They were at it again...

Didn't they have any shame? It was the middle of the day! Here I was stuck sweeping the still empty dojo while they went at it like rabbits. It was just unfair.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Give it to me! Harder!" I heard Hazuka Honda shout before squealing with delight and the ensuing loud groan from Shinji gave away his climax as well. I shuddered thinking about it and tried to focus on my cleaning duties. It wasn't like I had anywhere else to go. At least I was allowed to stay living here when Shinji came back from the war that had finally ended in a truce. Turns out Chizu was of some importance and once she was returned to the barbarian horde they spared our village and moved on.

Shinji came back, found his sister-in-law and fiancée dead, and me living in the dojo keeping it clean. He didn't mourn long, simply taking Hazuka as his new bride and moving on with his life. I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was, Hazuka was always looking to step up her lot in life and Shinji was the town's new war hero and richest eligible bachelor. I just counted myself lucky that Shinji was too busy fucking his new bride to properly care for his property so I was allowed to stay on caring for it as the cost of living there.

"How's it going?" Hazuka asked from behind me and it startled me.

"I didn't hear you come," I said as I recomposed myself.

"Didn't you?" she asked coyly. I blushed fiercely and she smiled, taking pity on me. "It's okay. I know these rice-paper walls are thin. But you're not wrong."

I didn't get exactly her meaning, but didn't want to talk about her sex life. "Well, if you'll excuse me I…"

Hazuka cut me off and asked bluntly, "Are you ever going to visit your child?"

"I… I…" I stuttered nervously.

"I saw him the other day," she said taunting me. "Azami calls him Kusottare." The fact she called our illegitimate child a shithead stung. I wasn't in control of my body, I wasn't responsible. If only that Monk had been around to explain it. I just sighed and turned away from Hazuka and retreated back to my little room. I knew she was laughing at me behind my back, everyone was. The rumor mill swirled all over town about how I killed Azami's daughter and then **** her. I thought I might actually be killed or at least castrated when the men came back.

Strangely, Mister Takahashi came to see me a few months before the child was born. He actually thanked me for giving him a new heir. Azami had told him I wasn't responsible for Setsuko's ****, but also that I would never be the child's father. He had pardoned me for the crime of ****, but made it clear that if I ever showed my face around his home or told anyone I was the child's true father that I'd be executed on the spot. With all the men and his guards back I was sure this was no idle threat. He also threatened my father's life, but as I had no love for him that was no real incentive. I never cared about the drunkard anyway and was almost disappointed that he came back alive as well.

"Kenji!" I heard Shinji shout. I came running out to find him in the kitchen just wearing a bed robe. "Ah, good. Be a good sport and prepare us some dinner would you?" I nodded he returned to his room. As the sun went I prepared a meal for my master and his wife, set it up on a platter, and then knocked on their door. "Come in," Shinji called out.

I opened the door and found them both naked in bed, toying with each other's bodies. Clearly, they had intended this, so I tried to ignore it and placed the food I had on the table, averting my eyes, and then turned to leave. "What's wrong, Kenji?" Shinji asked, mocking my embarrassment. I didn't answer and just hurried out to close the door behind me. They both shared a hearty laugh before digging into the food, and a short while after walking away I could hear them starting to go at it again.

Listening to their bodies slap together, the groans of pleasure and ecstasy, I just can't take this anymore. I stole away from my room and into the kitchen again and took two empty satchels. In one I crammed a few loaves of bread, cheese, and some apples before heading out into the dojo. With a bit of determination and a lot of double thought, I snatched up the ancient Honda katana, putting it through my belt to secure it. It was getting dark out, but there was still some twilight left and a sliver of a moon left on this clear night, so I walked quickly up the hill at first before ducking into the bushes as I got closer to the accursed manor house.

Once not long ago there would have been no one around. All the guards and servants had been with their master, attending him at the battlefront, but now even after sundown, there was still a scurry of activity. Servants washing clothes, cooking food, even a gardener. I had to wait for hours before the household finally closed down for the night and they all retired to their sleeping chambers.

It was nearly midnight when I slowly left my hiding spot and crept closer. It wasn't hard to find my target, Setsuko's old room was now my bastard son's nursery. Its large window was cracked to give him a gentle breeze to keep him from crying, and luckily as I suspected only a sleeping nursemaid was nearby. With very quiet and deliberate movements I gathered up a few supplies into the empty satchel I'd brought, mostly diaper clothes, pins, and a goat's horn covered in leather with a dried teat attached to the end. Then I approached my son for my first real look at him.

Even in the dark, he was beautiful. "I name you Daichi," I whispered the word for an impressive son more to myself than to him, then ever so gently scooped him up into my arms. He woke up, but thankfully only giggled and smiled. He must have known I was his father. Then I stole him out the window and hurried away. I stayed off the road, but kept moving and ran with my boy into the night and across the land bridge onto the mainland.

By dawn we were a dozen miles away and only then did I consider rest. There would be an alarm by now in the household, and it wouldn't take them long to inquire at the dojo and find me missing. Even in the forest, where we would be exposed should a rider come nearby. I made a quick assessment of the trees and found a large one, then threw up a rope to pull myself and my son up.

It was a good thing I'd thought to hide because it wasn't twenty minutes later the first horses rode by underneath. Daiichirous was getting hungry and I'd just fed him his bottle, but the horse and its thunderous hooves were loud and scared him. He let loose a piercing cry that I knew would be heard.

"Shhh…" I begged the baby. "Daddy loves you and if you don't be quiet he'll be killed," I whispered to the infant and placed the empty feeding horn back in his lips. Luckily just as the horses held up he was silenced by the joy of sucking on the dried animal teat.

"Did you hear that?" one rider asked, looking around just past the tree where we hid.

The one ahead of him looked back, paused for a moment then answered. "I don't hear anything. Let's keep going. He can't have gotten much farther on foot." The horses were spurred on and breathed easy for the first time.

"That was a close one," I muttered to my son, but he only happily gummed at the leathery teat in his mouth. "I pledge to you, I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe." Then I sprinted off as quietly as possible in a different direction to lose my pursuers and kept running for months, through several provinces, never staying too long in one place lest Azami get news of me and track us down.

After that, I worked hard to keep my promise. Taking up the sword I'd stolen and almost inadvertently making a name for myself as a ronin samurai. I went by a new name, of course, to protect myself and my son should word of us ever get back to Greytown. Having never handled a sword before I didn't know I'd turn into a natural using it until I was first pressed into combat against some bandits to save my son's life.

In time I became known as the 'Lone Wolf' Ogami, sword for hire as I roamed far and wide, simply looking to make a life for my son as far away from where we started as possible.