He owed him that much.
Instead, here he was with a smelly fake samurai and these poor kids who’d done who-knew-what to be punished.
Maybe they were Toshi’s other victims.
Or maybe they were like their sensei—dishonorable, undisciplined, and unworthy through their own actions.
Kegare!
If that was true, then Ryuichi was nothing like them. He’d been cursed, but they would have chosen to be here. By word or by deed. They would lack all honor.
There was a world of difference between the two.
He would never willingly be like this sensei. Honor was everything to him.
Koichi wiped at his red nose. “Any questions?”
His anger over being put into the Kai-dan barely leashed, Ryuichi shook his head.
I’ll get out of this. And he would too. He really didn’t belong here. Withthem! By all the gods, he would not stay in this awful group.
I am a samurai!
Well, maybe not yet, but he would be. No one would stop him from achieving his dream. No one.
Not even himself.
Koichi smiled. “Good. Keep that anger, Ryota. You’ll need it here.” He took a drink of his sake. “And you might make yourself useful after all.” He snorted. “Then again, probably not. Students come and go. Most never make it more than a week.”
“Hey!” Ichiro bristled at those words.
With a smirk, Koichi gestured at them with his sake. “Except you few. Somehow you keep surviving. Good for you!”
Ryuichi frowned at that. Koichi’s tone definitely didn’t match those words.
Hiccuping, Koichi headed for the stables.
“Here.”
Ryuichi turned to see Taka holding a blue kimono out toward him that was the same color as the one worn by the other boys around him. “What’s this?”
“You’re one of us now. Might as well wear the uniform. It’ll help you blend in so that hopefully you won’t get eaten as quickly as some of the others did.”
Eaten? By what?
Surely it’s a joke.
Ha ha. Mess with the new kid.
At least he hoped so.
More shaken than he wanted to admit, he glanced down to see a screaming white monkey against the light blue. It was the same emblem on Koichi’s headband.
Great. They really were insane.
Worse? They seemed to be proud of it.
And that made him feel sick to his stomach.This isn’t what I want. But for now, he had no choice. He’d earned this by breaking his friend and breaking their trust.
