Shitless Botan

Diary

Once Shitless Botan carried a blade with the calm of a man who had already died in every way that mattered, and the wars only confirmed what he already knew: nothing left could touch him. So when he sank into the sulfur pools at the Hidden Teahouse and found the water alive with snakes coiling lazily around his ankles, he did not flinch, did not curse, did not even blink, he simply nodded at them like old debt collectors he'd already settled with in a past life. He rose an hour later serene as ever, only to discover his sandals gone, vanished into the steam or swallowed by some especially ambitious viper, and he stood there barefoot on the wet stone weighing the indignity against the vast indifference of the universe and finding it, on balance, unworthy of a reaction. The old discipline in him whispered that a true warrior tracks his gear, counts his blessings, keeps his affairs in order, and the new degenerate in him poured another cup of shochu and whispered back that discipline is just fear wearing a clean robe. So he chose, with the same unshakeable calm he'd give a killing blow, to simply forget the entire incident, sandals and snakes and all, and walked home on bare feet as if the ground itself owed him nothing and never had.