Tomoyo's Dream

Reading Key:

Doyobi- Japanese for Saturday

Sensei- Something you put at the end of a person's name meaning that they're your teacher, ex: This story was written for Amyot-sensei.

San- You put that at the end of the name of a person to mean respect, your equal.

Tatami Mat- these cool mats u see in really old fashioned japanese restaurants where the floor is all weird.

Bot-chan- is actually the name of a japanese book it translates litterally to 'I am the cat' or something close to that.

Kaguya- The name of a Japanese 'celestial being' (tenyo) that put her suitors through thousands of skill-testing trials only to reject all of them and return to the moon.

Tomoyo- Japanese for Plum blossom

Kata- A series of training patterns.

As the water from the recent rainfall trickled down from the wood framed homes, Tomoyo found herself sweeping along home through her village. It was nearly dinner and she was just returning to her somber home from the local market. Tomoyo's feet were begining to feel the pin pricks of pain as she walked the long and now empty road.

She arrived slowly at an old Japanese style home where she lived with her brother and father. The house was modest; with a small kitchen, a living room area and three small bedrooms. The floors had traditional tatami rice mats and the interior was decorated in a plain but traditional style. Entering the kitchen; Tomoyo put away her parcels as the rain began to kamikaze its way through the sky and trudged her way through the house to her small violet colored bedroom.

Tomoyo's bedroom was a small, but friendly room at the back of the house with a window that overlooked a cherry tree that liked to tap it's aristocratic fingers lightly against the window to say hello while the wind danced by. Still exhausted from her journey home from the market, Tomoyo sat at her night table and shakily picked up her hairbrush. Tomoyo began to comb the tangles out of her waist-length auburn hair and away from her almond brown eyes in an almost mechanical sort of way.

Her mind began to wander, Tomoyo reflected on her past and hummed an old tune that her mother had taught her before she passed on last year. Tomoyo's smile disappeared as the rain picked up and tried to remember how she looked. Kaguya; her mother, had died in a market fire when she was buying the ingredients to make shrimp nigiri for supper that night. Since her death Tomoyo has been essentially alone. With the exception of her loyal cat Bot-chan who kept her company that is; not that her father or brother cared much since they worked in another city and never really bothered to check in on her.

Tomoyo worked in the local kendo training hall as a secretary, she would perform general administrative duties and serve tea in the afternoon. It was a fairly easy job. But since the local kendo training hall also happened to be one of the oldest and most prestigious in all of Japan due to its male champion kendo masters; things tended to get interesting.

Tomoko admired the grandmaster Yamazaki and secretly wished to become one of his students. The school however, only accepted boys and that forced Tomoyo to practise in secret. Nearly every night when the school was closed, Tomoyo would practise what she knew for hours on end.

It was six o'clock and the grandmaster along with his students had left early for the day, for them class had just ended but for Tomoyo it had only just begun. Slipping into a loose pair of breeches and a peasant top, Tomoyo began to stretch. After she was done Tomoyo got into the first position which was a right sided stance with her bamboo sword clasped tightly in both of her hands. After going through some of the motions, Tomoyo got ready in the second stance. Left leg straight in the back with her foot turned on a forty-five degree angle and her right leg in front and bent ever so slightly; she then proceeded to go through a series of kata patterns. Tomoyo would have been mistaken for one of the top kendo students if she'd been in the proper attire for practising.

Tomoyo sat down at the bench at the end of the hall and wiped the sweat from her brow, fiddling with her pendant she whispered, "I wish mother were here, she'd know how to talk to master Yamazaki.." Tomoyo deperatly wanted to train in a real class and try to compete in the annual tournaments. What a dilemna, Tomoyo wanted to compete, but how? Tomoyo sat up and walked back towards the training room and stated while she walked, "I will enter the tournament, I will enter and win, I will make them realize that I deserve to be here." Tomoyo sealed her fate then and there; with determination she went back to training.

At dawn of the next day, Tomoyo jumped from bed, got dressed and headed to the kitchen. It was lonely without any other people in the house, with only her memories and her cat Bot-chan to keep her company; she sat down for breakfast. A small dish of rice and some grilled fish would have to do. Tomoyo cleaned the house up quickly, he day dreaming would have to wait until she got home from work; the morning classes were about to begin.

Quickly, Tomoyo rushed down the small crowded street at training center; she was still five minutes early when she ran through the large wooden gate and into the courtyard. Silently, she headed towards the entrance where she removed her shoes at the door and replaced them with the slippers on her way to her small office. Soon after she sat down at her makeshift desk, Yamazaki-sensei entered, "Tomoyo-san have you made the preperations for this weekend's tournament?" he asked.

Tomoyo nodded shyly, and quickly shuffled her entry form into the piles of paper on her desk. She would enter and with her hair put up in the kendo helmet, who could tell? For Tomoyo the week went by very slowly, but eventually Doyobi finally came.

Tomoyo had thought this plan through very carefully like a general planning a secret ambush on the opposing squad, she considered every possibilty; but with the years of training she'd put herself through, she felt ready. If she could show them that a girl could win, perhaps the grand master would all her to train? Or perhaps he would even go as far as to let all women train?

Tomoyo entered herself in the kata tournament. This section is a display of the various stances and moves with the bamboo sword as if u were fighting multiple opponents. She would use the twenty-first form and the most difficult pattern; the pattern had fifty-six individual motions. Tomoyo had practised it hundreds of times, but today it had to be perfect!

Tomoyo bowed to the judges and the grandmaster. Positioning herself, front leg bent, back left straight and bamboo sword protecting her, she began the series of moves that made up the twenty-first form. After what seemed like an eternity to her, she finally finished the last move and shouted a loud, "Kiyah!" Regaining her composure, she calmly moved towards the judges and the grand master, Tomoyo politely bowed again signifying that she was done. The grandmaster started to smile.

Yamazaki-sensei's students were completely confused, Yamazaki-sensei never smiled or even spoke all that much. At 85 years old he'd seen many things and taught many students, calmly he stood from his seat and began in his kind voice, "Tomoyo-san you have done well, why after all these years did you not ask me to train you?"

Tomoyo looked up at him curiously as she took off the kendo helmet and inquired, "I thought that the school did not accept girls as students?"

Yamazaki-sensei smiled again at Tomoyo and replied, "We do now."