Usually there are two ends to stories about people who get shot in the face, either they die or they do something unthinkably awesome. This is a story about the latter.
Kamakura Gongoro Kagemasa was a samurai from the 11th century mostly famous for his role in the siege of Kanezawa in 1085 when he was just 16 years of age. Exactly what happened that day isn’t clear, but we do know a few key things, mainly that Kagemasa had his shit rocked just so hard. Specifically Kagemasa had one of his eyes destroyed (nobody is really sure which one) when an enemy’s arrow sailed through the air like a errant champagne cork at a fancy party and hit him right in the peepers.
Kagemasa, rather than dying or something lame like that, snapped the shaft of the arrow that was lodged right in his fucking eye socket and calmly drew an arrow of his own and killed the person who shot it. Kagemasa then stayed until the end of the battle with the arrow still in his face before walking back to camp to do what all teenagers do after a long day, nap.
While Kagemasa was napping a fellow samurai wandered past and assuming that he was either dead or dying, decided to pull the arrow out of his eye socket. The problem was that the arrow was in there so the unnamed samurai had to put his foot on Kagemasa’s face to give him the leverage needed to wrench it out.
The moment Kagemasa felt the foot on his face he gripped the arrow with a kung-fu death grip, kicked the guy holding it in the dick to make him let go. Kagemasa then stood up with the arrow still in his face and threatened to cut the guy down where he stood for having the audacity to try that shit.
The other samurai was so humbled and terrified by Kagemasa’s response that he begged forgiveness and asked if he could perhaps have the honor or removing the arrow, respectfully, however the fuck you’d actually do that. Kagemasa accepted the apology and sat, stock still, as the guy tore the arrow out of his facehole.
Unsurprisingly, Kagemasa is now considered a hero of Japanese history, because Japan know better than to disrespect this guy’s memory.
