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If he wanted to make himself miserable, so be it. It wasn’t her place to argue.
“Good morning, Misaki!” Takashi greeted her as though nothing was wrong. “Good morning, Nii-sama,” she said and poured the hot tea in his cup instead of his lap.
Misaki was never sure if Takeru refused to drink because he was worried about dulling his senses or just his ability to frown. Today, it might have just been his small way of slighting his brother.
“Oh, you’ll earn your father’s pride”—There was a clink as Takashi poured himself more sake—“or spend the rest of your life trying, like he did, like our old man did, like his old man before him. You’ll grow, and you’ll train, and grow, and train with all your soul until one day you’ll be sitting behind the Kumono desk wondering why the hell you took all that time to become such a powerful fighter. So you could do battle with schedules and registration forms? So you could pass all that tedious nonsense on to your own son?”
“I hope you never do. You’re too bright to rust.” Takashi let out a sigh that was almost a moan. “I was bright too, once, you know.”
The three women had just settled down to a rare moment of peace. Mamoru was studying in the next room with Kwang Chul-hee. Hiroshi, Nagasa, and Ryota were scrambling across the floor alongside the older boys, deeply absorbed in the ice car racing game Mamoru had taught them, Izumo was asleep, and Ayumi was quietly feeding at Setsuko’s breast.
Scenery
“I didn’t mean it in a mean way,” Setsuko said quickly. “My husband is a great man with his own strengths, but he isn’t a perfectionist like Takeru. He doesn’t get any satisfaction from clerical work. It just makes him bored, cranky, and less fun in bed.”
There were letters that should have come that conspicuously never made it into her hands. She already knew what most of them would say. Elleen would stiffly express less sadness than she really felt before saying that she respected Misaki’s judgment. Master Wangara would tell her to look out for herself. Koli would go on a tirade that started out making sense before devolving into ramblings on the nature of human ambition and free will. And Robin… well, she tried not to imagine what he might have written. It hurt too much.
Misaki's true friends
However, if you are reading this, I can only assume you are still at your address in Takayubi. If that is the case, you are not safe. I don’t know what information the Kaigenese government has given you about the state of Ranga or the possibility of war, but whether they have told you or not, you are in serious danger. Take your family and leave Takayubi as soon as you can.
I know my brother. And I know this woman. I think the Ranganese really might be planning something.”
“And what if they are? If the Ranganese are coming, they are coming to their deaths.” He spoke with the same stupid confidence that seemed to possess everyone in Takayubi.
Like a civilian blinded by what's truly going on
“You can come with us if you like,” Misaki said, “but I’m taking them.” “Misaki.” Takeru took a step forward, staring down his wife with a glare that had made hardened men tremble. “That is not your decision to make.” Unintimidated, Misaki held his gaze. It had been too long since she had found the courage to fight for something. If she couldn’t fight for her own children, then who was she? What had she become?
“You can try to stop me,” she said and headed for the door. “Misaki—” Takeru grabbed her arm. She made herself water and slid through his fingers before his iron grip had a chance to tighten. Ducking under his arm, she darted for the door, but he was faster. Misaki knew the moment his bruising grip closed around her wrist that she wouldn’t be able to twist free, but she wasn’t out of defenses. Moving on reflex, she focused all her jiya into her free hand and drove her first two fingers into Takeru’s arm. Outside the myth of the Blood Puppeteers, it was impossible for a jijaka to control a
...more
During his moment of surprise, she should have tried to take out his knees or render him unconscious with a blow to the temple. But she wasn’t at the point where she was willing to commit outright violence against her husband… was she? Was she?
??!
Factoring in everyone’s level of skill, power, and experience, it was very likely that the confrontation would come down to whichever parent Mamoru sided with. But that couldn’t happen. Not to Mamoru who was earnest, and loyal, and cared about both his parents. No child should have to make that choice.
The sky was the wrong color—not the blue twilight or misty gray native to Takayubi. This was foreign darkness, dingy like rust, veined with day-old blood.
The writing is just insane
Yet, before their disbelieving eyes, the clouds swirled together and formed a funnel above the shore. Even though Misaki knew it was human fonya, even though she did not believe in sky gods, it looked for all the world like the dark finger of a god, extending earthward.
??!!!?
She used to feel it too—a cocktail of adrenaline, determination, and fighter’s madness that could drown out fear and better judgment—whenever she gambled her life against an enemy who outclassed her.
Fighter's judgement
“Face the enemy?” Chul-hee said incredulously. “I don’t know if you noticed, Headmaster, but the enemy is a tornado. What are you going to do?”
The copper-colored sky tinted the whole village, making the familiar houses seem alien and far away. The deafening sound, like a thousand fighter jets, felt like it could tear the boundary between this world and the next. Even Mamoru’s own flesh didn’t seem quite real. The wind made his body by turns slower and lighter than it should have been. It roared across his skin, making it numb and tingly, more like the skin of a spirit, as if his body belonged to that grown warrior from his dreams—far
He swore under his breath and turned to Tou-sama. “Your wife was right. The damn thing is coming up the mountain!”
Told you so
The temple where Mamoru had prayed every holiday and learned the names of his gods burst apart, clay roof tiles scattering into nothing.
