It was...not exactly the best experience of my life, finding the armor of Torrent, but I suppose it really wasn't the worst, either. I-

Hm?

......

Ah. Apparently I'm supposed to supposed to give more background information about myself first. Don't know why anyone would be interested, but I suppose there's some point to being complete. And I guess if there had been another Torrent, one before me, I would be curious to know about their life. 

Let's see, then, where to begin...

My name is Mouri Shin- that is, Mouri is my family name, Shin my given one. My friends call me Cye, except when they're feeling especially friendly, in which case it's Shin, or unless they're grouchy, when it's Mouri or nothing at all. 

I was rather disturbed when I learned that, in America, a shin refers to the part of the leg just above the ankle. I prefer my native version, frankly; shin in Japan is the concept of a trusting heart, and much less...well, less an odd thing to name someone! Though I suppose it could be worse, I could've been named- I don't know, 'Eyeball' or something...

It's no coincidence that my mother named me for the Torrent's virtue of trust. My mother is one of those who have an ability to...to look a bit ahead and see things that haven't happened yet, and she knew I would be the one to find the Torrent armor. I don't understand why it was me and not my elder sister, Sayoko, but I suppose being older or younger hasn't anything to do with it. 

My sister was ten when I was born, and for most of my life she's been like a second mother to me. Especially when Mother was so sick and then afterwards...

Um...

... I'm not very good at this, am I? Let me start again, I'll try to make better sense. 

I guess chronological order is the most logical way, even if it is a bit dull. 

So I was born. I was born in Hagi, Yamaguchi, which is a very small, very quiet little fishing village- rather, it was until fairly recently, when it became an unexpectedly large dot on the shipping-line maps. But back then, my parents were among the few people in the village who weren't directly involved with fishing in some form; they ran the local pottery shop and did reasonably well selling the plates and bowls and mugs. Vases and urns and such didn't sell as well then, but once you've got your dinner cooked, you need something to eat it off, so we did decent business. 

Come to think of it, we were fairly involved with fish- or at least, our products were, because fish was the main course at almost every meal. Other meat was hard to get and very expensive, since it had to be transported quite a long way. If anyone's ever wondered why I don't eat fish much, it's not, as some have suggested, because I'm friends with every fish in the sea. It's because I ate enough of it, growing up, to very nearly turn into one, and believe me, it does get dull in a hurry. That's also why I'm such a good cook; but even learning seventy different and enticing ways to cook seafood doesn't hide the fact that it's seafood, again, just like last night. 

My first memory is of being taught to swim- with the sea just a few blocks from our door, it was as much a matter of safety as anything else. (Heaven help us if a tsunami ever hits...). I took to the water very quickly, and I've never forgotten my young delight in the waves and the voice of the ocean. I didn't think it in so many words then, not being much an age to think or talk, but I always felt completely safe and oddly welcome whenever I was in the water, as though the sea knew me and took as much joy at having me in it as I was to be there. I never needed any flotation device, the water held me up and rocked me and the tide pulled lightly on me as if in greeting. And every night the sound of the waves sent me into peaceful sleep. 

Learning to walk came later and was much more of an ordeal. I've always been more clumsy on land than in the water, and I got quite a few bruises before I mastered the art of putting one foot before the other. I remember that time, not so much because of the bruises but because it's the time in my life that I remember my mother being both happy and healthy. 

When I was five, my favorite bedtime story- the one I asked for almost every night- was the one about the world of bad creatures that decided to declare war on our world, and the wizard-warrior who defeated their evil champion, then made magic armor and gave it to guardians who would keep the world safe for ever. 

I'm sure that sounds quite familiar.

Being naturally curious- that seems to be one common trait among us five- I had many questions about this story. What kind of 'bad creatures' were they? How did they get here? What did people do when they attacked? Who was the warrior, what kind of magic did he do, where did he go when he won, who were the armor-protectors...? Mother answered my questions, but not at night- probably concerned about giving me nightmares if she did that. Instead, she would walk with me along the beach and explain the things that puzzled me in the bright reality of afternoon. In hindsight, she probably didn't want Sayoko overhearing what she was telling me about demons, and a world formed by the anger and unhappiness of humans, and the Emperor who'd summoned doors into our world to conquer it; of the monk-warrior who'd defeated the demon-emperor and the yoroi formed of virtues and elements that the five champions would someday find and use. And of the suiko, Torrent, the armor that would someday be my very own.

