The Sword of Kaigen

by M.L. Wang

A community of like minds?

“They’re just wooden blades, son. I trust you.” She took up her stance and gave Mamoru an encouraging nod. “I trust you.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, ruffling Nagasa’s hair before reaching into the cradle to pick up Izumo. Thank you for giving me that time with Mamoru, was what she meant, but the two little boys were far too young to understand that kind of sentiment.

“Mamoru-kun,” Uncle Takashi said with a glance at Mamoru’s clean blade. “You didn’t kill any fonyakalu.” His tone was more surprised than anything else. “You didn’t leave me any,” Mamoru said weakly. Uncle Takashi laughed—a loud, half-mad sound he usually only let out when he was drunk. “We didn’t,” he laughed. “I suppose that was rude of us, na, Takeru-kun?”

“Their strategy has changed,” Yukino Sensei mused as the black-clad fonyakalu broke out ahead of their yellow-clad inferiors. “They’re sending their best fighters ahead to clear the way for the rest. This is about to become a fair fight.”

Unbelievably, the fonyaka emerged, shaking, drenched in water and blood but still breathing. Not only had this Ranganese soldier bested Yukino Sensei in single combat. He had destroyed the Matsuda Dragon—from the inside.

“That sword was a gift, not an invitation to tedious conversation,”

“You saved me. I’m going to return the favor, but I need you to trust me and hide.”

“Based on what I know of wind—what it does to fire, and oceans, and empires—I would say that fonya is the power of chaos. Anyone who wields the power of wind, whether he realizes it or not, is a sort of demon.”

but he had hit Setsuko, so he was going to die.

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.

“It is enough. “It is enough. “It is enough. “It is enough,” until

could do it for you, Nee-san. I know it’s not my place, but I will protect you if you need it.”

The Whispering Blade met Misaki’s obsidian sheath and sheared through it. Her eyes went wide, and she smiled—Gods in the Deep, she smiled—a raw, open smile, and it was the most beautiful thing in all the Duna.

“It almost seems that human limitation resists our existence, that maybe… the Gods are the sort of parents who do not wish their descendants to exceed them.”

“You think I killed your children,” Misaki said, “like your father always said.” “I think you saved my wife,” Takeru

“Shall I get my niece?” It was what Setsuko had started calling Siradenyaa, since Misaki had explained the little sword’s origins and the name ‘Shadow’s Daughter.’

“Why are you smiling?” Takeru looked unsettled. “It’s complicated.” “It’s scary.”