The Mongol patrol moved like clockwork. Katsuo counted their steps from his position in the oak's branches—forty paces between the lead rider and the rear guard, twelve soldiers total, horses tired from a night march. The third day he'd watched this same route.
He sketched their formation in the dirt with a charcoal stick. Lead scout ranging fifty yards ahead. Main body in loose column. Rear guard checking their backtrail every hundred heartbeats.
Predictable. Fatal, in warfare.
The patrol passed beneath his tree. Katsuo memorized faces—the captain with the facial scar, the young archer who kept adjusting his bowstring, the veteran who favored his left leg. Know your enemies. Their weaknesses became your weapons.
After they disappeared around the mountain bend, he dropped silently to the forest floor. Five patrols mapped in three days. Each following identical patterns, identical timing. The Mongols fought like their empire—efficiently, systematically, without imagination.
He melted back into the trees, heading for the agreed meeting point.
---
Jin knelt beside the old woman's futon. Her grandson held her hand while she spoke in whispers, each word costing her strength.
"Twenty of them," she breathed. "Maybe more. They took the young men for labor. Left the rest." Her eyes found Jin's. "Why do they let us live?"
"Living subjects pay taxes," Jin said gently. "Dead ones don't."
The woman's laugh turned into a cough. Blood specked her lips. "Practical monsters."
Jin rose, bowed. In the village's central square, a dozen other survivors waited. Farmers mostly, too old or young for the labor gangs. Each had stories. Each story added pieces to the larger picture.
"The supply train," an elderly man said, pointing east. "Comes every fourth day. Same time, same route."
"Guards?" Jin asked.
"Fifteen. Maybe twenty." The man's hands shook as he drew shapes in the dust. "Wagons in the middle. Outriders front and back."
Jin committed the details to memory. Supply lines were arteries. Cut them, and armies starved.
A child tugged at his sleeve. "Lord Sakai? Are you the Ghost?"
Jin looked down at the boy's expectant face. Stories spread faster than wildfire. Hope and fear traveling the same roads.
"I'm just a man," he said.
"But you fight the demons?"
"I fight the invaders."
The boy nodded solemnly. "My father said demons are just men who forgot how to be human."
Jin's chest tightened. From the mouths of children.
He left rice from his pack with the survivors. Not enough to last, but enough to matter. Then he slipped away toward the rendezvous, the boy's words echoing in his mind.
---
They met where two mountain streams converged. Katsuo arrived first, studying tracks in the soft earth while he waited. Jin approached from downstream, moving quietly but not silently. Still announced himself like a samurai, even in guerrilla country.
"Learn anything useful?" Katsuo asked without looking up.
Jin settled onto a fallen log. "Supply convoy. Every fourth day, eastern route. Heavy guard."
"Fifteen soldiers. I've seen it." Katsuo traced patterns in the mud with a stick. "Predictable schedule. Same camping spots each night."
"You've been watching them?"
"I've been watching everything." Katsuo's stick drew circles, lines, arrows. A tactical map emerging from dirt and water. "Third Mountain Patrol, seven soldiers, follows the ridge road every sunset. Harbor Watch changes guard at midnight and dawn. Supply depot at Kashine gets deliveries twice weekly."
Jin studied the improvised map. Each mark represented hours of observation, risks taken for intelligence. The kind of systematic reconnaissance that separated professionals from amateurs.
"How long have you been doing this?"
"Since we escaped." Katsuo added more details to his mud chart. "Three days of watching. Learning. Planning." His eyes met Jin's. "What have you been doing?"
"Gathering information from survivors."
"And feeding them your rice."
Jin's jaw tightened. "They're starving."
"They're sources." Katsuo's voice carried no judgment, just statement of fact. "Feed them enough to keep talking. More than that wastes resources."
"They're not resources. They're people."
"People who need to survive long enough to see liberation." Katsuo stood, began erasing his map with his foot. "Sentiment doesn't win wars."
Jin watched the tactical intelligence disappear under Katsuo's heel. Hours of work, gone. But the rōnin's eyes held every detail.
"You memorized it all."
"Memory can't be captured. Can't be tortured out of me if I'm taken." Katsuo shouldered his pack. "Basic security."
They moved upstream, staying in the water to avoid leaving tracks. Jin found himself watching how Katsuo moved—always checking angles, escape routes, potential ambush sites. The man's mind worked like a military engine, turning every observation into advantage.
"The supply convoy," Jin said. "When do we hit it?"
"We don't."
"What?"
Katsuo paused at a bend in the stream. "Too well guarded. Too many variables. Too much risk for uncertain gain."
Jin felt heat rise in his chest. "Then what was the point of all this intelligence?"
"To know what we can't do." Katsuo resumed walking. "Most battles are won by avoiding the fights you can't win."
"So we do nothing?"
"We find the fights we can win." Katsuo's scarred face caught dappled sunlight through the canopy. "Harbor Watch. Seven men. Isolated position. Limited backup."