I listened to these explanations with fascination and some fear, not sure whether it was a real story or not. Could a demon really have come to Toyama, before it was Toyama? Were there really such things evil ghosts and robot armies? Had the demons really caused earthquakes and floods, and controlled people and made things blow up? Was I really, truly, supposed to be one of the five? That was the most difficult and fascinating question of all. Me, a guardian? Me, finding the magic armor in the sea? That didn't seem likely; the sea was so big, and I wasn't even a fisherman's kid. But why would Mother say something that wasn't true? She never did that!

I kept that batch of questions to myself, not wanting to anger Mother with my skepticism, and eventually worked my way through to a possible (only to my mind, seeing how contradictory it was) solution. I knew Mother often 'saw' things that would happen long before they happened, so her seeing me with a magic armor would probably be true. But it might not be for the reason she thought it was- not to fight a demon with. She often said the future could be tricky and what one saw might mean many different things. So probably I would find that magic armor and prove the legend and be famous. Sort of the way people kept trying to find Atlantis. But even if someone ever did find Atlantis, it didn't mean another city would get covered in water again. Proving that something had been true once didn't mean it was going to happen again. 

Having established that I wasn't going to have to fight any legendary (imaginary) demon whose existence I was going to prove with my discovery of legendary (imaginary) armor, I cheerfully started my search. This mainly consisted of checking the seashore for anything that washed up which might be yoroi. I did this almost every day, except for the days I forgot, and filled in some of my free time by pretend-slaying lots of evil robots and ghosts with my trusty trident. (Well what else? All the water-gods use tridents, it was the natural choice.) But I didn't ask Mother to tell me that fascinating story about the great warrior anymore, not once I knew what else went along with it.

It's worth repeating: I was five. 

I suppose part of the reason I found it hard to imagine myself as a warrior 'for real' was because there was nothing of that sort in the family- no martial arts practicing or weapon-training at all. In that respect we were somewhat unusual, though in other ways we had the traditional family setting: Mother stayed home and took care of me while Father managed the store and Sayoko was at school. 

My sister and I have always had a good relationship, though as I say, she was more like a second mother, or perhaps a young aunt, to me than a sibling in the strict sense of the word. I looked forward to her coming home every day and usually met her at the door- rather like a puppy, really- and she always spent some time with me before going off to do her homework. She was always interested in whatever I wanted to tell her, perhaps partly because I didn't talk much and she wanted to encourage me to speak more. But mostly we just got along well; I had no trouble confiding in her and she never treated me as an inferior despite the gap in our ages. I'm sure there's a connection there, it's very easy to talk to someone who treats you with respect. 

My father- well, his first act on walking through the door each night was always to pick me up and ask how his family had behaved that day. "Was your mother a good girl?" he would say; "did your sister do anything naughty?" Mother and Sayoko would laugh as I assured him that everyone had been well-behaved. "That's good," he would nod. "I knew I could trust my boy to keep everything in line for me." And then he would laugh too, and add, "No more of that or I'll sleep on the sofa, ne, wife?" Then he would put me down in my chair at the table and sit down himself as Mother brought him something to eat. Sayoko would take her regular place, too, and we would talk to him while he had his supper. Mother always took me away for my bath while Sayoko and Father were still talking- mostly about the pottery and her school- but once I was out of the tub, Father would get up from his chair and lead me down the hall to tuck me into bed. "Sleep well, my little heart," he would say. "Your father loves you."

I'm glad he did that. I've never had to wonder.

So I think I was closer to him than most Japanese kids are to their fathers, but that's in hindsight. I never had any reason to fear him and was never uncomfortable or unsure when he was in the house; and certainly he never raised his hand to me or anyone else. I don't remember him even raising his voice or arguing with Mother. And I know Sayoko spoke to him informally, which is rather unusual, especially for a first-born and a girl. But I never really got to compare him to anyone else and decide that he was more open and easy-going, or had a greater sense of humor than most. I think so...but I never got to know so, because the spring I was six, both of my parents became seriously ill and had to be hospitalized. Many others in the village were sick at the time, but all I cared about was Mother and Father. Sayoko took care of me- school was closed in an effort to keep the disease, whatever it was, from spreading- and together we waited for our parents to come home. 

