[ Contents | 8. Escape! | 9. Flatlined Eightfold | 10. Unharnessed ]
Saisei's body relaxed; the agonized rictus contorting his face faded slowly into final peace.
"No, Habotan Saisei, not yet is your life done; not yet are you released from the world of pain. Your greatest tasks still remain."
An intangible presence surrounded Saisei; ghostly fingers caressed battered nerves, poked here, prodded there, teasing, stroking, finally jolting dying neurons back to life. A single breath, no more than a sigh; the fingers withdrew, then returned to tickle a cluster of nerves deep in Saisei's heart. The pacemaker neurons spasmed, kicking other nerves awake in sequence across the cardiac muscle; Saisei's heart beat again. Another breath, then another and another.
* * * *
Saisei awoke abruptly; he lay on his back on the cold concrete floor, choking on his own blood. He rolled over, gagging and hacking up the blood that filled his throat. His tongue throbbed painfully--in his convulsions, Saisei had bitten through the tip of his tongue, and it bled profusely. The blood joined the pool of bile vomited up during Haze's beating; Saisei stared blankly at it for a moment, then drew his hands under him, raising himself on his hands. He collapsed as pain lanced through his broken hand, then raised himself again, careful of the shattered bones.
Where was he? What had happened? Oh yes--he'd failed to clear Tsaba in the allotted time, and the king had killed him for it--
No! That wasn't right! He was Habotan, a poor fisherman's son from an insignificant village, and he had no king, certainly not that auburn-crested warlord....
It was all Saisei could do to just hold himself up on his hands and knees, shuddering with exhaustion. His entire body ached like he'd been beaten with bamboo staves; his bruised groin throbbed with pain from Haze's brutal kicks. Shattered bones throbbed and ached in his hand, and his injured tongue felt swollen to twice its normal size.
It felt wonderful. Those were the familiar pains of battle, not that unbearable agony that only the damned were meant to know. He slowly drew himself to a sitting position, wincing with every move. For a time, Saisei sat still, taking slow, deep breaths. He felt oddly light-headed; what had happened?
"...Furthermore, if you were to try to remove the harness... well, let's just say that it would be a bad idea," said the doctor....
Haze had deliberately triggered the harness. Then came the pain, that unimaginable torment, then--what? Saisei's memory just wasn't there. He couldn't remember what happened between the start of the pain and waking up on the floor--but he could remember other things, people he'd never met, places he'd never been, a sky he'd never seen--things that had no place in the life he knew.
"This... will not do." Saisei told himself. "This foul device has done something to my brain--it has to go, now! But how to remove it? To touch it is to die of pain." A wry smile spread across his face. "Indeed, I must put an end to suffering--but do the Four Noble Truths apply to this?? Yet suffering is suffering, whether from my own folly or this torture device."
Saisei arranged himself for meditation, sitting up straight, his hands resting in his lap, relaxed, palms up and fingers and thumbs curled, touching.
Life is filled with suffering.
And this particular suffering is absolute and pure.
Suffering is caused by desire for transient things that pass away.
Fear is suffering anticipated. Pain is the fear of the body of its own destruction--but the body is transient, and will pass away. Every injury affirms the transience of the flesh, and so I feel pain. Pain exists because I foolishly desire that the impermanent be permanent.
To be rid of suffering, rid yourself of the desire for transient things.
The body cries against its own mortality, but I am not my body. It is impermanent; it will die and be no more. The soul endures. Only the soul...
A vision, but not of the life he knew: his own face--not Saisei's face, but still his face--looking up, the knowledge of sudden death revealed in his eyes, followed by a blast of searing white light that burnt away skin and muscle and bone, vaporized into drifting motes of ash in less time than it takes to draw a last breath.
Even death is transient! The soul endures, and death gives way to life in its own cycle. Why do I suffer this pain beyond all other pain? I was not even injured, yet--! Pain without injury is not suffering, but suffering anticipated; it is fear of that which is not. Is this pain an illusion?
He looked down on his own body in its last convulsions as his tormented brain finally ceased working altogether, and pain faded into peaceful death....
No. It is no less and no more real than my own body. My body is bound by pain fed directly into my brain somehow. That torturer Soliere spoke of microvoltage and current and electrodes; it is electrical--which means a power source somewhere! Without power.... yes. Cut the power, rob the torturer of his instruments. But how to do it? I must end the pain to break the control harness so that I may end the pain--- aaaaggghh!
Saisei curled his one good hand into a fist. I will not give up! There is a way, and if there is not a way, I will make a Way!
To rid yourself of the desire for transient things, follow the eight-fold path of wisdom and righteousness and understanding.
Center.
Of righteousness: Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood. Of wisdom: Right Understanding...
No, I am not bound; I only suffer depending on what I do. To move quickly is to be given pain in that limb which moves hastily. To touch forcefully the harness itself is to die.
Yamucha is also captive and tormented by Soliere and this evil device. I do not know what has become of Puar. What is past, is past, what is, is--I cannot change it by fear or worry.
Center.
...and Right Intention
Yamucha....
A wordless, profound respect welled up and spread through Saisei's heart, like cool spring water from the bottom of a sun-warmed lake.
I knew techniques before, but nothing more. They were mechanical, lifeless things; Yamucha showed me the heart and life of a true warrior and master. He welcomed me, he taught me, he has been brother and father and friend to me. I owe him... much, and grudge it not at all.
Yamucha, and Puar. Saisei smiled quietly to himself. How did Yamucha find her? A creature of magic and kindness; Yamucha is very lucky to know her, and so am I. She is my friend.
They need my help.
Of understanding: Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration,
I could not help my people then.
