The Tales of the Ninja Coder

I should describe my work with Clan Tenya, when I get a chance. I have been very busy, traveling and hiding and fighting along the trails in the forests of Ōmi Province. But for now, I should tell of my recent meeting with Iyona.

When I joined Clan Nettobuku, she was the most holy of the priestesses of the Nichiren Buddhist order, until the abbess Jīya came to join the clan. I had recently heard that Clan Nettobuku's fortunes have not been good, and many of the clan's members have left. Others were turned away in a large group a few weeks ago, much as I was turned out last year — and as others were sent away, only a month after I joined the clan.

Iyona, being very good at her priestess-ly skills, quickly found a new post with one of the larger and better-known clans of Settsu Province, with headquarters in Naniwa and castles from Edo to Heian-kyō. On Monday, I went to meet her for lunch at a tasty restaurant in the capital.

Her new clan is a very large one, and she has been accustomed to small ones. She is now but one priestess among many. But aside from that, she prospers and thrives. She also told me some news of Clan Nettobuku's fortunes after my departure.

I had hoped to hear that Jimon's strange strategies, based so strongly on Living Stone techniques, had caused part of the clan's problems. To be honest, I wanted to know that I had been unquestionably right, and Jimon unquestionably wrong, about our strategy.

But of course, life is never so simple and clear-cut. Iyona, being a priestess and not a warrior, was not so involved in the details of strategy. What she did know is that Lord Tai, for all his experience in Izumi Province, knows very little of conditions in Ōmi. Commander Kobushi, for all his previous skill as an individual warrior, had no desire for command. And so the Clan's core was not centered.

They successfully took a small part of the territory they aimed for. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to hold it. Apparently Jimon has left to form his own clan — a thing which I suspect must end in disaster, for he is not a leader who can inspire others. He is too much in love with his own fighting skill, and so he concocts stunningly intricate kata, then is surprised when nobody else can master them.

Iyona did mention that Clan Nettobuku was having trouble finding warriors who could cope with Jimon and Bunmei's strange kata. And that even they, when faced with a new problem, would often find it easier to simply invent new kata than to adapt the old ones. This is probably the closest thing I will ever receive to a sign that my intuitions were right.

Two nights after my lunchtime meeting with Iyona, Akane and I had dinner with our good friend Arisa and her husband Baku. I spoke of my current clan and their current plans, and the fact that I must have the mountain passes and the path from Hikone to Kotobasatsuki clear, by Wednesday. And there was some talk of my time with Clan Nettobuku. It very quickly became clear that even speaking of my time with Nettobuku made me very tense and anxious, while my current responsibilities... they may be an important and difficult task, which is its own sort of burden. But now I am motivated to do my best, not tied in knots by frustration and worry.

I am still very busy, but I will try to, at the very least, keep sending small messages and haikus. And I have some larger tales to recount, as soon as I have some time to write them down.

This morning, Jimon interviewed another candidate for Clan Nettobuku's warrior corps. When Saimei asked him what he thought of the candidate, Jimon said he was "a brash young fellow... like the rest of us."

I think this is the problem I have with Clan Nettobuku. The others here are, for the most part, young and brash, and I feel that they have not been wounded enough times to appreciate their own fallibility. Only Commander Kobushi and Captain Tomo are older than I, and the others are much younger.

Of course, because I have taken very good care of myself, I look nearly as young as they — and because I came late to the ways of combat, they may actually have more experience than I do. And my worries about being fallible, and easily wounded, may just be my own insecurity and defeatism. In which case, it'd be stupid of me to project that onto the others, and hold back our progress.

But still, I worry.

 
I have written before about the steep and slippery rooftops of Nagoya, the city of woe. Today, my duties take me back to Nagoya, but I will not need to deal with the rooftops. Instead, I must do some work in the streets.

