gaping maw. There was 
nothing but darkness below...

	He wanted to climb back up. He didn't, though, even as the 
panic began to catch and spread. Instead he descended even 
faster, the full moon seeming to beam greenly down on him, its 
glow outlining him and the dank earth in blues and blacks.

	It was silent, except for the scrabbling of his feet and 
hands. He wanted to speak, to break the silence with his voice, 
but was afraid to disturb whatever was here...

	His feet touched bottom. All around him was blackness, a 
dark hole, a yawning chasm...

	There was a wall behind him, and he backed up against it. 
There were shapes in the black, shapes tall and indistinct.

	The panic was at a fever's pitch now. Why had he come 
down? There was something down here with him, in the 
darkness...

	His gaze fell on something on the wall, and he almost 
cried out in sudden hope and relief. It was a light switch. 

	Carefully, heart racing, he reached an arm out and quickly  
flipped it.

	For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Then, slowly, 
electric lights flickered into life above him.

	Genma blinked. He was standing in a small training hall, 
the walls lined with cracked and peeling paper panels, dusty 
tatami mats lying on the floor. A rack against the wall held 
practice weapons.

	With a slight sense of wonder, he stepped further into 
the room. A thin layer of dust hung over everything, and the 
paper was yellowed with age, but the hall otherwise seemed in 
good repair. Still... it was rather more elaborate than he had 
expected.

	A door stood at the far end of the dojo. Genma paused, his 
courage returning from his earlier panic. He was tired, 
exhausted. He'd just open the door - a storage closet, probably 
- and then he'd get some sleep...

	The knob turned easily under his grip. The door swung 
open, and Genma stared. Beyond it was another room, smaller, 
with a bed, a writing desk, a sword rack, and a niche for a vase 
of wilted flowers.

	It must have been Saotome-sensei's invasion redoubt, he 
realized. Genma had heard the stories... how nobody had known 
how the victorious allies would treat them, whether or not 
Japanese culture would be suppressed... it had not seemed 
impossible that schools like the Saotome-ryuu - which, after 
all, taught a fighting art - might have to go underground.

	He chuckled. Literally underground, in this case. The 
master could have continued to train his disciple here, safe 
from the prying eyes of the gaijin.

	Had she lived, anyway.

	Genma suddenly felt very, very tired. The fear and anger 
and adrenaline were almost gone, leaving him with a hollow 
sort of fatigue.

	He glanced at the bed, and shrugged. Why not? He had 
nowhere else he felt like going at the moment.

	Pulling back the dusty coverlet, he climbed under the 
sheets. It felt slightly comforting and vaguely unreal - the 
whole chamber seemed unreal, like a hazy dream.

	He pulled up the blanket, turning over to a comfortable 
position. The room seemed snug, cozy. The light had changed it 
from a threatening void to a warm nest, a refuge.

	Nodoka could be his, if he chose...

	Sleep claimed him, inch by inch.

****

	Genma lurched up into a sitting position, the sleep 
receding like a black tide. There was something... where was 
he... what...?

	The room around him was dark. Not his room... he had 
descended the shaft into the underground hall, and then had 
gone to sleep in the small living quarters...

	His eyes were unable to see anything but blackness. 
Experimentally, he passed his hand in front of his face; a dim 
outline went by. The electric lights had either failed or been 
turned off.

	He swallowed, trying to clear the haze of sleep from his 
mind. What had he been thinking? If nothing else, leaving the 
lights on would add to the Saotomes' power bill... he should 
have gone back to his own home, and gone to sleep in his own 
room instead of helping himself to his master's private 
retreat.

	Genma sighed. He wished that he were a Saotome. He 
wished that Saotome-sensei were his real grandfather. He 
wished that Grandmother Saotome was his real grandmother. 
He wished Nodoka...

	"If she were your sister, you couldn't marry her," he told 
himself. His voice sounded loud in the darkness.

	And since when had he been afraid of the dark? He had 
gone to Sumatra. He had gone to Laos. He had ventured into 
ancient, haunted temples in the middle of remote jungles past 
the borders of civilization. A shelter in the middle of a 
middle-class neighborhood in Tokyo was nothing to be afraid 
of.

	"Just me and a lot of dust," he said loudly.

	"Glad to hear it," a voice replied.

	Genma leapt to his feet, coming down in a fighting 
stance. That had sounded like...

	"Nodoka?" he called uncertainly.

	A flame flickered into life at the edge of a lighter, 
shedding a small halo of dim light. A face, grey and white 
against the black, bent over it, touching a cigarette to the 
flame. "No."

	He swallowed, watching the lines of the face in the dim 
radiance of the lighter. "I didn't think so."

	She exhaled slowly, sending smoke sweeping about her 
face in a cloud. The light shone greasily through it, rendering it 
indistinct.

	Genma didn't relax his guard. "What do you want, 
sempai?"

	"Sempai?" The tone was amused. "I'm not sure whether to 
be pleased or insulted."

	"You're the master's senior disciple, I suppose," he said 
steadily. "That makes you Sempai."

