[Episode] Meditations on Fire

Quest Request:

It was the final day before the arrival of Ryōma and his 99 rōnin, and after a long week of training, followed by the near-destruction of her dojo – Tomoko was beginning to grow tired of trying to teach the impudent demon who had intruded upon the village in their time of need. Furthermore, the matter of whether or not she had been able to hone the teenager into a weapon useful for the island’s protection remained in question. In truth, the young woman felt conflicted in her proctorship, even in her brief interactions with the monster she could tell that he was dangerous – that furthering the instruction of Asakura Doji was as good as putting a weapon in the hands of a careless, capricious, and riotous toddler.

To teach a man a skill was little good without teaching him how to properly employ it. Up until this moment, Tomoko’s teachings had been concerned strictly with the practical application of Kitsunebi-Ryū; the extent to which she had challenged the oni on philosophical grounds was only insofar as it was essential to his advancement in the technique. She knew that she had to cultivate the boy’s flame, otherwise it would burn on reckless and unfettered, consuming everything in its path; as much was made clear by the wrecked walls of her dojo.

If I teach him the way, I wonder would he even follow it?...

Pensively, Tomoko approached the devil, who sat with his oversized body laid down against a sakura tree; after long hours of training, the red oni napped with a bubble of snot inflating out from his nose.

… they say a spark neglected yields a wild and insubordinate flame. I have to give him fuel, even if all that I impart goes up in smoke; his way is that of fire, the true question is the nature of his flame.

Tapping the giant’s head with the end of her scabbard, the young swordswoman roused her teenage pupil from his slumber.

“Doji-kun, I need you to come with me.”

Though the monster’s brow furrowed in irritation as he awoke, he said nothing as he stood to his feet, seeming to sense the seriousness in Tomoko’s tone. Once it seemed that Doji had fully regained his wits, the smaller woman began leading the way toward a small hill at the far edge of the village.

The devil was blind to the beauty that surrounded him and his teacher as they ascended the hill, thick curtains of bright-violet wisteria hung to the sides of the trail, small stone statues in the shape of bright-faced children nestled themselves amongst the grass keeping their watchful eyes peeled for evil spirits. The stone faces of the statuettes almost seemed to warp in terror as the giant demon approached, and seemed to relax only once the pair of warriors had made their way around the bend.

At the top of the hill beneath the waterfalling wisteria blossoms, sat the charred remains of a long rectangular fire pit; it had been a long time since this refuge had seen any use despite its scenic vista, Tomoko hadn’t returned to this place for over a decade, and the rest of the village knew well enough the reason why this hill was not to be trespassed upon.

“Take a seat wherever you please.”

With little regard for the serenity of the sacred grounds that surrounded him, the boy dropped down abruptly, lazily sprawling his body down across the rough earth below.

“So what’s so special about this place? Hmm?...” as Tomoko watched the brazen and fiery boy, she noticed him seeming to twitch his nose to take in the fragrances of the flora that surrounded them, “... it smells flowery and pleasant, but just beneath the surface there’s something else. It smells familiar.”

“Pay it no mind, Doji. Please. I brought you here because I have something more I must teach you.”

“Shall I ready my sword then?” The tone of the boy’s voice showed that he was eager at the thought of sparring even despite his tiredness.

“No need, though this was part of my father’s practice of Kitsunebi-ryū, it has little to do with the practice of swordsmanship itself…”

In an instant, the woman leapt into the air, drew her sword from her belt, and tumbled gracefully back to the earth alongside several freshly cut clusters of wisteria.

“... what I wish to teach you are the secret arts of foxfire, the principles that differentiate our school’s flames from ordinary wildfire.”

Throwing her gathered flowers into the pit alongside a couple cords of deteriorated firewood, with a white-hot fiery flash of her sword, the length of the firewalking pit was set alight.

“While this fire burns down to coals, I have a question for you, oni. What does fire mean to you?”