Of course, nothing in Nagoya is easy. The streets are small and cramped, and there is often no room to swing a chain or use a staff. Today, I am trying to get past the guards by carrying no weapons at all — only a kama, the scythe carried by so many peasants as part of their farming duties. It has very short range.

Daigo is having a bad day, too. He had hoped to turn the clan's yamabushi duties over to Ishin, the new addition to our numbers. However, Ishin has been quite ill of late, and so he had to leave us. Daigo is now going back to clearing the mountain trails, so that the Nichiren priestesses can meet with some merchants of Sakai to help continue to fund our operations.
 

 
In our morning meditation today, Saimei said "Yesterday was a frustrating day for me. But the nice thing about frustrating days is that they are often followed by breakthrough days."

Airi reported that there is trouble in the small town of Aikontō, where Bunmei was working yesterday. Bunmei is ill today, so I left the castle and went quickly to Aikontō. There, I found a couple of Ayamari that Bunmei must have missed when he was there yesterday. A few quick moves with my hooked manriki chain, and I was able to slay them.

And Jimon knows that I did something. I did something useful, and I did it quickly.

Maybe it's not just frustrating days; maybe it's also frustrating weeks. And maybe next week will be a breakthrough week for me. I pray to Kannon that it may be so.

 
We are done with our Hitotsu Nanako campaign. Astonishingly, all of the territory we planned to take... we have actually taken, successfully! Usually, there is some left over at the end of a campaign, but not this time.

Commander Kobushi is proud of us. I feel that my own efforts contributed very little to our victory. Practically every kill I made, and every target I slew, required far too much time spent in trailing, sneaking, and laborious covert-entry.

Tomorrow, we will have a day of meetings with the Nichiren priestesses and the high lords, to review what we have achieved. The next day, we will plan our strategies for the upcoming Hitotsu Hakko campaign. On Friday, we start combat operations.

In the meantime, today is to be spent practicing more acrobatic techniques and defensive rolls, in the Arusupekku style that Benjirō has just explained to us.

I must continue to study hard and increase my skills this winter. I am tired of feeling like an amateur.

 
I have performed an extremely useful task for Clan Nettobuku, which will make life much easier for all of the clan's ninjas whenever we need to work in Nagoya, the chief city of Oda's lands. After much sneaking and infiltration in the city guard's headquarters and even in the regional lord's castle, I have secured some of the special grappling hooks that can gain a purchase on the city's rooftops. The city guard keeps a very tight grip on these hooks, and the penalty for being caught with them is death by torture.

But with these hooks on our manrikigusari chains, Bunmei, Jimon, Benjirō and I can go anywhere in the city, instead of being restricted to the streets and alleyways — and the city guards' many checkpoints. True, the rooftops themselves are still steep, slippery, and dangerous. But we will persevere.

My reward for bringing these valuable items back to the castle? The Nichiren abbess, Jīya, demanding to know about my plans for wintertime holidays, so she can plan the most auspicious times for company meditations. "I needed to know this yesterday!" she said. Truly, it is good to have one's efforts given the proper importance.

As further improvement of my day, I then attended a meeting in which Jimon taught the rest of the warriors about his new kata, which will be important to our work in the central provinces of Kawachi and Yamato. Of course, Jimon's kata are very pure examples of the Living Stone style. Perhaps I am simply overreacting to a slight overdose of Living Stone (and maybe also to Jimon himself), but his latest kata remind me uncomfortably of the Sturdy Pillar ryū that so annoyed me at Clan Iwinaga.

And, beyond that, Jimon... is not the best instructor. A good instructor can make difficult and complex matters simple and easy to understand. Jimon's presentation is disorganized and cursory, and may actually make simple matters seem more difficult than they truly are. He admits that he will not be writing any instructional scrolls, and that we all will simply have to study the movements on our own.

But no matter. I will study, and I will learn what is good in the Living Stone ryū, and I will not let what is bad in it cause me to reject the entire path.

