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Image for the poem Legend of the Undead Samurai - Part One

Legend of the Undead Samurai - Part One

- Legend of the Undead Samurai -
Based on actual, historical events and personages, as well as some of my own past-life memories…

“Flowers are flowers, when they bloom,
People are people, when facing doom…
And knowing the proper time to vanish from the world.”
– The Death Poem of Lady Gracia Hosokawa


Prologue: The Fourth Son of Heaven

In the year 1637 A.D., the Tokugawa Shogunate mandated a harshly strict religious order to severely restrict, and it was hoped by the Shogun, to contain the spread of the religion known as Christianity in Japan. In Kyushu, Shimabara, and the land of Amakusa, the Christian population was particularly large though persecuted harshly enough to often drive it to go underground and operate in secret, without the Shogun’s approval. The farmers of these regions continuously endured the most extreme pain and suffering under the sometimes savage oppression of the land’s rulers. Unable to pay their taxes due to extreme conditions of famine, Christians often watched helplessly as their daughters or sons were taken away: by the “noble” Samurai… either to become their slaves, their prisoners, or to suffer far worse fates than those. By 1638, and the advent of the Shimabara Massacre, Christianity had been all but demonized by those who professed to follow a path of “honor”. This is the story of Shiro of Amakusa, who was both the hero and the villain of the Shimabara Massacre. A boy born to Christian parents, who rose to become something more than he ever expected, or wanted, to be. Around the time of his birth, many of the peasants who lived in his home village began to pray for a miracle from God. They could not know that this simple boy would become both their miracle and their worst nightmare… destined to bring about both hope and despair to all the lands. What even Tokugawa Iemitsu himself: could not have known, what just how much despair could come from one truly broken soul. Shiro Masuda was that soul! He was born in the year 1621, the fourth son of Jinbei Masuda, a Ronin who lived in Oyano, in the Amakusa Islands… and as the child of that former Konishi Clan retainer, Shiro was accepted from the beginning by those who devoutly believed him to be the Fourth Son of Heaven foretold by Saint Francis Xavier to be destined to lead the Christians in their efforts to spread their faith throughout all of Japan. All three of his elder brothers had died under bizarre circumstances, prematurely. He became the only male child of that great family. However, his mother was fearful of the prophecies regarding her son, and so she took him away while he was still but a child and hid him in a small village, where she renamed him as simply Shiro Amakusa. After entrusting him into the care of a humble local couple that shared her Catholic faith, she went off and was never heard from by Shiro again. Neither his mother nor his famous father would ever be truly known to him… but his father’s blood flowed quite hotly in his veins, and in later years he would often come to keep the more unsavory company of Ronin and other mercenaries. Beyond any matters of this world, there was from early childhood on, something different indeed about Shiro. Something quite beautiful, as well as terrible! Often, whilst playing near the village well, he would have powerful visions of angels as well as demons. He could see the many ancient spirits spoken of by Shinto priests, and he could sense the emotions of others, though of their thoughts he knew nothing. He never told his foster parents, for fear of what they might say if they learned he possessed such abilities… but there was a certain little girl that would watch him for hours, never once asking his name but simply studying him intently. At the age of four, the boy managed to recite in public, before the entire village, the Keisho… the fundamental principles of Cunfucianism… and as the little girl was looking on, the boy’s adopted parents hailed him as a child prodigy like no other. The audience that had gathered around to watch Shiro was surprised at his knowledge and aptitude for learning, and not one thought him strange for it. “He will do great things when he grows up!” one old man commented as he heard the boy’s closing statements. Shiro should have been filled with pride, but he always felt as if he was somehow not quite good enough. People thought him humble, when in truth he was afraid… though of what, he could not say. The little girl thought she could sense Shiro’s inner struggle, and it made her care for him even more. One year, fate would bring those two peculiar children together in the most terrible way imaginable. The bond between them would be forged, from spilled blood.

