YOSUKE SHIN
After a few hours we reached Yoshi village. Flashes of memory kept coming—like films projected over the present.
This was the place I'd grown up. The feeling that rose in my chest was almost childish—peace, like a warm hand on my shoulder. Houses I remembered stood the same; others had shifted, new roofs, new paint. The past and present overlapped, and it made my steps feel light and heavy at once.
There was a small gate I'd never seen before. We passed it, and I felt the past tighten around me.
"Hey, let's go from here," I said to Jiro. He nodded, and I led the way. I wanted to see someone special.
We walked to a small house and knocked on the wooden door. An old man opened it. He peered at me. "Who is it?" he asked.
"It's been a while, isn't it?" I said, my smile widening.
He squinted. Of course he wouldn't recognize me—twenty years change a face.
"Who are you?" he asked.
I felt words settle in my throat, something steadier than a lie. "Between the sun and the moon there is only one thing, and that's the truth," I said, looking straight at him.
Confusion flickered across his features. Then, like a light catching a familiar stone, his expression softened. "Wait—Is that you… Yosuke?"
"Yes. I'm that guy." I grinned.
"Please, come in." He stepped aside. Jiro and I sat at a rough wooden table. He brought us tea and sat down with us.
I introduced Jiro. "This is my friend, his name is Jiro."
They shook hands. "Nice to meet you, sir," Jiro said.
"Please, young man—don't call me 'sir,'" the old man replied. Jiro asked his name.
"My name? I guess we have something in common—my name is also Jiro," the old man answered, laughing. The house smelled of dried herbs and sunlight rounding the edges of the moment. For a while we drank, we talked, and the village folded around us like an old map found again.
SAI SHINU
After we finished eating I paid and stepped back into the street with the kid. He fell in step beside me, quiet and watchful. I couldn't just leave him wandering the city. I stopped; he stopped. We faced each other.
"Kneel," I told myself, kneeling down so I was level with his eyes. His hands were still gripping my shirt like a life line.
"Hey," I said gently, "do you want to go to another family?"
He blinked. "If I go to them… will I be a slave again?" His voice trembled.
He was right. I couldn't send him to another home to be auctioned off like goods. Not him. Not anymore. It wasn't the best choice, but it was the only one that felt right.
"Okay," I said. "I'll take care of you. I have people you'll like."
He looked up, stunned. Then he said something that cut through the noise and left me breathless: "I will be your son?"
I didn't know how to answer. "More like brothers," I managed.
He smiled, shy and bright. "Okay then—my brother."
We walked, and I kept an eye on the street. From a distance I saw that man—the one who'd grabbed the boy earlier—now with ten others behind him. He moved like a pack, all of them smelling for trouble.
"Go back to the tavern," I told the kid. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
He nodded and ran. My body tightened. I could sense the group closing in. When the leader reached me I didn't bother with small talk.
"It would be a better place to fight out of the city," I said coolly. "Although the result will be the same."
They weren't good fighters. Fear and desperation lined their faces; some were already pale. I let the city fall behind us and drew my blade—Azure Valley—sliding it from the scabbard so the metal sang.
A voice—my companion's, the one I hadn't heard in a while—whispered, "Hey. Be careful."
I smiled, a flat, dangerous thing. "I think you know that," I said. "But this guy is nothing more than a fucked-up piece of shit."
The leader lunged, blades hungry. I stepped, shadow-stepped, pressed and cut—fast, clean, a whisper not even meant to kill. They scattered like rotten fruit.
When it was over the only sound left was our breathing and the distant market. The kid's face flashed into my mind—his dark eyes steady now—and I realized the truth again: this place looked like life, but it was a stage of compromises. If I had to be a blade to carve reality back into something honest, so be it.
I sheathed Azure Valley. The city hummed on, full of people who didn't yet know what had happened on its fringe. I walked back toward the tavern, to the new life I'd chosen for a boy who'd called me brother.