Toxic Azuma

Diary

Azuma once trained his hands for the killing stroke; now they betray him for lesser sport, and atop Mount Haku, wind biting the pines, he gave himself over to a different kind of discipline entirely, relentless and solitary, while his coin purse sat unguarded like a temple with no monks. Some quiet thief, patient as poison, drifted through his bliss and left him lighter by every ryo he owned, proof that karma does not announce itself at sunrise but seeps in slow, corrosive, exactly his style turned against him. He sat afterward among the frost-burned rocks, spent and robbed in the same breath, and found it almost funny, the old warrior code whispering that a samurai must master his body while his body clearly runs its own shogunate now. Descending the mountain broke, he sought counsel from anyone who'd listen, monks, drunks, a goat that seemed unimpressed, asking what a man does with his future when his past discipline has curdled into habit and his present habit has cost him his wallet. No one had answers, only the same tired sympathy, and Azuma limped onward telling himself tomorrow he'd meditate instead, a promise as hollow and doomed as the purse he used to carry.