“It was the same old song.

  With a melancholy sound.

  Now I wind up staring at an empty glass.

  'Cause it's so easy to say.

  That you'll forget your past.

  Ah-ah-ah, ah.” — “Breakup Song” by Greg Kihn Band

  The wind was flying through my loose hair.

  My right leg was still bothering me, so I made a cane. It helps lessen the pain a bit. It was no professional work, but I got Miyamoto to cut a good piece of wood, and I whittled away at it. I remember seeing something about the creation of canes some time back, and that's how I know how to make one.

  I’m not sure why the bullet wound is acting up now—another thing on the pile of pain.

  So to go down the list,

  I lost my left eye; at least it's not my right. I may be left-handed, but I'm right-eye dominant.

  My right leg got a bullet blown through it; at least I got a cane out of it.

  The crumbling of my mind due to seeing all the horror of man.

  Also got that chronic pain thing; the eye hurts like a bastard sometimes, and most of the time there's a burning feeling surrounding the eye socket.

  I’m not throwing a pity party; I’m just trying to remember which part of my body is falling apart at this moment.

  For some reason, my hair keeps turning white. I have really dark brown hair; it looks almost black, so having hairs as white as snow stands out. I guess most of them are hidden underneath my hat.

  When seeing all the horror of man, your perception of reality gets strange due to being everything.

  Men, women, children, and other things. I don’t sleep too much these days, but when I do I dream and sometimes believe I’m another being.

  I’m Billy Pilgrim, lost throughout time but only in the past, never the future.

  しかし、私は永遠にドレスデンの焼夷弾攻撃に囚われている。。。 この頭蓋骨の中で、 あとどれくらい どうなんだろう 時間があるのだろうか。。。

  Oh, I didn’t mean to speak in Japanese there… Probably should explain where everyone is.

  Celeste was sitting on the back of my bike.

  Miyamoto, Violet, and Bear were all on the other bike. Miyamoto's bike was the one with the sidecar on it, which Violet and Bear always sat in.

  Our bikes were riding next to each other through most of the trip.

  There was still tension between Celeste and me, but I couldn't bother thinking about it now.

  Like the asshole I am…

  That damn song kept ringing through my mind. It appears from time to time, haunting my mind for no apparent reason.

  I lost the reason why I like the song a long time ago; it just plays in my mind on repeat…

  What a shack of fucking shit.

  Run away from my mind through pointless banter. Using anything to dodge reality: movies, TV shows, etc. Even my own mind's receptiveness.

  Saying those things I told Celeste last night was like pot calling the goddamn kettle black.

  Christ Almighty.

  “V!” Miyamoto yelled.

  “What!”

  “How’s our time?!”

  I pulled my left hand off the handle and into my jacket.

  “9:30, only an hour and a half left!”

  “Okay!”

  If you want to talk about anything when on a bike, you gotta scream your lungs bloody.

  Reminds me of a line in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”

  That book was the main reason I got a bike.

  The way Phaedrus discusses the freedom of a motorcycle always clicked with me.

  The drive wasn’t the worst I had ever had, nor was it the best.

  The roads are rather well-kept, which I find odd; well-kept roads aren’t what this “continent?”... I don’t know if this is a continent or the whole world, but roads definitely are not what it is known for.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Need to research my location.

  Weird, I never thought about this before now.

  I guess it slips the mind when dodging constant death.

  The scenery was nice green rolling hills, and the air didn’t reek of shit or death. Reminds me of Osamu's little village.

  It was also rather warm; the weather from country to country is damn bipolar.

  Even in the country itself, the weather was all messed up.

  I've been through two… three countries. Sisyphu, the place in the mountains, and the cult church, but I’m unsure if that was in another country or not.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  As the endless sands of time flew by, we drew ever closer to our destination. And I continued my mad ramblings within my mind.

  10:30.

  We rode through a bamboo forest, or what looked like bamboo.

  To go on a little sidetrack, if there has even been a track, it still amazes me that language, dialect, ethics, and even food and liquids are pretty similar. I’m surprised I haven’t killed anyone with the common cold or vice versa. I still feel like the Spanish finding the Aztecs. Without all the genocide, well, there's still slavery, but I didn’t cause it.

  Snapping back to my surroundings.

  The midday sun was cutting through the forest. In Japanese, there's a word for that.

  木漏れ日. (“Komorebi”) Interesting, isn’t it?

  Still warm, I’m rather surprised I haven’t died from heatstroke.

  While wearing a trench coat and a suit.

  And carrying around about sixty pounds of weapons.

  Only drinking booze and eating just a bit.

  Welcome to my life, just the Devil’s Hell.

  Who the fuck am I talking to?

  10:50…

  Ten minutes till the opening of a new show.

  I see no floating school, but a stone building looking almost like a castle is upon the horizon now.

  The architecture was rather complex. It was an odd mix of Romanesque and Gothic design. But with a hint of classical Japanese architecture.

  Two huge wooden pillars with two giant words and little words underneath.

