Paradigm Shift
25 August 1998
by Ed Rubin

As he stepped through the doorway, the foundations of the universe shook, then stabilized, and he found himself – once again? – Hida Naoki. Although this was, of course, unsurprising, nevertheless for a moment Naoki felt that it was ... different, somehow.

Taking quick stock of the situation, he was surprised to notice that he was sitting, bolt upright, on the floor of the farmhouse where the ring that they were seeking for the kenku was supposedly hidden. He had entered the house (it seemed mere moments ago) to discover what had kept Jinjiro from reaching the roof, where he was to keep an eye open for the oni that the ring supposedly controlled. Naoki's hand was reflexively searching for the hilt of his sword, but could not, it seemed, find it. He looked around the devastated room (it hadn't been this way only a second ago, had it?) and saw Ishi holding his long, sharp companion in his hands. And it had clearly been used. And Ishi was also struggling to get out of his smoldering clothes, which now smelled of something far more acrid, and foul than just the leisurely travel with the kenku to which they had recently been subjected.

"What happened?" Naoki asked, while simultaneously surveying in the rest of his companions. Takehai was completing a nimble leap to his feet, and had obviously been on the floor, as he and, he now noticed, also Jinjiro still were. Jinjiro was groaning, and had managed to roll over, but looked like he required assistance with those odd wounds. Takehai noticed Jinjiro as well, and approached him with the clear intention of laying his hands on him for healing. A man of few, or confusing, words, or of none at all, Naoki thought, but always of the most appropriate and practical action. Marako stood beyond them, her naked katana, the gift of the fortune Megumi, dripping an ichor with the same foul stench as Ishi's clothes, which by now were liquefying in a smoking heap on the floor. She, too, was wounded, and would require attention. Not immediately, but soon, Naoki calculated.

Naoki was attracted to a small sound of ... surprise? Disgust? Alarm? Disbelief? He shifted to see Jinjiro, before Takehai had even reached him, giving a violent shudder, and ripping at his own hand, tearing free a gold ring that embraced it, obviously against his best wishes. When it was off, he tossed it at Ishi, shouting, "Go!"

Naoki jumped up and grabbed his sword from Ishi, who retrieved the ring from where it had landed. The devastation of shattered planks and ripped tatami mats around him told him that they (but who, exactly?) had just battled, and perhaps defeated, the oni that this ring controlled, but could they count on the oni staying that way for very long? He raced with Ishi to their horses, intent on returning the ring to the kenku in his domain, where his magic could be brought to its defense.

Returning to the farmhouse with Ishi, where their three other companions waited, Naoki thought about what the kenku had said. When Ishi described what had happened, and Naoki had briefly described his dreamlike memories, the mysterious kenku named Cree had called the experience a "haunting," suggesting that the events Naoki described had happened, perhaps recently, and that they were forcibly replaying themselves in Naoki and the others' minds. That, Naoki now mused, would explain my feeling of 'difference' when I found myself on the floor, and why I felt that no time had passed when it so obviously had. He touched the impromptu bandage wrapped around his forehead, thinking, and also how I could be injured without any conscious knowledge of it. It was odd, he felt, how he could now experience the two perspectives simultaneously. He could at the same time feel what Tago had felt and yet also react to that feeling with Naoki's awareness.

Tago's passions were ... blinding. Naoki could remember Tago remembering the encounter with Etsuki in the marketplace. He could remember Tago's sense of absolute assurance that Etsuki was expressing desire, longing, and love in the way her eyes moved, the tightness of her mouth and cheeks, the tone of her voice, and the set of her body. And yet, at the same time, Naoki could see that same visual memory, and perceive Etsuki's tension, nervousness, discomfort, and, yes, fear. She did not want Tago, and still he was so certain that she did, and in some way, therefore, Naoki did too.

This was a proof of perspective, Naoki decided. His sensei always encouraged him to see the world through the eyes of another, to gain their perspective. This was important, his sensei argued, for in doing so, the bushi can gain mastery over that other, anticipate their moves, their tactics and strategy, their very thoughts. This was why Naoki studied the practitioners of other bushi schools so intensely, to gain insight into their perspective. In his experience with Tago, he had not retained his own objectivity, his own perspective on that perspective, but had been, for all intents and purposes, one with Tago.

Naoki chuckled at the thought, but he now knew that a farmer, a dead farmer, had taught him an important lesson. One must be true to one's own perspective, while gaining insight into another's, but one needed to stay true to oneself in such pursuits, because the greatest insight, and thus, the greatest success, is achieved by losing oneself in the other. Naoki would not, could not, forget this lesson.

Naoki's thoughts turned to farmers then, in a way that they had not done before. Previously, in his mind, they were inseparable from their farms, and they had been, to his way of thinking, like tokens on a battle board: A certain number of farms and farmers to support each unit on the wall or on the battlefield. But farmers had passions, intrigues, desires and needs. They were petty ones, perhaps, but such things could provide motivational force in a way that simple duty to, and imposed fear by, the ruling classes couldn't, in the minds of simple farmers such as the one whose perspective Naoki now understood so well.