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Her father had chosen Takeru for her… She didn’t know whether to feel touched or deeply, furiously hurt. Tou-sama had loved her, joked with her, taught her to use a sword. He was supposed to know her. He was supposed to be wise.
Backstabbing
“Disarm anyone who resists,” the colonel said coolly. The vicious, irrational part of Misaki wanted Colonel Song to go ahead and try it. Let him see how his brainwashed excuses for soldiers fared against real fighters. These hundred-some Imperial soldiers would be lucky to survive an honest fight with the dozen Ameno and Ginkawa swordsmen before them. Gods help them if they faced Takeru or Kazu.
“You have not explained yourself, Colonel.” Takeru’s voice had taken on a dangerous edge. “What do you think you are doing here?” “These bodies are going to be burned,” the colonel said as if it were perfectly normal to throw the corpses of fallen warriors into a pit like trash. “All the bodies?” “This is standard procedure, to prevent disease.”
Piece of shit, and I know of many who disregard decency for "procedure"
“There aren’t going to be marked graves,” Colonel Song said, “and these are not your people, Matsuda. You and all these villagers belong to the Emperor.”
People are people, not possessions of some emperor
“In the absence of the government-approved mayor, you agree to take responsibility for this village in the coming months?” “Of course, sir.” “Then you will see to it that these people understand one thing: no one is to speak of the Ranganese attack. If any outsider asks, the dead here were victims of another coastal storm.” “They died in battle,” Takeru said. “No.” Song nodded to his men, and they threw their torches in, setting the pyre ablaze. “They died in a storm.”
Gaslighting and censorship
Flames crept onto yellow fabric. As the crack and peel of burning flesh started to rise from the pile, Misaki finally understood. The bodies weren’t being destroyed to prevent disease. The Empire was burning all evidence of the attack.
“Aid may be a possibility then.” Colonel Song crossed his arms. “We will see if everything is proceeding according to the Emperor’s will.” His meaning was clear: keep quiet and you may get the aid you need to survive. Be a good dog, and you may live.
Disgusting
This man represented the Empire itself. If she insulted him, if he deemed her a traitor, he would be justified in putting her entire family to death. She would be single-handedly responsible for the end of the Matsuda and Tsusano lines, and all this suffering would have been for nothing.
This is where Ranga started, she realized. With a breath held too long, with a people who couldn’t bear to answer to men like this any longer.
When the people of society cannot bear to be mistreated any longer is when revolution begins
There were protests. Even the most loyal and brainwashed Kaigenese citizens weren’t willing to sacrifice the dignity of their fallen loved ones without argument.
“That’s not remembering them,” Fuyuko’s mother, Fuyuhi, said angrily. “Not as they were. My husband and son, your son—” she turned to Misaki, “—and your husband—” to Setsuko, “—and yours—” to Hyori, “—all of our men were warriors. If we don’t remember the way they died, then we’re not remembering them for who they were.”
“A warrior’s legacy is essential to his soul. To deny what happened here—to ourselves or to anyone else—is the greatest disservice we could do our dead.”
For so many years, Misaki had looked down on these people for soaking up the Empire’s propaganda. For so many years, their small-minded ignorance had frustrated her. It was a strange experience—strange and sad—to watch a whole village full of people realize what she had a long time ago: that the Emperor was more of a tyrant than a loving father.
Ignorance confronted
“She even tried to warn us,” Hyori said, “months ago before there was any news of storms, she tried to tell us the Ranganese might be coming—me and Setsuko-san. We didn’t listen.” Hyori was looking into her lap, eyes soft and sad. “Whatever she has to say, you should listen to her now.”
“But the Emperor wouldn’t do that to us!” Katakouri Mayumi protested. “Our men protected his borders!” “And then he had their bodies burned without rites,” Setsuko said. “I don’t think he cares about their service. I don’t think he cares about us at all.”
The tears she wouldn’t let herself cry were rolling down other women’s faces.
“How can you be so sure?” Fuyuhi asked. “Because I’ve done it before…” Setsuko took a moment to count on her fingers, “twenty-four times. Remember, before I married my Takashi-sama—nyama to his soul—I lived in the fishing village at the base of this mountain.
