HERO

She stared into the eyes of a dying man. And for the first time she saw something, veiled by all the pain and suffering he had recently suffered. Just a tiny glimpse….. the reason for all the pain he had and was  enduring, the reason why there was a gaping wound at his side. And which left her speechless……

   

     Yoshi was a dreamer, always had been since childhood. He lived constantly in a world of dragons, castles, misty woodlands, dangerous quests, treasure caves and all the rest of the fairytale clichés. He also had a Princess, and he considered it his duty and honour in protecting her body and soul. This protectiveness soon blossomed into a deep love. 

However he was so inadvertently shy, he could never really express himself properly to Gina,his beloved Princess. And Gina, being a girl, remained oblivious to the real intentions behind Yoshi’s protectiveness, and saw him as the doting elder brother her own brother never could be.

   

The year, when Gina turned 18 and Yoshi 21, was one of great events. The Satsuma-Choshu alliance was forged to restore Japan to Imperial rule. The Tokugawa Shogunate realised that the time for it to pass into history had slowly but surely arrived. At this point of time, Buddhism and Shintoism were the two major religions of Japan. The seeds of Christianity had been sowed three centuries earlier by St. Francis Xavier. Though they still remained a niche community, they had grown in number enough to be taken into account, by the time of the Meiji Restoration.

    Gina’s days passed as unobtrusively as possible in this time of great events. Only the hours spent with Yoshi did not seem to be dull to her. Then came Jack Ichihiro and threw her serene world into stormy turmoil.

     

   She pushed the strong, sinewy body away from her and leaned back on a tree-trunk. She was breathless but felt exhilarated. It was her first kiss! Her honey-brown eyes were swimming with unfathomable emotions, wanting but not daring to ask for more. She looked at the handsomely arrogant face, and still couldn’t quite comprehend the depth of the bottomless pit of emotions welling inside of her. The feelings within her chest seemed alien, as if she had stolen them from someone else and hidden them there. But they had injected her with some kind of adrenaline, making her bolder, reckless. Sometimes dangerously so!  Jack came close to her and ran a finger down her cheek sending shivers down her spine. It had been two weeks since they had first professed their mutual feelings, and had started meeting in secret. Even Yoshi didn’t know about this, but she would tell him herself, soon….very soon…..

   It was almost sunset, and as the sunlight filtered through the many leaves it gave everything a golden halo. Yoshi stood on the edge of the clearing, waiting. She emerged from the darkening foliage, like a forest nymph coming out of hiding. As she moved into the light, Yoshi felt the breath catch in his chest, like always. But when he noticed another figure rustling in the shrubbery, a dull throb started in his heart which erupted in a raging volcano as Jack Ichihiro emerged into the gathering twilight.

       It had been three days since he had come to know about their affair, two days since Jack’s sister was kidnapped and then found dead, with a ‘warning’ note around her neck, a single day since he had taken them to the old, abandoned  hut in the middle of the forests some distance from town. He needed to act fast, Gina’s father would have come to know about the hut by now, he himself had made sure of that. The plan was to escape to the river, from where a boat would take them to the coast to a ship setting sail for Korea. No sooner did the boat slip into the water, than men burst through the trees, waving battle-axes and samurai swords. Without a word Yoshi leaped to the shore slashed through the first wave. Before even the onslaught could be registered, Yoshi was back in the boat rowing away in fury. As the twilight gave way to darkness, they suddenly heard the silent swishing of oars uncomfortably close by. Yoshi stood up to peer behind them, and an arrow struck his left side. He collapsed lurching the boat off-balance.Gina persuaded Jack to beach the boat, and they half-carried, half-dragged Yoshi into the dense jungle. They weren’t far from the coast but with one of their party unable to walk, the going was agonizingly slow. When they couldn’t carry him any longer, they set Yoshi down against a tree. His breath had become ragged, and a lot of blood had also flown from his body. Gina saw that the arrowhead was still embedded in his side. With a mighty pull she tugged the arrowhead free and then tried to staunch the fresh flow of blood with her small delicate hands. The yellowing skin around the wound opening confirmed her fears of the arrow being poisoned. 

    Jack was nowhere in sight, but  Gina was too preoccupied with Yoshi to even notice his absence. As she was tying a piece of cloth torn from her own robe as bandage, Yoshi placed a bloody hand on her’s and pulled her forward, “ If I can’t have you in my life, its not worth living anymore…” he gasped. And before even realising what she was doing, she was enveloped in a passionate kiss with him. Those new feelings and sensations that were still young and raw in her threatened to burst their dams, but at that moment Yoshi pushed her away. Gina continued to stare into Yoshi’s dark eyes, swimming with emotions long suppressed, long unexpressed, true feelings of a man whose heart had been broken beyond repair. She was too shocked to look anything but dumbfounded. She remembered all the things Yoshi had done for her all throughout their lives. And now understood, it wasn’t a simple friend or a brother helping her out. The reasons went much, much deeper than she could have ever imagined.

   She sat there and let herself be immersed deeper into those dark pools of untold promises and unsaid vows. Her reverie was broken by the arrival of Jack, saying that they needed to hurry, the coast wasn’t much farther nor were the men behind them. Jack helped Yoshi up and they continued on their path. With Yoshi just managing to hobble behind, and Gina looking forlorn.

            It was autumn and the pink blossoms were a-bloom! 

       The air was heavy with a sweet fragrance. It helped to soothe their frayed nerves and mend their souls. But they continued on, reluctantly. On reaching the coast, they saw a boat on the shore waiting to take them onboard the ship floating in the distance. Jack got into the boat first, Gina turned to Yoshi, wanting to say something but even her eyes were unable to convey anything as she felt herself suddenly devoid of any feeling. “I couldn’t be your lover,”, she whispered into Yoshi’s chest as they hugged,” but I promise you’ll be the hero I tell my grandchildren about.........”

      They were on the boat, watching Yoshi fall behind. Suddenly from the forest edge, out tumbled a mass of men, Yoshi fell upon them as a boulder and crushed them all. He supported himself on his sword and tried to raise his hand in a final farewell. Suddenly a man with a long bow emerged from the thickets, and let fly an arrow. It whizzed though the air, burst through Yoshi’s bosom, and kept travelling even after that. It cut through Gina’s long hair as she ducked, and she heard it strike wood behind her. When she looked behind, Jack Ichihiro was pinned to the mast, with the arrow through his neck……

   

Gina's elder brother looked on, with a mixture of utter sadness and elation, as the boat disappeared over the horizon and a blood-drenched sun set on the Age of The Samurai in the Land of The Rising Sun……….