Jin processed this. The harbor controlled ship movements, supply deliveries, communication with the mainland. Strategic value, manageable risk.
"How do we take it?"
"Poison the well." Katsuo said it like discussing the weather. "Wait for them to weaken. Kill the survivors."
"Poison?" Jin stopped walking. "That's—"
"Effective." Katsuo turned back. "Quick. Quiet. Guaranteed results."
"Dishonorable."
"Practical." Katsuo's eyes held no apology. "Your honor won't resurrect dead villagers."
Jin stared at the scarred rōnin. Three days ago, he'd seen potential for redemption in this man. Now he glimpsed something else—a mind that had calculated the price of every principle and found them all wanting.
"There has to be another way."
"There's always another way." Katsuo resumed walking. "Usually longer, bloodier, with more chances for failure."
They climbed out of the stream at a small waterfall. Jin watched Katsuo examine the rocky outcrop, noting handholds, sight lines, defensive positions. Always thinking three moves ahead.
"You weren't always like this," Jin said.
"Like what?"
"Cold. Calculating." Jin gestured at the man's systematic approach to everything. "Samurai are taught strategy, but not... this."
Katsuo found a seat on sun-warmed stone. "Samurai are taught to win glorious deaths. I learned to win ugly lives."
"What changed you?"
"Experience." Katsuo's hand drifted to the ritual scars on his chest. "Failed honor. Dead children. Practical results from practical methods."
Jin joined him on the rocks. Below them, the waterfall crashed into a natural pool, sending spray into the afternoon light. Beautiful. Peaceful. Nothing like the conversation they were having.
"The families you tried to save," Jin said carefully. "In your flashback that first day. You used conventional rescue methods?"
"Honor dictated I give them fair warning. Challenge their captors openly. Offer myself in exchange." Katsuo's voice went flat. "All died anyway. I learned that fair warnings give enemies time to prepare."
"So now you assume the worst in every situation."
"Now I plan for it." Katsuo stood, tested the stability of stones leading across the pool. "Assumption gets you killed. Preparation keeps you breathing."
Jin followed him across the improvised bridge. He'd been watching Katsuo work for three days now—the systematic observation, the mechanical analysis, the reduction of human complexity into tactical data. It was effective. It was also horrifying.
"The harbor watch," Jin said as they reached the far side. "What if we took them alive? Interrogated them for intelligence?"
"Prisoners require resources. Food, water, guards." Katsuo shook his head. "Dead enemies stay dead. Living enemies escape, warn others, complicate operations."
"Some might be willing to surrender. Switch sides."
"Some might be spies. Some might be fanatics. Some might pretend cooperation while planning betrayal." Katsuo's eyes found Jin's. "How do you tell the difference?"
Jin had no answer.
They made camp that evening in a cave overlooking the harbor. Katsuo positioned himself where he could watch the Mongol watchtower while Jin studied the tactical situation. Seven guards, isolated position, limited reinforcement potential.
The poison option would work. Quick, clean, tactically sound.
Also murder.
"There's a middle path," Jin said as darkness gathered. "We could drug them. Sleeping powder instead of poison."
"And when they wake up?"
"We're gone. They're confused, demoralized, but alive."
Katsuo considered this. "Sleeping drugs are harder to obtain. Less predictable in dosage. Some might not be affected."
"But possible?"
"Possible." Katsuo fed small sticks to their concealed fire. "More complex. More variables. Higher chance of failure."
Jin watched the rōnin's face in the firelight. Something shifted there—not softening, but calculation taking new factors into account.
"Your honor matters to you," Katsuo observed.
"It's all I have left."
"Then we do it your way. This time." Katsuo's eyes reflected flame. "But when it goes wrong, when variables cascade into chaos, when your mercy gets people killed—remember that you chose this path."
Jin nodded. He was learning to read between Katsuo's words. The man would follow the more complex plan, but he'd also prepare for its failure. Always three moves ahead.
Always assuming the worst.
They settled into watch schedules. Jin took first shift, studying the harbor fortress while Katsuo slept. The Mongols followed their routine—guard change at midnight, single sentry walking the walls, others gathered around a fire in the courtyard.
Predictable. Vulnerable.
When Katsuo took over at midnight, Jin found himself unable to sleep. The rōnin sat motionless as carved stone, eyes tracking every movement below. Professional. Thorough. Absolutely without sentiment.
"You're wondering if I'm right," Katsuo said without turning.
"About what?"
"About mercy being weakness." Katsuo's voice carried across the darkness. "About honor being a luxury the dead can't afford."
Jin had been wondering exactly that. "And?"
"You'll find out tomorrow night."
They lay in darkness, each man lost in his own thoughts. Below them, the harbor watch continued their routine, unaware that their fate would be decided by the philosophical differences between two scarred samurai.
Jin closed his eyes and tried to sleep. In his dreams, he saw children's faces. Some grateful for his mercy. Others accusatory in their death.
He woke before dawn, unsure which faces belonged to memory and which to prophecy.