Chapter Text
(Letter from Kiryu Kazuma to Majima Goro, 1553)
My dearest love.
It is a pleasure to come to war at last.
Today we are encamped by the banks of the Saigawa River. I begin abruptly, as you've chided me for in the past, but I am in a hurry this once. This is our first moment of rest after a week-long march, and as I sit here in the light of our camp's only lantern, I write furiously in order to send on as many words as I can find in between this shift and the next; before I am taken away again into the dark. Guard duty is lonesome. I find myself thinking of you often.
I fear that this time I must begin by telling you about the details that you often complain of. I tell you that we are a hundred strong, and that this morning we tried on armors with irons and coppers that some of us have never seen before. We gleamed in the elbow of the river, frightened by our own reflections, by our visage — and when the wind blew none of us were ruffled or moved. Indeed, we could hardly move! Armor is much heavier than I have thought: weightier, quieter.
The armor was not for me, of course. You know I am a mere foot soldier. We've cleaned it so that no one will know; we were merely curious. Not in all our lives have we seen another such wasting of good iron. A single armor might make a hundred good hoes.
At noon, we ate rice by the bank, and someone had salt. I will stop now before I try your patience further. I must be boring you with your educated ears and your worldly ways. Perhaps there isn't an armor that you haven't seen, or a sword, or a tactic; great soldier that you are. You are in Hayashi castle, in the heart of things and the center of that drum of war: there isn't anything that I can tell you that you do not know, that you haven't seen yourself; perhaps you have even cut down an armor such as the one I've lately seen. Perhaps you even orchestrated this war yourself.
I shall tell you about the things that you might not know: I tell you of the mist, which curls at the knees of trees and seeps out of the clenched fists of copses so that when we march on, all at once we appear to be in the forest before we noticed. We start our dream at dawn and all the world is gray ink on white. At noon the mist disperses, and all is revealed: the plains slope on; we enter the trees and the trees too lean into the riverbanks. The firs lose their coat of snow as we brush pass them.
We sing songs while we march. We are all farm boys, so the songs come and go as we forget words, become unsure, become shy; Ijizakura has already come and gone a dozen times. Within the deep mist of the forest in the width of its neck we breathe on the gnarled trunks, and we split up and wander our own way. We don't do it on purpose. I think the soldiers miss home so badly that without thinking, our feet carry us apart, so that though we are nearly a hundred, we walk alone among the shoots and the bamboo curtain rises to separate us — each of us reminiscing of different homes. Though our song is sung the same, we are all thinking of different homes.
That is, but I.
I am only thinking of you.
Tomorrow we may reach the shadow of Hayashi castle, if the sun is kind and cast a long shadow. We will not enter, I think. I am not sure if we recruits are important enough for that. Most likely our captain will go alone, and we will be encamped outside of Hayashi on the plains with hundreds of others, far away from everything we've known. Yet for what it's worth, I am nearer to you now. Every mile away from home brings me closer to you. Unlike the other soldiers I have not left home behind but am going towards one, towards you.
My shift is almost here and my time is at an end, and I fear I must end as abruptly as I began.
I will be thinking of you. I hope we may meet again.
With love,
Kiryu.