It Is A Rather Risky

I Had No Taste For Defeat - Much Less Victory - Without A Fight.

...of All The Kinds Of Decay In This World, Decadent Purity Is The Most Malignant.

The Purest Evil That Human Efforts Could Attain, In Other Words, Was Probably Achieved By Those Men Who Made Their Wills The Same And Who Made Their Eyes See The World In The Same Way, Men Who Went Against The Pattern Of Life's Diversity, Men Whose Spirits Shattered The Natural Wall Of The Individual Body, Making Nothing Of This Barrier, Set Up To Guard Against Mutual Corrosion, Men Whose Spirit Accomplished What Flesh Could Never Accomplish.

He Was In A Room Of The Gesshuuji, Which He Had Thought It Would Be Impossible To Visit. The Approach Of Death Had Made The Visit Easy, Had Unloosed The Weight That Held Him In The Depths Of Being. It Was Even A Comfort To Think, From The Light Repose The Struggle Up The Hill Had Brought Him, That Kiyoaki, Struggling Against Illness Up That Same Road, Had Been Given Wings To Soar With By The Denial That Awaited Him.

He Had Never Looked Forward To The Wisdom And Other Vaunted Benefits Of Old Age. Would He Be Able To Die Young—and If Possible Free Of All Pain? A Graceful Death—as A Richly Patterned Kimono, Thrown Carelessly Across A Polished Table, Slides Unobtrusively Down Into The Darkness Of The Floor Beneath. A Death Marked By Elegance.