The morning started, as all mornings did now, with Tsurugi trying to disappear and failing spectacularly.
He sat in what had been a nice, quiet clearing in the woods. Had been, until someone built a dojo around him while he wasn't paying attention. Then dormitories. Then walls. Then—somehow—an entire compound.
"Master!" A student whose name he'd never bothered learning bowed so low his forehead touched dirt. "Your wisdom about yesterday's lesson changed my life!"
Tsurugi looked up from the interesting beetle he'd been watching. "I didn't teach yesterday."
"Exactly! The lesson of absence! By not teaching, you taught us to find wisdom within!"
"I was sleeping."
"The profound sleep of meditation!"
"I was drunk."
"Drunk on existential clarity!"
Tsurugi stared at the student. The student stared back with eyes shining with delusion.
"Leave."