“Fire is power, it is a burning manifestation of Qi being released outwards into the world. Fire warms those we love, and burns our enemies to cinders; it is one of the purest and simplest expressions of raw power.”

“You answered more quickly than I would have thought. But I figured you’d say something like that…” taking a seat with her back to the fire, the young woman carefully pulled her hair forwards over her shoulder; though she trusted the flame, she had proper respect for it and knew its propensity for licking at its most flammable surroundings, “... what you describe are uses of the flame, they are not the fire themselves.”

“Surely enough. But what use is defining something outside of what it can do for you?”

“You ought to answer that question for yourself, boy.”

“Hmm…” as the light of the fire flickered across the blind demon’s face, his scrunched expression looked as though it were a mask carved into a strange and disfigured expression, “... to know something beyond what you can use it for – in that way, you can become acquainted with it, like an old friend.”

Tomoko remembered her late father, he had once said something similar, she had not expected to see any of that man’s prudence in Doji.

“Something along those lines. But make no mistake, the fire is neither your friend, nor your enemy.”

“Then what is it?”

As the boy’s wild crimson hair was whipped upwards in a gust of wind, Tomoko’s next words were almost too fitting.

“If you wish to truly practice the discipline of Kitsunebi-ryū…” the woman inhaled deeply, feeling the breath coursing through her body and supplying her with the fuel necessary to sustain life, “... it is paramount that you become the fire itself.”

“I think I get it, or I’m starting to, anyways. But what is it in the fire that we are trying to emulate?”

“I ask you again boy, what does fire mean to you?...” Though she was beginning to grow frustrated with her pupil, she realized in that moment that the blind man would have little way of coming to the conclusion she was attempting to lead him to organically. He had never seen a fire, he had only felt it, “... no, you wouldn’t very well know would you? To you fire is little more than warmth and the smell of smoke, you don’t see how it dances, how each lick of flame extends itself as though reaching up to the heavens.”

“You have a way with words. Is fire truly so beautiful for those of you who can see it?”

Tears welled in the woman’s eyes at the demon’s question. In truth, the flames held a deeper sentimental meaning to her than they would for most anybody else that Doji could have asked this question.

“It is. What you said when I asked you earlier, that it is Qi burning outwards into the world, who taught you about Qi?”

“I was raised near a monastery in a remote mountain village in the West Blue, why do you ask?”

“Put bluntly, such wisdom seems unbecoming of a ruthless and reckless monster like yourself. My father too was from Kano, it was studying amongst the monks and philosophers of those mountains that allowed him to perfect the Foxfire style.”

“I see, where is he now? Or have you mastered the style too in his stead?”

“He is here with us in spirit…” the woman grimaced, turning her attention to the single unmarked stone sitting beneath the tall and sturdy willow nearby, “... I’ve not mastered the arts to nearly the same extent as he once did. But the Foxfire style is still alive and well here in this place.”

Tomoko’s voice wavered as she spoke these final words. She had told herself this that her father had last spoken to her so many times, but she could never fully believe her own words.

“Imagine you are one with fire, that your Qi is radiating constantly outward into the world. What is it that you do to survive in this paradigm, what do you do to feed your flame?”

For once, the know-it-all boy seemed utterly puzzled. Having never seen the extension of the flame, or how it could burn its way forwards, he was perhaps limited in what he could know about such a thing.

“Fire is like a living thing Doji, it dies once it is without the fuel necessary to sustain itself; what then must it do to find more sustenance?”

“It moves.”

“Then what is fire, Doji?”

“It is motion.”

“Precisely.”

As they sat and conversed, the leaves of wisteria proved powerful fuel for the fire, and it wasn’t long before the pit had burned down from a roaring inferno to a length of smoking charcoal that glowed faintly red beneath the shade.

“Well then, Tomo-sensei, what is it in motion that you think I ought to emulate? Is it that you think I’ve not traveled well enough, that I’ve not trained my body well enough? I have been ceaseless and relentless in my forward motion, is this not sufficient? What is it in my fire that you think so worthy of correction?”