Chapter One – A Prophecy of Darkness

Part One: The Burning Heart

It was said that the village was quiet, too quiet, to be considered of any import to the armies of the Shogun. No one would want to come there, save those who had eked out a living amidst the quiet woodlands and grasslands that dominated its’ immediate vicinity. The village had no name, and its’ inhabitants preferred it exactly that way. For a reason! Many of them were Christians living in a land dominated by the twin religions of Shinto and Buddhism. Sadly, this would prove to be what doomed the place. Insects were buzzing in the air, and the barking of dogs could be heard between the tiny houses as a small contingent of soldiers rode through the main road of the village proper. It was a rough dirt road, unpaved, and the ground was pushed hard by the hooves of the horses. The men were resplendent in their colorful armor, as they bore the banners of their lord and master, Tokugawa. They often made routine inspections of outlying lands such as this one, to ensure that there was no trouble or rebellion brewing. These were hard times, and the Shogun’s rule could be equally hard. The clip-clop of the horses came to a stop when the leader of the soldiers noticed an unusual sight in the middle of the village: a rough, stone statue of the Virgin Mary around which garlands were hung and at the base of which was set prayer candles normally reserved for sacred shrines to the gods alone. “It is that foreign goddess, Mary.” Explained the leader’s guide, a man who was familiar with the village and its’ environs, though not as much so with its’ people and the nature of their customs. The leader, a very evil-looking man with a scar across the left side of his face, called out loudly: “Where is everyone? I see only empty streets, if you can call these animal trails streets! Come out, and honorably take responsibility for this blasphemy against the gods and your lord.” Suddenly a young boy sprang from one of the houses with a catlike grace. He wore simple white robes, and his hair was long and neatly combed. Though perhaps not noble of birth, the child was possessed of a certain nobility of bearing nonetheless. He walked up the leader of the soldiers, looked him intensely in the eye, and said bravely: “Our lord is Jesus Christ, not Tokugawa. We will not bow to a man, for we bow only to God.” Then the solider laughed at him and mockingly replied: “If you revere a man as a god, then who is that harlot whose image I see there! Is your god male or female?” The boy tried to earnestly explain, stating: “That is the mother of Jesus, and therefore of God in mortal form. We must revere her, because we revere him so piously.” The man then stepped down from his horse and struck the boy across his face with his gauntleted hand. The child’s mouth bled from how hard he had been hit. “You call the worship of foreign gods piety? To me, to an emissary of the Shogun himself! You need to be taught a lesson, boy. This whole rat’s nest needs to be taught one! Men, burn this village to the ground and kill the cowards who refuse to come forth to defend it. Cowards deserve no mercy.” The leader’s aid asked of him: “And what of the boy… shall we slay him as well?” but the evil leader with his wicked scar smiled broadly, thinking it over as he gave his orders: “No, his life alone shall be spared, so he can live with the knowledge of what happens to those who defy the will of the gods and our lord Tokugawa.” And those terrible orders were carried out to precision. The thatch roofs of the houses were set ablaze with the torches that the soldiers brought down upon them. Men, women, and children were dragged from their burning homes screaming. All were put to the sword, and none were spared. None: except the boy who could only stand before the statue of the Virgin and weep at the carnage all around him. “Fear not child!” yelled the leader of the soldiers to the child. “We will not break your precious harlot goddess. Her image we shall leave intact, as all around her we shall stake the bodies of your people. You will remember the price they paid for their so-called piety.” And the boy screamed as he saw his friends and loved ones decapitated before his eyes, their heads and bodies impaled on stakes set into the dirt all around the statue. Once sacred ground, the area was now defiled with blood and death. “Is this how noble Samurai behave!” the boy screeched defiantly at the soldiers who committed these and other atrocities before his eyes. “You will die with the shame of innocent blood on your hands. You will all die one day, for this! I will not be a child forever… and when I am grown, I will get my revenge on you all.” But he felt his face smacked again by another of the soldiers, who snickered at him, saying: “Funny… I had always heard you Christians preached forgiveness and love for your enemy. Won’t you love me, boy? Surely your god will forgive me!”  But the boy was unmoved and defiant as ever. He spat in the soldier’s face and warned him gravely: “Neither God nor I can forgive those who are damned to Hell.” And the soldier saw something in that child’s eyes that frightened him into silence. He went back to the slaughter as the smoke of the burning village rose up unto the clouds, unto Heaven itself surely. Not one man would lay another hand to the boy after that, for something fearful was in their hearts. Soon, the butchery was over, the soldiers long gone, and the boy was left alone to weep at the base of the once-holy statue. He wept until his sorrow turned to anger. His heart was now ablaze, and one day he would make good on his promise. One day, he would grow to manhood and make even the Shogun himself weep for the innocent blood thus shed.

