Torazo’s elbow collided with her nose. Stars burst across her eyes and she fell to the ground, hare blood splashing beneath her, its salt searing the side of her face.
The boy stood over her and grinned, turning to Kono Sensei for approval.
“Finish it.”
Sen turned toward the voice. Her father rose to his feet and handed the boy his own blade—a real one, with a sharp glinting edge, not the dull wood that children played with.
“What?” the boy said, shoulders pulling down under the blade’s unexpected weight. All the fierceness in his eyes evaporated, and he looked at once like the child that Kono Sensei saw him as.
“Itaro-dono,” Kono Sensei said. “That is not why I brought Torazo here.”
“You would be doing me a favor,” Sen’s father said, speaking only to Torazo. “She brings shame to her family.”
“Itaro!” Kono Sensei said, one hand on his blade. But Sen’s father whirled toward him, matching his posture.
“If you draw your blade against me, on my land,” her father said slowly, “you will not leave this forest alive.”
Her father did not make idle threats, and Kono Sensei knew it.
Please, Sen thought.Just give me a chance to run.
But Kono Sensei hesitated, and that was how Sen knew he would not save her—samurai did not hesitate. They acted at once, or not at all. His shoulders drooped, then his hand fell off his blade, limp against his side.
If Sen were a boy, maybe he would have tried to save her. But even if Sen was the best fighter in her grade, she was still a daughter, allowed to fight only because her brother was too young and the school needed more students. She was her father’s property, and if he wanted her dead, that was his right.
“Sensei?” Sen said, her voice weak and scared and everything her father hated about her. He turned his face at the display of weakness, then turned his back to her and crossed his arms. He would not even watch her die. Kono Sensei remained still but would not look her in the eye.
Sen’s gaze snapped to Torazo, who stood paralyzed with fear, holding her father’s blade. Surely he wouldn’t actually kill her, right? It was one thing to crush eggs and throw stones at foxes. It was another to kill one of your classmates.
“Are you not a samurai either?” Sen’s father said to Torazo.
“I am,” Torazo said, frowning.
Sen’s father shook his head. “You’re from the Fujiwara clan, aren’t you?” he said. “All of them are cowards, and that is all you will ever be.”
“Am not!” Torazo said, his face red. Sen sat up on her elbows, inching away.
“Then get rid of this trash for me like a real samurai would,” her father said, jerking a finger at Sen. “She is not a warrior. She’s just a maimed hare limping through the forest. Put herout of her misery. Then train with me, and you will never be soft like they teach you at that school.”
Train with me.The words echoed through Sen’s mind as Torazo turned to her, his expression blank, adjusting his grip on the katana.
Just like that, her father had replaced her. It would have happened eventually, when Seijiro was old enough to fight, but Sen thought she’d had more time.
I was trying, she thought, letting out a broken sound as she finally started to cry. “Chichiue?” she said weakly, looking past Torazo at her father, who would not meet her gaze.
Torazo tightened his grip on the blade, and she realized all at once that he was actually going to do it.
Sen went very still, imagining herself split in half like the hares on the porch. If she tried to flee, Torazo would panic and strike down fast rather than lose his chance and be shamed by her father. If he struck carelessly, he wouldn’t kill her quickly but would chop off her hand or her nose and she would scream and cry and die messily and shame her father even more.
“Sensei?” she tried again. But he didn’t answer, and Torazo raised his blade. He wasn’t used to the weight, so his arms trembled, the sunlight glinting off it unsteadily. Even now, her father was looking off at the horizon, as if searching for hares for Torazo to kill after he killed Sen. She was no different than an animal to him.
Look at me, she thought, willing her father to turn around. He wouldn’t even kill her with his own hand. He would let a student do it for him.Look at me. If I mean nothing to you, you shouldn’t be afraid to look me in the eye when I die. What are you afraid of? Look at me. LOOK AT ME.
Torazo struck down, but Sen moved first.
She ducked under the wide arc of the blade and seized Torazo’s wrist. He tried to wrench back and tug it away fromher, but he hadn’t expected her resistance and his stance was unbalanced, so he stumbled back. Sen gripped the handle of the katana and pulled hard.
It’s my father’s blade, she thought as she tried to break his grip.He’smyfather, not yours.
