The Tales of the Ninja Coder

I arrived at the castle yesterday morning, collected my weapons, and went out to Zaiseikyōiku to see how things were progressing. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that Sakito had killed the wrong targets. I gave him very precise instructions, but he apparently did not understand them.

Luckily, the people he killed will not be missed… or at least, their deaths will not be traceable back to Clan Noriaibasha. He has at least that much competence at his ninja skills.

But the people we do need killed are still very much alive. Snarling curses upon Sakito and his ancestors, I set about finding and slaying them…

…only to be visited by Makishi, who asked me to return to the castle for a meeting with Sakito, Kento and him, to discuss our progress in Ogaribamen and Zaiseikyōiku.

I was very good. I did not state, “Sakito is incapable of following simple instructions.” Instead, I simply reported that we still have people to kill, and I am taking care of that today, and I had been doing so before I was pulled back to the castle. After the meeting was done, I spent the rest of the day in Zaiseikyōiku, frantically hunting down and killing enemies.

I have more to kill today. Then tomorrow there is another of those strategy-planning meetings which will occupy the entire afternoon. Before it starts, I have sworn I will have all our opposition in Zaiseikyōiku cleared away.

That is why I am very busy.

Last week, I was assigned to recon — and eventually kill — a mercenary unit called the Naihō Cadre. They are operating in various places within Zaiseikyōiku. It turns out they are also well-organized, well-equipped, and professional.

It will take some slick kama work, and all of my skill with the manrikigusari, in order to defeat these fighters. Also, I must be cunning and use careful tactics. It will be quite an adventure!

In the meantime, there are other things going on outside the Saitekika campaign and the region of Sanigata. There is the ongoing Pagoda Bearer project, which requires a shrine to Bishamonten. We have a scroll that describes a ryū called the Tsuiseki-Dō, which we wish to experiment with. Sadly, it turns out that the Tsuiseki-Dō requires that the shrine be equipped with sandalwood incense.

Ours has camphor and camellia incense. And the priests of the Jōdō Shū branch, who oversee such things, tell us we may not use sandalwood incense here.

So we will have to modify every step of the entire ryū to work the way we need it to. This will be quite an arduous task.

We have a mercenary helping us, a man named Shinju. He has been assigned to read through every move, looking for the cuts, parries, and attacks that will need to be modified. I am acting mostly in a supervisory capacity, alongside the priest, Riki who is in charge of this project.

As much as I enjoy the Pagoda Bearer ryū, this Tsuiseki project becomes less enjoyable every day, as I keep having to come back to Castle Noriaibasha instead of scouting the Naihō Cadre or other enemies in the field.

A week after I arrived at Clan Noriaibasha’s headquarters, my fellow ninja Ginsaku arrived. Since then, we have been comrades in battle, fighting for the clan’s interests. But unlike me, Ginsaku was never formally inducted into Clan Noriaibasha.

As a result, there is only so long he can stay here. His time with the clan is now growing short. Soon, if there is time, I hope he and I can go out to an inn and chat for a while before he leaves us.

I understand he has secured a temporary position with the armies of Clan Toyotomi, which is quite prestigious. I am glad for his success and continued good fortune, but I will miss him.

Sakito and Satonori will remain, as will Kento of course. But we will need to find more ninjas to take care of all the urban fighting that needs to be done. (Yes, this means you may look forward to some tales of how we test our applicants, and whether any of them can complete a Three-and-Five Strike.)

There is far too much to do. Sakito and I are busy clearing out opposition in Zaiseikyōiku. In the meantime, there was a project a few months ago to set up a shrine to Bishamonten and do some Pagoda Bearer fighting… This project was delayed for some months, but it has now been resurrected. This is wonderful news!

Of course, it needs to be done almost immediately. This is not surprising, but it does mean that I am quite busy, rushing back and forth from Zaiseikyōiku to Castle Noriaibasha.

And in the meantime, I have been invited to a large meeting which I must attend. It seems unrelated to any of the other projects that I am involved in. I can only hope that I am not too unprepared to understand what is going on.