Part Two: Mark of the Demon

A little girl stumbled upon the boy. She, and he were the only survivors of the massacre of that village. She wore a simple brown peasant’s robe, and carried a long stick. She might have struck a soldier or two with it before finding a place to hide… her memory of the events of that day seemed to be confused. She tried to put out of her mind, the moaning and groaning of those who were staked out whilst still alive. Their bodies quivering and sliding down the wooden stakes upon which they had been mounted. Blood was everywhere, and crows began to arrive to pluck flesh from the fresh corpses. Flies gathered, and the sky grew dark with some gathering storm clouds. A clap of thunder could be heard somewhere far off in the distance. The little girl approached the boy cautiously, and said to him in a most friendly voice, belying the horror that gripped the girl’s heart: “What is your name? Mine is Ocho.” The boy was sitting with his arms wrapped tightly about himself. His white robes, pristine and untouched, stood in stark contrast to the blood, dirt, and death all around the two children. The boy looked into the girl’s eyes and saw a kindred spirit there. “My name is Shiro.” He replied to her question. “Shiro… let us leave this place. I know another village where they will take us in.” He nodded and stood on his feet. The girl offered him her stick to help him walk, since he was nauseated from the horrors he had witnessed and dizzy from the smell of all the smoke from the burning buildings. “Thank you, Ocho.” He said. The girl touched the cross that the boy wore around his neck curiously… noting that it had a small hole in it. “What made that hole, Shiro?” She asked, but then realized that a bullet was lodged in it from one of the soldiers’ rifles. She took out the bullet and stared wide-eyed at it and then at the boy. “It is truly a miracle! God saved your life.” Then Shiro assured her in a calm and almost peaceful tone that surprised both of them: “God saved both of our lives, Ocho. One day, I will explain to you why.” The girl then thought about a certain prophecy she had once heard her mother read to her, from some ancient scrolls that were kept in the village since the first Christians came to dwell there many, many years before. “When the statue of the Mother is heaped with burnt offerings of the dead, and a boy who was marked for death is spared through divine will alone… then, that boy shall be revealed as the Tenshi, the Son of God come again.” Ocho then proceeded to tell the words of that prophecy: to the boy, who had never heard of it before and whose eyes grew wider the more of it he heard. Ocho then excitedly said to Shiro: “Do you think it could be true? That you are the Tenshi, I mean!” He smiled, merely shaking his head and just thinking the whole of the day’s events over to himself. “I do not know. It is possible. Perhaps the future will tell us! For now, let us put this place behind us forever.” After that, the two children walked along in silence. They could still hear the crows descending for the unburied dead of their village. Their parents, their relatives… and all their friends… were gone. Of course, Shiro could not remember much about his parents. The villagers always said he was adopted, that his mother and his father had entrusted them into the car of the locals. One day, they always told him, he would do great things. He promised himself, after the massacre he had just witnessed, that he would honor that and do great things indeed. Great and terrible things, the likes of which no one could, at that time, have imagined. His newfound friend, Ocho, led him down old trails and across secret ways not watched by either the Shogun’s men or the local militias… typically Ronin and other mercenaries hired to protect the lands from attack. Ironic! Where were those mercenaries today, when they were needed most? The children could not have known that those same Ronin had been paid well by the Shogun’s soldiers to look the other way, for the reach of Tokugawa was long and the greed of the Ronin legendary. In time, the children reached the safety of another village, where Christians were welcomed but encouraged to remain secretive about their beliefs. It was a larger, far more prosperous place than the village Shiro was raised in, and in the middle of its’ streets and avenues there stood a broken statue of the Virgin Mary which at one time must have been not dissimilar to the one he had protected back at home. He wanted to cry when he beheld its’ shattered visage. “Ocho, help me put this back the way it was!” he called out to the girl who was slowly becoming his best friend as well as his fellow survivor. The two children lashed the statue with robes they found about the village, and they repaired… as best as they could… the broken sacred statue until it took once more a recognizable form. Shiro bade some local masons to help him repair it more permanently, and when all was done the people told tales of how the two children from the dead village caused the broken statue of the Virgin to be whole once again. They forgot to mention the role the peasants played in the actual repair work that followed the initial efforts on the parts of Shiro and Ocho. But such is ever the way with legends, that the truth behind them is oft forgotten in favor of the myths those legends inspire. As time went on, this miracle was solely attributed to Shiro, and touted as proof of his being the Tenshi. Shiro grew to his early teen years in this village, and in others like it. Ones that kept out of the Shogun’s way… and out of his eye as well! It seemed that Shiro was marked for some destiny, and often upon hearing legends of the Tenshi… this so provided his young mind with extra fire. “What if I am the one?” He found himself always questioning. But never would he forget his oath to exact revenge for his village’s doom.

