The Sword of Kaigen

by M.L. Wang

He was a strange creature, her second son. She had known when he was nothing more than a small heartbeat inside her that he was his father’s child. Cold. It was said that all jijakalu were born with something of the sea in them, but most seas had their warm currents and their cold, volcanic springs in the depths, free water between ice flows. Even the iciest jijakalu had some warm places in their soul—at least that was what Misaki had thought before she married into the Matsuda family. Hiroshi was born with the deadly calm of a sea frozen solid. Like his father, he was cold to the touch no matter his mood or level of exertion. Even his sweat was cool, like morning dew.

home. As tired as

The floor shifted, pitching him into a wall. He stumbled to get his feet under him but the whole world seemed to be spinning. It couldn’t be true—but it couldn’t be a lie—but it couldn’t be true, and Mamoru couldn’t seem to find his balance. Kwang’s words had knocked the world off its axis.

Mamoru’s first impulse should have been to start back from the human remains, but he was frozen, trapped in the emptiness of those sockets where once there had been a pilot’s sharp eyes.

People whispered that the moonlit curls of mist on the lake were ghosts from the next world, striding their silvery way over the water’s surface.

Frogs chanted, and dewdrops brushed their ankles as they waded into the grass alongside the stream. The fireflies bobbing along the bank didn’t do much to light the way, but between the dewdrops and the running water, Mamoru was able to keep them on course without the use of his eyes.

‘I am the blood of gods,’ he said to the assembled crowd, ‘as are all of you. The moon and ocean fear no change.’

there were things you couldn’t train into a fighter—spirit, courage, the ability to be something bigger than oneself.

couldn’t. She could only stand there as the blood seeped in between her toes. She could only watch him go. One night, the dream

Flesh peeled from his neck and face, crackling as it burned away.

“I wish I could explain it—My brother was my shelter in all things. His death left me shaken, flayed, like nerve and muscle exposed to the air.”

It doesn’t change the fact that I couldn’t carry out my brother’s orders when they mattered, nor challenge them when it was needed, so cut me down. Even though you are a woman, you issued a formal challenge, so your hands and conscience should be clean in the eyes of the Gods. You can rid the family of my spiritual impurity.”

harbor anger toward my brother and regret for not protecting my son. That weakness has kept them both from passing to the next world. Perhaps the Gods will allow me to take their place in Hell, knowing my bitterness has passed out of the living realm.”

“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.”

man was more malleable when his head was swelled with praise.

His willingness to change his appearance was just part of his particular brand of openness. If Robin sat down with a person, there was always a sense that they belonged to him and he belonged to them. As an orphan, he had learned to make family wherever he went.