Here goes nothing...
Captain Shi
This story begins in a small village off the coast of Japan . It was during the Bakumatsu, while chaos still reigned supreme. There was no order in Japan, but in this small village there was a kid that wanted to get away from Japan. His name was Kazuo Hachiro, but he hated his name, even though his family thought it was a nice name. As he grew older, his name tended to make him angry when people said it, but he allowed his family to call him that. Anyone else who dared call him by his name had a tendency to disappear. He had long black hair and dark brown eyes, which made many of the villagers fear him more as he grew older. Eventually the rest of the villagers who knew him nicknamed him Shi, due to the mysterious disappearances of the others.
Then one day, a pirate ship came to the village, and the pirates went pillaging through the village. For the majority of the day, the pirates killed and took what they pleased. Until they realized that they were losing more men than they were killing. They found the source to be Kazuo, his long black hair stained with the blood of the dead pirates around him. He held in his hand a katana, which caused the pirates to laugh at him and they tried to kill him and take it. They soon learned their mistake; the sword was the blade that his father used to fight when he was younger. Shi killed the pirates that came quickly with such mastery; that most started to think that he was a demon. Soon the majority of the lower ranked pirates of the ship were gone and the captain stepped off the ship to see who or what caused the trouble. He walked through the village and found Shi holding the katana surrounded in the blood of the pirates he’d slain.
The captain laughed, and the villagers thought that he was mad, until he spoke, with a request for Shi. “Ah, so I see that you are skilled with the blade, would mind joining me? This village has nothing for you, look; they stare at you with as much fear as they do me.” Shi sighed and shook his head, he didn’t talk to people he didn’t respect. The villagers stepped back a bit as he did that. The captain sighed, “Then how do you plan on countering this with just a blade?” The captain held up a flintlock pistol and pointed it straight at Shi’s head. Shi glared at him, sending off battle Chi that made even the Captain move back in fear, despite the fact that he held the gun.
Shi shocked the villagers when he spoke to the captain, “Guns are for cowards that don’t think that they can win on their own. If you can defeat me in a fair fight, I will join your crew, but if I win, I become the captain.” The captain laughed at this, and put his gun back, and took out his cutlass.
“Are you sure about this boy, if you lose, then trust me when I say that I’ll make you miserable on my ship.”
Shi smiled and nodded, “Only a fool states a challenge when he doesn’t intend to keep his word.” With that the captain ordered one of his men to start the match, and the crowd held their breath in anticipation. If Shi won, they didn’t know what would happen, but if the captain won they would be terrorized and killed. Shi sheaved his sword and bent his right knee with his left leg behind him held straight above the ground. His hand hovered over the hilt of the blade as the crowd gasped. He was in the stance for battojutsu, one of the techniques used by assassins. The captain didn’t know this and merely raised the cutlass in front of him. The crew member lowered his hand to start the match, and the first strike went by in the blink of an eye. The cutlass was broken, and the captain on the ground. The captain was lucky that he had his cutlass between him and the blade, or he would have been finished.
Shi smiles and kicks the captain, “So, I guess this means that I win.” The captain bowed on the ground, and the crowd cheered, until Shi did something none of them expected; he decapitated the captain. The crowd was silent after this, and Shi looked over the crowd and looked at a young boy sitting that was crying. Shi sheaved his katana once more, but this time he handed the katana to the boy. “Little brother, look after fathers sword, I’ve lost my honor by offering to become a pirate. I have no honor, don’t become like me.” The boy wiped his tears, and nodded slowly. Shi smiled and picked up a cutlass from the mass of dead bodies at his feet. He walked up onto the ship and bowed to the village, “You may have feared me, but you treated me well. This is my payment for your kindness.” With that, Shi ordered the men to set sail, and he was never seen near the village again.
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