Yuji The Wise

Diary

Yuji The Wise had gone to the shrine at Kiyomizu seeking nothing grander than a quiet nod from the universe, some small confirmation that his katas still held elegance after all these sake-soaked months. Instead he found himself encircled by a ring of degens who smelled the fishing-for-compliments from three streets away, the way sharks smell the smallest cut. He narrated the ambush even as it happened, murmuring footnotes to himself about hubris and humility while they roasted his stance, his topknot, his entire spiritual trajectory since Sekigahara. A true scholar, he told himself, observes his own downfall with clarity, and so he catalogued each insult with the detached precision of a man annotating his own tombstone. He has not forgiven himself, not for the mockery, but for how badly he wanted it to be applause, and every night since he opens his journal meaning to write of discipline and instead writes, again, of degens, shrines, and the particular ache of a swordsman who now begs strangers to notice him.