”A skilled hawk hides its talons,” replies Gensai sagely. The conversation between the scout and the vagabond carries on for a while longer until finally they arrive at the inn. Well wishes and prayers for the blessings of the Fortunes in their endeavors are exchanged before retiring to their respective rooms for the evening in anticipation for whatever tomorrow may have in store for them.Muskrat wrote:"Perhaps what you say about the shrine-keeper is so," says Ryoko. "As for me, I will not presume to know what you do and don't know--you have doubtless seen parts of Rokugan I have not, so who knows what you have learned that I have not? A good scout or yoriki does not fare well if they make too many assumptions."
Later in the Evening…
Gensai stands at the Cresting Wave Inn’s second floor balcony overlooking the town, admiring the sprawling Eien no Yuki no Niwa off in the distance, bathed in the silvery gleam cast by Lord Moon looming silently above. Rest had not come easily to the drifter, and so it is that he finds himself out on the balcony with the odd patron or two, meditating on tonight’s events, breathing in the cool salt tinged air, listening to the ambient noises issuing from within the inn and the town below, and admiring the view afforded to him from this vantage.
An outlandish sound interrupts the shugyōsha’s musings, his face scrunching up in puzzlement as he tries to discern the source of this abnormal noise. Steadily it rises in pitch, higher and higher, eventually drowning out all other sounds until the town itself pauses in its collective mystification over this omnipresent resonance with no apparent source or sign of abatement.
The seeds of some inexplicable dread begin taking root within Gensai as a cacophonous flurry of chirps from birds of all shapes and sizes serve as a prelude to their mass exodus from their arboreal dwellings and into the night sky. The observance of such a queer phenomenon combined with the ever growing roar dredges up some hazy childhood recollection within the wayward pilgrim's mind, one that holds the key to identifying this anomalous circumstance, but still missing some crucial piece to put a name to this mystery once and for all.
That missing piece eventually presents itself with absolute and terrifying clarity a few minutes later. A monolithic wall of murkiest black stretching from one horizon to the other rushes towards the coastline with hideous speed and fatalistic intent. The memory from before impresses itself at the forefront of Gensai's mind, of fantastic tales told by a boisterous mother to her impressionable children of Tsunami spanning the entirety of a province’s shore line as it sweeps through the land and scours away man’s works as though they never were. Beholding it with his own eyes, the shugyōsha realizes that even his mother’s wildest exaggerations fail to truly encapsulate the dark and horrible majesty of the cresting wave speeding forth to reap an abominable tally from the hapless village standing meekly in its inescapable path.
Terror renders Gensai immobile, even as his mind frantically urges him to cry out in alarm and brace himself for the almighty impact that will inevitably follow. Time seems to slow to a crawl with the vagabond staring at the colossal wave hurtling through and submerging the town beneath its pitch black waters with grim fascination. Only the sharp cry of a familiar young woman issuing from directly below near the inn’s entrance, followed by the discordant cries of similar alarm from the patron’s inside snap him out of his petrified stupor.
Immediately the shugyōsha grasps tightly at the railing, desperately scanning the ground below for the voice he’d recognized from earlier this evening at the magistrate’s estate. Shortly after he locates the recognizable figure of Kyo’s apprentice hurriedly planting something into the ground scant seconds from the oceanic wall crashing into the inn. Unable to or perhaps realizing the sheer futility of even calling out to Kanko-Cho, the last coherent thought in Gensai’s mind mere moments from impact is a prayer for the safety of the town and its inhabitants, then nothing else as the inky blackness of the implacable sea engulfs the Cresting Wave Inn.
How long the warrior pilgrim is immersed within those icy void-like depths he is unsure, but it cannot have been too long. He awakens to find himself lying prone and soaked to the bone upon a tangled mess of what was once a shoji screen, hands gripping naught but the splintered remains of the balcony railing he’d held onto for dear life mere seconds prior to collision. Rolling to his side he coughs and wretches, expelling the briny sea water that had entered his lungs. The pain of such a harrowing experience begins to register throughout the entirety of Gensai's body, a feeble groan emitting from his gasping mouth. His heart thunders out a frenzied tempo within his rib cage like the banging of taiko drums on the eve of some fateful battle.
Eventually regaining some modicum his wits and bearings, the shugyōsha shakily stands and steadies himself against one the intact walls with considerable effort. Quickly considering his options, his immediate thought is to retreat into the inn and search for any fellow survivors before urging them to head for higher ground if possible.
