"Well, at least you've got it back again. Samson's hair. Are you pleased?"
"Maybe Noda was trying to tell me something. Send a message. But now I'm going to send one back."
"Do you really think . . . ?" She was already ahead of
me.
"Guess we're about to find out." I bowed to the blade ritually, then to the NEC's head-high main processor. "From the first shogun to the last."
This, I muttered silently, is for Amy. Her answer, Noda- san.
The great masters of swordsmanship all will tell you something very ironic. If you train for years and years, all your
moves eventually become instinctive; you literally no longer "know" what you are doing. You become oblivious of your mind, as unknowing, consciously, of technique as the day you started. Thus the greatest masters and the rankest beginners actually share something very similar. Both are totally unaware of technique.
Was I closer to the mindless beginner or the "no mind" master? Friends, that's one confession you'll need medieval torture to extract.
I will, however, admit to thinking about which stroke to use. There are several that might have done the job. Of them all, though, the kesa seemed best for some reason. It slices diagonally, from the left shoulder down and across to the right, and a swordsman pure in spirit can literally bisect a man, slice him right in half.