“You think only of your path forward. Never of the many side-trails or splendid vistas that one must savor to truly enjoy. Boy, I see in you aspiration and little else, what is the end that your fire is burning towards?”

A moment of silence passed between the proctor and the monster. It was uncharacteristic of Doji to show such thoughtfulness, but Tomoko could tell from the disquieted expression on his face that her words had hit on something that bothered him.

“I believe in a world where only the greatest and the strongest survive; where only their names are engraved upon the history of this world, where only these people who prove themselves strong and sufficient enough’s actions can be said to matter at all…”

The oni’s face was uncharacteristically solemn as he spoke his next words,

“... and I do not yet think myself amongst the greatest, or the strongest, or the most sufficient. I believe in honor, I am the last son of my name, I have much to protect in my fire – and so I must keep blazing that path forward.”

“You believe in a world of fantasy. It is rare that greatness prevails in this world, and it is more often the case that those who think themselves great lack the introspection necessary to recognize their own flaws. What should make you any different, Doji? It seems you’ve given this grand ambition of yours little thought aside from the redemption of your clan. Is this clan of yours even worthy of redemption?”

The woman’s cold and bitter question hung heavy in the air. The demon, whose tongue was wont to spew whatever justification it could for its own actions, remained silent.

“You speak ill of my mother, and her father and his family, all of whom were put to rest by the Shogunate.”

“You’ve yet to speak your reason.”

“My clan was one of skilled warriors, it is not right that a skill should be put to waste and exiled, when it is better honed and exalted.”

Well, at least he’s not so stupid as to already think himself perfect, the woman thought to herself a moment before responding to her pupil.

“You think of the world in terms of proportions; that a skillful family is entitled some renown on the grounds of their ability alone, these are not the motions of the world, they are the motions of the mind.”

“How am I to cultivate this flame if not for the pursuit of strength and ability?”

“You will learn to move in the winds, you will grow, and change, like fire – or you will be extinguished. You have become too attached to the path you follow forwards, like a spark following a line of gunpowder – the path that you are following ends only in calamity.”

“Then what fuel ought I attach my fire to, if not the course I wish to follow for myself?”

“Be like fire, attach to nothing in particular, only that which sustains you in the moment. In this you will live as the Foxfire, if you ground yourself in a single source of fuel you are easily extinguished when that fuel is deprived, take what comes your way and grow along the paths that are most intuitive to you. Preserve embers of yourself in the lives of those you come across, and let the burn marks of your intercourse be that which preserves your legacy. A fire does not exist in isolation, without friends, acquaintances, foes, and rivals a person cannot sustain themselves.”

“I’ve affected a great deal of people.”

“And yet you have made very few friends in doing so. Perhaps a balance ought to be struck?”

“You speak as though people are just terribly accepting of the giant horned monster walking into their village.”

“Perhaps they would be more amenable if you were known as the ‘Big Friendly Giant’ rather than the ‘Cemetery Ghoul,’ eh?”

“Perhaps. You knew of me before my arrival?”

“Amongst our few travelers, there was some rumor of a red-haired oni terrorizing the Blues, I’m certain enough now that they were referring to you. All my other suspects would most certainly be in the Grand Line.”

“I’ll not bother asking who your other suspects are. You were right to worry about me, I’ve surmised in my travels that I must look something like my father, I will not be like him.”

“You seem to have disdain for your father, curious…” In truth, Tomoko wondered what Doji could possibly know about his parentage, if anything his attitude seemed similar to that of the ; but he seemed eager to keep his family life private, and in her warming heart, she felt just the opposite – that it was necessary in this moment to impart to the boy the wisdom of her father Kuroki Akitsugu, “... my father spoke of fire as something that danced with radiant beauty, he said that it reminded him of my mother. If you dance without beauty, or if you are beautiful without ever dancing, you are little more than smoke and embers. The fire that is not extinguished blazes forth in all directions, inspiring confidence in all of those it graces with its warmth, it does not attach itself to one spot in particular – in its motion, perhaps it can be said that it is everywhere. This is how your Qi endures when it is faced with the challenges of the world, it follows the currents of the wind and it brings light into the lives of those it touches. Let us begin the true meat of your lesson, oni; these coals are stoked and alive with the spirit of flame, stand up it is time for your trial by fire.”