And tomorrow, I will use the special Nagoya hook to track down and slay a merchant in Nagoya, a man who it turns out is aiding both our Ātosugijei and Reki enemies. I will keep my skills sharp, and when the new year comes, I will find a better clan.

 
I have been busy studying enemy encampments, learning and practicing the intricate Living Stone kata Bunmei and Jimon have created, and occasionally using them against enemies. I have come more and more to realize that Jimon does not consider me a complete fool, and I can argue with him despite his gruff and impassive demeanor.

Last week, we added a new ninja at Clan Nettobuku, a man named Benjirō. He has been hard at work, learning our clan's kata and weapon styles. It sometimes seems as if Jimon and Bunmei simply want to start their own ryū — they could become the founders of Nettobuku-ryū.

Today, however, we had a very upsetting thing happen. I was concentrating hard, and barely saw Binya, the Sōtō Zen monk, walk out with his bowl in hand and his bag on his back. Then Commander Kobushi interrupted our activities, and gathered us together to let everyone know that Binya has left the clan.

Clan Nettobuku is firmly committed to the principles of the Flowing Motion school. Binya has philosophical disagreements with this school; Commander Kobushi says that he will most likely seek a different clan, whose Way is in closer accord with his beliefs. His protegé, Airi, will now be our only Sōtō Zen monk, and she is quite adept in the Flowing Motion teachings.

Still, this is very upsetting to me, and I feel that I should redouble my efforts to improve my own skills, so that I can also depart when the time is opportune. For now, however, I have important kata to practice — and when those are done, some powerful enemies to slay. I must put aside my worry.

 
Today is a day of many meetings at Castle Nettobuku. We are attempting to use more of the techniques of the Flowing Motion school in our strategy, and we have just had a session in which Commander Kobushi, Jīya, and the Sōtō Zen priestess Airi explained to us how to carry out some of the Flowing Motion techniques — from individual kata up to broad strategies. (Airi previously worked with a clan that used the Flowing Motion school to great effect, so she has useful experience with it.)

Also, today we are starting our Hitotsu Nanako campaign. In some ways, this is a bit of a disappointment for us, as we were hoping to move on to the Futatsu Ikkō region after taking Hitotsu Rokko (our most recent sortie). Sadly, there is still resistance, and our victory is nowhere near complete. The Ayamari-gumi still confound our efforts. (Indeed, we have some hopes that the new Flowing Motion techniques will help us to defeat the Ayamari, and to be more effective in general.)

 
[This is going to be a weird mish-mash of ninja-speak and modern tech parlance. Sorry. I haven't got a lot of spare time, and it's hard to figure out how to say some of this stuff, so I'm just typing it up and posting it as fast as I can.]

I have finished taking care of all three of my targets in Nagoya, where only skilled ninjas succeed, and Jīya says I'm on schedule with my assassinations. On Sunday, Jimon checked in some changes that broke everything, and he had to spend all of Monday (and I think part of today) fixing it.

I need to tell myself that I am not messing up.

I feel bad because nearly all of my code winds up getting rewritten into some other format and style. I'm sure the other ninjas' code gets similarly rewritten, but since I'm not one of the ones doing the rewriting, I feel like it's just "No, your code sucks and needs to be changed. All the time."

I wish I knew if I get to rewrite their stuff or not... (Not today. I have way too much catch-up to do.)

 
Today, Bunmei and I tested another fighter who wanted to join Clan Nettobuku. This one was also unsuitable, though he did try. He was far more competent than the last one. This warrior had most recently spent time in the armies of Clan Shinano, and is very familiar with mounted combat. But he's versatile; he also knows the bo and jo staffs, and has familiarity with the sansetsukon, and the various chain and sickle weapons most used by urban ninjas.

But he isn't very good with nearly any of them. Though he can get through some basic kata with the manrikigusari, it was interesting to observe his stance with the sansetsukon: he had a basic, functional ability, but his footwork showed that he was still thinking of it like a sword.

He just wasn't as skilled as we needed. We will have to keep looking.