The wind had picked up in the night as the temperature dropped. Standing on the riverbank, Ryunosuke looked up at the Kyuden with those cold, wide eyes and considered the future.

Then, he turned. Hiking up his bag, he started walking down the bank toward the south.

"Where're you off to, young man?"

A fantastically bearded man stands directly behind Ryunosuke, wrapped in a straw cloak and leaning on a staff.

"And in the middle of the night, no less?"

"I am going where the waves take me. There is nothing else when the flood rolls in."

He turned to take in the old man. "Have you walked this path before?"

"I've walked more than a few paths," he says.

"I suppose I should introduce myself," he adds, bowing. "I'm called Bokushi in this life. And you're Ryunosuke, son of Tatsuya, son of the Fortune, unless my eyes and ears got a lot worse all of a sudden."

"I am those things." Ryunosuke said quietly, his wide eyes gleaming darkly in the gathering night. "I will need a new name soon."

"It seems there might be one waiting for you," Bokushi says. "Perhaps two.

"But it's less easy to give up an name and take up another than to give up a family."

His voice rings with experience.

Ryunosuke merely stared at him. "Where is your family?"

"Mostly dead," Bokushi replies flatly. "One quite recently. Thought I might've found a couple of new members, though."

The old monk looks at the young ronin. "It's a hard thing for a parent to lose their child, you know."

"Yes." Ryunosuke does not blink. He knows what he has done. "My father wants their Empire. I want to live. What do you want?"

"For you to live."

Bokushi continues to look at the young man.

"Do you think you are safer on the waves than here? Yes, you were attacked, but the attack was turned back; do you think you'll be so fortunate on your own?"

"Yes. My name is trying to kill me. Its accomplices are up there. What is the advantage to you, if I live? What is the advantage to you, if I go back?"

"A man I once knew would have wanted to see you safe," Bokushi says, "and he would have wanted to see your father happy. I don't think the former will be the case on the waves. I damned well know the latter won't be if you sail out now."

"Wherever I am, his happiness is fleeting. His desire is death." Ryunosuke stared at the old man, his eyes more hollow and dark than ever.

"And what makes you think your father wants to die?"

Bokushi leans on his staff.

"He thinks he can make them give him the throne. It is not to their advantage. They will kill him. They have already begun. Two ways."

"'They,' who?" Bokushi asks, leaning forward on the staff. "One way's clear enough; what's the other?"

"The clan samurai. They have tried to kill him with swords. They will continue to try. But the ones that promise him power will also kill him, in the end. He will not get what he wants. What he wants will get him death."

Ryunosuke falls silent for a moment. Then he looks up. "We were dead when they found us. Now, I may live. But he will not. When they found us, they saved me, because I return to the waves, but they killed him, because he desires the throne. They were sincere, but their motives were without meaning. The results are as they are."

"Death finds us all, eventually," Bokushi says. "Although it does sometimes seem to pass some by in favor of others.

"But you were dead upon the waves before," he continues. "Why would you not be as driftwood again, and for little effect? Why would you not aid your father?"

His voice is almost pleading.

"It is not in my power to help him, except by continuing to live. Why do you not help him?"

"I thought I was doing so," Bokushi says. "And if he was in peril there as he is here, at least here, he eats better. As do you.

"On that, have you eaten?"