"I worshiped dead men for their strength,
Forgetting I was strong."
-Vita Sackville-West
Shiori woke up pinned beneath a soft, heavy weight. The last thing she remembered was running back to the makeshift earthen wall with a bucket full of rocks for her and her husband to throw . . . had they overrun the village? She had to get out from . . . where? She shifted, and a familiar, human smell tickled her senses. Was it? I'm looking for someone . . . She recognized her husband's shoulder that rested on her chin. She shook him, but he didn't move. Was he dead? She heard sounds of battle, screaming and thudding, but they seemed far away.
She tried to move, but there was another body piled on top of her husband's. Finding his face, she felt for breath, but found none. She felt a dull ache in her head and in her chest. She thought maybe she should cry, but she wasn't sure she could. She never expected their three months of marriage to end like this . . . she had felt so fortunate, to have a good husband, quiet, sincere, and hard-working, and a mother-in-law that brought her into their family with love. She had hoped that she would be able to give them a son . . . maybe, even now, she was carrying his child . . . she did feel different, like a new person . . . but it was probably just wishful thinking . . . Looking for someone . . . he can't be dead . . .
Waking up again, Shiori realized she had passed out. Clutching a fallen bamboo spear, she dug it into the ground and tried to use it as leverage to pull herself out. Inch by inch, she wriggled from beneath the corpses. When she could finally stand, she looked around. Everyone who had been fighting by her side, neighbors and friends and soldiers from the castle, were strewn out like harvested rice stalks, peppered with wounds from the attacking armies arquebuses and arrows. She ached all over, and was startled to find blood on her jacket, only to find that it was her husband's. I've been sleeping . . . for how long?
She shivered in the cool air, autumn succumbing to winter's bite. Was there something she should be doing? It seemed folly to seek out the attackers and face them by herself . . . the battle seemed to have moved in the direction of her farm . . . the soldiers would be seeking out their hidden winter food stores . . . no point in going back there. She had never planned for these sorts of events . . . was she supposed to cut off her hair and become a nun or something? Maybe she was supposed to make a suicidal attempt at revenge? Or just sit and cry in the wreckage? She felt too numb to bring up any tears. Maybe this was a dream, and soon she'd wake up next to her husband and laugh that she had been so worried.
Looking off to the west, she wondered if her cousin Yasuhiko had got through to the castle to warn them. A bizarre silhouette in the distance caught her gaze, and as it approached, she could tell that it was the village's only horse, the one Yasuhiko rode off on this morning. He must not have made it.
The horse trotted along patiently, and she watched, thinking. Yes, she would go to Osaka Castle and warn Lord Toyotomi of Tokugawa's armies. And, after that? Maybe there would be a place for her there. Having decided on a course of action, she felt a surprisingly strong sense of resolve. To Osaka Castle . . .
"That's it, just a little bit more. You're doing well," Sumeko encouraged. She knelt, ready to catch the newborn in a few moments, her joints creaking. She had helped with many births over the years, though she had never had a child of her own. In fact, she remembered when this woman, who was now giving birth, had been born, twenty-five years ago. It made Sumeko feel very old and weary.
"Is . . . the baby . . . close?," the laboring woman asked, as she tried to catch her breath between pushes.
"Yes, yes, just a few more good pushes, and then we'll see this new baby of yours." The soon-to-be mother strained, clutching the pallet on which she sat up, supported by her mother. Sumeko patiently rubbed the woman's legs, and chanted softly with her as she pushed again. Breathe. Push. Breathe. Push. "Good, I see the head . . . this time don't push, go slow." The woman nodded as she breathed, and when the next contraction came, she chanted softly, straining. Sumeko chanted with her, encouraging her, but felt a little distracted. I need to go . . . go where?
And then the baby slipped out, like a fish flopping from a net, and Sumeko wiped him off, checked to see he was healthy, and handed him to his mother. She cried a little, but she was also smiling. The infant just stared at her, as though worrying he would never see her again. What if I never see him again? Who?
When the afterbirth was taken care of, and the new mother was wrapped in a large sash and dozing next to the baby, Sumeko found herself walking stiffly out the front door of the small house and gazing up at Osaka Castle. I have to get to the castle . . .
Akiko loved playing outside. Being inside meant she had to be quiet, and couldn't run, and had to try and stay out of sight. There weren't very many fun things for a five-year-old girl to do in the castle. Sometimes she could sneak out; her mom was Senhime's personal maid and was busy a lot. I was going to look for someone, at the castle . . . Today she was all the way down in the main courtyard, hiding in a corner in the shade and watching the fish swim in the pond. She closed her eyes, and the warm sun felt like pure life radiating through her. She felt like a little flower, or a frog, just living without any worries.
But now it was starting to get dark, and for some reason the soldiers seemed nervous, so she reluctantly said bye-bye to the fish and headed for the castle. Have to get to the castle . . . Now that she was walking, she felt hungry, too. An urgent desire to get inside made her quicken her pace. Where are those two?
