The first ti I landed a clean hit, Genzo didn't say a word.
He just stood there, rubbing his forearm where the wooden staff had struck, eyes narrowed. Not in anger. Not even surprise. Just... thought.
Then he said, "Again."
So we did.
***
The days passed like water through a cracked basin—impossible to hold, impossible to asure. Dawn ca before I opened my eyes, and by the ti I collapsed each night, the sky was already black.
Strike. Block. Breathe. Again.
I bruised in places I didn't know I could. My palms blistered, then calloused. My arms trembled in the cold after training, but I still lifted the staff. Still swung.
Genzo didn't praise. He didn't correct often, either. When I failed, he simply adjusted—his stance, his pace, the angle of his blade—to punish the weakness as it appeared. He taught through pressure.
Through pain. Through silence.
But sothing shifted as the week dragged on. I started to notice the smallest things—how he no longer circled as wide. How his blade moved with less force and more intent. Like he was no longer testing —but preparing for sothing else.
He was watching closely now.
Not just as a teacher.
As sothing else.
***
That morning, frost had crept across the wooden steps, and our breaths clouded the air like smoke.
We trained until my legs threatened to give way beneath .
When we finally stopped, I collapsed onto a flat stone near the edge of the clearing, arms resting on my knees. Genzo didn't sit. He stood with his back to , staring into the trees.
I watched him in stillness.
I was beginning to see it—not just the strength in his movents, but the way he held ti itself, as if it moved differently around him. He never rushed. Never hesitated. Everything he did had weight. mory.
We didn't speak until the sun dipped low and the trees threw long shadows across the clearing.
***
That evening, after the sun had dropped behind the hills, we sat beneath the pine trees. Where the ground dipped just enough to block the wind. The forest was still. The last of the light was pale and blue, creating soft outlines over everything.
Genzo leaned back against a stump, sipping slowly from his gourd. He hadn't spoken all day.
I looked over. "You're quieter than usual."
He didn't answer imdiately. Then, "I had a dream last night."
I sat straighter.
He exhaled slowly. "I was standing in a village I'd never seen. Narrow roads. Tall buildings made of glass and stone. And a strange tal cart without a horse. But I knew it was Japan. I just... didn't know where... or when."
My pulse quickened. "What were you doing?"
"Running," he said. "From sothing I couldn't see."
He tapped the rim of the his gourd against his boot. "It felt familiar. Like sothing I'd forgotten a long ti ago was chasing ."
He looked over, brow faintly furrowed. "You think I'm losing my grip?"
"No,"
I said. "I think you're rembering."
He held my gaze for a beat longer than usual.
Then he chuckled. "I'm too old to rember soone else's life."
"You're not rembering soone else's," I said. "You're rembering your own. Just... not this one."
He didn't laugh at that. He didn't argue either.
He just stared into the trees.
***
Later, after the fire had burned down to embers. The stars were starting to appear—dim and scattered through thin cloud.
I caught him staring at the sword rack in silence.
"What is it?" I asked.He didn't turn.
"Sotis," he said quietly, "I wake up with the feeling that I've held that blade before. A hundred tis. In a hundred different ways. But never like this."
He stepped forward, resting his hand gently on the hilt.
"Sothing's wrong with ti." He muttered. "And we're standing too close to the break."
I didn't know what he ant then.
But I rembered his words.
And later—
They ca back to like a wound that never healed.
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