Chapter 39
Yoshi
The sun rose gently above Temple Suwa, painting the mountains gold and filling the air with birdsong.
The horror of the prior day’s attack felt distant, almost dreamlike, as if the night had washed it clean.
There was still a feeling of intention in everyone’s movements, of anticipation, something of foreboding; and yet there was also a sense of purpose and direction.
Decisions had been made, a course charted.
Samurai moved through their morning rituals, checking weapons, adjusting armor, preparing for a day that promised no immediate danger though wary one might arise.
Monks swept paths and tended gardens, their movements a meditation made physical.
The familiar sounds of training filled the air—the crack of bokken, the rhythmic breathing of kata, the occasional bark of correction from a master or the snap of a reed against skin.
It felt almost normal.
Almost.
Kaneko walked beside me as we strode toward the training yard. I couldn’t stop stealing glances in the morning light. He’d borrowed another of my robes and this one fit even worse, pulling tight across his chest and arms every time he moved.
“Stop glaring,” Kaneko murmured.
“I’m not glaring. You wear the practice kimono well,” I said through a snicker.
“You’re glaring at that first-year who’s staring.”
“He should stare elsewhere,” I snapped.
“Jealous much?”
“Protective,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
His laugh was warm and easy, so different from the shadows I’d glimpsed in his eyes the night before. Whatever had been troubling him seemed lighter this morning.
We joined my training group in the circle. Daichi shot Kaneko a look that promised retribution for the throat-grab. Kenta cracked his knuckles meaningfully. Even Teshi seemed wound tighter than usual.
Master Hachan led us through breathing exercises designed to calm and empty the mind, but I could feel the tension. Everyone wanted to see what would happen when we moved to combat training.
They didn’t have to wait long.
“Bokken,” Master Hachan commanded as meditation ended. We moved to the weapons rack and selected our practice swords. “Standard forms to begin.”
We fell into the familiar patterns, but I couldn’t focus. Kaneko stood watching at the edge of the ring, his presence tugging at my attention like a lodestone. After the third time Master Hachan’s reed found my shoulder for sloppy footwork, I decided to take a chance.
“Master,” I said, bowing. “I request permission to spar.”
“With whom?” Though his tone suggested he already knew.
“With him.” I pointed to Kaneko. “We have a score to settle.”
A smile played at my lips, and Kaneko’s answering grin was pure challenge.
“From childhood?” Master Hachan asked.
“From yesterday,” Kaneko said, stepping forward. “He claimed I only got lucky when we were young. I’d like to prove otherwise.”
The other students perked up. This was far more interesting than repeating a kata we’d performed a thousand times.
Master Hachan considered, then nodded. “Very well. First to three points.”
As Kaneko selected a bokken and entered the ring, I saw other masters gathering. Word was spreading. Prince Haru’s mysterious companion was about to fight.
Kaneko rolled his shoulders, loosening up, and that’s when I first noticed it—really noticed it. The way he moved was completely different. Gone was the rough fisherman’s shuffle I remembered. This was something else entirely. His movements were fluid and dangerously beautiful.
We stepped into the ring and circled each other. He spun the bokken in his hand with casual expertise.
“Ready to eat dirt, Yosh?” he asked pleasantly.
“That’s one childhood meal I’m happy to never taste again.”
“Begin,” the master’s staccato silenced our banter.
Kaneko struck first.
I barely got my guard up in time. The impact shot through my arms.
Damn, he was stronger than I remembered. So much stronger.
But that wasn’t what made me stumble back. It was his form—or rather, his lack of it. None of his movements matched the kata I’d been drilling for over a year. He didn’t stand in any stance I recognized. His strikes came from angles that shouldn’t exist.
“Not yet . . .” A whisper in my mind nearly caused me to stumble.
Nawa? I tried to respond, unsure if the dragon had actually spoken or if I was finally going insane and annoyed that the divine beast had chosen that moment to coo into my brain.
Kaneko flowed around my counterattack like water, tapped my ribs with his bokken, and danced back.
“Point,” Master Hachan called.
The students leaned in, fascinated or ready to see me suffer. The latter was far more likely.
More masters appeared.
Then I noticed something odd. The birds had stopped singing.
“You’ve been practicing,” I said, circling again.
“You’ve been slacking.” He struck again, a series of blows that came so fast I could barely see them. My trained responses were useless—every block was a heartbeat too slow, every counter meeting empty air.
His bokken found my shoulder.
“Point.”
As I reset, something else strange happened. For a moment, when my anger spiked, I could have sworn my bokken glowed. Faintly. Like a heat shimmer. But it vanished as quickly as I’d seen it.
I really was going mad.
“Come on, Yoshi,” Kaneko said, circling me like a predator. “At least make this interesting.”
He darted in, and I swung wildly.
He ducked, came up inside my guard, and shoved me back.
I stumbled, tripped over my own feet, and went down hard.
The watching students winced. A few snickered and whispered. But as I hit the ground, light flickered behind my eyes—golden, brilliant. There and gone in a heartbeat.
What was happening? What was happening to me?
“Almost, but not yet . . .” The whisper was louder now. I looked around, knowing I wouldn’t see the speaker. She slithered about a throne many ri from where we fought.