Shiro thought back often on his young life. At the age of nine, he had been sent to the great Samurai Susa Hannojo to become his page… and Susa was taken with the youth’s beauty, though not in a perverse way but rather as one might be taken with a work of art. The Samurai was a retainer of the noble Kato Kiyomasa, but in time the great Kato fell from power and Susa Hannojo feared disgrace. Shiro returned home following that time, and did odd jobs about the village until he was twelve years old. Then, he decided to travel to Nagasaki to study medicine, for he wished to discover how people might be healed… and he secretly longed to find a cure for death itself, so that he might be able to grant people eternal life. He, of course, told no one of that hidden desire of his… lest they think him mad. But even so, he pursued such forbidden studies with the utmost earnest. A certain Chinese merchant employed Shiro for a time, and taught him the fundamentals of alchemy, healing, herb lore, and basic medicine. The man’s name was unpronounceable to Shiro, so he always simply called the man Li, for that was the simplified form of his name. One day, Li noticed a remarkable spark within the young man… a fire like no other… and he remarked: “I shall never understand this country of Japan, that can be content to allow a bright boy such as yourself to do low-grade jobs for a pittance. Such a waste of genius, to leave your true talents untapped!” So it came to pass, that with those words… Li began to tutor Shiro in the darkest of Chinese Black Magic and Sorcery. Through such arts, Shiro would find the knowledge he had long sought. Having discovered what it was he set out to learn… the ambitious young sorcerer set out wandering in the hopes of mastering the art of the sword.

Part Three: Wrath of the Tenshi

Harano Castle could be seen from the sea. Its’ surrounding area was strategically perfect in many ways, for an army that holed up there could potentially fight off a much superior force. However, it had a single flaw in its’ construction and that flaw would later prove to be the undoing of the Christian rebellion that would come to be centered there. Shiro Amakusa had often spied the fortress in his travels, and decided that… should he ever plan a military operation of any sort… he would in fact base it there. Often, he thought it a destined decision that was chosen for him by fate, rather than one he came to in a rational process of thought. But there was many a time when he was not a rational man. A man of faith, yes, and great determination… but also one possessed by the inner demons of the horrors he had so long ago been forced to witness. He often found himself thinking about the dead of his village, of their faces… frozen in their final moments… and of all their blood spilled about him. And that thought made him angry beyond reason! The inhabitants of these lands, the Amakusa Islands, had been a part of the fief of Konishi Yukinaga, and under his cruel and sadistic hand they suffered the same sort of barbaric persecutions, which would become so prevalent at the hands of the sinister Terasawa family, who had been moved into area specifically to put down any and all Christian resistance. Amongst the more famous Ronin of the region, the former retainers of Kato Tadahiro and Sassa Narimasa made names for themselves on various sides during the conflict. Both of the lords they had been retainers to had once ruled portions of Higo, an important province. All of these names, Shiro heard in his travels… but they meant nothing to him. His cause was not a political one.