	"I am not his disciple any more," the face said, the grey 
and white smiling sharply behind the roiling smoke. "Not for a 
long time."

	"I was told you were dead. Nodoka was told you were 
dead."

	She laughed, a painful, tearing sound. In the hollows of 
her face, a ruddy glow blazed up, foxfire against the blackness. 
"And do you think that is incorrect, disciple of the Saotome-
ryuu?"

	There were kami, and things like those in Sumatra. He 
had no trouble believing in ghosts. "No."

	The glow dimmed somewhat.

	"What do you want with me?" he asked.

	"With you? You have come to my place, your mind full of 
sweet thoughts and hate and life, and you ask me this?" Her 
voice moved to a sibilant hiss. "You are like me, disciple of 
Saotome. I can feel your spirit calling."

	Genma shuddered. The last thing he wanted was to be like 
this thing of shade and smoke. "I've heard about you. You 
misused the Art..."

	"No!" the face snapped, white against the blackness. A 
hand moved up to adjust the cigarette. "I brought it to new 
heights. I went beyond what the old man was willing to dole 
out to me, slowly, like scraps to a well-behaved dog."

	"Saotome-sensei teaches the Art at his own pace," he 
replied. "We'll learn everything eventually..."

	"Fool," the shade rasped, sounding amused. "You learn an 
afterthought. What is it that you think he teaches you?"

	"Saotome-ryuu kempo," Genma said, confused. "What else 
would it be?"

	"A pale shadow. A bastardized, watered-down version of 
his true Art. He has never instructed you in the Musabetsu 
Kakutou-ryuu."

	Anything Goes School? "I've never heard of such a thing."

	"It is a powerful Art, the basis of my father's form. Once 
he was a powerful adept of it, before renouncing it to build his 
own style." Minatoko laughed, the sound again making him 
cringe. "He would never have taught me it, and once I would 
have been happy to learn his pathetic dilution. Weak old man! 
He left his scrolls in a bookcase in his study, never thinking 
that his daughter might view them without his permission. I 
read the works of Master Happosai, the first disciple of Master 
Fuhai, and saw their strength. I asked my father to teach me 
their Art. He refused."

	"He must have had a good reason," Genma said defiantly. 
"Saotome-sensei is a great teacher."

	The shade sneered, the red glow forming deep pools in 
the depths of her eyes. "He will teach you nothing that may 
threaten his own greatness, disciple. I went in search of 
Master Happosai myself, but he was nowhere to be found. I 
became convinced that my father had defeated him, sent him 
fleeing. So I sought Master Fuhai instead, who taught Happosai, 
and perhaps my father as well. I found him."

	"You took a new sensei?" Genma said, appalled. "You could 
have studied with my master, been his heir..."

	"He would have denied me my birthright. Master Fuhai 
was willing to teach me. I became his last disciple." She took a 
long drag on her cigarette, sending the oily smoke billowing, 
leaving her for a second as only two glowing points of red in an 
inky sea. "It was hellish, but I learned. The terrible purity of 
it... it made what I had learned before look like a child's 
frightened flailing. Fuhai-sensei died before he could finish my 
training. His heart had grown weak, and I struck him down in 
his own hermitage, and claimed the title of Master of the 
Musabetsu Kakutou-ryuu for myself."

	Genma just stared bleakly, sick at heart. He knew now 
why Grandmother had told Nodoka that her mother had died in a 
training accident. Far better a comforting lie than this reality.

	"That was my mistake, really," Minatoko's shade mused, 
the gray face going angular with regret. The dim light of the 
cigarette bobbed as she adjusted it again. "I was too arrogant. 
He arrived at the hermitage after I destroyed the Nara branch 
of the school - another weak, watered-down version. He was 
not weak. I never saw his face, just the white robes of the 
executioner. Master Happosai."

	She sighed. "I don't believe he even meant to kill me, just 
bend me to his will. Stupid, really. I had taken some young 
people to use in my Art, and I tried to make use of them when I 
realized how much more powerful than me he was. He was 
forced to use a terrible attack to stop me. I do not remember 
seeing the end of it. A pity. It was very good."

	"'Use' them?" he asked reluctantly.

	"Use up would be more accurate. Their deaths would have 
allowed me to defeat him, I believe... it was my focus, you see. 
The door that opened my true potential."

	He shook his head, appalled. "I can see why Saotome-
sensei refused to teach you this horrible Art. I'm amazed he 
ever learned it himself."

	"You are young, as I once was," Minatoko told him, 
sounding somewhat regretful. "You have not yet devoted 
yourself to your Art. You will. I can sense the void in you, 
waiting. You sense it yourself. It was that which drew you 
down to me."

	"No."

	"Do you know why my mother preached at you today? Do 
you?" The white face leered around the cigarette. "It was 
because she saw her daughter in your eyes and in your hands."

	"No."

	"You have blood on your hands, disciple. I can smell it. 
And it was spilled in hatred. I can smell that also. You begin to 
tap the sources of your true strength."

