My mouth went dry. “Yes.”
“Good. Esumi, take Kaneko to the ring at the far end. We need all the room we can get, and I’m sure you want to see what ourmysterious fisherman’s son can actually do when he admits what he is and throws himself into his attacks.”
Kaneko’s expression shuttered. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” Haru’s voice held no accusation, just certainty. “You move like someone trained in forms that aren’t taught at temples, very specific forms. They’re like a language you might not understand, but you recognize when you hear their words spoken.”
“I—” Kaneko tried to deny again.
Haru wasn’t having it. “You killed men on the road with throwing stars. Most monks and Samurai couldn’t hit a mountain with one of those, much less men charging in battle. And if I am not mistaken, you carry a very particular coin, one bearing far greater weight than that of my father’s likeness—or his dragon’s.”
I watched as Kaneko’s jaw fell and eyes widened. He’d been so careful whenever his past was raised, but then—when confronted by such directness—he blanched.
Silence stretched tight as a bowstring.
“We’re not here to interrogate or reveal your secrets,” Esumi said quietly, moving to stand beside Kaneko. “We’re here to train. Whatever skills you have, whatever training you received—show us. Let us help you.”
Kaneko looked at me, something complicated passing across his gaze.
“It’s okay,” I said, though I had no idea what I was giving permission for. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
He nodded slowly, some decision made, and moved with Esumi to the far side of the training ground.
Which left me alone with Haru.
The almost-Emperor looked at me with an empathy I had only seen him display a few times. “How bad has it been? The power, I mean.”
“Pretty bad.” I saw no point in lying. “I think it’s getting stronger. Every day it’s harder to suppress. Last night, I woke up tangled in my sheets because I’d been moving so much in my sleep. The nightmares are getting worse, too.”
“Nightmares?”
I nodded. “I’m running, always running, so fast the world blurs into nothing and I can’t stop, can’t slow down, can’t—” I cut myself off. “It’s stupid. They’re just dreams.”
“It’s not stupid, Yoshi.” Haru’s voice held steel. “When my gift first manifested, I had similar dreams. I was falling because that’s what it felt like. I moved faster than my mind could process—like the ground kept disappearing beneath my feet. I don’t know why you would run when I fell, but the dreams sound similar.”
“Do they stop? The dreams?”
“Eventually. When you learn to trust yourself, when control becomes instinct instead of effort.” He raised his bokken. “But we’re not there yet. First, we need to see what you can do. Try the third form, full speed. Don’t hold back.”
“But I might—”
“You won’t. I can handle it. Trust me.”
I took a breath, raised my weapon, and let the first threads of power uncoil. I’d meant for it to be a trickle, a fine thread I might weave into a simple pattern, but power roared through me like fire through dry grass, hot and hungry and demanding more, more, always more. My arm blurred forward, thebokkensinging through air. In a heartbeat, I was overextending, already losing my balance—
Haru’s blade intercepted mine with a crack that echoed across the yard.
He hadn’t moved.
He hadn’t even shifted his weight.
He was justthere, in the exact right place at the exact right time, his eyes tracking me with the calm focus of someone watching a butterfly land on a leaf.
“Again,” he said. “Faster.”
I attacked.
The world fractured into snapshots—strike, parry, strike, stumble, correct, strike again.