Years passed, and Shiro Amakusa made a name for himself as a great warrior, a mystic, and a crusader for the Christian cause in those times. Japan, in those days, was dominated totally by the iron hand of both the Shogun and the Feudal system itself. Whilst the persecutions against the Christians grew ever more numerous, the fire and defiance in Shiro’s heart also grew more terrible. It was the end of the summer season, one year, and the very earliest beginnings of that year’s autumn, that saw the balance of power begin to shift ever so slightly in Shiro’s favor. Harano Castle had stood for generations, and from the raised ground upon which it stood… a commanding view of the surrounding plains could be seen. The sky was blue, crisp, and clear on this day, and Shiro Amakusa breathed it in… savoring it, from his vantage point on the castle’s balcony. “It seems only yesterday that I was but a boy, and now I have become a man.” He said to his ally, the warlord Soy Kanmoiri. Both men shared a belief in Christianity and an undying hatred of the Shogun. Shiro had grown into a beautiful man. Not handsome… beautiful, and effeminately so. In his white robes and black breastplate, with his long black hair flowing about him, he was beyond lovely to behold. He still wore the cross pendant, with it’s small bullet hole in it, and he still thought often about little Ocho and how they had grown apart over the years since he set out into the world to fight for the cause he was sworn to see through to its’ bloody fruition. “A man you may be, but you are more fair than my own daughter!” Jested the warlord, a large and aging man with white hair, a grizzled beard, and fierce eyes. The warlord wore the finest armor he could steal, and his reasons for this campaign were less noble than his ally’s. Soy saught conquest, and saw the Christian cause as the perfect excuse to rebel against the Shogun and show his might. Perhaps even make a name for himself: and become as much the legend as his hero… the legendary wandering swordsman Musashi. He surveyed the goings on down below, with a vested interest in the outcome of those events. The party of soldiers who had destroyed Shiro’s village all those years ago, had come calling, sent by the Shogun to crush Shiro’s rebellion before it could begin to gain further momentum. The evil, scarred leader rode at the head of the column, certain that his Samurai and soldiers were more than a match for this small gathering of peasant rabble and Ronin who refused to cooperate with the Shogun any further. Greed only went so far, after all, in an age when honor was life as well as death! “Let us see how these rats like it when we burn their castle just like we burned the villages that supported it and helped to fund Soy’s ambitions.” Said the leader to his lieutenant. The banners of the Shogun and many allied clans flapped behind them as they rode on proud and defiant! Butchers, the lot of them… with every man having slain more women and children than worthy opponents… each soldier a disgrace to the code of Bushido. Shiro laughed, and yelled down to the man with the scar: “I see you are still an ugly bastard! Good. Remember when I said you and your men were damned? Behold, and prepare to meet the Devil this day. For I send you now to meet him… in the hell that I, not God, have prepared for you!” At Shiro’s command, volleys of arrows were launched from every single window of Harano Castle. The archers had stayed hidden well, and the Shogun’s men were taken completely by surprise. The arrows struck their marks, and many soldiers fell to their deaths from off their mounts, whilst their horses fell to even more of the deadly projectiles. Soy’s archers were renowned for their deadly and unerring accuracy, for they never once missed their targets. A fog soon rolled in, and the soldiers could not see from where the arrows came. And still they came, a second volley and then a third. After ten such volleys, only a handful of soldiers remained, including the evil leader with the scar. Shiro himself came forward, a long and deadly katana held in both of his slender hands. “This is for my people, my God, and myself!” he yelled, spitting in the leader’s face as he swiped the soldier’s head from his shoulders so perfectly that it remained attached by a single shred of flesh only. The mark of a perfect execution! Shiro’s revenge, however, was only just beginning. Later that evening, back at Harano Castle, the warlord Soy gave a rousing speech to his men: “Before long, we will make all of Japan Christian! Ha! What say you, my friend and ally, shall we slay more heretics on the morrow?” The dining hall was filled with loud men celebrating and toasting drunkenly. Nothing about these men seemed in any way Christian to Shiro, who found that notion ironic. They were tools to help him obtain his revenge, and nothing more. Once he was finished with them, he would discard them and move on. He knelt on the floor, his knees upon a soft cushion set before the low table, savoring his meal and enjoying his wine. Trying his best to ignore Soy’s drunker speech… until now. “Soy, my ally! Do not think to call our enemy heretic merely because they hate us and so we must oppose them. Save that dishonor for the Shogun himself, who controls the foe like a puppet on strings. We will slay the foe, make no mistake! On the morrow, more blood shall be spilt in our just cause. But remember what it is we are fighting for, and do not let victory make you complacent.” Soy blushed at this rebuke, and the men cheered Shiro’s name. “Cheers for the Tenshi!” they cried, and Shiro accepted that men though that he was the legendary Tenshi at last.

Part Four: Hell’s Fire Unleashed

The discontented Samurai of the immediate region who were without masters, for whatever the reason, had been meeting with the local peasants in secret, plotting an uprising… which would not break out until the autumn of 1637, when the local tax official came by to collect his usual due. His name was Hayashi Hyozaemon, and he was something of a fool. When he arrived at Hara Castle, he was greeted as warmly as can be expected. The local warlord, Soy, invited him in and had him prepared some sake to drink and a hot meal to eat. When he had thusly been honored as befitted a tax collector’s station, he was stabbed by at least twelve armed men, who took him by surprise. The assassination of the tax collector emboldened peasants from all over the Amakusa Islands to take up arms against their rulers and fight for their freedom. However, in order to bolster their ranks they began to force captives to join in their cause or face execution, and so many who fought for the cross of Shiro Amakusa did not always share his beliefs. In time, Shiro himself began to question just what it was his beliefs entailed. He was: sixteen yeas old when he decided to ally with the warlords of the region in order to expand the rebellion he had started the year previous… and being opportunistic by nature, those warlords immediately made the charismatic youth their figurehead leader, even as Shiro himself believed he had the entire situation under his complete control. But events were spiraling out of control faster than anyone could hope to realize… and the arrogant pride of the warlords would spell doom for the humble Christians who at first had only wanted the right to worship freely. So it was, that forces both within the rebellion and without began to work towards a single terrible moment.

