BUSHI means Samurai. In this Shogi variant is only two squares and two pieces, fighting Samurais'.
I think that also I have reaches to the end with my fight to develop smaller and smaller variant. I can't imagine a boardgame with one square and after that there is no more any board! :-)
I recommend this game only for authentic games.

The Board:

Two squares, Black and White.

The Pieces:

Two Samurai pieces, Black and White. Here you can see the cubic structure and the Kanji of piece:

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In every side of cube there are two Kanji:
= Samurai, and his sword.

Sometimes the sword is in Samurai's left hand, sometimes in right. Sometimes Samurai tries to strike to the front.
You can see the oder of sides.
The situations between Black and White Samurai  give oders how the piece will move.

Sword on left	Sword on right	Strike to the front	"Power of tree swords"

 The Moves:

1. The cube is possible to rotate 90 degrees, always clockwise.
Sample:

When piece, (left fig.) rotated 90 degrees, it's after move like on right figure

2. The cube is possible to roll to the front.
Sample:

When Power of tree sword rolls to the front, the new value will be like on right figure

3. The cube is possible to roll up from left side.
Sample:

When Power of tree sword rolls up from left side, the new value will be like on right figure

4. The cube is possible to roll up from right side.
Sample:

When Power of tree sword rolls up from right side, the new value will be like on right figure

Situations between Black and White:

Checking, case 1:

In this position Black has moved and his Samurai's sword on right hand points to White's Samurai. This mean that Black's piece checks. If White's Samurai hasn't his sword to point to Black, (as in this sample), White's only allowed move is to rotate his piece 90 degrees clockwise.	White:
	Black:

Checking, case 2:

In this position Black has moved and his Samurai's sword on right hand points to White's Samurai, so Black's piece checks. In this case White's Samurai had also his sword to point to Balck, (as in this sample), so now White's only allowed move is to roll his piece to same direction as his Samurai has a look. In this sample White's Samurai has a look to the left, so he has to roll the piece from right to left.	White:
	Black:

Ordinary move:

In this position Black has moved and his Samurai's sword does not point to White's Samurai. In these cases White has four possibilities to choose his move: 1.) Rotate 90 degrees, 2.) Roll to the left, 3.) Roll to the right or 4.) Roll to the front direction.	White:
	Black:

How the checkmate will get?

In this position Black has moved and he has made position, where both Samurais are face-to-face and both swords are also against each other. In this case Black's Samurai has done the checkmate and Black has won. (This situation can be also do with "Power of tree swords" pieces).	White:
	Black:

Rules of Bushisogi and start position:

1. At the beginning the board is empty.
2. Black drops his Samurai to black square. He can choose the side and direction of dropping cube, but such positions where the sword points to White's square, are illegal.
3. Then White drops his Samurai to white square, and again, such positions of dropping where the sword points to Black's square, are illegal.
4. After these droppings the game continues as moves are described before.

One example game:

0. At the beginning the board is empty and player with Black starts the game by dropping his cube. For this example I have choosed the most easy start position, so readers who have made real bushi-cubes identical model, can follow more easy this game.
The game is played with random, without any strategy. it just contains all the elements of rules which you need to learn bushi shogi.

1.) Black drops his Samurai to his square. Player can choose the side of cube and also the direction of the side. The only limitation is that the sword can not  points to White's square. So this means tat Black has 16 different possibilities to drop his opening move. Black chose "Power of tree swords" which can drop only one direction. (All other can drop with 3 directions).	White:
	Black:

2.) White chooses the same "Power of tree swords". Also he had 16 possibilities, it means that there are 256 different positions to start Bushi-shogi.	White:
	Black:

3.) Now bacause White's sword doesn't point to Black's cube, he has four possibilities to choose his move: To rotate his piece 90 degrees clockwise, To roll the cube to forward, To roll the cube to the left, To roll the cube to the right. Black chose rolling to to right, and he got figure where Samurai has sword in his left hand and the sword points to White's cube, so it means  check. When player is checked this way, his only possibility to move is to rotate his cube 90 degrees clockwise. (look at explanation Case-1. before).	White:
	Black:

4.) After White's only possibility to rotate his cube clockwise, immediately his sword strikes against Black's sword. White checks! Now Black can't rotate his cube, but he has to roll it. (look at explanation Case-2. before). Here Black's Samurai looks to the right, so he also has to roll his cube from left to the right.	White:
	Black:

5.) After rolling Black got Samurai who has sword in right hand. Black sword doesn't point to White's cube, so now Black gives for White all four possibilies to choose his next move.	White:
	Black:

6.) White likes to use his Power of tree swords, and he chose the rotation and forces again White to rotate:	White:
	Black:

7.) Black rotates, and now samurai's sword strikes against White's sword, (checking case 2.), and so Black forces White to give up his Power of tree swords, because now White has to roll his cube forward:	White:
	Black:

8.) White got samurai with worfard pointing sword, but the direction is not checking, so it allows Black to choose one of four possibilities.	White:
	Black:

9.) Black rolls his cube forward and gets samurai with sward in left hand.	White:
	Black:

10.) White chooses the rotation:	White:
	Black:

11.) Next Black makes fatal mistake, ...maybe he didn't remember which figure he had in his shadow side of his cube, and he rolls his cube from right to the left, and gets unlucky samurai with forward sword and also it's direction is the worst one....	White:
	Black:

12.) Now White "has" to do the death blow by the rotation. Checkmate, bacause both samurais and swords are all face-to-face. Similar situations comes into existence with one or two "Power of tree swords".	White:
	Black:

Tips to play Bushi shogi:

One main idea of this variant is, that players who remembers better the ficures of cubes shadow sides, have bettes possibilites to win the game.

One "traditional" way is to sit opposite each other and the game board is in straight line. So in theory player can see two sides of his cube and just one side of his opponent's cube. But in practice this allows easy to do innocent guile by peeping secretly side figures.

So  I recommend a new way: players sit face to face, but by rotating the game board 45 degrees by separate the squares a little far off, both players will tree sides of own cube and also tree side of opponents cube.
Maybe  the game becomes easy, but still difficult to remembes all sides, especially if the game is payed with fast tempo.

Warning:

Don't take this Bushishogi seriously. The idea to write this variant was more philosophic. During the history of chess 2000 years, the meaning of the game has always been the fight of Kings. When Shaturanga spreaded out from India to Persia and Europe, as same time to China and from Korea to Japan, it got form of Shogi and giant 25 by 25 board with hundreds of pieces. Then a few hundreds years ago Shogi normalized to 9 by 9 boards . And now all new shogi variants are searching new smaller forms. Here I have just returned the idea of chess to the end; - there is only fighting kings, or a little bit more cultivated fighting Samurais.

I'm waiting with pleasure Questions and Comments:

Warm wishes, Georg Dunkel

Warning 2:

During the development of this game, I got idea, that maybe it's still possible to create 50% smaller than Bushishogi variant, where lonely King takes a risk to step on only square, which may be mined, .....