Chapter 31: The Blind Child

  (The Blind Perspective)

  From the loins of a slave father wearing a master’s mask... and from the womb of a mother who possessed no strength for the birth cry. I was born a blind slave. I never knew the blue of the sky, nor did I ever tread the steadiness of the earth with my eyes. My name was (Iyasu). And my mother was the first offering; she died spitting me out into this world, leaving me alone in the abyss.

  The beginning of my life was nothing but... blackness. A dense, viscous blackness, filled by a merciless noise. I had only one truth: the voice of a "kind" father. His voice was soft, trembling, dripping with a weakness I hated from the moment I could distinguish sounds.

  The first memory carved into my mind was not an image, but a vibration in the air. The voice of a strange man, coarse and low, screaming in my father’s face. Insulting him with words as sharp as gravel. And my father... did nothing. I heard the sound of his bowing, the rustle of his clothes as he knelt, and the sound of his acceptance of the words as if they were holy truths. From that moment, in my eternal darkness, I hated my father. I asked myself: "Why am I blind? And why is my father weak? Is it because we were created from the clay of slaves?"

  Life continued black, slow, and heavy, reeking of ancient fear. In that night... The hut we called a palace burned down. I was inside. I felt the heat approaching, not like the warmth of the sun, but like the breath of a hungry beast crawling toward me. I heard the moan of ancient timbers tearing apart, bowing under the weight of the heat with a sound like a giant grinding his teeth in pain. The fire was breathing. With every gust of wind entering the broken window, I heard the deep inhale of the flames sucking the air from the room with a terrifying hiss, as if thousands of snakes were released at once.

  The smell infiltrated my nose, a choking and bitter scent; the taste of ash settled in the back of my throat like dry dirt mixed with boiling varnish. I felt that the heat would relieve me. It would melt this blackness. Death approached... and suddenly. A sound sliced through the chaos. Tschiiing. A clear metallic ring, followed by the sound of tearing air. Whoosh. A sharp, fast sound, like silk tearing in a silent room. The smell of cold, clean iron pierced the curtain of choking smoke. The heat split before me, and I felt the coldness of the blade pass near me without touching, like a kiss from a merciful death saving me from a hideous one.

  That was the voice of (Ryu). In that moment, and for the first time, a seed of feeling sprouted in the chest of the blind child. I want to be that sound. I want to become that cold blade that cuts the fire. I want to become (Ryu).

  After that night, I decided. I will become a samurai. Although I do not see the sword, I hear its singing and smell the scent of its iron. I began to mimic that cut. Striking the air, stumbling, falling into the mud. But reality was harsh. I was the "Little Master," yet I was a humiliated slave. Even the servants, when I trained, would push me. I heard their mocking whispers, felt their hands shoving me into the mud, and heard their laughter pounding like nails into my ears. And my father... the humiliated one, stood and watched. I heard the silence of his impotence. "Kindness is a sin." That is what my father taught me with his silence.

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  And one morning, the air was warm and pure. A normal morning, where I was trying to cut the void with my wooden sword. I was met by a voice. It was not a "kind" and fluid voice like my father's. It was a "tender" voice. Strong, firm, and deep like the roots of the earth. The voice of an old woman named (Kinami). She did not insult me. She did not push me. She did not laugh at my pathetic attempts. Instead, she said seriously, as if addressing a man, not a child: "Cutting is not like that. You hold the sword wrong. Listen to the wind."

  From that simple moment, the tone of my black life changed. New melodies entered my world. The voice of the entity people call "Mother." That mother began to teach me. How to hear the opponent's breathing before he moves. How to smell the cold sweat of fear. How to make the sword an extension of my hearing. It was (Kinami), the Mother of the Kina Foxes. She used to come to our humble hut for a ridiculous reason, because she liked talking to my "kind" father. I know she didn't come for me. But I clung to that new voice.

  She taught me how to live. And she protected me. With my weakness, with my blindness, she protected me. With her presence, no one dared to disrespect me. The sound of her cane striking the ground was my shield. We didn't talk about great things. They were just lessons in the sword and life. But that conversation was my whole world. I never called her "Mom." But every time I smell the wild herbs wafting from her clothes, my heart screams: "Mom." For the first time in my life... I wished I could see. I do not want to see the sky, nor the sword, nor the light they talk about. I just wanted... to see her face.

  Then time passed again. With the speed of thunder and the smell of lightning. And for a second time, I heard the voice of (Ryu). It wasn't the sound of his majestic, pure cut this time. It was a voice... longing? As soon as I distinguished his tone, I rushed toward him, stumbling in my steps. I said to him, with the eagerness of a child who found his hero: "I want to become like you! I want to become (Ryu)! I want to cut the fire!"

  But (Ryu)... was like the others. He laughed. A dry, cold laugh, smelling of cheap sake. He mocked me. He said coldly that I wouldn't even become a samurai, so how could I become like him? "Go back to your house, you blind boy."

  In that moment... I drowned. I returned to the bottom of the dark, cold ocean. The voice of (Ryu) was no longer the voice of a hero, but the voice of disappointment. And the sounds returned to being just painful noise. And my father's voice... the voice supposed to be "kind"... remained silent.

  But a different voice sliced the darkness. The voice of strong tenderness. (Kinami). She protected me. I heard her footsteps advance, she stood before me, and faced (Ryu). Her voice was strong, angry, and warm all at once. "Do not speak to him like that!" The voice of a mother defending her pup before a wolf. A voice that saved me from the ocean I was about to drown in.

  In that moment... I smelled her scent, and heard her heart beating angrily for my sake. And I wished the world would stop. That time would freeze forever, with her protecting me, and me behind her, listening to her voice which was, for me, the only light in a world of eternal darkness.