The next day, one hundred thousand soldiers of the Shogun met the Christian rebels in battle at Harano Castle and were slain to a man by the vastly superior tactics employed by Soy and Shiro against them. The Shogun was so taken aback by the loss of so many men that he sent forth one of his most loyal generals, Nobutsuna Matsudaira, with an even larger contingent of men. Five hundred of his men were killed, forcing the rest to retreat to a nearby forest in order to avoid total defeat. One of the general’s men informed him of their dire predicament, and he was not pleased to say the least. “We are being cut down by farmers, peasants, and Ronin who owe allegiance to no master! People who do not follow the code of Bushido as do we Samurai. How is it that we are defeated so easily?” He ranted. His close advisors urged him to retreat back to the Shogun so that they could amass more troops before trying to attack the castle again. However, the general would not so much as acknowledge such “cowardly” advice. “We will ride forth once more to meet them at Harano. We shall show them Samurai courage, and surely the gods will favor our victory!” But no matter how much courage the general and his men could muster, they were no match for the traps that awaited them and the deadly precision of both Shiro’s archers and his loyal warriors, whose deadly blades were wielded with a Samurai’s precision. Still the general and his men held out, and what came to be referred to as the Shimabara Riot dragged on for some time with heavy casualties mounting on both sides. Over the following days, morale began to sink for the Christian forces at Harano, for the general was unlike many of the soldiers they had fought before, using superior offensive and defensive tactics on a par with Soy’s and Shiro’s own. However, it would have proved to be a stalemate had not fate intervened in the form of a party of warriors led by the legendary Miyamoto Musashi. “You are sacrificing your men in vain, general.” He said to Nobutsuna as they met to talk under the cover of the forest’s dark trees. Musashi was tall, strong, and imposing. His fierce eyes glared as he smiled a cocky grin beneath his thick drooping mustache. He wore simple gray robes overlaid with some very basic armor. He preferred mobility and speed, to cumbersome protection. The general, in contrast, wore his full armor and refused to remove even his helm to relax, so fearful had he become of being taken in the head by an errant arrow from the nearby castle. “Then enlighten me as to how we are supposed to fight against a foe with so strong a defense. Your reputation proceeds: you, Musashi! So let us see if you are as wise as you are said to be skilled.” And Musashi explained to the general his plan. “I will lead a small contingent of warriors, mostly men skilled in the forbidden arts of the Ninja, and we will enter Harano Castle by secret ways. There is a drain on the far side, and we can sneak in through there. It will hardly be watched, if at all… and it will lead us behind their defenses. We will slay all we can of their powerful archers, and open the gates for you and your men. It will be a slaughter more than a battle, if we conduct it in this way as I describe to you.” The general was pleased, and Musashi was paid well for his part in these events. The moon shone down on the conspiring men, as the fireflies gathered. It was late, almost midnight. An hour for shadows, such as Musashi hoped to employ! Just before the break of dawn, whilst it was still dark out, Musashi led his Ninja silently behind enemy lines and into the large drain on the far side of the castle. As expected, it was completely unguarded and used mainly for the disposal of water and waste. “A vile, smelly way to enter a castle!” complained Musashi, whilst gritting his teeth and preparing for the bloody deeds that he needed to do next. The men entered Harano by this means, and took down nearly half of the archers before Soy’s men became alerted to the Ninja and their doings. “Rally our troops! There are Ninja in the castle. Find them and rid us of their blasted ilk!” He ordered, as he chased Musashi down the main corridors that led between the private rooms and the great hall containing the main gate. Both men drew their swords, expecting to clash, but Musashi was no fool and kept running for the gate, knowing that once he got it unbarred and open… Soy would be finished. “Why not fight me, coward?” called out the warlord, but the intruder remained silent. The legendary swordsman reached the gate, cut the beams that barred it, and kicked it open with a mighty blow from his right foot. “Now I will fight you, Soy! Let us see if your reputation is as earned as mine.” So did the two men clash katana… whilst the Shogun’s general and all of his remaining soldiers stormed into Harano Castle with grim resolve and murder in their hearts! Many of the Ninja managed to escape being slain by the defenders, and they discovered that Harano was home to a small community of men, women, and children besides the castle housing Shiro Amakusa’s rebel army. It was a tragic discovery, because those innocents would perish along with all who rallied to defend the castle against the combined forces of the Shogun and Musashi’s Ninja. Hell’s fire had been unleashed… and it seemed to Shiro as he stormed forth to protect his followers, that there could be no hope for victory this time. He thought himself a man, but he was only seventeen years old at the time of the fall of Harano Castle in what would be called the Shimabara Massacre. At the time of his death! Even so, he would fight unto the end… at all costs.

