Journey to Ōgasanmyaku

That evening and night passed with no real incident beyond Hikari’s general difficulty actually falling asleep from the preoccupation of his mind and nerves about the task at hand. Still both brothers awoke with an eager if nervous start and quickly got dressed before joining the rest of their family in the kitchen. There their father awaited with the family sword in his hands, their mother greeted them with two big bowls of rice porridge, and their sister in annoyance dragged two large packs. “Hikari, I want you to take the sword, you're the better of the two of you when it comes to kendo. I hope you have no need of it but if the ogres are attacking humans again then it’s best you take it with you.” their father proclaimed as he knelt and presented the katana in its saya. Hikari nodded in turn and took the sword, the thing was ancient, from before the Rightful Revolution or even before the teachings of their ancestor the Rightful Philosopher Yasuo Hikari whom Hikari himself was named after. Hikari pulled the steel blade from its wooden saya, everything about it was so antiquated it seemed foreign, the rayskin handle, the layered steel blade, the copper habaki, and the ornate iron tsuba depicting a coiling dragon, all but the bamboo pins holding it all together was so alien to Hikari. That plus one fact seemed to occupy the forefront of Hikari’s mind, the fact that this was the blade that was used by Yasuo Hayato to behead the last emperor of this land. By most every metric of rightful cultivation this blade was evil, wrong, a tool more fit for beasts than men, a very symbol of wrongful sideways path. Yet it was used by his ancestors to give everyone in this land a chance to pursue rightful cultivation, and now hopefully it wouldn't have to be used. If it must be so then let it be used in a way that redeems its evil. Hikari thought to himself before he resheathed the blade and proceeded to tie the saya to his belt. “I will bring it into the upwards path.” Hikari finally answered his father, who approved with a nod. Their father then grabbed a smaller cloth pack from off the nearby countertop and handed it to Shinzo. “Again I hope you don't need it, but here’s some medical tools and supplies I want you to take Shinzo.” elaborated their father as Shinzo took it with a similar nod. “You can count on me dad, if anyone needs patched up I’ll do it like you do.” Shinzo responded in turn as he tied the pack to his belt. “Now hold your sandals, before you leave you'll both need a meal. Let's all eat at the table for breakfast.” Their mother insisted as she handed them both their bowls of rice porridge. Their parents and their sister would then take their bowls and join them at the table for a hearty breakfast. Of which they would then be pelted by the traveling advice of their father. Always try to help your fellow traveler, makes lots of noise if you're traveling through the wilderness to scare off any wolves, boars, or bears, if you stay somewhere offer to help them with their field work in the morning, they'll usually say no but it's good manners to ask, and so on he spoke until everyone finished their breakfast. Hikari and Shinzo then hurried and put their traveling packs on with everyone gathered around them by the paper and wood made door. Their father told them to have fun while the mother told them to stay safe, while their younger sister already ran off to start her field work for the day on account of being saddled with more land to work while they're gone. With a wave and farewell the two young men set off, stone road giving way to their sandaled feet.

“How long has it been since you've taken a break from the fields anyways?” Shinzo asked Hikari as their home grew smaller on the horizon. “Probably when I traveled with father to go see his cousin a few villages over.” Hikari answered with pride, for his dedication to his field work and therefore right cultivation was his primary concern in life. “When I was kid and you were barely a teen? You shouldn't take pride in that, we're both young; we won't stray from the path if we do some other things and live a little. It's no wonder you aren't married yet.” Shinzo chided in response. “That might be ok with you but I want to be the greatest cultivator of upwards energy of our time. I won't settle for just good enough.” Hikari responded in smugness. “What are you going to join the hard-liners? Go work the fields with stone tools and work real slow all day because aren't allowed any hobbies? You know dad's right about right cultivation, it only gets stronger if you've been exposed to other things. It has to be your choice for you to be really great at it, can't just be something you're forced to do because you know no other way.” Shinzo lectured as they walked. “Of course not, and I know that. Why do you think I dedicated myself so much to my kendo as a teenager for?” Retorted Hikari in annoyance, refusing to acknowledge his argument. “Ya and how much did it help you though? You've never even courted a girl and last I checked, getting married and making babies was part of the rightful cultivation.” Shinzo reneged with a crude stop and pelvic thrust. Shinzo laughed while Hikari just rolled his eyes as the two walked on for the day. A whole day of walking passed and still the pair hadn’t left the full extent of the various rice fields as rice was believed to be the primary food of human rightful cultivation. Farmers in their field waved them on as they passed before turning back to their day’s field work. A few times they stopped and would ask directions of which they almost always got quick answers, else it would be an old timer demanding news of neighboring villages before he’d give direction. The weather that day was bright and sunny just as the weather man on last evening’s program had stated it would be. As the sun began to set, wanting to hurry to the Ōgasanmyaku the duo would find a tree to shade under near the road as the sun began to set and went about eating the onigiri their mother had packed for them, it was a productive if uninteresting day. This pattern would continue for a few days until they reached the more dry uplands, where wet rice tanada gave way to dry wheat fields and they ran out of what little food they could carry on their backs. Thus the pattern shifted to a slower means of travel by night they’d beg any accommodating local to let them sleep in their homes or grain storage for the night and feed them in exchange for help with field work in the morning. Unlike what their father said, wheat farmers did often accept the help in exchange for a night’s room and board on account of dry wheat fields being far more plagued by weeds and pests than a wet rice tanada. This fact slowed them down greatly as they’d often be stuck working until midday before they could be off on the road again. The only thing saving their travel time being the long summer days making it to where they could travel well into the evening before needing to stop for the night. “This sucks, we’re getting nowhere slowly. Might be a war going on by the time we actually get there.” lamented Shinzo as they walked one evening. “While you have a point about the unfortunate speed of our travel, think of the bright side. We haven’t lost any of our right cultivation and we’ve gotten to try all sorts of new foods. I quite like the wheat noodles we’ve been having lately.” Shinzo comforted his brother trying to make light of his own frustrations. Because he thought the same thing already, who knows how many more might die in whatever conflict seems to be brewing in the Ōgasanmyaku. Which will only make their task harder if not impossible if they are too late. Luckily their worries would be answered not long after they spoke them aloud. For as they walked they would hear an unfamiliar wooden creaking along with the grunts and heavy breathing of two beasts.