Addendum: I arrived at the meeting to find that every other person present was a noble, or a priest of the prestigious Tendai order. “Surely this cannot be the right meeting for me,” I thought. I received a copy of the scroll that everyone else was reading from, and it spoke of all sorts of religious matters and the nobles’ plans.

Obviously, someone made a mistake by inviting me to that meeting. Luckily, as a ninja, it was easy for me to slip out without disrupting the proceedings. Now I can return to the shrine and continue the duties that are proper for me.

I wrote, before, that being selected to represent Clan Noriaibasha at the warriors’ gathering in Hiroshima is a great honor. And so it is — but it also means that I must spend some time preparing! Akane is busy packing my luggage for the long journey. Since I will be representing the clan, and will probably have to attend various social functions, I must bring at least one formal kimono. I will also need food for the journey, and tabi that slip off easily for occasions when the Emperor’s guards inspect the carriage at checkpoints… It is quite a lot to prepare, and I have not much time.

Aside from that, I must have all our opposition in Ogaribamen cleared away before I go. Otherwise, Makishi and his team will not be able to do their work in my absence.

Since Amon and the people of Clan Hekoayu are still identifying exactly who our opponents are, this makes my life quite difficult. I have been given very little time to find and kill these people. It seems every day, I receive new orders: “The twin rōnins? They are still targets, but now you must kill them separately, not together!” — “Don’t worry about the enemy ninja who wears the signs of Ten and One; he can wait for later.” — “The two merchants, the fat one in the green kimono and his skinny partner in blue. They must both die as soon as possible!” “Will Friday suffice?” “Can you make sure it’s done tomorrow? Preferably in the morning.”

Amid all this chaos, I persevere.

I have a shameful confession to make. It is an explanation for why I have been so quiet.

Last week, as I was preparing to leave Hoshiakari and go to Castle Noriaibasha, there was a knock at the door. “Who can that be?” I wondered, and opened it… to find a short, plump traveler in a straw hat.

“Pardon me, good sir,” he said, “would you happen to have any sake you can spare?”

“Is it not early in the morning for drinking?” I asked.

“Perhaps you may be right. Then might I trouble you for some tea?” he continued, insistently.

I felt wary, but… I would not wish to begrudge a traveler such simple comforts. “Wait here, and I will bring you a cup,” I said. I turned away to the kitchen. When I looked back, the traveler was in my living room! Bouncing a small golden ball!

“You should not be inside my house!” I told him. “I asked you to wait outside. It is a pleasant morning.”

“But I am inside,” he cried. “You let me in!” He laughed, and his face melted into the wide-eyed, short-snouted, furry face of a tanuki — then he bolted past me, out the door, and ran away, quick as a whirlwind.

A tanuki! I knew I was in trouble now. Carefully, I checked around the house to see if anything was missing.

I quickly found the problem: My ninja-tō was covered with rust. In fact, it was completely turned into rust, as if it had forged from pure rust in the first place! And my kama… its blade was bent into a knot! And every one of my manrikigusari’s links had been turned into a loop of udon noodle. The Jeikyū grappling hook had been turned into an artful bouquet of flowers.

As for my sansetsukon… in that case, the tanuki left the metal fittings alone, but the wood was transformed into nattō. As was my bō staff, which was thankfully outside in the yard at the time.

I had no time to weep over my now-weaponless state. I had to go to Castle Noriaibasha and perform my daily duties there. Since the clan supplies the weapons I must use on their behalf, I was able to do my work. But for the past few days, I have come home every evening and been very occupied with trying to restore my own weapons.

I have had to cut and whittle new kama handles. I have had to visit the blacksmith’s shop to have him forge me new blades, and new chains, and a new grappling hook. My new bō is now ready, and the blacksmith will have my sansetsukon done tomorrow.

I will be much more wary of tanuki in the future.