Part Five: The Doom of Harano

The entire allied armies of the local domains were gathering to attack Harano Castle by this point, under the command of the famous warrior Itakura Shigemasa. The siege of Hara was bloody for both sides by this point, with massively heavy losses. The Shogun’s soldiers sent for aid from the Dutch, who had often supplied them with gunpowder and cannons. Again, they came to the Shogun’s aid and a little below five hundred rounds were fired at the rebels’ castle within the space of fifteen days, though without great result. Two: of the Dutch lookouts, were shot by rebel riflemen, and soon the ship sent by the Dutch to aid the Shogun could be seen fleeing back across the sea. It was said that the leaders of the rebels sent several messages to Itakura’s top officers, stating: “Are there no longer courageous soldiers in this realm to do combat with us, and will you not be shamed to have called in the assistance of foreigners against our small contingent of rebels?” at which it was noted that Itakura had the men who handed him this message beheaded. “They talk of shame, whilst they gather against the divine will of things itself? Bah! If Musashi’s plan succeeds, they will know the true meaning of shame, as well as death.” And so were all of these various events playing out whilst Harano Castle was being consumed from within. Itakura decided to lead a charge against the castle at this time, certain of success. He was met with a horrific ambush that claimed his life and the lives of his closest officers. The rebels were being slaughtered, but they were not dying without a fight! The general himself was nominated on the spot to be Itakura’s replacement, though the messenger sent to tell him this had all he could do to find the man during the mad chaos that was ensuing within Harano Castle.