We love Setsuko
“Not really,” Misaki said. “I mean, I knew our government wasn’t transparent—What government is?—but I never imagined anything like this. Maybe if I’d been paying more attention.” “It doesn’t make sense to me. I thought the Emperor valued us, wanted us strong. What is going on?” “I don’t know.” Misaki sighed. “There are obviously political forces at work here that we just can’t see.”
Nagi and Nami were not children of Yammanka gods. Nami and Nagi are God and Goddess supreme, parents to us all.”
“More or less,” Misaki said with a smile. “Some bloodlines are purer than others. The Matsuda bloodline is famously the purest throughout history, followed closely by the Yukino and Ginkawa lines. Then there are the families regarded as having a lesser but significant amount of gods’ blood, including Kotetsu, Ishino, Ameno, Katakouri, and Tsusano.” She lay a hand on her own chest. “There are some branches of the Mizumaki family, like the one here in Takayubi, who are thought to have gods’ blood in them while others are just regular jijakalu.”
Huh
“It’s something you know because you feel it. It can’t be proved.”
“He… he seemed to see things he couldn’t possibly know. It was dark, but he mapped out the whole mountain in his head, just from the mist on the rocks, the dew on the grass, and the flow of streams. It was amazing.” Kotetsu shrugged. “If you think that could be done without a sliver of gods’ power then, by all means, keep to your Nagino Falleya.”
Sometimes he stood in one of the compound’s hallways or in the dojo, seemingly close enough to touch, but somehow out of reach.
The stout woman was the only person who seemed to have drawn strength from the tragedy. She seemed to have decided that she was going to get back at the Ranganese by living with a vengeance. A lesser woman might have lamented no longer having a man to look after her or resented Misaki for taking her place as the head lady of the Matsuda house.
The northern boy had barely spent two seasons on Mount Takayubi, but the time had transformed him. His soft limbs had filled out with muscle from months of sword training with Yukino Dai and Mamoru. He may never have achieved the combat prowess to be of any use against the Ranganese, but his newly forged strength made him invaluable in rebuilding in the wake of the attack.
Lying had barely crossed her mind. There had been a time when she had feared her husband’s disapproval, times she even thought he might hurt her, but after seeing him bow to a man who had stolen and burned his son’s body, she couldn’t seem to take him as seriously. What did she have to fear from a coward with no soul and no spine?
No honor
“I hid it under the kitchen floorboards after we got married. It’s funny; I thought I would never need it. I thought surely Matsuda Takeru, the greatest swordsman in Shirojima, would be powerful enough to protect his own family without his wife taking up arms. I guess I was wrong.”
She's blunt now
“One of our sons was with you. Just one. And where is he now?” “Misaki—” “Where is he now, Matsuda Takeru?” she demanded savagely. “Where is he now?” Predator’s eyes searched his expression, mad with hunger. She hadn’t just insulted him now; she had bitten into the rawest nerve she could find. There had to be anger there. There had to be something. He just stared at her flatly, completely emotionless. “I don’t need you speaking to me that way,” he said. “Pull yourself together.”
“We’re not done here.” Takeru took a step toward Misaki, as if to back her into the bedroom, trapping her. Misaki brought Siradenyaa up between them in a reverse grip, handle first. Takeru’s chest hit the blunt butt of the Zilazen glass sword, and he stopped.
It wasn’t just Izumo’s body temperature that was pleasant. Misaki had come to love the feel of his nyama—not hard but fluid, never grating against her coldness, but swirling about it until slowly, they melted together and both became liquid. He brought back a long gone feeling of being adaptable, fluid, and free.
As much as Ryota was Dai’s, he was yours. As much as Mamoru was Takeru’s, he was mine. He was mine!”
He would correct numbers, but he didn’t take an active role in any of the planning, leaving coordination to Kotetsu Katashi, who was still recovering from the loss of his leg, and Kwang Tae-min, who still struggled to communicate with the Kusanagi natives.
