The forty seven Ronin. Do you know it?
Forty seven samurai, whose master was betrayed and killed by another lord. They became ronin, masterless samurai, disgraced by another man's treachery. For three years they plotted, pretending to be thieves, mercenaries, even madmen. That I didn't have time to do, and then one night they struck, slipping into the castle of their lord's betrayer and killing him.
Nice. I like that. My kind of job.
There's something more. All forty seven of them committed seppuku, ritual suicide, in the courtyard of the castle.
Well, that I don't like so much.
But you understand it?
What do you mean, I understand it?
The warrior code. The delight in the battle, you understand that, yes? But also something more. You understand there is something outside yourself that has to be served. And when that need is gone, when belief has died, what are you? A man without a master.
Right now I'm a man without a paycheck.
The Ronin could have hired themselves to new masters. They could have fought for themselves. But they chose honor. They chose myth.
They chose wrong.