War is heartbreaking
“Sensei…” Mamoru started, his own voice shaking, but he didn’t know what he could say. He blinked and felt tears slide down his cheeks. He had grown up with the boys from the western village, and he felt their loss like a hole in his chest. But Yukino Sensei was their teacher. He had devoted years of his life to nurturing them, pushing them, and watching them grow. They were his pride. To have all of that vanish in a moment… Mamoru could only imagine how it must feel.
“It looks like you won’t have to see rust, after all, nephew.” Uncle Takashi squeezed his shoulder, and Mamoru felt a disorienting jolt of pure elation. His uncle wasn’t just smiling to raise the spirits of the other men. He was excited.
“They can fly?” He blurted out in a mixture of wonder and horror.
As the soldiers drew closer, Mamoru could see that he was right. The Ranganese were not truly weightless. As each started to fall toward the spikes, he threw a palm strike or a thrusting kick at the ground, releasing a concentrated burst of wind that propelled him back into the air.
This was how the brothers usually worked together, Uncle Takashi leading with his decisive personality and overwhelming power, Tou-sama following, filling in the gaps with his signature precision.
His art was not in complex technique or flashy tricks; it was in perfect execution of the basics at three times the speed of the average swordsman.
Uncle Takashi was the only man in history ever to dual wield Whispering Blades.
The fighting had altered Uncle Takashi and Yukino Sensei, making Uncle Takashi’s eyes turn wild and Yukino Sensei’s jiya hyper alert, but Tou-sama was virtually unchanged.
Mamoru had been here on the battlefield many times in his dreams, but those childish dreams had not accounted for all the blood. He was accustomed to the feel of blood in all its consistencies, but he was unprepared for a world soaked in it. It felt heavy, sickening.
words. Rank and file Ranganese troops wear yellow. Their elite fighters wear black. If you see yellow, you stand a chance. If you see black, I want you to run.
Uncle Takashi’s fury intertwined with Tou-sama’s cold precision to form a new creature, long enough to cover half the pass. It was the teeth of winter. It was poetry. It was God in water.
The Matsuda Dragon reared up to tower over its enemies, ice shard eyes flashing with power beyond simple jiya. It gnashed its teeth, and the sound of its several thousand scales shifting against one another produced a hungry hiss.
The dragon’s true body was made of the unspoken understanding between Uncle Takashi and Tou-sama. As long as the brothers stood back-to-back, wrapped in one another’s jiya, their creation could not be destroyed by any amount of blunt force.
Instead, he just shook, like a child, and said, “I’m sorry, Sensei,” his voice ragged and small. “I’m so sorry.” He reached out and touched his master’s hands—the hands that had taught him how to hold a sword. “Don’t go.”
She knew what it was like to feel useless among powerful fighters who needed help. It was why she had started serious combat training in the first place.
Forgotten, she had tried to tell herself. It was forgotten, along with everything from her life before. But the little blade had never left her mind or her heart. Her hands found the weapon as easily as if she had put it there yesterday.
THE BLADE
“A competent god would never make a housewife with your skill and hunger. You might look like a decorative flower, but you’re more sword than anything else.” “You’re doing it again,” Misaki said, pointing an accusing finger. “You’re calling me a weapon.”
“Don’t worry.” Misaki tied the obsidian sword at her hip and realized how much she had ached for its weight there. A baby just wasn’t the same. “I know what I’m doing.”
Misaki watched the pieces come together for Setsuko, as they had for Mamoru. But this time she couldn’t wait in anxious silence for approval.
The fact was that even if she had been a man, with pure blood and great power, she wouldn’t be the sort of fighter a respectable Matsuda would want to consort with. Takayubi swordsmen were noble warriors who met their opponents face to face on the open field and had the raw power and discipline to back up their reputation. Misaki was just the opposite: a weak, deceitful ambush predator who rarely gave her victims the dignity of a clean fight. Because in a clean fight, she would lose.
Work smarter not harder
The people she had fought alongside in the past had reined her in, preventing her from indulging her killing streak, but if she had to kill…
“I never admitted it because I’m proud and stupid—” and they were running out of time. Misaki blinked rapidly. No time for tears. “You saved me. I’m going to return the favor, but I need you to trust me and hide.”
She might not be worthy of belonging to this family, but she was going to protect it with every bit of venom and bloodlust and underhanded trickery in her.
There was nothing she hated more than meeting her opponents face to face. Every instinct in her screamed to hide and set an ambush, but she needed to draw the soldiers away from Setsuko and the children, and to do that, she needed their attention.
Her body was angled slightly to hide the sword at her hip, giving her the appearance of a diminutive housewife. In its own way, that was better cover than any shadow.
Tou-sama’s jiya rose, as if in rebellion. For a disconcerting moment, Mamoru was certain that his father was about to attack his uncle—then Tou-sama’s jiya dropped back to its flawless calm. An invisible tension left his body.
Unlike Tou-sama, the young Katakouri didn’t need telling twice. “Yes, Matsuda-dono.” He bowed and turned to run up the mountain.
This time, Mamoru didn’t freeze. Something in him had hardened when the life left Yukino Sensei—as if a piece of the swordmaster’s powerfully calm nyama had passed into him.
