A Mother's Love

First Published: May 1988 by Fantagraphics Books

• Miyamoto Usagi
• Spot
• Atsuo

Usagi and Spot, wandering in the wilderness, encounter an old woman and after sharing her lunch decide to escort her to her destination. Arriving at her home town, Usagi quickly discovers that things are amiss and by the villagers reaction to the old woman, it seems she may be part of the cause!

She explains that her son, Atsuo uses thugs to mercilessly extract loan repayments that are exceedingly unfair and the villagers blame her for it. Usagi accompanies the her to her home, however the reception is anything but a warm one and Spot finds himself momentarily in a tight squeeze. Atsuo is outraged by his mother's affrontery - bringing in a 'dirty ronin', but his anger does not come close to matching Usagi's outrage at the old woman's treatment by her son. The old woman and Usagi are left alone and spend the night laughing and drinking tea.

At daybreak, Usagi makes his preparations to leave and the old woman accompanies Usagi who agrees to spend a little more time before pressing on. The old woman has something on her mind however, and begs Usagi to kill her son. He refuses, but then agrees to meet her for dinner before he leaves. Arriving at her home, he is at once set upon by the house retainers, whom he slays in his urgency to find the old woman. He finds her, with Atsuo's corpse.

By telling her son that Usagi was an Assassin sent to kill him, then killing him when he sent the retainers to deal with him, she has freed the town. He refuses to kill her when she requests this of him, and leaves, hearing her begin to sing a lullaby to her son. Spot begins to howl when the lullaby is cut short.

Last change: 19. May 2003

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Usagi Yojimbo, including all prominent characters featured in the stories and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Stan Sakai and Usagi Studios. Usagi Yojimbo is a registered trademark of Stan Sakai. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric content, is coincidental.