Carrie Asai - Samurai Girl 01 by The Book of the Sword

Author:The Book of the Sword
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-02-10T23:34:49+00:00

“Of course. It’s going to take your body some time to adjust,” Hiro told me. “Pretty soon you’ll need much less sleep.”

I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was seven o’clock. Whoa. How could I be this tired?

Hiro drained his teacup. “It’s time for me to tell you about your mission.”

“Mission?” I sat up a little straighter.

“Yes. It’s an important part of the training. You’ll get several of them.”

“Like, a secret mission?” This was getting good.

Hiro laughed. “Not exactly. You’ve watched too many movies, Heaven.” He poured himself another cup of tea, and for a moment he looked into the steam that rose from the cup. “Your mission is to accept death,” he finally said.

I frowned at him in confusion. I’d been expecting to be told to break into a bad guy’s office and steal documents or bend metal with my mind. “What?”

“Accepting death is the key to becoming a true samurai.”

For a second I didn’t know what to say. I wondered if Hiro’s brains might have been frazzled by too much physical activity. Then I decided that he was far crazier than I ever imagined.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I protested. “Why learn to fight if you’re just going to accept death? Doesn’t that sort of defeat the whole purpose? I mean, the point is to avoid death, right?”

“I can’t explain it to you, because part of the mission is to come to an understanding of it for yourself. But I’m going to tell you a story that might help you. Okay?” Hiro pushed his plate aside.

“Okay.”

“Bear with me.” He took a sip of tea, then began. “Once there was a young samurai who had dedicated himself to the samurai ideals and was making great progress with his training. After a few months, though, the great strides that he had made in the beginning disappeared. Soon it seemed that he was no longer making any progress—he was stuck in his training, unable to get past a mental obstacle.”

“What mental obstacle?”

Hiro wagged his finger at me. “That’s beside the point. Just listen.”

“Sorry.”

“The master sat the young samurai down and asked him what was keeping him from progressing. The young samurai admitted that lately, he had a terrible fear of death. Everywhere he went, everything he did, he could think of only one thing: What if this were my last hour on earth? What if I were to die? The master sat back in his chair and looked at his young student.” Hiro leaned back in his chair, with a faraway look in his eyes. “There is only one solution to your problem, the master told him. You must go and die.”

“Go and die?” I stared at him. Were we still on the same planet? “How did he do that?”

Hiro ignored me. “Of course, the young samurai was shocked. He said that he didn’t want to go and die. Then live, said the samurai master. And from then on, the young samurai no longer feared death. And he made great leaps and bounds in his training.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.