	"I don't want any of your 'true strength'," he shot back 
angrily. "Look what it's gotten you! You could have had the 
school and your daughter! We would have honored you as our 
sempai!"

	"They were never what I wanted," the shade said coldly. 
"Nodoka looked too much like him. Holding her was like holding 
broken glass. My sun went out when he fell into the sea, and all 
that was left was my Art. I should never have loved him to 
begin with."

	Genma started to refute that, but hesitated. Someone 
afraid to have a simple date was in no position to defend the 
costs of loving someone. "You could have had your family."

	"Like you have yours?" Minatoko said mockingly.

	He flinched. "The Saotomes are my family," he whispered. 
"You had so much that I want."

	The shade's pale features softened. "Sometimes we do 
not see how precious something is until we lose it."

	"I just want them to be my real grandparents," Genma 
said miserably. "I want to be able to relax with Nodoka without 
the school hanging over my head. I don't want to feel like I have 
to marry her for them to be my family."

	"You are not yet ready for the true Art," Minatoko said, a 
frustrated hunger in her voice. "I can see that now. This night 
was an echo, a fluke."

	"I told you so," he made himself say.

	"But you will be, in time." She smiled horribly at him. "I 
can see the marks within you. Perhaps you shall be greater 
than I."

	"I will never be like you," Genma told her.

	"You will be."

	He bowed low, heartsick. "I'm sorry, sempai. I'm very 
sorry for you. I would have liked to have trained with Saotome-
sensei's first disciple."

	The cigarette bobbed, sending the shadows dancing 
across the white face. "I would have liked to have taught you."

	"Is there anything I can do for you? Are you unhappy 
here?"

	Another cloud of oily smoke was blown. "You ask the 
fatal question, Genma."

	He blinked. "I don't understand."

	"Saotome Minatoko has long since departed to her rest, 
beyond this world. All I am is just a vivid memory, awakened 
by your own hate and fear and desire. You have called me, and 
once you are done, I will return to the dust of the past, where 
memories belong."

	Genma hung his head. "I'm sorry." He was. It had been 
cruel to call this wretched, twisted thing back from the 
echoes of time.

	A thought occurred to him, and he closed his eyes.

	He thought of the recovery of the sword guard, of how 
Nodoka had gone to so much trouble for him. He thought of her 
bravery in Laos. He thought of all the walks they had taken, the 
sparring they'd done, the jokes they'd shared.

	He thought of the stories she'd told, almost reverently, 
about her mother, memorized from her grandmother and 
grandfather. There weren't many of them, but they'd painted a 
bright picture.

	A hand touched his shoulder, and he opened his eyes.

	"Thank you," Minatoko told him. The red glow was gone, 
the gray and white less gaunt, gentler.

	He nodded, hesitating. "When Nodoka told those stories, I 
wished... I wished that you were my mother too."

	"You would have been a good son." She smiled, and it was 
a warm, genuine thing this time. "Take care of my daughter, 
Genma."

	"I'll try."

	"I know." She sighed. "Let me leave, Genma. This brighter 
self that you've spun for me is painful. I can feel and care 
again, and it hurts..."

	"Go," he told her. "I won't disturb you again."

	"Thank you," she said again. "Some memories are best left 
in peace."

	She took the cigarette from her lips, examined it for a 
second, and then crushed it between her fingers. Darkness fell, 
swift and complete.

****

	Genma opened one eye to the glare of an electric light.

	Slowly, he sat up. He was in the small bedroom off the 
underground hall, still tucked into bed. Outside, he could hear  
the calls of birds.

	Slowly, he stood, paced a few times about the room.

	Then he left, turning off the lights as he did so.

	He returned a few minutes later, then left again, leaving 
the new, bright flowers in the vase.

	The stone went back into place, and earth and moss was 
carefully tamped around it to hide the handle and inscription.

	Genma examined his handiwork, nodded, and left. The 
grocery and the day's work were waiting.

-----------------------------

		The melancholy I'd felt vanished after that. It 
	would return from time to time, periodically, but never 
	as strong, and  never lasting.

		I was never really sure if it hadn't been a dream. 
	Later on, as the things that Minatoko had told me began 
	to rear themselves, I became convinced that I had, 
	indeed, awakened some echo that had been better left 
	undisturbed. Perhaps it has faded with time. Perhaps not. 
	The underground training hall is still there, undisturbed 
	and best left so.

		It was the first time I heard the name of Master 
	Happosai. I suppose it should have warned me, but there 
	was more, far more to it than that...

		I really did learn almost nothing from it all.

		Minatoko's shade knew me too well, I fear. But she 
	was not right, son. I am not her. And should the memory 
	of me rise to speak to some future disciple of the 	
	Saotome-ryuu, in a dark night of the soul, it will not be a 
	twisted thing like her, curled around her empty Art like a 
	serpent around a ball of thorns.

		I am fiercely proud of that, because it could have 
	so easily been different...

		I get ahead of myself again.

		The name of Happosai would return, soon enough. 
	And the trouble it put us to... well, I suppose some things 
	never change...