  It stood around a hundred feet from the school.

  浮世高校—Ukiyo Koukou (Floating High School).

  Honoris Causa (For the sake of honor).

  Christ… honor.

  Another lie of man.

  To get men to kill each other.

  Well, it doesn’t matter what they believe; all I need is information. And the Devil doesn’t allow something like ideological differences to bother him so much that he can’t do a bloody job such as teaching.

  We hid our bikes, pulled my cane from my back, and walked the rest of the way.

  “I feel like we could have parked closer to the school.”

  “You’re the one who’s always going off about being cautious.”

  “Damn myself.”

  “So we're actually going to teach here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t you hate children?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, let’s get started.”

  “Wait!” Celeste yelled.

  “Yeah,” we both answer.

  “V, you smell like death and shit mixed together.

  Miyamoto, you don’t smell as bad, but you still smell.”

  “Well, what are you gonna do about it?”

  “Odos.”

  With that, a blue light surrounded the two of us.

  “You won’t smell like flower fields and roses, but V, you don’t reek like a walking corpse.”

  “Thanks.”

  Miyamoto and I opened the wooden door that was around twenty feet high and ten feet wide.

  Why are doors always so damn tall for schools like these?

  We walked through the stone halls, so tall giants could walk through them.

  How much money was spent on this hallway alone?

  I could have done with a map of this place, trying to find the principal, or “headmaster.” If we want to be fancy… Which is suffocating me at this current moment. And finding the man was like trying to find Osama Bin Laden.

  “I hate fancy shit.”

  “I could have guessed, V.”

  “Everyone is so full of it, playing mind games with one another.”

  “I thought you were a master of the second part.”

  “Ha.”

  Our footsteps echo through the empty halls, with a quiet thud when my cane hits upon the stone floor.

  Distant voices could be heard if you tried hard enough.

  When I was a young lad, I hated school. I would finish the busywork, debate with the teacher about history and literature, and read a mix of history, philosophy, manga, and classics.

  Normal kid stuff.

  We found a staircase on our journey, and on this damn journey we were partaking in, the thought that I had never gotten gangrene passed through my mind. It's not like I can clean my wounds too often when I get them. Let’s just call it the luck of the Irish, even though I’m Japanese… Well, I’m part Irish and lived in Pennsylvania. Man, I would kill for an apple dumpling from the Reading Terminal from those Amish. I’m bringing Miyamoto and the gang back with me, and we're all going to Philly…

  Wow, I have gotten really off topic.

  I feel like Bernal Díaz del Castillo telling his oranges story.

  Well, back to the topic at hand, going up seems like a good idea. In all the books, TV, and films, the “headmaster” is always up.

  There’ve just been two people walking throughout this school, and no one cares.

  Either they really care about learning, or no one cares about anything.

  I’ll be guessing it’s the latter.

  We finally found the bloody headmaster's office after twenty minutes of walking around and very confused faces from the few eyes that were drawn upon ours.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  I knocked on the door with my cane…

  My leg hurt a bit more now…

  This is going to be really fucking annoying, isn’t it? Damn, being a fleshbag filled with blood and a nervous system is a bitch.

  A voice came from behind the door.

  “Come in, come in.”

  The voice was from an old man.

  We walked in.

  The office looks like a tower going up for around sixty feet.

  Books line the walls, a wooden desk lies fifteen feet in front of us, and a man in his…

  Sixties…

  Eights…

  Hundreds I have no clue how old this man was.

  He sits in a wooden chair with padding on the back and most likely the bottom; he has a long white beard and short hair.

  He was looking out a stained glass window wherein the middle was a clear pane of glass.

  The smell of power was thick within the tower.

  An old voice echoed through the room.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “We heard you were down two teachers.”

  “How could you know?”

  “A god that now owes me a favor.”

  “Huh… In all my long years, I haven't heard that one yet.

  What are your two names, and what can you teach?”

  “How do you know there were two of us?”

  “I heard two pairs of footsteps. From the weight of your footstep, I could conclude you were a man. And there was a third sound with the footstep, which I believe is a cane. Also, the man with the cane sounds malnourished.”

  Jesus, I should have gotten him to do the detective shit I have to do; I wouldn’t have to lose my mind so often.

  “Well, come on, name and what subject you can teach.”

  “Miyamoto Musashi—the blade and magic.”

  “Interesting, and the other?”

  “The being called V—anything that isn’t magic.”

  “Ita est.” (So it seems), said the headmaster.

  “Ita videtur.” (It seems so.)

  “Well, if you want to be substitutes until the two teachers come back or we find new ones, you seem qualified enough.”

  “That’s it.

  Why so easy?”

  “Both of you seem competent and qualified.

  And you two seem to be rather interesting characters.

  The classes are swordplay and military tactics.

  Mr. Musashi, I guess you want the swordplay.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Mr. V…”

  “You can call me V, just V.”

  “Ok, V.

  You take military tactics.”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, gentlemen.

  Welcome to Ukiyo Koukou.

  Honoris Causa.”