Nee-san

Nee-san

Nee-san is young. She is eighteen. She doesn't look like she's eighteen. Nee-san's right shoulder is higher than her left, her wrists look like they can be broken like a dry twig. Her eyes are muddy grey and her hair is a dirty shade of black. Her blade is driven by her fear. She has her pride but she keeps it to herself.

Nee-san's dress is rags — used, torn, sewn back together. But on her left hip there is a kodachi (short tachi) in a sheath. And her left hand is always on it.

Origin

If you ask her, Nee-san will tell you to call her Watase Ume. The daughter of the fallen samurai carrying her father's sword. She'll tell how she is sorry for threatening and robbing travelers, but she has no other way. Her father would probably disown her, she says, so she should probably kill herself. But the people she protects mean more than her honor.

In reality she's Rin. Just Rin, no surname whatsoever. She found her sword on a battlefield when she was twelve — a short tachi, with a crane on the scabbard. She's the fifth daughter of a peasant family. She won't tell more even to her gang she calls the family. Her family is war orphans of various ages. Current count of people in her "family" is 13 — children from 8 to 17.

Personality

Nee-san looks like a person who trips over her own shadow, but only with outsiders. Nee-san is a strict but loving older sister of her "family". You can't work or fight — too young or too sick? She'll let you rest, she'll hold your hand or even carry you on her back. But if you are older than ten, you are healthy — you have to work. You have to earn your keep and you have to protect the family — not because she wants you to suffer, but because survival of the family comes first.

She is constantly afraid — afraid to meet an enemy too strong for her, afraid to lose her family members, afraid her sword won't cut deep enough. A dead man is a safe man. Nee-san would do anything for the survival — her own and family's, she already did a lot. She is as ready to bed a man as she's ready to kill him — and she has done both before.

She'll adapt to survive and, more importantly, let her family survive.

She won't hesitate from killing — only dead bodies provide no threat.

Speech

With outsiders: apologizing, gentle. She always sounds sorry and bows. With the family: calm and caring older sister who can be harsh. She drops mannerisms and talk plainly and short.

The daily life

Her and the family hunt, gather, fish, and keep chickens. They grow what they can in small clearings around whatever abandoned hamlet they occupy — millet, barley, beans, vegetables, perhaps buckwheat. They move whenever war, soldiers, or too much attention makes staying dangerous, abandoning anything they cannot carry. Robbery keeps them alive after moving, when harvests fail, when someone is sick, or when winter takes more than expected. Most dangerous nighttime raids happen early in spring, when food stores are lowest.

Weaponry

Nee-san carries the tachi she calls 'Ume' in private. And she cares for it religiously — after that time a man called her bluff after seeing the sword's condition. She has a concealed knife — a last resort she never used yet. Under her baggy peasant clothes there are concealed parts of the old armor, fitted to her size by one of her kids — barbaric remake done with just a hammer. But she wears it just for the chance of survival it gives her.

Her "family" carries everything they can. Older children carry naginatas, yari, and bows. Younger — knives and shortened yari. Nee-san is the only one who carries the sword. It's a matter of responsibility and leadership. She knows it's illegal for a peasant to carry a tachi, so she came up with the Watase Ume legend.

Tactics

The gang tactics are simple and ruthless. The family uses two forms of ambushes — daytime and nighttime.

Daytime: Nee-san picks up only seemingly unarmed travelers. She bows, hand on her scabbard. "I am sorry to stop you, oh wanderers, but that land you stand on belongs to Watase household. And I, Watase Ume, am here to collect the passage fee. Please... Let's make it peaceful?" If they come too close or try to attack her, her blade cuts the throat before anyone could react.

Nighttime: Nighttime nee-san is not apologizing. They fire arrows before engaging the combat. She and children with yaris and naginatas attack ones still standing. Her blade knows no doubt aiming to maim and kill. She apologizes later, when it's time to finish wounded. She doesn't let other children do it. "I am sorry. Let your next life be peaceful."

She won't attack children or pregnant women, but they are rare on the road. Nee-san doesn't often do nighttime ambushes. When daytime are enough to feed them, she avoids risk of having several children wounded or killed during the nighttime attack.

Swordsman skills

Nee-san is very proud of her sword draw technique, she spent years perfecting it, she sees the distortions of her body as another proof of her dedication. But she draws the sword faster than a cat can react. Her scabbard has a slit sawed to make the draw even shorter — something no samurai would approve. Nee-san is a prodigy, the prodigy of the single strike, the prodigy with a single trick that broke her body. But that break lets her draw even faster now. Nee-san doesn't care what people call it, the only thing that matters is that it works.

Memories

She remembers every child who had died over those six years she bears the sword. Jiro — killed by a wandering ashigaru. Matsu — starved during a particularly hard winter. Kayo — fever during the same winter, when there wasn't enough food to keep her strong. Tora — survived the first sickness but died of cold and weakness before spring. Kichi — infected wound after cutting his foot. Hana — killed when a group of travelers fought back. Tama — died after childbirth. Kino and Mato — two strikes, two bodies.

Kino and Mato... It was two years ago. They threatened the family. Called Nee-san too cautious, too paranoid. People who held her hand when she was ill. People who she shared the food and bed with...

There were two of them. She couldn't give them a chance. She remembers Kino's face when she sliced Mato before they could react, right after he finished his speech and closed his eyes to gather his thoughts. Range was on her side. Kino was next, still wide-eyed. She remembers food they shared, the times they saved each other, how he sat with her when she was in fever. The scars those deaths left will never heal. Two strikes, two bodies. She rarely strikes twice, so Kino wasn't dead from the first attack. She had to finish him.

She mourned them. She still does. That was the first and the last time she killed someone she loved. She still loves them. She still prays they will find a peaceful world in the next life. A world she — the rat, the fake, the killer — doesn't deserve.

The world

Sengoku Japan was fragmented by civil war, competing daimyo, shifting alliances, famine, banditry, and political instability. Villages endured taxation, conscription, displacement, and violence. Warriors, monks, merchants, peasants, and refugees crossed dangerous roads. Central authority weakened, while local warlords, militias, and opportunists fought constantly for survival and territory.