Mother came home, but she has never been the same. The illness, and the drugs used to treat it, wrecked her health; she's frail and not strong, and is often in pain. Her sight was damaged from the high fever, and she often has severe headaches; her heart is weak and her bones are thinning prematurely. She has to take medications every day, digitalis and calcium, and they both often make her feel sick, among other things. 

Father didn't come home.

It was harder for my sister than me, much harder. She'd known him so much longer than I had, and so much better. She often went to the shop to assist him on weekends, and enjoyed it very much- she said it was more like a holiday than work had any right to be, she had such fun doing it. When she heard that he had died, she crumbled. 

I can't say much about that. It makes me want to cry, remembering her pain. I did the best I could to comfort her and she told me it helped very much, but I don't know...I really don't know. There's only so much you can do to comfort someone at any time, and I don't think I was too good at it, being so young. I didn't even fully understand what death was; I got the idea that Father was 'gone', but I didn't really grasp that he was goneforever. For me it was more the feeling that he had moved away or left on a long trip than anything else. My poor sister knew much better than that.

It's strange, but- I don't remember exactly how it happened, whether Mother came home first and then we learned that Father was gone, or if we heard about Father first and Mother came home later. But I do remember the day Mother was brought home: she was carried into our house on a stretcher, and that frightened both Sayoko and me quite badly. Once Mother was comfortable in her bed, there was a sort of meeting outside her room, between a tall, pale doctor with glasses, a young woman who I later learned was a nurse-in-training, and Sayoko. I didn't understand what went on, but when the doctor left, the trainee remained and Sayoko took me to my room to explain things to me. 

"Mother's getting better," she said in her soft way, sitting on my bed and hugging me. "But she's very weak still and she has to stay in bed and rest. We're must be very quiet and make sure nothing troubles her. And she can't do any work until the doctor says it's all right. So we'll do that for her, ne, onii-chan? If she's troubled too much, she might get sick again, and maybe not get well- and then where will we be?"

"Hai, 'nee-san," I whispered, more than a little frightened by her words. "We won't let her get sick again, we love her."

"I don't mean to scare you," my sister apologized. "She is getting better, much better, it's just that the medicine she has to take is very strong and makes her feel bad. You know how if you have a headache you take something to make it better and it makes your stomach go 'yuck'?"

"Oh, nasty," I agreed, nodding. I've always been sensitive to medications, so I understood how that worked. "Who is that lady?"

"That's a lady from the hospital, she's going to stay a few days and make sure Mother's all better. And she'll teach me about the medicine Mother will be taking, too." Sayoko sighed, and in my heart I felt what a burden my sixteen-year-old sister was taking on. Her biggest worry should have been the studying she had to do, the education she was supposed to be getting, not a sick mother, a little brother, a dead father and an unmanaged pottery store. 

"I'll help," I said softly, hugging her. "Just tell me what to do, I'll do it- I want to help." 

"You're a good brother," my sister remarked. "Mother will be happy when I tell her how good and helpful Shin-chan is."

Which was all I ever needed in the way of encouragement.

The training-nurse stayed with us for a week, and by the time she left, Mother was well enough to get up and move around the house. I should have been happy, or at least relieved, but I wasn't, because that was when the grief came out. You see, in Japan, we don't show grief around strangers, no matter how intensely we feel it. So while the nurse was there, Mother and Sayoko behaved more or less the way they usually did when guests were present. But once the woman left, they stopped hiding their feelings, and it was terrible. Mother did try to be brave for our sakes- she knew how wrecked Sayoko was, and guessed that I didn't really understand what had happened and was scared by all the changes- but I heard her crying in the night, quite often. Especially the nights after the memorial, which was held two or three days after the nurse left. 

That's probably why I don't remember exactly when we got the news: the memorial and the grief afterwards made a deeper impression on me. It's changes in attitude and routine that really affect a child, not a few words that they don't fully understand, so seeing my mother and sister so upset affected me more than the thought that I wouldn't see Father ever again. 'Ever again' was too big of a concept for me then, and I couldn't know how much I would wish, later, that he was there to share my life. I missed him, and I wished very much that he'd come back- the house seemed much bigger, emptier and lonelier without him- but I didn't suffer the intense grief that Mother and Sayoko did.

