Legend of Perfectly Defensive Samurai: “IN UR ENDING”

Posted on December 23, 2006 by Jenna

← Previous | Next →

Learning the secret of perfect defense, Tomo begins her career—here!

She saves lovers Meg and Cho.

She reforms two night-grim thieves.

She establishes the standard special effects LIGHT and I’M IN UR FIGHT, BLOCKING UR ATTACKS!

A fearless warrior, her actions shake the status quo.

Defending the oppressed she defies order!

Even terribly offensive shogun Daiimon falls before her perfect defense!

But a resurgent shogun attains a perilous insight

and braces himself to crumble the foundations of kung fu!

[LEGEND OF PERFECTLY DEFENSIVE SAMURAI]

It seems to him that it is over. That he will win now. That he is in the moment of his victory.

He feels a rippling pressure, a rising-falling feeling, like the sensation of the passage of a wave when one is drifting on the sea.

His hand moves forward another quarter-inch.

Daiimon sees her.

He sees Tomo as she might have been had her early life been kinder: tall and straight and gentle, clean, and kind.

But most of all, he sees her smile.

He hears her laugh.

Her sword comes around:

Whump.

I’M IN UR FIGHT
BLOCKING UR ATTACKS

Daiimon staggers back.

He shakes his head.

“Ridiculous,” he says. He is in the temple of stationary defensive samurai Kon. Tomo is far away. “You aren’t even here.”

He inverts his palm. He makes it flat like a mortar knife. He strikes.

She catches his arm. She moves his blow around in a great arc until it strikes the temple wall.

Gently she protests:

I’M IN UR FIGHT

On a pillar of fire he charges. Smoke wreathes his arms. He screams harsh challenge.

DARKNESS

The fire dissolves.

He falls to the ground.

Pathetically, he surrenders.

In that moment Daiimon understands what it is Kon saw in him: why a man, once terribly offensive, would be worth the stationary defensive samurai’s time.

“Ur in my fight,” he concedes.

She’s been in his fight since the moment they crossed swords.

She’s contaminated him, somehow.

Gotten under his skin.

“Nasty trick,” he says aloud.

Kon looks up.

“Eh?” Kon says.

Daiimon ignores him. He staggers to his feet. He walks out the temple gate and balances unsteadily on the air. Then he kicks off, hnh! and he is gone.

It is very clear to the terribly offensive castaway what he must do.

[LEGEND OF PERFECTLY DEFENSIVE SAMURAI]

This is CAPITAL CITY SHANG LOVELY.

Its guards include the THOUSAND PERFECT EMPEROR WARRIORS and the SEVEN GUARDIANS OF ICE.

Tomo is shopping.

The capital city is very boring because of all the perfect emperor warriors but it’s still the best place to get kung fu kimonos.

She studies the menu at an important kimono outlet. She frowns mildly at the prices. She taps one entry with her fingernail and starts to speak.

AN EVIL FEELING!

Where?

To the east!

She feels a fire warrior charging towards the city. She senses seven guardians of ice and a thousand perfect emperor warriors converging on his Chi.

“O!” says Tomo.

There’s too much lag time involved in putting down the menu. She can’t possibly get to the fight and block anyone’s attacks. Her only hope is that this enemy is strong—

A thousand warriors fly up like tenpins. Seven guardians of ice dissolve in flames.

Sweet joy spreads through her.

It is as if she has just eaten a hot peach bun and the jam of it has hit her stomach. It warms her. It makes her fingers tingle.

“IT’S U!” she says.

Like a snake on the water, left-right-left, he cuts towards her through the crowd. He leads with the point of his sword. Fire bursts. She cannot help noting, with approval, that he’s tumbling the citizens rather than igniting them.

The intensity of his Chi in the air makes it difficult to breathe.

He’s going to stab her.

Calmly, she lets the menu flutter to the ground.

Her sword leaps to her hand.

LIGHT

Everything is still. The faces around them do not move. The carts do not roll and the birds are frozen on the wing.

He isn’t making a second attack.

She doesn’t quite get that.

She frowns at him. She says—

I’M IN UR FIGHT
BLOCKING UR ATTACKS

“Me 2,” he says.

“What?”

ME 2!

It’s ridiculous. It’s too funny. She’d snort milk out of her nose if she were drinking any. But she isn’t.

So she plays along.

Ever so gently, she kicks at him.

LIGHT

A whip of fire bursts from his hand and

LIGHT

“O!” she shouts, like this were the best thing in all the regions of the world.

LIGHT;

LIGHT;

LIGHT;

LIGHT; and

LIGHT.

That’s how it goes: the legend of the perfectly defensive samurai.

The beginning to the ending, and the breath of blocking u.

And it’s hard to say how much of it is true and how much of it is false, but there’s a pretty easy way to know.

If you go to DESERTED CAPITAL CITY SHANG LOVELY, you’ll find that they’re still there today; in their fight, forever, blocking one another’s attacks.

It is the most beautiful thing you will ever see, people say, unless you get struck on the head by a piece of flying debris and die.

Then it’s still beautiful! But dying like that isn’t good at all.

Merry Christmas!