“That’s not even a proper technique,” Daichi protested Kaneko’s point. The master’s face was placid and immovable.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Kaneko snapped back as he offered me a hand up. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet—then immediately attacked again.
This time I was ready, meeting his strike with my own. For a moment, we stood locked, bokken crossed, faces inches apart.
“You’re holding back,” he whispered, just for me.
“I’m not—”
He hooked my ankle with the same move that had beaten me when we were children—that exact sweep that had humiliated me on the docks all those years ago.
“Point. Victory to—” Master Hachan began, but hesitated.
“Again,” I demanded, pushing myself up.
Something hot was building in my chest.
Not just embarrassment now.
Anger. Real anger. Raw fury.
My eyes flickered—I felt them change, saw Kaneko step back in surprise, but then they returned to normal.
“Yoshi,” Kaneko said, and there was questioning in his tone. “Maybe we should—”
“Again!” I demanded.
Practice weapons still on racks began to hum, vibrating against the wood.
Then the ground cracked around where I stood, and steam rose from my skin despite the cool morning.
The assembled students took a step backward. The masters stiffened. Even Master Giichi stepped down from the stairs, then stopped, as if waiting for something only he knew would happen.
The air grew heavier.
Cherry blossoms began falling from the trees, then some drifted upward instead of down.
“Rise!” Nawa’s voice boomed in my head, now urgent and commanding.
Kaneko, eyes wide, shrugged and reset his stance.
Movement at the edge of the yard caught my eye—Prince Haru and Esumi arriving.
This time I attacked first, pouring everything into it.
My bokken splintered in my grip, and blood dripped from my nose before we even connected. I moved in a blur, a smear of light and shadow darting across the ring. I’d never moved that fast, never dreamed of doing so.
Kaneko dismantled me anyway, redirecting my force, using my momentum against me, always exactly where I wasn’t expecting. When he swept my legs—that same bloody childhood move again—and raised his bokken for the winning strike, something inside me shattered.
The temple bells began to hum without being struck, an eerie sound somewhere between a moan and song. Masters’ heads turned this way and that, seeking the disturbance of their peace.
“Fight properly!” I snarled, scrambling up.
“I am fighting properly.” He wasn’t even breathing hard. “You’re being predictable.”
He was right. I knew he was right, but the way he said it—the same pitying tone he’d used when we were children, when he’d beaten me in front of everyone, when he’d tried to let me win out of kindness—
“Now!” Nawa’s voice roared.
The weapons on the racks clattered louder.
Students shuffled back.
The spiderweb beneath my feet spread until it reached outside the ring.
And then Kaneko made a mistake.
As he came in for what would be the final blow, his bokken caught my cheek, drawing blood.
A single drop of red in the morning light.
“NOW, ARISE!”
The world froze. Complete stillness. Utter silence.
Every person froze mid-motion.
Every blossom suspended in air.
Even heartbeats seemed to pause.
Then I screamed, with all my angry might, “NO!”
A wave of energy exploded from my chest—pure light, brilliant and white. Everyone stumbled backward and shielded their eyes.
A second wave followed—and my body began to change. I felt muscles expanding, bones strengthening. Pain exploded within me as my spine popped and stretched and grew.
The ground shook, as the spiderwebs spread—beyond the ring, beyond the yard, beyond the temple walls.
When the third wave came, clouds above us tore apart, forming a perfect circle, and Amaterasu’s light, undiluted and absolute, struck me like a physical weight.
But instead of crushing me, it filled me.
Completed me.
Awakened me.
Divine fire poured through every cell.
The bokken in my hand became an extension of pure will.
Time moved differently.
I could see individual motes of dust floating, could count the cherry blossoms frozen in their impossible upward fall. Even Kaneko’s bokken came at me in slow motion.
I didn’t just block it; I shattered it, the wood exploding into pieces that hung in the air like stars.
I moved—not with any technique I’d learned, but with the motion of light itself.
Kaneko’s defense crumbled, not because he was slow, but because defending against divinity was like trying to stop the sun from painting the sky.
Three strikes, each one perfect, each one inevitable.
Students dropped to their knees throughout the yard.
Masters averted their eyes.
Samurai stood still as stone, fingers gripping hilts.
Every candle and torch in the temple flared to life, and stone dragons carved on the temple’s walls turned their heads to watch.
I swept Kaneko’s legs, put him on his back, and pressed my bokken to his throat—not with violence, but with the gentle inevitability of destiny.
Light continued pouring from me in waves, each one reshaping reality around it.
The training yard became a cathedral of radiance.
For a moment that lasted forever, I stood there, light coursing through me, finally understanding what Nawa had meant when she’d commanded me to awaken.
Not simply awakening my body to strength.
Not only awakening my mind to wisdom.
Awakening my soul to its purpose.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the power fled.
The light winked out.
My legs gave way, and I collapsed to my knees beside Kaneko, gasping like I’d run for miles.
Every muscle screamed. My vision swam. Blood dripped from my nose, my ears, from cracks in my skin that sealed themselves as I watched in stunned horror.
And through the haze of exhaustion, through the shocked silence of the training yard where everyone remained on their knees, Nawa’s voice rang clear in my mind:
“Blessed son of the goddess, arise and take your place.”
Click here to continue your journey in book three, Haru!