A Scroll of Much Confusion

[ninja_coder]

Yesterday, Kento and I met with Rajan, Seijun, and another of the forest samurai. Rajan has a scroll written by some warrior-sage high in the clan, describing some battle tactics which are supposed to ensure the safety of our warriors.

This scroll is very confusing, and at least one of the manrikigusari techniques that it calls for makes no sense at all. It’s a needless flourish which won’t make us any safer or assist us to strike the enemy harder.

Over and over again, the scroll says things which are completely unclear. Many times during the meeting, all five of us were scratching our heads and asking each other, “Do you know what that means? No? I don’t, either.”

Since these techniques were presented to us as “guidelines”, not orders, Kento made me very happy by saying, “I can tell you now: My ninjas will not be following these guidelines.” Rajan thinks the sage must know something we don’t, but even he must admit that he isn’t sure what it could be.

He is trying to set up another meeting, where the sage himself can explain to us why and how these techniques can help. We shall see how that goes.

In the meantime… today may involve another trip to Nagoya. It’s supposed to be a simple pick-up: just meet with our operative at a restaurant, where he’ll pass me a message that I must bring back here to the castle. But things have a way of going wrong in Nagoya. Wish me luck!

This was originally published at The Tales of the Ninja Coder. You may comment here, if you wish, but Ichirō invites you to comment at his humble blog.