The Tales of the Ninja Coder

I arrived at Castle Noriaibasha this morning to find a priestess waiting in the courtyard… with a variety of food. “Good morning!” she said brightly, and offered me some.

There were rice and eggs, takuan and umeboshi. There was tamagoyaki, and miso soup, and even natto, for those who like such things. And there were both broiled salmon and mackerel! But who was this woman, and why should I eat her food?

It turns out her name is Kaori (not to be mistaken for Kaoru, the yamabushi who’s teaching a katana course!), and she is one of the Shomei-gumi, the clan of heralds who placed me with Clan Noriaibasha in the first place! She is here on something of a continuing goodwill mission, to meet with various priests and nobles and remind them that the Shomei-gumi is always ready to supply talented people to aid in any endeavor.

I introduced myself, and she said she has heard my name mentioned at their castle. I told her I had originally been placed here by Megumi, and then Kaisei became my contact, and they were both gone from the gumi now… but they had reported to Rina. Was she still there?

No, she is not. It seems the Shomei-gumi is as turbulent as ever.

But Kaori gave me information on how to contact her, in case I should ever need to speak with someone at the Shomei-gumi again. And I took some tamagoyaki, and of course some of the broiled salmon and mackerel, and went off to my weapons locker to prepare for the day. And now, I must depart and go kill people.

Real-world Note: If you’re confused by the selection of breakfast foods, you may want to learn more about traditional Japanese breakfasts:

on About.com
on Wikipedia

The cultural subtext to the listing of foods in the second paragraph is basically, “Wow, this was quite a diverse spread of tasty breakfast foods!”