Like a bat against a moonless, misty sky, Chiyo clambered up her rope on the castle wall and slipped over. Her deft steps took her through the fallen leaves of the courtyard with grace and silence. Dark silken folds concealed all but her eyes from the searching archers and guards above as she darted behind an evergreen bush and scanned the area. Her father had been assigned the mission to come to the castle and scope out the defenses and sabotage the weapons stores, but when he fell ill, she took it upon herself to continue the family's tradition of clandestine service to Tokugawa. It would pay for some medicine, at least. Medicine won't help them . . . they need me . . .
Despite her determination, however, she still found herself wondering if she was up to the task. She hadn't been trained as well as her father, and these were professional soldiers she was trying to evade. Her legs quivered a little as she crouched, and she tried to replace thoughts of what would happen if she were caught with the thought of getting the medicine for her father.
She counted guards, noted positions of weapons and food stores and explosives, and tried to remember what else she was supposed to find. At the castle . . . what am I looking for? Or, who? She caught a glimpse of a lone samurai in full armor patrolling with his back toward her, and she had an odd sensation akin to deja vu, or waking up in a strange place, or seeing someone she knew a long time ago. Something that had been nudging the back of her mind exploded.
I'm . . . Dual mists of memories and desires and histories clashed in a ghostly battle, with her consciousness smashed in the middle. . . . Motoko. She struggled, trying to identify some sort of hacking attack or assailant, some root cause of the problem that she could eliminate, but instead of digital traces, there was only a whisper of a person that turned to a roar as Chiyo threatened to take over her consciousness again.
Sneaking closer to the castle itself, she noticed a low building to the right -- a barracks? It would be a good way to get a head count at night -- Tokugawa would be pleased with such precision, though her heart raced with fear at the thought of voluntarily entering the den of numerous strong, well-trained soldiers. No! Get out of my head!
As Motoko gained awareness once more over Chiyo, she fought to anchor herself against the ephemeral other-self that threatened to seep into her brain. Motoko quickly pulled up the virtual admin interface overlay, scanning for options. Simultaneously, she pulled up the admin code and saw a variable called "Immersion Mode" that appeared to control the memory-implanting loop, and another called "Ghostless Mode" that, when set, caused the user to be a passive observer of a sequence of different sets of memories. Looks like they were in the middle of debugging admin mode -- the default is to loop through various people forever, she noted, as she disabled both variables.
Suddenly, it seemed very quiet, and she felt very pleasantly alone in her mind. Unfortunately, she was not so alone in the courtyard, for she had stopped in mid-step to battle against the foreign Chiyo's awareness. The samurai she had remembered earlier was coming closer, quickly. Options flew through her head like bullets. Too late to hide. Too slow to climb back over the wall. Too risky to try the castle doors. Feeling around her person, she discovered a short sword, and drew it, muscles responding sluggishly. At least I ended up in the body of a warrior . . . though I feel like a baby, with these farmgirl muscles and these human eyes . . . it's so dark. She could feel her heartbeat quickening, her muscles tensing, and her hands sweating in the clammy night air.
This felt more real than any other battle she could remember.
It's Batou, she suddenly realized with dread. Half-hidden by his helmet, she could see only the highlights of his face in the torchlight, but she didn't doubt her recognition. She pulled up the admin interface again, but she couldn't find any commands that had to do with other users. There's got to be something in here I can use . . . He was within ear-shot, now. What happens if someone dies in the system? Where does their ghost go? It wasn't a risk she wanted to take. She would have to find some way to release him without either of them being killed. "Batou, stand down!," she shouted.
His too-familiar voice, saturated with disdain, called out to her as he drew his long katana. "We knew you'd be coming, you sneaking Tokugawa dog-scum. Now sit back and take what's coming to you!" Raising his katana, he stepped forward quickly, forcing her to leap back and to the side. The shorter reach of her ninja-to made a frontal attack unlikely to succeed. As she raced through calculations of velocity, friction, tactics, terrain, and psychological profiles, she also continued her searching through the code to find a way to free him as she had herself. But the user code settings were completely different from the admin code, so there was no obvious solution . . . yet.
Sword and man lunged forward as one, and she barely brought her thoughts back to the battle in time to parry the blow away. Batou's sword flashed like a waterfall, relentlessly pounding at her, but each strike was different from those before it. Her arms began to tire from the exertion of deflecting blows, and she was breathing heavily. She counter-attacked, knowing he would block it, but needing more space to dodge, and more time to think. They had sparred so many times in practice that she knew what his moves would be, but the human woman whose body she inhabited was so much weaker than the hardened samurai he was immersed in.
She heard the arrow flying towards her with just enough time to flip to the side. As she leapt, pinwheeling like a leaf caught in a gust of air, she caught sight of the arrow as it whizzed by and carressed her hair. She landed abruptly, wincing as the frail body she inhabited screamed of pain and bruises and unfamiliar movements. As she calculated a probable trajectory for the arrow, her eyes followed it back to the source, and she spotted another familiar face. Ishikawa peered over a second-story balcony, bow in hand. As he drew another arrow, he yelled, "She's over here!"