(The Elusive Samurai)
A heroic death.
A graceful suicide.
To fight and die in battle is the greatest honor for a warrior.
This is the tale of a hero who lived through such a raging age in spectacular fashion.
One known as Takauji Ashikaga.
(Nanbokucho Period)
...Or so you might think.
Lord Tokiyuki!
It's time to practice your archery! (1333 AD, Kamakura - Wakamiyaoji Shogunate Site)
You're not going anywhere, Lord Tokiyuki!
Oh, sorry!
He's so nimble...
Fool! This is no time to admire his skills!
It's dangerous up there, Lord Tokiyuki!
Please come down!
You'll get hurt!
Somebody stop him!
What's the commotion here?!
Lord Ashikaga is about to depart!
Well... Lord Tokiyuki...
What about Young Master?
Huh?
He's so quick on his feet!
That's enough! Dismissed!
But...
Sorry, let me through.
My...
You're always so good at hide-and-seek, Young Master.
L-Lord Takauji?
I, Takauji Ashikaga,
will go to the capital,
to quell the rebellion of Emperor Godaigo's predecessors.
I'd love for you, the future lord of Hojo Clan,
to witness my loyalty to the clan.
That's reassuring.
I shall pray for the prosperity of Kamakura and the warriors,
and also for your success.
Well, then.
Sorry to keep you waiting.
Yes.
Don't be so nervous around Ashikaga.
Kiyoko?
You're the heir to the shogunate.
You'll be the one giving orders to him someday.
You're also my future husband, so get a grip.
I don't remember being engaged to you...
Lord Tokiyuki!
Where did he go?
Maybe he's hiding over there?
Sorry, Kiyoko!
See you later!
Oh, my.
Good grief...
All he's good at is running and hiding.
He's just so different from Takauji, even though he's a fellow warrior.
Even if he were to succeed the shogunate,
he'd just be a puppet king like his father.
Indeed, Sir Takatoki.
Then leave this matter to us.
Yes.
Oh, come on, Father.
Even a puppet can live a life of luxury.
While Lord Tokiyuki is talentless and only good at running,
but he's kind.
He'd make for a good husband of a prominent family!
I can't find him...
I can't handle him when he hides so seriously.
The other day, he hid in the armor box for two whole days, it became a commotion!
Doing practice would be much easier...
Well, despite nominal, he is the successor to the shogunate.
He's just so lazy and cowardly, nothing goes through his head.
Tokiyuki.
Father is sickly and unmotivated.
You should really succeed to the throne already.
Wait, shouldn't you be the first line of succession?
No way.
If I, the concubine's son, succeeded, it would be a source of strife.
It's in our blood to run away from anything we don't like,
fair and square.
Why are you so proud?
Lord Tokiyuki!
Found you!
All right, let's go practice archery!
Now!
Come on!
Let-us-go!
Hold on to this, Brother.
Huh? Sure...
Tokiyuki!
Lord Tokiyuki!
Please stop!
Lord Tokiyuki!
Hey!
Gosh!
Young Master!
I love Kamakura.
I love seeing the smiles on people's faces when they live in peace.
I don't need status or glory.
If I can live in this town peacefully, that's all I need.
Call me lazy or a coward.
As a puppet, I have no use for civil and military power.
That is not laziness or cowardice.
It is a fragment of monster within you.
So spoke my father.
Who are you?
Father?
I see you're as good at running away as they say!
What in tarnation?!
Nice to meet you!
My name is Yorishige Suwa, a priest of the Shinano Province!
A priest of Shinano? Wait, when did you climb here?!
I've been here from the beginning! I knew you would be climbing this tree!
You're emitting quite a bright light...
Oh, my apologies!
Because of the holiness of my nature, my divine power inevitably leaks out!
I'll tone it down.
I have been asked to pray for the protection of Kamakura against their enemies.
I have come to inform your father that it has been completed.
She is Shizuku.
She's excellent in secret arts and clerical work, so I'm allowing her to assist me.
He's so suspicious... How could he tell I'd climb this tree?
Father can see the future with his divine power.
Although, he sucks at exorcism.
Shizuku, no need to say the latter.
If you're in doubt, have a look for yourself!
I can see it, Lord Tokiyuki...
In the future, you...
You... like that...
Oh, wait...
If I had to say... Or maybe...
If you do, you'll surely be happy...
Hang on, everyone has their own definition of happiness...
Well, you're in good health, and as for...
I guess whatever will be, will be?
What?!
You're just murmuring stuff!
I can only figure out fragments of it!
It wouldn't be much fun if I knew everything in the first place!
But I could see it all now!
If I had to say, you're playing the straight man in a skit!
Whose fault is it, you funny soothsayer?!
And I also saw the future two years later.
At the age of ten, you will be a hero who will shake the heavens.
You'll become the master of the great war, feared by some and respected by others,
and you can even change the future of the nation.
I can tell that much, since it's so big...
Hm?
Oh, so quick!
You had to say such thing...
What a great crisis-sensing ability...
That was close.
I don't have enough money in my pocket to give a fake spirit channeler.
What a foolish man.
Even if he were to deceive me, he'd only gain superficial prosperity.