Rising to his feet the oni did as he was told, a rare occurrence for the bull-headed brazen. The glowing light of the coals still betrayed a hellish and torturous heat to any who could see them, but for the time being the man was still blind to the undertaking ahead of him.

“Take your shoes off. You stand on hallowed ground – and as much will be necessary for this exercise.”

“My sincerest apologies…” as the oni turned his back, Tomoko couldn’t help but notice him aggressively rattling the prayer beads he wore scattered across the sections of his garments, “... pardon my asking, but that carved stone – there beneath the willow, whose Gravestone is that?”

Though tears wept from her eyes, Tomoko spoke her answer with a bright and hopeful smile on her face, “Hmm? You wonder who he was? In truth, few people ever truly knew – some people called him the ‘Hero with no Name’. But let us not get distracted further, eh?”

“Just as well, what is it that you want me to do sensei?”

“Today I will teach you the Foxfire art of firewalking, Doji. Show me that you can move forward without entrenching yourself. Move there to the end of the pit, and ready yourself to walk across it. We will repeat this process until you can walk across the remains of the fire without being burned yourself. Once you can do this, you will have realized the first step to becoming one with the way of fire.”

The monster grimaced in response to his teacher’s command, but was compliant nonetheless, shuffling briskly to the end of the pit before seeming to steady his breathing and prepare himself for the walk.

“So if I can walk across these coals, I will have learned to move like a flame?”

“You must walk, not run. And know that this is only one of the first steps toward mastery.”

Tomoko noticed that Doji looked rather irritated as he tried to wrap his head around her words.

“Fine! You think I need to run to move forwards quickly?!”

The demon’s cry of indignation was quickly proved moot; as he briskly paced across the pit of coals, Doji still dug his feet in and tried to force the ground beneath him to serve his ends and propel him toward his desired destination.

“Yeeow!! Achi-achi-achi!”

The oversized monster yelped in pain, and fell over backwards quickly panting and trying to blow cool air to soothe the freshly formed burns on his digits.

“You were moving quite quickly, and carelessly too, you attached yourself to the very path that you were walking without ever thinking of where you were going.”

“You’ve given me only one path that I can walk! What other choice do I have?”

“Find that for yourself. I can elucidate no more without ruining the point of your training.”

Wincing as he stood to his feet, the brat responded out of turn, “Yugh, fine. I suppose we aren’t leaving this place until I get things right then, eh?”

“Bin-go ♫,” Tomoko lilted out tauntingly back to the brat.

“Let’s give this another try then.”

This time, the oni was trepidatious in his walk, hesitating and taking far too long between each step. This too caused the coals to sear the oni’s soles. Again, Doji flew back from the firewalking pit, wincing and yowling in anguish.

“Hesitate too much, fail to move, and you’ll feel twice the pain. A fire cannot sustain itself without moving, you must seek freedom in your motion, not safety, not power, or any other such nonsense.”

“Seek freedom…” the monster puzzled for a moment, “... all I’ve done is seek freedom, true freedom is when nobody can stand above you anymore – that is the freedom of the heavens, to rule over everything from above, and to reach one’s pinnacle.”

“Your ideas seem to come from a driven and spirited place, but they are warped by your perspective.”

“What perspective?” The boy smiled smugly, tugging his bottom eyelid down and pointing to his clouded iris.

“That of blind ambition.”

The branches of the old willow tree rustled as an ominous wind swept over the hill. At this moment, Hanako could not tell whether or not the monster was truly unsalvageable. His visage was one of unspeakable anger, and she could not tell by his shambling motions whether or not he intended to lash out at her in retribution for her gentle criticism. Perhaps she had been entirely wrong in trying to show the blind man the way, and she wondered if she would soon join her parents in the afterlife.

