For my father or mother or uncle . . .
For Kaneko.
My voice grew raw from shouting his name.
Kaneko.
A man lay before me, his face frozen in his final moment of terror. His hand still reached toward something—toward someone he’d tried to protect.
Just like Old Kenji had reached for his granddaughter before thewakohad cut him down.
Just like Master had shielded his students with his own body before the flames took them all.
The bodies here wore different clothes, carried different weapons, but death painted them with the same brush.
The same senseless waste.
The same brutal finality.
The message of the attack was clear and simple:We can strike anywhere. We can take anything. You cannot stop us.
“Yoshi-san,” someone said, but the voice came from very far away.
My vision blurred as hot tears spilled down my cheeks. I didn’t have the strength to wipe them away. My whole body shook—not from exertion, but from something deeper, something visceral that had been building since the night Tooi burned.
I’d tried so hard to bury it, tried to focus on training, on strategy, on becoming strong enough to matter, but there, surrounded by death that looked and smelled andfeltexactly like the slaughter I’d already witnessed, all my carefully constructed walls crumbled.
This is what they do. This is what they’ll keep doing. And I can’t stop them because I’m too fucking weak.
Then something clicked within, some internal lock slid open, and my eyes opened.
And I saw the way forward.
I have to grow stronger, though I know not how. Whatever it takes. However long. I can’t sit by and wait for some mysterious power to bloom in my chest. I have to find a way . . . some impossible path . . . to grow strong, to protect . . . to lead.
I don’t know from whence those thoughts came, only that they settled in my heart like loadstones, sure and unmovable, a testament to what would be built on their foundation. I had to seize control, stop allowing weakness to define me. I had to take whatever next step was required to . . . to . . . I didn’t know what. I just knew that next step was my destiny, my path. It would not rise up to meet me. I had to wrest it from the future and make it my own.
And damn it, by the gods, I would.
A hand gripped my shoulder—firm, steady. I looked up through tears to find Uncle Takeo standing over me, his weathered face unreadable.
“Breathe, Yoshi,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a command. It was . . . understanding.
So I nodded and tried to breathe.
Gods, I tried.
But each breath brought more smoke-taste, more memories, more proof that the rebellion wasn’t some distant mainland problem anymore.
It was here. It was everywhere. And it looked exactly like a nightmare that had already stolen everything I loved.
“Stay together,” Master Giich’s voice rose above the commotion.
Takeo leaned in and whispered, “Can you stand?”
I nodded and pushed myself upright, my legs trembling beneath me. My hands were stained red—blood from the ground, mixing with dirt and tears. I stared at them, watching them shake, and thought about how these same hands had failed to hold abokkensteady just hours ago.
I will learn to hold that damn sword. It will never slip again.The vow resonated throughout my being, and I knew it to be true.
