DAY 119
MORNING
An early morning Fish Girl fighting session threatens to make sushi out of sashi-her and sashi-me!
THE ROYAL PALACE OF THE KINGDOM
I INHALED A BIG WHIFF of fresh morning air and listened to the angry squawking of some giant bird off in the distance. Ahh. Nothing like a good squawking in the morning.
“Wait—back up. A giant bird?! You mean a monster?”
At the sound of my voice, three pairs of glares disentangled themselves from the blankets and launched themselves in my direction. Ahh. Nothing like a nice glare or three in the morning.
“Heya. Don’t look at me like that. You all had your fun letting me collect lots of data, so I had to get revenge. Yeah, vengeance is mine? And I didn’t do anything wrong? Yup, that Marionette Ring was a great find.”
Yup yup, I may have endured brutal humiliation and wound up buying it halfway in tears, but the “Marionette Ring: Dexterity +30%. Control Abilities Boost (large)” was worth every bit of disgrace. And having Slimey there netted me a couple’s discount?
“Bluh!” Evidently, the dungeon emperors were not a fan.
The ring was enormously effective. It offered such fine tentacular control that I’d increased my tentacle capacity fourfold. Now packing twelve tentaculicious tendrils, there wasn’t a patch of skin that’d gone un-juiced up, not a crevice that hadn’t been explored, not a cramped space that hadn’t been wormed into and wriggly worked until said space’s owner had combusted in a ball of flames. Now take that and multiply it times twelve. The result? The ultimate fondle fest. Once the girls had flopped over, exhausted, modeling the happy baby pose or splaying open their legs like the letter M, I’d gone to town to make them as happy, jubilant, and joyful as I could! The girls had had no complaints about the equipment—it was the poses that’d bothered them, if the mega-death glares had been anything to go by. Maybe it was the horizontal version of a standing split that’d done it?
“Look, I need a healthy dose of glares to start the day off right. Once I have the right glares in me, I know everything’s bound to come up Haruka. Without my daily dose, I just don’t know what to do! In other words, I didn’t do anything wrong?”
Glaaaaaare.
I revived the three immobile ingenues and read the writing on the wall—those weren’t good morning glares. No, those were wiping-Haruka-off-the-face-of-the-earth glares. Time to run! Before I get chewed out! Those glarey glarers sure are furious. So I peaced out. The famous proverb “Play with fire, and you get burned; now, play with a fiery young thing, on the other hand…” rang in my ears.
I wanted nothing more than to leap back into bed and horse around with this trio of firebrands, but no! It was morning, and I had morning things to do, such as radio calisthenics, wuxingquan, and tai chi. I did a set of each, and then I started all over with weapons. I took up my knock-off of the oni-slaying Dojigiri, the Old Dude Slayer Mwa Ha Ha, and rechristened it the “The Thought of Slaying Old Ladies Makes Me Quake, I’d Rather Kill Old Dudes Instead!” If you’re thinking the name changes constantly, it’s not just you. I can never remember what I’ve named the darn thing, so I just call it whatever pops into my head.
“Hoo! Hah! Hoo!”
The closest Skill I had to ichi no tachi was Life or Death, my all-or-nothing, ultra-close-range sword attack. In this secret technique, if the opponent faltered, the practitioner pushed forward and struck. If the opponent attempted to take the initiative, the practitioner darted out of range and struck first.
In stories and myth, ichi no tachi was synonymous with its legendary creator Tsukahara Bokuden. In real life, we didn’t know what this art truly was. Much of what we knew about Bokuden himself, even, was myth. He was said to be a master of every kind of martial art that ever was. No matter who he’d fought or what weapon he’d faced, he’d adapted his fighting techniques on the fly to overcome any obstacle thrown his way. This had resulted in him emerging victorious from no less than nineteen sword duels and thirty-seven battles with a record of zero defeats and a paltry six wounds—all of which had come from arrows. Over the course of his career, he’d slain 212 opponents personally. However, his legend had truly begun later in life, when he’d developed the secret sword art ichi no tachi.
“Now, how does this go again… It is said that within one sworde—and his swordman—existeth three things that determine his primacy in a faight? The fortunes of Heauen set him off right; terrene aduantages gyue him insight? But both of these factors are truly slight? A moost good swordman knoweth that he fears the guy with rapport with all of his peers? Everything else is a whole lotta cruft; one’s character is what matters—and stuff?”
Ichi no tachi had later been developed out of these principles in what become the Kashima school of kenjutsu. In this art, the practitioner begins either with their sword in its scabbard, to be brought out in a reverse draw, or in a free, ready to swing, position. The sword does not protect the wielder’s body from incoming attack; rather, it leaves the wielder open and defenseless, which in turn invites the opponent to attack. If, when dodging, the tip of the opponent’s sword is over one sun—about three centimeters—away, the ichi no tachi practitioner is encouraged to disengage. The sword fighter must be within five bu (1.5 cm) to close the remaining distance and strike down their assailant. This principle is called issun no hazure, gobu no hazure: the one-sun and five-bu extremities.