The Sword of Kaigen

by M.L. Wang

When she was younger, Misaki had always pictured herself having daughters. She had enjoyed the vague fantasy of raising powerful, forward-thinking young women with the courage to amount to more than their mother, but it was just that: a fantasy. Misaki had long since let go of the idea that she could raise her children the way she wanted—or that they were even her children at all. Her sons were Matsudas first and foremost. Their sole purpose was to grow to be powerful warriors, like their father before them, and his father before him. They belonged to the Matsuda house, as she did.

Misaki was two years older than her new sister-in-law, but Setsuko had married the older of the two Matsuda brothers, and in this world, the man’s status was the only thing that mattered.

“Look, you and I are going to be here in this house together until we’re both wrinkly old hags with all our teeth falling out. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend the next forty years with a woman who doesn’t know how to smile.”

“I know how to smile.” There had been a time Misaki had been accused of smiling too much, but over the years, Takayubi had worn away at her, turning her into this quivering, brittle thing, afraid the sound of her own voice might shake her to pieces if she spoke too loud.

Misaki thought she might crumble under the concern in Setsuko’s eyes. The years had hardened her against her father-in-law’s cruelty and her husband’s indifference, but she had no armor against that honest gaze.

After Misaki had lived in the Matsuda compound almost a decade, it was Setsuko who made its cold halls feel like a home. When Misaki was in pain, it was Setsuko who went to the western village to buy her remedies. When she got lost in the undertow of her thoughts, it was Setsuko who pulled her back with a joke.

“For this is the Sword of Kaigen; to charge it, is to die.

‘there are a million ways to tell the same story. Our job as jaseliwu is to find the one the listener needs to hear. Not necessarily the one that makes them the happiest or the one that gives them the most information, but the one they need to hear to do what they need to do.’

“If I kill you, you’ll be facing me with a sword in your hand.”

Women didn’t touch swords, let alone forge them.

‘You may have given Yukino-dono a great sword, but the weapon you have given me is greater than metal. You have given me knowledge of the blade itself.’

Real power needed no words. It spoke for itself.

“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.”

And Misaki had believed them. Not because it made any sense. Because she had to. Because if she didn’t believe it was worth it, then what had she done?

“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.”

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 life of dangerous adventures might seem worth it now, when you are young and seemingly invincible, but one day, you will have children, and you will not want that life for them.”

“You lost your right to my obedience when you stopped being a man!”

“I won’t raise another generation as blind as my own.”

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.