Suddenly, and without warning…


… the oversized and seemingly overly-serious boy began cackling uncontrollably.

“Yoka-ka-ka-ka-iii! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!! Sugoi ne?! I thought you told me that you weren’t going to show me the answer but you’ve made me understand everything that my blind eyes will ever see on this matter!”

The woman couldn’t help but crack a smile herself before breathing a poignant sigh of relief.

“What is it that you’ve seen, blind man?”

“Freedom doesn’t come in the form of dominion. The two are precise opposites, no?”

A smile stretched across Tomoko’s face.

“Finally, it seems you’re beginning to get it.”

“To be free like the Foxfire, we give up control and dance in the wind, savoring every minute until our flames are inevitably extinguished. Our warmth is felt by others, the winding works of our flames carve a path forwards for both ourselves and our allies alike.”

“Hmm. Go on with it then, walk the coals.”

“Shini-hi-hi…” the monster winced with each footstep as he made his way around the border of the pit back to the path’s beginning, “... you’re an awfully cruel mentor, you know that Tomo-sensei?”

“Without attachment, pain is nothing. Remember that.”

Still smoldering with all of the same infernal fury, the coals seemed to intimidate the monster, and perhaps rightfully so; by Tomoko’s account any normal man should have lost the better part of the functioning in his feet by now, the demon was fortunate for his resilient physiology.

“Yeah, yeah…” though Doji’s words were dismissive, they were spoken with a certain level of affection, as though the point was well enough taken that the devil needed no reminder.

One foot in front of the other. The walk across the coals was all but effortless in those moments when the devil put aside his desires. To move without grounding one’s path in uncertain footing, this was the key to the way of fire; and despite whatever pain must have shot through his feet as he walked, the oni seemed happy to do it as he made his way to the end of the smoldering path.

I see now, perhaps I judged him quite harshly; perhaps rightfully so. But he is certainly not beyond amendment, though her facial expression remained mostly unmoved, she gave the oni a quiet yet percussive couple claps of applause.

“Good work. You burnt yourself the first couple of tries, but that’s to be expected. It seems now that you understand the most important precept of the way of fire, let me teach you now what distinguishes our Foxfire style…”

Though she spoke with a self-assured tone, it was now the master that was uncertain of her path forward. Proctoring this student had pushed her to the limits of what she could properly cultivate, and though his smug and reckless demeanor irritated her greatly, she had grown to feel a certain sense of kinship with the young demon. The secret ritual of Hashiromato Goma was one that she herself had never completed, as she knew that she did not have the strength to complete this task alone; perhaps standing alongside the devil himself, Tomoko would finally be able to complete the work that her father had set out for her.

“You mean the warmth of the embers and the gentle burns they leave?”

The young man’s clarity was uncanny. She surmised that since he had never seen the world with his own two eyes, introspection must have been a strong suit of the demon’s.

“You catch on quickly.”

Tearfully, the woman strode toward the willow tree, and with a flash of her blade – the sturdy trunk that had long watched over her father’s headstone was set ablaze.

“Wyow! Hey, what’s the big deal? That tree was doin’ its job perfectly well!”

The devil cried out in indignation despite the perceived destruction.

“That willow was the last thing that I loved. That is the nature of Hashiromato Goma.”

“What do you mean? You’re still just destroying the tree!”

“You still understand things too simplistically. Fire is not destruction. It is a shame you cannot see…” tears streaked down from Tomoko’s face as she looked upwards into the twilight sky, the glowing cinders of the willow were carried up into the air along a strong updraft, dying out into inert ashes as they swelled towards the earliest-appearing stars, “... pay attention to the movements of the wind, and you will understand soon enough that this is no act of destruction. It is something much more sublime.”

