### Chapter 16: The War of the Lotus
The week after the First Legion's broken remnants fled was not one of celebration. It was a week of funerals. The Tsurugi Domain had won, but the people who had picked up hammers and gauntlets were not soldiers. They were builders who had learned to break things, and the knowledge sat in their stomachs like a poison. They moved through the town with a new, haunted gait, their eyes avoiding the bloodstains that still speckled the dirt. They had survived, but they had lost the comfort of their own innocence.
I watched them from my rock, a silent observer of their quiet misery. Taro scurried about, organizing food and trying to offer words of comfort he didn't believe in. Kenjiro and his men worked grimly, reinforcing the walls, their movements heavy with the memory of the violence they had wrought. Only Ren seemed energized, his workshop a hive of activity as he sketched new designs, his face alight with the terrible beauty of his ideas.
