The early mist curled over the hills like a veil, softening the edges of the world as the trio descended toward Kyoto.
Asaki rode slightly behind the others, her gaze drifting often to Ishikawa's back. The weight in his shoulders was heavier than usual, like armor he couldn't remove. His hair, tied into a rough tail, swayed with the rhythm of his horse's gait, and his twin swords—Kurayami and Kurasa—clicked softly in their sheathes.
Yumi sat before him, nestled in the crook of one arm, half-asleep despite the motion. Ishikawa said little, but the way he held the child betrayed a tenderness that had no name.
And yet, Asaki couldn't look at him without remembering what Sayaka had told her just two nights ago.
> "Tomoie Nagano wasn't just his wife," Sayaka had said, voice low over their shared bottle of plum wine. "She was everything. The way he looked at her… It scared me. Like she was the last light before the fall."
Asaki's fingers curled tighter around her reins.
She didn't hate the dead. She wasn't that petty.
But she did hate the ghosts.
The ones who haunted Ishikawa's silences. The ones whose names still came unspoken from his lips in sleep.
Tomoie.
A woman whose face Asaki had never seen.
A name that still lived in the hushed voices of those who once fought beside them.
She told herself it didn't matter. Ishikawa was here now. With her. With Yumi. Breathing, bleeding, surviving.
But part of her—shameful, jealous—longed to ask: If she were alive… would you have even looked at me?
A shout ahead snapped her thoughts.
"Stop!"
A small patrol, clad in the red-and-white colors of the Kyoto Prefecture Guard, blocked the road. Their leader, a young samurai with an unreadable expression, stepped forward.
"Papers," he said.
Ishikawa didn't move. "We're traveling under the seal of Lord Akita's commission," he said, reaching into his robes and producing a weathered scroll. "On assignment to the northern provinces."
The samurai glanced at the seal, frowned, and handed it back.
"You're clear to proceed. But be warned—Kyoto isn't what it once was. The Pale Tiger is on the prowl."
The name sent a shiver through the morning air.
Asaki saw Ishikawa freeze for half a heartbeat.
Then, with quiet finality, he nodded.
They rode on in silence.
---
That evening, they found shelter in a small tea house along the roadside. The owner, a bent old woman with sharp eyes and a softer heart, offered them rice porridge and dried fish. Yumi fell asleep almost immediately, curled near the fire with her little cloth rabbit.
Asaki sat beside Ishikawa on the porch, watching the night settle.
"You knew that name," she said.
He didn't look at her.
"Shun Takamura," she pressed. "Who is he?"
After a pause, he answered.
"My master."
That surprised her.
"He trained you?"
"And her."
He didn't have to say Tomoie. The name lingered unsaid, like incense in a temple.
"He was more than a teacher," Ishikawa continued, eyes fixed on some memory far off. "He taught us what it meant to kill. What it meant to sacrifice. But he also… saved us. We were orphans. Ronin-blood. He gave us purpose."
Asaki looked down at her hands. They had begun to tremble.
"And now he's hunting you."
"No," Ishikawa said. "He's hunting me. Because I broke the vow."
"The vow?"
He turned to her, finally.
"There's a reason no one uses Ketsuen-no-Kami anymore. It eats what you love."
She waited.
"Tomoie wanted a child," he said. "I told her no. Said it was too dangerous. But she was stubborn."
A small smile flickered, then vanished.
"Something went wrong during the birth. Blood wouldn't stop. I—I couldn't get help in time. She… she looked at me, and said, 'Seal it. You know what to do.'"
Asaki felt her throat close.
"She offered herself to bind the curse. But it wasn't just her. The child too. I… I couldn't do it. I tried to find another way."
He drew a shaky breath.
"But the ritual demands sacrifice."
His voice was barely a whisper now.
"So I gave it."
Asaki didn't know how long she sat there. The stars wheeled above them, silent and uncaring.
"You think that makes you a monster?" she asked finally.
He didn't answer.
"I think it makes you human."
He looked at her, not with longing, but with sorrow. A man who had bled too many memories into the soil.
"I think I'd rather be a monster," he said.
---
Later that night, when the others slept, Ishikawa stepped outside to the back garden. The moon was full, cold and silver.
A figure waited in the shadows beneath a persimmon tree.
"You've changed," the figure said.
Ishikawa's hand hovered over his hilt.
"Shun."
The man stepped into the light.
Shun Takamura, the Pale Tiger, wore simple robes—white with a silver sash. No armor. No blade at his side.
But his eyes were sharp enough to cut.
"You killed her," Shun said.
Ishikawa didn't move.
"I did what I had to."
"She trusted you."
"I never asked for that."
The Pale Tiger tilted his head.
"She bore your child, Ishikawa. And you bled her dry to keep your cursed power."
Ishikawa said nothing.
"She was meant to be my heir," Shun said softly. "Not you."
That surprised him.
"You loved her?"
Shun smiled. "I loved what she represented. Hope. Legacy. She wasn't meant to die on a bloodstained futon while you wept like a coward."
Ishikawa drew his blade halfway.
"Say what you came to say."
Shun's smile vanished.
"I am the Shogunate's right hand now. I've been given orders. You are a danger to the balance. A remnant of a forbidden past."
He stepped forward. Still unarmed.
"But I owe you a chance. Leave Kyoto. Disappear. Take the girl and the woman and vanish into the mist."
Ishikawa stared at him.
"And if I don't?"
Shun's eyes gleamed like drawn steel.
"Then when next we meet, it won't be as old friends."
He turned and walked into the shadows.
The wind rustled the branches, and the persimmon tree dropped a single fruit to the ground.
It split, red and soft and sweet.
Like something dying.
---
To Be Continued...