Turning behind them the two brothers would see a man sitting in a wooden ox cart pulled by two great big black oxen. Both had only seen oxen a few times in their lives as domestic animals beyond companion dogs and cats were non-existent in their village. Only encountering them when travelers who did have them made their way through their village. The brothers in an act of courtesy stepped off the side of the stone path to make way, only for the old man wearing a straw kasa and smoking a clay pipe to pull the reins of his cart and stop in front of them. “You boys traveling to the Ōgasanmyaku?” asked the old man in slow drawl of a voice as he exhaled a puff of skunky acrid smoke. “We are, we hope to reaffirm our agreement with ogres without bloodshed.” Hikari answered in sincerity. “That sword would suggest differently, but I'll take your word on it. Hop in, I’m on my way there myself; collecting spare grain for the villagers there along the way. I could use some company along the way. The name is Kou by the way, Yoshi Kou.” the old man rambled in turn as he waited for the pair to hop in the back of the big wooden cart. The brothers looked at each other and then obliged and quickly climbed into the open air back of the cart alongside various sacks of rice, wheat, and rye. “I’m Yasuo Hikari and this is my younger brother Yasuo Shinzo.” Hikari responded in politeness as the pair settled among the grain sacks. “Yasuo? You mean like the Rightful Philosopher Yasuo Hikari and revolutionary Right Man Yasuo Hayato, or is that just a coincidence?” Old Man Kou asked in a mild shock before jostling the reins and signaling the two great black oxen to once again move, which caused the wooden cart to start with a jolt before moving again. “No, those are our ancestors, just like Yasuo Nagi our great grandfather who brokered the agreement with the ogres.” Shinzo answered with pride before laying back against a large cloth sack of wheat with his arms behind his head. “Well hot damn, you boys might stand a chance of doing exactly what you set out to do then. Lucky me, contributing to history and the like." Yodeled Old Man Kou down the mountain as he drove the cart. Old Man Kou proved extremely talkative in the way all old men are, with Hikari and Shinzo around he only seemed to stop talking in order to eat, smoke, drink, or sleep. Though at least to Shinzo Old Man Kou had a lot of interesting things to say, talking about how as a youth he stowed away on a Daion ship stopped at the port of the city he grew up in to collect grain donations. How he ended up working on that ship and sailed all over from Daion to Henrika and most everywhere in between. How he ended up working the oil fields in the Daion steppes, moving massive machines between each nomadic operation. How he met his wife when she was working as a lady of the night in the oil field camps and how he beat her pander in his tent and eloped with her back to Muryowa. Alongside what seemed like a hundred other adventures. Shinzo was amazed by the stories and hung along every word, asking more questions than stories Old Man Kou actually told. Hikari however began to form an evil opinion of the man, thinking of him as self centered and undisciplined like an animal, like a follower of the sideways path as opposed to a true follower or right cultivation and its upward path. How he came back to Muryowa not out of a personal choice or philosophical realization but because he was fleeing the consequences of his own wild actions. Though it was a combination of politeness and the fact the man was collecting donations for the ogre attack victims of what seemed to be his own free will that kept Hikari from chiding him. With this new arrangement a new pattern of travel emerged, the trio would travel by cart until they hit a village to where Old Man Kou would stop and ask the village for donations to the ogre attack victims at Kibatani village. It’d usually take an hour or so for each village to gather up everything they wanted to donate before the trio would be off again. At night they’d sleep in the cart after eating a meal of rice or wheat porridge and feeding the oxen their daily grain. While this pace was far faster than when Hikari and Shinzo had to work for the food and bed for the night it was still slower than when they could just eat out of their packs and walk at their own pace. The scenery transitioned again from endless terraces and fields of wheat and rye to intermittent farms broken up by groves of cedars mixed with various maples, oaks, and cypress. The hills got steeper as they transitioned to mountains as the trio got closer and closer to the Ōgasanmyaku and Kibatani Village. The air became cool and crisp in their lungs as the oxen slowed their pace between the steeper inclines and this thinner mountain air. It had been nearly two weeks since Hikari and Shinzo left home, and a few days since any present in the traveling trio had done any work in the fields. A fact that made Hikari restless and somewhat homesick as well. In sharp contrast Shinzo was elated at the experience, neither having been so far from home before. By the evening of their thirteenth day of travel the trio had finally rolled into their destination of Kibatani village.