His thoughts shifted to the village of his birth, and what happened to it... the shift was jagged and grating, like splintered ends of bone grinding together. An eddy of grief and anger and bitter hate for those who had destroyed his home tore through him. Saisei raised his one good fist--
No. Be still! Not again! He lowered his fist, opened his hand.
I am so far from Enlightenment. I still hate them; I still want to kill them. I want to break their bodies with my bare hands, I want to hear their screams as they die, screaming as my parents and my uncle and my cousins screamed.
If I do, will I forget what was done to me? No! Will my parents, or the rest of the village be restored to life? No! Will my sister return? No! Cruelty does not undo cruelty.
They took everything from me! Ayomara, my sister! Tousan! Okaasan! I love you still, and always will. They hurt me, and they have never paid for it! Saisei clenched his one good hand into a fist again; I am a child still.
Center.
Cruelty does not undo cruelty. What payment can restore the dead and return my childhood to me? None at all.
What if the soldiers had never come? Would mother have lived forever? No! Would father? No! Would Ayomara have stayed at home, a maiden girl until I was old and grey? No! Who would I have hated when age or the sea took them? Would I have sworn revenge against the sea, or cursed Time? No. Only a fool rails against the nature of the world. What is, is.
Would I have grieved any less? No. But I would not have hated. I would not have been a child robbed of all that mattered. They hurt me, and I have never healed. The murderers have prospered; the innocent are despised and forgotten. There has been no justice.
There will be. I will make sure of it.
A cold certainty filled Saisei; implacable determination rose out of the hidden depths of his soul. The power of it terrified him.
Who am I to know this? I am no great noble to sit in judgement of criminals in my fief, nor am I a wandering hero, to punish evil wherever I find it--
He who was himself, yet not Saisei, sat upon the high chair at one end of the low-ceilinged, dark hall. The smoke of a thousand years darkened the ancient stone walls; before him stood a soldier in chains. The man trembled, his tail wrapped around his waist and fluffed out with fear to twice its normal size. Opposite him stood the girl who was wronged, and her family; hate and humiliation warred in her face, while fierce satisfaction and hate combined in her father's blunt, scarred face as he stared at the soldier. It was the last case left to judge, and guilt was clear; his judgement would be swift and equally clear...
No! I was born Chou Habotan, in a small fishing village; I am not this great noble who offended his king--not in this life! I am Habotan Saisei, Habotan reborn, and I do not have the right of judgement! I only have the right of vengeance, for my self and family!
He himself answered: So, too, will there be justice; what is vengeance, if not a quest for personal justice? I have the right to act because I have the obligation to act; I have the obligation, because every man, every person, has the obligation to see justice done.
There will be justice, and only justice. I cannot cherish my hatred anymore; there is no place for it on my path. A strange confidence rose in Saisei and strengthened him, for he understood.
Of course. The child I was never believed he could defeat the beasts that took everything from him, and so I have cherished my hate; it shielded me from despair.
...and Right Effort
It is time. I must find and rescue Puar, free Yamucha from Soliere's tortures, and stop whatever his wicked plans are. And I will destroy the Dark Ribbon, not for hatred and anger, no, not any more--but because they have done evil, they do evil, they would do more evil, and that must end!
"So shall it be," Saisei said as he opened his eyes and looked at his prison with fresh eyes.
A golden presence washed over him, and Saisei smiled ever so slightly; he knew the touch of that good spirit. He had seen her once, when he was a child near death from wounds and fever after the Dark Ribbon soldiers slaughtered his village. She was a strange, wild spirit, with long spiky hair to her knees, wide, compassionate eyes, and a thin furry brown tail lashing behind her.
"You kept me alive," Saisei stated quietly to the unseen presence. "When I was a child, and now..." He tilted his chin up slightly, smiling as he rose to his feet. "As you say; I have tasks ahead."
Saisei began slowly, stepping through the well-known katas as if he were a novice practicing them for the first time. He repeated them, faster, and then faster again, until the pain stabbed him. Calmly, he worked deliberately through each strike, each block, each step, feeling the lash of the control harness as it activated the pain nerves in the offending limb each time. Again and again, until the pain became part of the kata, known and accepted.
"Now." Ki flared, and one foot lashed out with a vicious kick, precisely aimed--
BAAM! The cell door burst open, its lock shattered and bent. Saisei darted down the cellblock corridor, looking this way and that; clear. He ran, looking for a room with the one thing he needed: a mirror.
* * * *
Two hallways, five rooms and four guards later, Saisei found what he needed: the men's room--and a mirror. He turned his head this way and that, staring at the foul device.
In appearance it resembled a very fanciful golden tiara, with many antler-like branches curling up and down from the main band to grip his skull firmly. Under some of those branches were the electrodes that controlled his brain, Saisei knew. Somewhere in the tiara was the power source for the electrodes--nothing big; the thing used less power than a digital watch for all its terrible effect.
Saisei closed his eyes, feeling the flow of his ki, his center, his life, understanding the way it had been distorted by the device penetrating his brain.?Yes; he knew where the electrodes had to be. He opened his eyes again.
He would only get one blow, and that blow had to disable the power supply, or sever the electrodes from their controller, without shattering Saisei's own skull. One blow... and if it failed, Saisei would die in ultimate agony. This time, he sensed, there would be no reprieve.
One blow... Saisei raised his ki and focussed it, touching the fingers of one hand to the fingers of another. Pain from broken bones lanced through one hand; Saisei ignored it. He took a deep breath, raised his hands high, slowly exhaled--
Both hands flashed down toward his face as he struck.
* * * *
CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 10. Unharnessed
[ Contents | 8. Escape! | 9. Flatlined Eightfold | 10. Unharnessed ]
Disclaimer: See Credits.
Copyright 2001 by Dragoness Eclectic
Last Updated: Mar 8, 2009