An Excerpt from Musashi: Book One EARTH Takezo lay sprawled among the corpses, as if already dead himself. "What the hell's gonna happen now? The whole world's being turned upside down. A man's life ain't worth more than a leaf blowing in the autumn wind. Ah, screw it--let it all burn. What'll be, will be." These were Takezo's thoughts as he looked just like all the other mangled bodies in the aftermath of the battle. "There's no point in moving now," he thought, though in truth, he was already completely spent. He didn't realize that his body had been pierced by two or three bullets.
The night before, on the evening of September 14 in the fifth year of Keicho--1600, the Sekigahara region was drenched by a heavy downpour. Even by the afternoon of the following day, the sky remained shrouded in dense, low-hanging clouds. Occasionally, flurries of white rain spanning in every direction swept across the remnants of the brutal battle, drenching both Takezo's face and the nearby corpses. He gaped like a carp, swallowing the raindrops as they trickled down from his nose. "This is like that water for the last rites of a dying man," he thought faintly, feeling numbness in his head. The battle had decisively turned against the side he fought for. The moment Kobayakawa Hideaki betrayed his allies by siding with Tokugawa Ieyasu's Eastern Army marked the collapse of the Western allies--the force of Ishida Mitsunari, Ukita, Shimazu, and Konishi. In just half a day, the fate of the nation and the destinies of hundreds of thousands of men were sealed--their legacies set to unfurl from this battlefield for generations.
"My whole life's changed, too." Takezo pondered, suddenly recalling his sister and the elders back in his village. Strangely, he felt not a tinge of sadness. In fact, he felt nothing at all. He wondered if this was what death was like. [.] TREASURY OF LIGHT Takuan suggested, "And from today, as you emerge from the dark womb of that chamber into the world of light, let's call you Musashi instead of Takezo. Change your first name using the same characters to write it, but with a different reading.
Today marks the first day of your rebirth. Everything begins anew.".