Me, becoming a hero...
He said that with a serious look...
Hmm...
To think someone like him could enter...
For real...
He was so suspicious.
Still...
I understand a little of what this Suwa man said.
Your running skills are on a different level from me and Father.
If the conditions are met,
I feel like you can be a hero.
That's what I think.
Huh?
What's wrong?
Where did it go?
Maybe it got stuck in the tree?
We will now enter the capital to remove the rebel army.
Blessings be upon us, O Hachiman!
Come forth, everyone!
Lord Viceroy!
I am here with a report, Ashikaga secretly contacted Emperor Godaigo!
They destroyed the shogunate forces in the capital!
When the warriors heard of Takauchi's fame, they gathered together.
They say the Nitta army is swarming in the blink of an eye!
Not only that, but the enemy also sent his son to Nitta Yoshisada...
And they're also...
...sending troops to Kamakura!
(Saburo Kano and Jiro Shiota, Military Arts Instructors, K.I.A.)
(Chikaaki of Settsu, Shogunate Official, Committed Suicide)
(His Daughter, Kiyoko, Murdered From a Plunder)
(The conditions for being a hero...)
(...Are for him to be deprived of everything.)
You... Why did you betray...
I can hear a voice.
Whose voice?
Who...
Who will raise me to the heavens?
(More Than 800 Members of Hojo Clan and Its Followers Commited Suicide)
Father...
(Kamakura Shogunate Fall)
I have been waiting for you, Lord Tokiyuki.
In his final moments,
your father ordered me to help you escape,
because his son was too young to die.
From now on, I will shelter you in my territory,
which is Shinano-Suwa.
Yorishige Suwa...
What are you doing here?
There's no time.
Over here.
My divine eye saw the possibility of this happening.
We had prepared ourselves for any eventuality.
We have our men and horses in the hills ahead.
Let's head there now.
No...
I'll just cut my stomach...
...like Father and the rest.
Not happening.
If you die, what will be the future of Japan?
Who cares about that?
Well, that's...
It'll become... That...
I have a hunch, but I can't just decide for myself...
If he died, the effect would...
While the effect on... It wouldn't be...
He has to be there...
A picture of Hell...
Everything in Kamakura is destroyed by traitorous warriors...
Takauji Ashikaga...
I can't believe you've done it so thoroughly.
Sir... Takauji...
Who are you?
I'm a feudal lord of Shimono.
My name is Takauji Ashikaga.
You can't escape from me, Young Master!
He was just smiling the other day...
Was that all a lie?
Let's have our revenge, Lord Tokiyuki!
I will certainly be of assistance!
His smile is also completely fake.
Go away.
How can I believe a bogus prayer master?
How rude!
I am bursting with holiness, and you call me bogus?!
Father.
A bogus is a bogus. No need to argue.
Back me up here, my family!
I can't avenge anyone.
You'll know it when you see this.
Even Lord Minamoto-no-Yoritomo took five years to destroy the Heike.
And yet, there's a man who destroyed a whole country in just 24 days.
You said the other day that I would be a hero...
But it is powerful men like Takauji Ashikaga,
who will be called heroes by future generations.
The losers must die gracefully, lest they be ashamed of themselves.
So just please let me die.
Just like the rest of the warriors.
Is that so?
Then die.
He's from Hojo!
From the depths of despair and beyond...
Only on the brink of death...
Hey!
The hero inside you...
...may shine!
Hey...
What would you do if I died?
You said you'd be a shame if you died,
but it's the hero inside you that made you...
...try to survive happily and undeterred.
Being elusive is but one side of a hero.
Up there! Shoot them down!
You are the monster of survival instincts!
You are most gifted for survival,
and love the tingling tension between life and death.
You must mean trouble for Takauji, who just murdered the emperor,
and claimed the throne.
The next heir to the Kamakura shogunate, who must be killed more than anyone else,
has the talent to survive more than anyone else.
Takauji becomes a hero by killing.
And you will become a hero by surviving.
You are two heroes with opposite destinies.
Of course, you can't win by merely running and hiding.
Companionship, military strength, and intelligence.
I will gather it all for you to win.
If you keep on living, one day for sure,
Takauji will come to kill you.
Until then,
you stay hidden, train yourself, and take down the chasing demon!
Now, we shall begin the game of tag to reclaim the throne!
Yorishige.
What's your aim here?
What's in it for you to rescue an exiled kid?
All for loyalty to the Hojo family!
Well, I'm just a bogus,
so I guess you won't believe me.
I'll tell you in due time.
After you have taken back Kamakura.
I...
I really know no shame.
Even though my whole family was killed...
It was only natural for me to die as well...
Thanks to you, I swooned at the joy of living.
Sir Yorishige.
You will be responsible for this.
Of course.
I will serve you to the depths of Hell.
Just like Yorishige predicted,
two years later, Tokiyuki shakes up the whole country.
Hyeah!
In an era where dying gracefully was the norm,
the boy kept on the run at all costs,
and he was determined to get the head of the new emperor.
Thus marked the beginning of the turbulent life of the elusive samurai.
Coming forth! (Episode 2: The Kind Mister)