What a man
“You know what he was like,” Setsuko said with a fond smile. “So dramatic. It wasn’t enough for him to love us. He had to show it in the biggest, most ridiculous way possible.”
“Misaki.” His voice had grown dangerous. “You will not speak to me that way. You are my wife—” “I never wanted to be your wife!” Misaki burst out and found her voice breaking into a scream. “I never wanted any of this!”
had my orders,” was all Takeru said. “Like you had your orders when Colonel Song burned the bodies of our dead and then turned his back on us?” Misaki snarled. “A Matsuda obeys his superiors. When I left the frontline…” Takeru’s voice faltered. “Nii-sama was clear—”
Bruh
“This is your last chance to obey—” “You lost your right to my obedience when you stopped being a man!”
Ignoring her, Takeru reached into the fold of his kimono and produced the anonymous letter of challenge Misaki had left on the door of the compound. Nami’s sake, wasn’t that just like him? He couldn’t even fight without making sure the paperwork was all in order. Emotionless, he read aloud:
What a joke
Legend said Sasayaiba could cut through anything. It remained to be seen whether it could cut Zilazen glass. Misaki was ready.
The foreshadow that led to this is INSANE
“Sometimes, I am not a man,” he said slowly. “I am the mountain.” And for a dinma, Misaki wondered if he had gone insane—if they had both gone insane—but he kept speaking. “It is a state I have been able to effect since I was a child. I retreat deep into the snow and rivers and sink myself into the ocean below, and everything on this mountain becomes me, and I become the mountain. It looks like meditation, but it is more. It is becoming a different sort of being.”
My father was beating me for something. He knocked me down in the snow in the courtyard. And with my palms to the ground, I realized that I could disperse myself into the snow, spreading all across the mountain, even to the sea below and deeper, deeper, until the pain diffused through my new being, like a drop of blood into a pool. Maybe the pain and shame were too much for a small boy to hold, but the mountain… the mountain could bear it all.”
“As the mountain, I am hyper-aware of some things. I can feel every molecule of water, from the rivers, to the snow, to the subtlest movements of the mist all around. In the midst of so much sensory input, any feeling in my human self—physical or emotional—becomes insignificant and therefore bearable.”
It shook Misaki for a moment that she had even contemplated fighting a man whose power was as big as the mountain itself. The poison had consumed her, turning her completely foolhardy—like a small, rabid creature thinking it could take on an animal forty times its size.
“Matsudas past deemed this ability a gift from the Gods,” Takeru said, “but I have used it to hide. Since I was a child, using it to escape my father’s wrath, I have used it to hide. When it is too much to be a man, I am the mountain. I have done this my whole life—when there was a truth I didn’t want to acknowledge, a decision I didn’t want to face, a pain I didn’t want to endure. It is easier to enter a state in which I am spared human emotions like regret, or shame, or love.”
He's just traumatized
The words were too raw, too near. When you spent years in the company of Takashi, who wasn’t much for fancy words, and Takeru, who wasn’t much for words at all, it was easy to forget that the Matsudas had a tradition of poetry as old as their tradition of the sword.
“The anger is not going to go away,” she repeated in a stronger voice, “but you are going to face it and tame it, like a man.”
“What are you?” Takeru whispered. Something bigger than myself, she realized.
In all her years of training at Daybreak, Misaki had never had the skill to match a master swordsman in combat. But unencumbered by the tight kimono or the childish cowardice that had bound her for years, she had become a new creature, more fluid and boundless than a girl but more solid than a shadow—a woman of lightning sinew and roaring blood.
Snow whirled faster around them as Misaki crashed into the Whispering Blade a fourth time—shattering it.
The serpent slung razor-scaled coils protectively about Takeru and then raised itself up to face Misaki, ice shard eyes gleaming. It was taller than a house, its fanged jaws open wide enough to bite her in half. It was a good attempt at intimidation, but Matsuda Takeru needed to be more than outwardly intimidating; he needed to be invincible to the core.
Her face was flushed, strands of hair flying free of her bun, as she swept her glass sword through what remained of the dragon.
