Ranmaru, Once More: Episode 5

Episode 5, Part 1: The Gate of Narrative

“Let us go to Iga.”
Kuriyama Toshiyasu said so.

A few days after that tea ceremony, I could not get the existence of Rikyu out of my mind.
A man who changed the atmosphere without speaking. A man who stirred memories with the scent of tea.
And that one phrase Kuriyama had spoken—

“Chi-o-sanzui... has been fulfilled.”

I did not understand the meaning. I only felt in my skin that it was a word of “narrative.”

Without telling anyone in the Kuroda family, I secretly headed toward the mountains of Iga with Kuriyama.
We did not use horses, avoided people's eyes, and followed mountain paths.
At the end of spring, the green of the trees was deep, and the sound of birds quickly faded away.

“Why Iga?”

I asked.
Kuriyama did not answer, but suddenly pointed ahead on the mountain path.

“The answer is there. ...And one more person, the young master of the ‘Chaya’ is coming.”

“Chaya... Shirojiro?”

“That is right. The son of the merchant deeply trusted by Hideyoshi. But he is no mere merchant.”

◇

Before entering the mountain village of Iga, we stopped at a small teahouse with a spring.
There was one customer. Around twenty years old, with soft movements and elegant white attire.
He wore a merchant's tag at his waist, but his eyes moved as if measuring the value of words rather than business.

“I have heard rumors of you. You are Lord Kuroda Nagamasa, are you not?”

“...And you are?”

“I have come from Sakai. I am Chaya Shirojiro, an inexperienced man succeeding my father's name.”

It was a soft, somewhat theatrical bow.

“I hear you have come to learn the way of narrative. If so, before you knock on the gate of Iga, may I ask you one question?”

I nodded silently.

“‘One who moves the world by not speaking’—have you ever seen such a person?”

I involuntarily thought of Rikyu's face.

“...Yes. I have.”

“Then, the gate of narrative shall open.”

Shirojiro smiled faintly and produced a piece of cloth from his breast.

“The crest of ‘sanzui.’ This is the mark of the ‘narrators’ common to both Iga and Koga.
If you take this, Lord Fujibayashi will grant you an audience.”

On that cloth, three droplet-like patterns were connected.

Episode 5, Part 2: The Hermitage of Narrative

Deep in the mountains of Iga, even further into the forest where the wind itself held its breath, it stood.

A hermitage built as if to melt into the shadows of the trees.
It had no roof tiles and no gate, just a single room wrapped in moss and earthen walls.
The moment I stepped into that atmosphere, I lost my words.

“Do not speak.”
Kuriyama whispered quietly.
“Here, words themselves are tested.”

Inside the hermitage was an old man.
Thin, white-browed, wearing coarse dark tea-colored robes.
His gaze was fixed on us, as if staring into a fire.

“...Are you Lord Fujibayashi Nagato-no-kami?”

When I asked, the old man did not nod, but simply added a twig to the hearth fire.

“Have you come to narrate, or have you come to be narrated?”

It was a low voice, like a calm sea.

“I have received the mark of ‘sanzui’ from Lord Chaya.”

I took the cloth from my breast and offered it.
The old man's eyebrows moved slightly when he saw it.

“A nostalgic crest. ...It is given only to those permitted to narrate.
That ‘mark’ remains in only a few places in Iga and Koga.”

“Then, it is not the case that all people of Iga inherit the ‘narrative’...?”

“No. For a shinobi, the duty is fundamentally to ‘not speak.’
Speaking becomes power, but at the same time, it brings dew to the shadows.”

The fire popped once.

“Narrative is not in sound. It is in intent.
It gives people a ‘form’ that moves according to intent. That is our language.”

I gasped.

The silence filling this hermitage was not mere quiet.
It was “power.”

“Did the man named Rikyu also... visit this hermitage?”

For the first time, the old man's eyes moved.

“In his youth, he visited once.
He was seeking the ‘efficacy of not speaking’ in the way of tea.
I taught him nothing, but that man saw everything.”

I shuddered involuntarily.
To take, learn, and manipulate without speaking—truly, Rikyu himself.

“What, specifically, is the technique of narrative...?”

The old man lifted an iron kettle from the hearth and poured hot water.

The sound of the water fell like rain hitting grass, drip by drip.

“Sound. Scent. Characters. Gestures.
None of these are words. But they reach the human heart.
‘Chi-o-sanzui’—that, too, is one of the forms of narrative.”

I felt my heartbeat quicken at those words.

“‘Chi’... ‘o’... ‘sanzui’...”

“I will not speak the meaning.
But if you are truly a ‘narrator’—
that word will eventually appear in form.”

Steam rose, and the hermitage was once again wrapped in silence.

Episode 5, Part 3: Three Words

“Chi-o-sanzui.”

Those three sounds floated in the steam of the hearth and vanished.

I rolled them over in my mouth, again and again.
They sounded like sounds that each held meaning.
They were not just words, but symbols forming a structure—my intuition told me so.

“‘Chi’ is blood. Meaning lineage.
‘O’ is filth. ‘Sanzui’ is a character related to water.
To wash away. Or, to let seep...”

In front of the hearth fire, I muttered.

Kuriyama narrowed his eyes.

“Wash away, you say...”

“Rikyu is said to have told Hideyoshi, ‘Chi-o-sanzui has been fulfilled.’
Does that not mean the dissemination of information that stains one's lineage is complete?”

Fujibayashi nodded slightly.

“‘Fulfilled’ is a sign in narrative that ‘the intent has taken root in the people.’
Narrative is not about showing facts.
By narrating, one creates truth.”

I stared at the flickering fire and muttered.

“The rumor that Mitsuhide has Iga blood... The source is unknown. Yet, everyone believes it.
And that he killed Nobunaga, who burned Iga.
That was ‘narrated.’ With words. With form.”
That day.

At Honno-ji, I was wrapped in the scent of tea.
Was it incense prepared by Rikyu, or poison?
I cannot remember. But there is no need to remember.
The narrative of ‘Chi-o-sanzui’ told everything about that night.

“Ranmaru.”

Kuriyama called my name.

Fujibayashi stood up without a word and took a document from a shelf.
A small Japanese-bound booklet. On its cover, it was written in brush:

“The Book of the One Who Does Not Speak.”

“Rikyu brought this back. Nothing is written. It is just blank paper.”

I took it in my hands and opened it.

Every page was completely blank.
Yet that series of whiteness spoke more eloquently than anything else.

By not speaking, words dominate.

By not being narrated, the world is repainted.
At that moment, I learned fear for the first time.

That the power of narrative is stronger than war and sharper than a blade.

◇

On the way back, I quietly opened my mouth.

“I must narrate. What was lost that night.

And the truth that was covered up by being narrated.”
Kuriyama nodded and tightened his grip on the horse's reins.

“For that reason, Lord Ranmaru, you survived.”

I spoke those words once more.

“Chi-o-sanzui... This is not secret code.

It is a technique to kill without killing.
Rikyu accomplished it.”
The wind blew up from beyond the mountains, making the young leaves rustle.