The Sword of Kaigen

by M.L. Wang

“Tajakalu may be able to use their physical strength to throw a projectile,” Yukino Sensei said, turning back to his class. “Fonyakalu may be able to use their nyama to push against one. Our nyama is the projectile. When a weapon is made of ice, we can control it down to the molecule. As jijakalu, we are the only race of theonite who can fight with a solid weapon that is truly an extension of the self.”

“In a single stroke, Matsuda Takeru’s jiya sliced through the Kotetsu-forged blade and Yukino’s body. The usurper was dead before he hit the ground, the first victim of the Whispering Blade.”

“Most strong things are rigid. If you are water, you can shift to fit any mold and freeze yourself strong. You can be strong in any shape. You can be anything.”

“Why don’t you try taking responsibility for the things you can control instead of the things you can’t?”

You learn over time that the world isn’t broken. It’s just… got more pieces to it than you thought. They all fit together, just maybe not the way you pictured when you were young.”

listening never made any man dumber, but it’s made a lot of people smarter.”

“I know you koronu like to frame relationships between opposites in terms of conflict,” Kotetsu said, drawing a piece of glowing hot metal from the coals. “Fire against water, light against darkness, day against night, but one who hopes to create must understand that opposites exist to balance and complement one another. This is why the tide-bringing moon follows the drying sun, why day follows night, why men marry women. I believe this is why the two greatest empires are Yamma, built on the power of fire, and our own Kaigen, built on the power of water. The two exist in this realm, not to destroy one another, but to create a balance between jiya and taya.”

A decade later, a fifteen-year-old Hiroshi would become known as the youngest swordsman ever to master the Whispering Blade. What the world would never know, was that he was the second youngest.

a person’s tragedy doesn’t define them or cancel all the good in their life.

Wholeness, she had learned, was not the absence of pain but the ability to hold it.