I guess everyone finds their own way of dealing with a catastrophe. Mother gradually submerged some of her grief by taking over the management of the pottery shop, despite Sayoko's concerns about her being so busy and having so many pressures on her. Mother insisted that she was fine so long as Sayoko did her school-work, got good grades, did her chores and looked after me. So my sister, being an obedient girl, stopped worrying out loud and did as she was told, though I know (she told me) that she couldn't help worrying anyway. I think it helped her to keep her mind busy- that is, both the studying and the worrying over Mother; then she wasn't thinking of Father so much- but it was a long time before she was as light-hearted as she used to be. 

As for me, I tried not to need much looking after, and whenever I could I went down to the beach and watched the water. I still felt welcomed every time I stepped into the waves, and there was no sorrow in the sea. It changed every day, yet it was unchanging. The waves came and went, the tide rose and fell- it was stability, I guess. It wouldn't ever be unhappy or sick, it wouldn't ever go away and leave me.

So the summer passed and the fall came and winter arrived in its usual dreary way. Winter in Hagi is gray and full of fog, and the sea turns dark and foamy. I made a very interesting discovery that winter, though: I found that I was strangely impervious to the coldness of the water. I continued to go wading, and even swimming, long after there was ice all over the sand. I never let anyone know, though, since I knew I'd be told not to do it. Quite apart from the cold, the winter tides are much stronger than the summer ones. But I was careful and never went out very far- and even in her winter rage, the sea welcomed me.

When spring came, I started attending school, having turned seven in March. I was one of the youngest in my class, since the cut-off date is April- if you're not seven before the spring semester, you wait until the next year to start. At least, in my school it was the next year; I hear some schools only wait for the next semester. It seems to me that could be confusing, but I guess they do that in large schools, where they have enough new students each semester to make a complete class. My school was a quite small one- though not as small as Ryo's! We averaged fifteen students per class.

Anyway, I know some people will be scandalized to hear me say this, but I enjoyed school once I got used to being away from home all day. I liked walking along the beach to get to the school building every morning and home every afternoon. I liked my teacher and didn't have any particular trouble with any of the subjects. And none of the kids I disliked were in my class. (There weren't many of those, but I was just as glad they weren't around.) The only thing that gave me any perplexity was trying to decide what activity I was going to participate in after classes. I wasn't much of a participator and there wasn't a lot to choose from. Baseball, American football, tennis, Go and archery were the sports; drama, band and choir were the clubs- and for girls there was cheerleading, by age group. (They didn't offer swimming! With the sea two-hundred feet away!! I suppose they figured we got enough of that after school and on weekends, but really.) I ended up choosing tennis and spent most of my sports time chasing runaway tennis balls for the older students, just like most of the other first-graders. I felt fortunate, actually- it seemed better than being in charge of the water cooler for football or warming the bench in baseball. At least I got some exercise.

About the kids I disliked. I wasn't the most sociable person around, and some people took that as a superiority complex, thinking I looked down on the fishermen and their families as lesser beings and was too proud to associate with those who were beneath me. It took a long time for that rumor to reach me- I knew nothing of it until third grade- and it did so in a quite hurtful way. It was on a Monday at the start of the second semester. I had brought a card to class for a classmate who'd had a birthday the day before, planning to give it to her at lunch. But by lunchtime I had changed my mind, having learned from various bits of talk that she'd had a large party Sunday to which our whole class had been invited- all but me. 

I was bewildered and hurt by the fact, but what made it all the worse was overhearing two students discussing my lack of invitation. They agreed she'd done the sensible thing in leaving me out, for there was no point inviting someone who'd turn you down and act like their invitation was too poor for them to wipe their feet on. It took me a minute to realize they thought I was the sort of person who would do that.

It took me most of lunch to decide what I was going to do about the snub- and the attitude behind it. Eventually I got up to put my tray away, and as I was going back to my seat, I paused at the girl's desk. "I heard you had a birthday yesterday," I said calmly, smiling a little. "I would wish you happy birthday, only I don't think you want me to- and I know for sure you don't want the card I was going to give you. So I guess I'll just have to throw it away."