I have written before about Taka, the servant woman who works with the clan’s supplies and organization division. By her efforts, the Kokakumanzoku division has been effective, efficient and well-organized.

Also, she is a friendly presence at the castle — true, she is not from Iga Province, but she is from the nearby Kōga region. Having her around makes me feel like there is someone here who understands me.

But all good things come to an end. Taka is now leaving the clan, going to seek her fortune with a school in the capital city, one which teaches the daughters of noble families and rich merchants. I am not the only one saddened by this news; the entire division is sorry to see her go. Lord Mayoku, the noble in charge of the Kokakumanzoku division, issued a proclamation yesterday thanking her for her service, and expressing our deep regrets at her departure.

Tonight, there will be a tearful farewell enkai. I suspect many of the clan will have headaches tomorrow morning.

Today is quite full of meetings. In the afternoon, there is a large meeting with Clan Hekoayu to lay out our plans for the Saitekika campaign. We have found tat the priests’ and nobles’ concerns are different from the ones we warriors have, so we now — finally — have a weekly meeting that is just the warriors of Clan Noriaibasha talking with the tacticians of Hekoayu. They even bring along one of their front-line fighters, just to be sure they have someone on their side who understands what combat is like.

In the morning, Kento and I meet with Amon to discuss what we need to say to Hekoayu in the afternoon, and what we need to be sure to get from them. In essence, we are having a meeting to plan what we will do in the following planning meeting.

But it is necessary that we are sure of our strategy in dealing with Hekoayu, for otherwise, they will be at too great an advantage in our dealings.

And this is the plan for every Wednesday for the next few weeks.

As always, everything is in flux. Kento tells me that the training sessions to begin the Shiemesu Raisei campaign have been postponed by a week. This means that my schedule for next week is completely unknown. (But perhaps this means I will finally have some time to re-consecrate the temple of Inari in Hoshiakari — I have been laying some plans in that regard, and this may be the opportunity I need!)

All the Mōjin have been driven from Ichimen. However, every time we think the Ayamari are gone, more show up. I suspect there is some sort of secret Ayamari lair somewhere, with a hidden tunnel that allows the sneak in from outside the city. A pack of them surprised me during my battle with the rōnin from Mikawa yesterday afternoon. By the time I had dispatched them, the rōnin was gone.

I had already wounded him sorely. He may have died of his wounds later on, or he may have decided to leave the area entirely. Or he may come back to bedevil us next week. There is no way of knowing.

It may be just as well. This morning, it seems the younger brother of the bandit from Yoshino, who I slew over two weeks ago, has arrived to seek vengeance. Fortunately, he does not seem such a skilled fighter as his elder brother — but the Yoshino tactics allow him to fade back into the forest, and I cannot pursue without help from Seijun or his team.

Needless to say, they are all too busy right now. If only one of them would become available for assistance, I could finish off this last foe.

The bandit from Yoshino is still bedeviling us. He seems to mostly be hiding in the forests lately, outside my realm. Seijun and his team have been far too busy with other matters to even pursue him.

The greatest of those “other matters” is the dire situation in Kurabero-no-Hako. We knew at the outset that we would have to handle a gang there called the Obigurafu. Seijun said his team could take care of them, using a style especially designed for such problems called the Kabachaato-ryū. Unfortunately, it turns out the Obigurafu gang is quite persistent… and the Kabachaato style is simply not flexible enough to handle their tactics.

If we cannot eradicate the Obigurafu, the entire campaign will be a failure.

Of course, even if we can, there are still many other problems. The Mōjin have made a resurgence, and if we do not deal with them, we will be forced to retreat and give up the entire territory — we would otherwise be in violation of the Emperor’s decree. Just as the Obigurafu gang is Seijun’s problem, so the Mōjin are mine.

And still the Ayamari proliferate, and we are falling further and further behind schedule.

I have just received a message from Kento: One of the high nobles will be coming to investigate our progress, and try to determine what can be done.

My suspicion is that the entire campaign will have to be called off… or at least, subjected to a complete restructuring.