I am the seventh head of Kyotouryuu, Yasuri Shichika!
…But even if announce myself dramatically like that, the sad thing is that nobody knows about it. And even I have no idea what Kyotouryuu actually is. Sis could probably explain things nice and clear, but I dunno if I can. Since I’m not good at thinking. And I’m bad at talking, too. Actually, I’m not even bad at it, I just can’t do it. I should just outright say that it’s impossible for me. I mean, just think about it. I’m a sword, aren’t I? I’m a weapon, you know? How can you expect me to think and talk? You’d have to be some kind of magical sword to get profound about philosophy or give moving speeches.
“Kyotouryuu is a school of swordsmanship that doesn’t use swords. Its practitioners are swords themselves”, apparently. That’s what Dad and Sis told me, but it hasn’t really sunk in for me. That’s probably that’s what they call a lack of real world experience. So I guess I’m inexperienced.
I don’t really get it, and that might be why I can talk about it so casually, but swords are just tools for killing, aren’t they? They’re made for murdering people. Even if you treat them like works of art or craftsmanship, they’re just dangerous knives. They’re weapons made for killing people. And swordsmanship isn’t meant for fighting people, but for killing them, isn’t it?
I’ve spent twenty years on an island without people, being trained on how to kill people. It’s been beaten into me. I’ve trained myself as the seventh head of Kyotouryuu and as a sword. But I haven’t learned anything or really thought about it. Not a bit. It wasn’t a real education. I didn’t think or feel anything for these whole twenty years.
Well, I was alive for four years before that, but I’m not gonna remember anything from when I was that little. Well, I don’t even remember anything about the twenty years after that. I don’t even remember what happened yesterday. I…don’t remember anything. Tomorrow, I’ll probably even forget about what I’m talking about now, or that I was talking at all. Sorry about that.
Well, it’s because I’m dumb and an idiot. But that’s just something I’m taking as a fact. I’m not really trying to change that fact or reject it, huh. I mean, even if I was smart, there’d be no point. If I was a amazing genius, then so what? What would be the difference? Is a smart sword going to be any sharper than a dumb sword? It’s not.
The sixth head of Kyotouryuu, my dad, always said that swords shouldn’t be smarter than they need to. I don’t know when exactly he said it, but it was like a catchphrase for him. And Sis is like that, too. I don’t think it’s because she’s in this Kyotouryuu Yasuri family, but she’s not a deep thinker. She’s sort of sharp, but instead of sharp it’s more like she’s cut loose. She doesn’t look like it, but she’s way more reckless than me. She’s way more impulsive than me. It could be that she’s more hopeless than reckless, or more ignorant than impulsive. Or maybe she’s just careless. What’s with her?
She’s a little, or maybe really…extreme. Well, it’s not like I have anything against her being like that, but she is extreme and radical. She thinks living is killing. For her, living and killing have exactly the same value. This isn’t even because she’s a sword. Of course, you have to eat to live, and food is all, basically…living things. Living is eating, and you have to kill to eat, so living is killing. It makes sense when you put it like that, but when Sis says it when it looks like she could die at any minute, it sort of makes sense but not quite, well, I’m not really sure. And I can’t tell how serious she is when she says that. I don’t know anything…
But this isn’t just about people or Kyotouryuu. Even if you don’t do anything, just by living you’ll be ending a lot of lives. Whether you live in the city or the country or on a desert island, it’s all the same. So maybe I don’t really have to say that swords are tools for killing. I’d look dumb trying to proclaim something that obvious. Or should I just say that they’re tools for cutting? But I don’t need to say that either.
Like I said, swords don’t need to think or talk. They just get wielded. They just do what their wielder wants. Apparently, Dad got called the hero of the rebellion who saved the country, but shouldn’t his wielder be called that instead? So maybe that’s why Dad didn’t really care about it. It was an honor, but not a glory. That’s how it is, I guess.
In the first place, Kyotouryuu is supposed to be in the shadows, in the back of history. It’s not supposed to be the center of attention. Everything sort of worked out in a good way, what with us getting banished to a desert island. Or maybe not. Yeah, that’s not it at all. That did happen, but it probably wasn’t about that, huh.
They were all trying to take back Kyotouryuu’s honor, and it’s not like I don’t care about it either, but if you get down to it, that was getting offtrack. Honor for us is completely different from what’s normal, so even if you try to take it back the normal way, you can’t. Not that I know much about what’s normal… Anyways, I don’t think or know anything.
So I’m completely different from Sis or Dad. So you could say I’m a natural Kyotouryuu, a pure sword. I became the successor to Kyotouryuu after twenty years of being trained to be strong, strong and stronger. So I guess I’m the best at representing Kyotouryuu, the strongest swordsmanship school. But that’s too much for me, it’s way too heavy, and I wouldn’t be able to live up to my ancestors.
I dunno what the founder of Kyotouryuu was thinking when he started up the school—well, he was a sword too, so it’s not like he was thinking anything. He was probably like as me, maybe even the same as me, and only spent his time polishing, sharpening, and tempering Kyotouryuu as a killing tool. The first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and me the seventh, haven’t drifted from that. No matter how we were born or bred, we’re unyielding and implacable. Our whole existence is a sword. The strongest school of swordsmanship that doesn’t wield swords, Kyotouryuu.
That wasn’t much of an introduction, but that’s about it. If you wanna know anything else, we’ll have to talk with our fists. That’s what I’m good at. I’m not one to talk, but it’s easier to understand with your body than your head. Wanna give it a try? But by then, you’ll have been torn into pieces.
Sword Translations 