The first jug was the hardest. The decision was clear-cut, obvious from any perspective – inside or out. It was a thing Miyo needed to do for a long while. It was still hard. Hard not to unstop the first jug and take a farewell swig, it would have been harder then to leave it at that: a farewell. Eventually his trembling hands stopped. He listened to Sai's exhalations, his cries as he brought the practice sword down. He remembered his Father's shrine and the tearful morning just spent. He tried to remember the man he once was, and could come up with only a silhouette. But the outline was at least there, something to fill in later. Perhaps the details would become clear. He had to at least try.

He let the fermented drink spill out on the grass. He uncorked another, turned it over. Repeated the process. The ground reeked of alcohol, his feet in a puddle of it. All his remaining stock was spent. There were no lightening bolts, no revelations, no exultation. He still wanted a drink. He would need to learn to pretend that he did not. He would need to fixate on something, find resolve there. His pupils – now he could hear Yabona cry out as she swung, and Sai's gentle murmur, probably correcting her posture as best as he was able.

Overtaking him was a strange sense of calm, like the crackle of the atmosphere pre-storm. He was spent, perhaps if he had undertaken this decision any other day there would have been room for tears, he may have been filled with them – those he spent for his Father and his missing years already. So calm, and for once a job to do. He turned the corner, and there they were, his two new students. What a shock that would have been any other day, though now he took it in stride. Yabona had spunk, this Miyo could not deny – if that energy could be directed, channelled... Those kinds of students had been some of Miyo's best. They required a bit more attention of course, but most worthwhile endeavours did.

Yabona currently held the practice sword. Sai was first to notice Miyo and he bowed. Yabona shortly followed his example, albeit awkwardly.

Miyo struck his most masterly posture, full height, chin raised, eyes hopefully knowing and not still red from his morning. He nodded, and he gestured for them to continue. Yabona cast a nervous glance to Sai and she took up the high-guard, the one posture Miyo had explicitly shown Sai, the single posture that he once thought would be all he would teach – when his heart was half, one side still filled with wine, and the other, numbed by said wine, full of regret. With some correction Sai could have moved on to any number of strokes, any number of routines. If only Miyo had been paying attention, but no, no more time for these thoughts – regret would be reserved for the night, now he would teach, as he promised.

The girl was remarkably poised, not as stiff as Sai, but her grip was all wrong. She held the mock-blade as though a bludgeon. Miyo shook his head as he mounted the steps.

“You must allow for more play in your grip, whenever you pick up even a practice sword imagine the blade is sharp. You are looking to strike, to cut, not to hit. When you bring it down, you also draw, or push. Here let me see your hand.”

He corrected her grip, tightening his hand around hers to get her to better hold it, plucking fingers and moving them to a more proper configuration. With time, and her thumb and forefinger thus, she would be able to exert far more control of the blade than with the fist she had been making before.

Miyo smiled, “Now, show me a proper strike,” he said.

Yabona fidgeted, suddenly appearing nervous. With a glance at Sai she struck. A forceful arc down and to the left, she did not step into it, rather she was off balance. She did not draw, she did not push. She used it like a club.

Miyo sighed. There was so much to do. Scratching his head he strolled over to the rack of practice weapons, he selected two of the longer wooden swords, and tossed one to Sai, the other he kept.

“I will demonstrate,” Miyo said, and with a deep breath he took up the high-guard, he swung, he stepped, he twisted the blade and brought it up again and then level with his eye tip outward, he thrust. He continued to move, graceful, fluid – or rather an old drunkards imitation of such traits. He lagged here, faltered there, and hoped that neither of his two young students would notice. A glance at the gleam in Sai's eye and the furrow of Yabona's brow told him they did not. If this impressed them... so much to do.

“There are five guards, and there is one guard, no more no less.” He paused to gauge their reaction.

The words came back to him, as if they were ink on his bones, once again wet and ready to travel the blood-stream. He spoke them often, to students with the least amount of prior knowledge. Here Sai and Yabona reacted as many others had before them, skeptical, but his contradiction was deliberate. It was important, above all, not to fall into prescripts. To blindly follow routines learned on practice mats. However one must become familiar first, in order to adapt later. So prime them: plant seeds that would later grow. By the end of his tutelage, they would understand.

“High, left, middle, right, low,” his voice staccato, his body adopting the positions as he spoke them. “These are the five guards. The one guard, is wherever you place your blade, and wherever your opponent places his. Reflect on this as we move. Follow along. High, left, middle, right, low.” He droned on, and they caught up to him. Impurities in form could be sought to later, first he needed to get them used to this unfamiliar mode of movement. “Yell! High...” and they echoed him. They continued for hours, without a break. Each coated in a sheen of sweat.

Sai with grim determination, and somewhere in the folds of his eyes satisfaction. Instruction was finally forthcoming. It felt good, Miyo had to agree.

Yabona grinning, as though at play. This was infectious - Miyo finding a smile creep onto his own lips - if dangerous. He would need to take care with her, it was improper to practice arts such as these with a light heart. It was a tool-set for killing.

“For protecting...”

Miyo lurched in his rotation. He should have arrived hands near navel, sword vertical. Instead he got caught somewhere between left and middle guard. His Father's voice echoing. His Father's face before him, wrinkled, scarred, kind. Incongruous in the extreme. A man who was there at the unification, a man who spent his life making an art out of killing. A man whose ideals had changed with age, “We learn to fight, yes. But we do so with grave responsibility. We do not employ violence with frivolity. Only as final recourse, and only to protect.”

Should he have protected his Father's memory, then? So long ago, when a refused duel sullied it forever? It was one of the questions that kept him in a bottle. There seemed no answer; to fight for honour would be frivolous, he had no doubt his Father would agree, yet a great many people were frivolous and the cost of not being so had been a legacy. Duelling was then in fashion. It was one way to let free a martial spirit that had been undergoing a shackling since the Emperor finally reigned in the provinces. Entire families of warriors with no war to fight; people paid attention to this – they rose and fell according to their duels, for a time. Now there were battlefields across the sea, and they looked remarkably different from those of old.

The decision had been sound, yes. Father would have done the same in refusing the duel. But Father wouldn't have crumpled afterwards. Father would have also shown no fear. That thought another gnat gnawing. He had been afraid. Even now the name Koji was enough to make him tremble. The boy had been a prodigy, now he was a fully-blossomed saint. Miyo surely would have died. It was true. He was a coward.

“Miyo,” Sai said.

“What's wrong with him,” Yabona whispered.

“On the mats I am known as Master, you will show proper respect,” Miyo said with a grin. He breathed in deep, started another count, “High!”

At least he had students again.

What was glory, a name, a legacy, next to that?

Large and distant mountains, no doubt. But what if they weren't there? Then he could view the sea with pleasure.

They worked until sun-down.