The girl herself stared at me in complete shock for a moment, then turned very red and looked away quickly. Everyone else sort of rustled and murmured, and finally someone said, "You didn't really, did you?" in an uncertain tone.

I answered by going back to my desk, pulling out my History book and taking out the pink envelope I'd tucked into it before I left the house. I held it up so he could see her name written on it, and then I opened the envelope and showed the pink card with light-blue balloons before putting it back into the envelope and stuffing it back into my book. "I ought to just tear it up," I mused aloud. "They won't give me my money back, since I wrote in it." And before anyone could say anything, I pulled it back out and did just that. There was a sort of a gasp, and the girl put her face in her hands- I think she was actually crying a little, not merely trying to hide her expression, but I didn't look at her for the rest of the day so I don't know for sure. 

So I established two things that day. One, that I wasn't nearly as stuck up as people suggested I was; and two, that I was quite cruel when I was angry. 

On a side note, she and I did forgive each other. She apologized the next day and asked if I might like to come to her house that afternoon and have a piece of the ice cream cake from her birthday. I hesitated, tempted to rub it in with a refusal, but she looked so wistful that I agreed to the bribe and even went so far as to make a peace-offering of my own. I felt a bit bad about ripping up the pretty card, so I stopped at the general store and got her a pair of glittery balloon-shaped hair-clips. (She was very fond of balloons.) She was thrilled, to put it calmly. I went home stuffed with ice cream and carrying a bag full of party-favors; she wore those clips almost every day for the rest of the semester. So it ended well, and my reputation as a stuck-up snit changed to one of a shy but nice and polite boy. To most people. 

The remaining few changed their opinion from 'stuck-up snit' to 'scaredy-cat stick-in-the-mud'. But that didn't bother me much, as my opinion of them was 'pack of insolent daredevils who're bound to get themselves killed someday- or worse, get someone else killed.' A long title, but truer of them than theirs was of me. They were the sort who were always bound for some kind of mischief, and they didn't appreciate it when someone suggested they take the safer and more sensible way in favor of avoiding injury or potential punishment. 'Someone' was often me. I've always preferred being sensible to taking unnecessary risks. I don't know if that makes me more mature than they were or not, but it certainly kept me from getting into trouble, not to mention I had a lot fewer bruises than they did despite still being a bit clumsy on land. 

I don't remember all of the ridiculous stunts they came up with, but the year I was ten was fairly memorable. What started as an annoying habit of throwing down a small explosive from a cap-gun to startle people turned quite dangerous. It was bad enough having crackers go off in the grocery store or movie theater, but then they moved to actual fireworks and started setting them off outside peoples' windows or under their porches. It finally ended when a vacant lot caught fire and the bucket brigade had to be hauled out at about eleven in the evening. (We didn't have a fire-engine then, though that changed quickly after the inadvertent yard barbeque.) The adults were NOT amused and things quieted down considerably for a while. I think the stunt after that was riding bicycles backwards, which only ended when someone broke his ankle. For the record, that's when you sit on the seat facing backward, put your arms behind you to hold the handlebars, and attempt to proceed. 

You see what I mean. Really, 'unnecessary' doesn't begin to describe it.

Hm. I seem to have jumped from seven to ten without much warning, but really, there isn't much worth mentioning from when I was eight and nine. I started learning English and found it the most difficult of my subjects... I turned out to be fairly good at math and helped some of the other students now and again... I helped Mother at the store on weekends... Sayoko started teaching me how to cook, which I found both challenging and pleasant... Really, life was very quiet.

Oh yes, just a word about 'tea ceremonies'. No, I didn't ever actually get trained in how to do that correctly. Mother didn't stand over me and give me detailed instructions on how long to brew and how to sit and just how to pour and so on. What happened was, whenever friends dropped by, either Mother or Sayoko made tea for them. I merely learned how by watching, and I certainly had enough opportunities to observe, for someone usually came to visit at least once a week. Everyone was aware that Mother's health wasn't good, and Mother's friends took it on themselves to check up on her. And they always brought flowers, which Sayoko always took pains to arrange nicely. So I learned more about that than most boys, I think.