For a moment, the pair were silent, and despite his impetuous nature – it seemed that the monster had done exactly as she had instructed, meditating attentively upon the movements of the wind and trying to follow the movements of the willow’s embers outwards.

“So this is not the end of the ‘Hero with no Name,’ is it?”

“Indeed, you will carry this memory in you, will you not?”

“I will. So this is how our fire preserves itself, in the hearts of others?”

“Sure enough.”

“Do we not then prompt others to live by their attachments?”

“We do. It is not every person who ought to live like fire. Think of the thunderstorm, and how its great arcs of lightning touch upon the earth…”

Unbeknownst to her, the thought of lightning was all too familiar to the oni.

“... lightning follows rain, fire follows lightning, smoke follows fire, and rain follows smoke. A system is without harmony if everybody lives by the same path. As practitioners of the way of fire, we are but one part of a greater whole.”

“You spoke of me as somebody with few friends, that was astute. I’ve made plenty of acquaintances along my way here, but nobody that I can call a true friend.”

“Then your life is one without balance, and in having learned to depend only on yourself, it seems you’ve likely done little more than isolate yourself. Without friends, you can never hope to make a true difference in this world – whether you simply carve your name onto a stone, or you conquer an entire nation to rule over as king, without friends to savor these accomplishments they are meaningless. You should find friends who challenge and contradict you, who are different enough from yourself that your intermingling can produce something greater than each of you individually.”

“Aye…” Doji grimaced, perhaps the oni was taking in for the first time just how lonesome he had been along his travels in the Blues, “... ever since my mother taught me that it is often not the strongest man who rules a nation, I have wished to see a kingdom where each person is made to contend their own strength and where every ounce of power afforded to a person is one that they have proven themselves worthy of holding. What would a place like that be without those worthy of calling friends? A land of endless war?”

“Likely little else…” Tomoko responded bluntly to her pupil as the willow burnt down into a single, crackling, pillar of charcoal and ember.

“…my father believed in something not dissimilar, but he had no grand delusions of strength or worthiness. Once he had seen how beautifully my mother danced, he would always say that his dream was to see a world where every person was free to dance to the beat of their own drum.”

“It’s a shame he never got to see it. This world, with its armies, and rulers…” a grim and bitter expression washed across the oni’s face, “... what freedom could a dancer truly have in a world like this?”

“The world is not such a fixed thing. It may seem for this moment that all of the rules have been engraved in stone, and that there is no way to free yourself from beneath the thumb of the tyrants. We can only hope that we will see the dawn of that day, when every person dances beneath the sun, but for now the sun is setting – let us return to the village and rest ourselves for tomorrow’s coming battle.”

“I think that I’ll rest here on this hill, Tomo-sensei. I have much to consider, and I wish to listen to the last sounds of the hero’s willow.”

“You are quite resilient to the elements, it seems you rest and walk wherever you please…” Tomoko said with watery eyes, “... I too wish to hear the last words of the hero. As your teacher, I command that you run into town and fetch me all of the bedding from my dojo which you so courteously wrecked!”

Though his brow furrowed in irritation, the smile on the red-haired monster betrayed the fact that he was happy to comply with his sensei’s command. In a matter of minutes the long-legged devil had leapt back into town and swept up all of the necessary bedding for a warm slumber party on the hill, returning in similarly good time.

That evening, Doji and Tomoko slept on opposite sides of the willow as it crumbled into dark charcoaled shards of what it once was. In being burnt into cinders, the willow grown from the resting place of the ‘Hero with no Name’ was transformed into something new; the cyclical nature of fire had been realized in full, and the spirit of Foxfire had been preserved, cultivated, and honed in the hearts of its errant students across the world.

A week’s time after Shimotsuki was assaulted by Akō Ryōma and his 99 rōnin, uncharacteristically bright and optimistic rays of sun cast down upon the village and its hillsides…

… alongside the unmarked grave, nurtured by the fertile soil and nutritious charcoal of the willow, a single, pale-red chrysanthemum flower began to grow.

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