Effectiveness in Combat
Efficiency in Training
Freedom of Expression
Correctness in Attitude
Directness in Action
Strength in Character
Thirst in Knowledge
Respect for Wisdom
Power in Truth

The man who wants nothing is invincible, invulnerable, unconquerable.

Fire leapt into the tiger's eyes, burning brightly against the darkness. A sea of madness crept like the tides into a heart left empty from a dying love.

He kept to the shadows, a shadow among shadows, the darkness becoming his cloak. Prey stepped into a sliver of moonlight, reborn from the shadows. A sword leapt forth like lightning, the sound of metal on scabbard a simple, whispered thunder.

A naked blade on naked throat made the open street unpassable. And money, blood of the night, changed hands. though unwillingly. The peasants shivered, but not from the wind that whipped their cloaks around them in the darkness and moonlight - for the bite of fear is ever more chilling and the cold blade seemed ever distant though so close and present. The peasant stood lonely and shivered in the darkness. The ronin turned bandit drifted away like a boat released from the mooring of its dock. Night swallowed him up without a trace, sound and all, shadows blending, loosing seperation: becoming a canvas of darkness for the moon to doodle upon where it so chose.

"We have no masters," the trees called to the other night things as the wind moved them to dance. "Let us work as one and create this set for men and their gods to play upon. We have no masters, let us be free to create this infinity, this night dream. We are as ONE! Hurry, the morning!" Messages were passed and parts assigned. The hoots and the hollers, the branches and roots led the ronin through the forest of dreams. He walked far and long, sometimes riding upon the wind and creatures of dreaming. The night turned from black to grey in shades. Landmarks replaced vague direction and instinct. The Familiar licked its lips and swallowed up fear, the unknown and aloneless of the night. Birds began to stir. Chirps and songs began.

The ronin could almost taste and smell his milkmaid and feel her heart as he got nearer his home deep, deep in the Forest of Hope. "It's magical!" they told eachother. And it was. Every morning their sex woke the animals and taught the forest about Life...and Death. Sex Magick was the strongest kind, they had always been told. The ronin and his milkmaid spun incantations for the world. Spring would see a new life brought into the forest from between her milk-smooth thighs. A new voice would be added to the many in the world, peace and truth enabled by war and theft and lies.

"Where am I?" he awoke covered in sweat and shadows, shivering.

"Where am I?" he insisted louder.

"Go back to sleep!" someone cuffed and shoved him roughly. The man rolled back over in the dirt and piss and sawdust. The stale air and breath of many men together was stifling. His was a lifetime lived in dream and gone with awakening. He struggled for sweet oblivion and sleep.

A man can live a thousand lifetimes in the mind and have the experience of them all...pains and simple joys.

What will be?