One of the men reported to Shiro, his breath coming heavy and his body bleeding from countless wounds, that they had been betrayed. “One of our must trusted of men, Yamada Uemonsaku, has confessed to having sent messages to Musashi in order to inform him about secret ways into the castle. Ways the enemy could not have realized were so vulnerable to us, without his betrayal.” The man knelt before Shiro there in the dark hallway, amidst the screams of dying men, and he hated to give the Tenshi such dire news at such a time as this. “Yamada caused this to happen? Then curse his soul to be damned for all eternity for such a thing! I want you to go forth, and to tell as many of my men who still can draw blades, that all those who will now be willing to fight at my side, even besieged as we are… will be my friends in the next world and know the delights of Heaven on this very day should they die in my service.” It was then that Shiro could hear the women and the children screaming. He tried all this time to keep their presence at Harano a secret from the enemy or any enemy spies… but now it was too late, and they were in the process of being slain. He cried for them, but would not let their deaths be for nothing. “Come, obey my orders! Rally any still loyal to our cause. We shall give our enemy the brutality that they show us.” Thusly the man went forth, even as the castle was beginning to burn all around them. Shiro knew it was only a matter of time before the end came for his rebellion, at least here at Harano. The food supplies ran dangerously low, the way Soy and his men consumed them, and surely the Shogun’s forces must have learned of this from Yamada as well. Musashi had handily defeated Soy in combat, slashing both of the warlord’s hands and denying him an honorable death. “Slay me, damn you!” cried Soy, but Musashi mocked him, laughing: “It is the way of the Samurai to take their own life once dishonored. I will leave you to contemplate how you will take yours, so that you can die less ignobly than you lived.” And so Musashi fled Harano Castle, not wishing to have his far more perfect reputation tarnished by his involvement in what he swiftly realized was simple butchery. “There is not any honor to what transpires here this day!” he shouted at the Shogun’s general whilst fleeing into the forest and the welcoming night. The general stood in the gateway, having just dispatched Yamada to Hell with his blade. He dared not call the famous Musashi a coward, and so he kept silent. Women were dragged by their hair and set on fire, whilst children were cut to tiny pieces before their mothers’ and sisters’ eyes. Many of those women had sworn Christian vows of chastity, and the most beautiful of them were violated before they died. At this point, Shiro was happy that Ocho was not here. “At least they cannot take my memory of you and violate it!” he thought, as he beheld these horrors and others. He could not save his people… he could not save himself. No one rushed to his aid, and he would have no friends to take to Heaven with him when he died. He knew his hours were numbered, just not the way he would meet his end. He longed to save those innocents who suffered and perished because they had believed in his cause, and he even tried. He slew so many of the Shogun’s men in his attempts to protect the women and children that he no longer cared about the cause. About God, or revenge, or justice… only about trying to save as many lives as he could. The sad truth dawned upon him, when he came to realize that those he tried to save had no place to flee to. “They will die here, no matter what I do!” He broke down crying, even as he drove his sword through yet another soldier’s jugular, which caused a great spray of blood to burst forth unto a little boy’s face. The boy was truly horrified, both of the enemy and of the man who was trying to protect him. Shiro was reminded of himself, when he was just a scared child witnessing horrors such as transpired here this day. His sanity snapped at the thought, and he went into a kind of berserk frenzy. He slew his own people, the remaining men, women, and children, in order to spare them from being murdered or worse at the hands of the Shogun’s forces. “Better they meet death through me, clean and still pure, than die as vilely as the others have.” That is how he rationalized what he did in that hour. Forty thousand rebels in all, died during the Shogun’s siege of Harano Castle. He was found swiftly by the Shogun’s Samurai whilst standing in a room of the castle surrounded by bloody piles of the dead, all of who met death at his hands. Both enemy and ally alike numbered amongst them. “I have no friends to take with me to Heaven, but I shall take all my foes with me… to Hell!” he screamed defiantly, as his flashing blade met the necks and limbs of every man who stood against him. “Amakusa is a devil, not a man at all!” one of the general’s men reported. “Then slay the fiend quickly and be done with it!” ordered the general, who was himself growing weary… and tiring of both the battle and the cruel actions of the men under his command. At last, pierced and slashed by enough wounds to kill anyone else… Shiro Amakusa was dragged before the general, who readied his sword to decapitate the rebel leader. Shiro spit in the general’s face and declared ominously: “I shall return in one hundred years, and take my revenge. God has abandoned me, so let the Devil hear my oath and grant my desire!” His eyes were no longer those of a human being, having seen Hell all around him. He was prepared for what lay ahead. The general decapitated Shiro with a single strike, the rebel’s head falling away cleanly, his beautiful features smiling serenely in death. “Why was he smiling?” wondered the general. “Perhaps he longed for death at this point! Who can say?” and Harano Castle burned until naught was left but broken timbers, charred wood, and blackened stone. The dead were mounted upon many stakes and pikes… those not left to lie where they had been cut down. For the Shogun’s general, it had been one small victory against one tiny rebellion. But in truth it had been no victory at all, merely a horror perpetrated by the strong against the weak. A great cross, which had been set up in the main hall of the castle, was all that remained of the place that had become a heap of ash and rubble, heaped high with corpses. Shiro’s head was taken to Nagasaki and displayed as a warning against future rebellions, before being taken back to Harano and mounted in front of the cross with the rest of the dead from the massacre. Doom had truly fallen.

After the castle fell, the Shogun’s forces beheaded an estimated thirty seven thousand rebels and rebel sympathizers. It was the most horrific mass execution of its’ time, and it would come to be remembered by those who had escaped or survived the battle as the event that changed their lives forever. The Shogun had all those who had allied with the rebels, aided them in any capacity, or sympathized with them in any way, either executed or disgraced… in order to prevent any such future alliances from them. The towns of the Shimabara Peninsula became almost devoid of their populations, and so the area would be resettled by other folk over time. In all, the Shimabara Rebellion lasted for four months before its’ brutal end, with the siege of Harano Castle. Following the end of the siege, and the many ceaseless persecutions that came after it, Christianity was forced underground whilst the tradition of the Hidden Christians in Japan was begun. Starting, appropriately, in the region of Amakusa itself… it became a secret custom amongst Christians there to, instead of revering a statue of the Virgin Mary, hide secret images of the Virgin and Jesus on the opposite side of a larger statue of Buddha. Of Shiro Amakusa himself, whispers were spread that he was not actually dead at all… but that his sad and anguished spirit still burned for revenge against the Shogun from beyond the grave. Many remembered his words: that he would return in a hundred years. More still, came to believe that he plotted his return much sooner… within their own lifetimes. And so a kind of cult of Amakusa was formed, and in its’ most extreme and terrible form… its’ believers embraced the dark arts, in an effort to raise their fallen hero back to life. For every light, there is darkness both absolute and engulfing.

To be continued in Legend of the Undead Samurai - Part Two
Written by Kou_Indigo (Kara L. Pythiana-Ashton)
Published
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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