Chapter 6: Swords, Stew, and Squiggles
"Get up."
A boot nudged Shiro's ribs.
"Five more minutes…" he groaned into the dirt.
Khan squinted down at him. "You said that fifteen minutes ago."
"I was lying then, too."
With a grunt, Khan grabbed Shiro by the collar and yoinked him upright like a sack of vegetables. Shiro's legs wobbled.
"I think my spine's on backward," he muttered.
"That means you're finally learning something."
Over the next week, the cycle repeated.
Morning beatdown.
Afternoon chores.
Evening meal.
Pain. Sleep. Regret. Repeat.
Rin kept score. Apparently, Shiro was at 0 wins and 23 direct hits to the face.
Still, there were good moments.
Saya made a stew so good it made him cry real tears. She smacked his head with a spoon when he tried to help cook, and called him a "bone-thin disaster boy," but in a nice way.
Sometimes she'd catch him staring at the stars and quietly drape a blanket over his shoulders.
Sometimes she just ruffled his hair and said, "You're starting to look less haunted."
Shiro didn't know how to reply to that.
So he just said "Thanks" and looked away.
One night, bruised and sore from a particularly savage Khan session that included a surprise backflip (by Khan, somehow), Shiro limped into the small living room of Khan's home.
Saya was humming and folding laundry while Rin chased a chicken around the hearth.
"Hey, Saya?" Shiro asked, rubbing his shoulder.
"Hmm?"
"Do we have any books on swordsmanship? I think I need something less violent than Khan's fists."
Saya smiled, eyes twinkling. "Actually, yes. He wrote one years ago. Hold on."
She reached up to a high shelf, pulled down a thick, dusty leather-bound tome, and handed it to him like she was passing down ancient wisdom.
Shiro opened it.
Paused.
Stared.
And then immediately closed it.
His soul visibly left his body for a second.
"I… I can't read this."
Saya blinked. "Why not?"
"I literally can't. I don't know the language."
"What?" Khan said, poking his head in from the back room. "Lemme see."
Shiro opened it again.
Khan scowled. "What's wrong with it?"
"It looks like a spider dipped its legs in ink and tried to write while having a seizure."
"That's calligraphy, you twit."
"That's a crime scene."
Khan snatched the book and squinted at a random page. "This says, 'Proper stance begins with the heel aligned—' wait, or is that a squirrel…"
"See?!"
Rin peeked over Shiro's shoulder. "Wow! It looks like chicken scratches and rage."
Khan turned red. "It's ancient technique writing!"
"It's literally illegible," Shiro said. "You could hold this up in court as evidence of insanity."
Saya tried very hard not to laugh.
"You… wrote this?" Shiro asked, horrified.
"Back when I was younger," Khan muttered, crossing his arms. "Didn't need fancy books back then. You learned by getting hit."
"You still do that!"
"Tradition."
Rin pointed at a particularly chaotic diagram.
"What does this one say?"
Khan looked.
"…'Spin until the enemy regrets their choices.'"
"That's not a technique. That's a life crisis."
Saya finally lost it and had to sit down to stop laughing.
Shiro sighed, defeated. "Great. So I'm illiterate in this world and my mentor's teaching from a cursed cookbook."
Khan threw a sock at him.
Shiro dodged it awkwardly and laughed—a genuine, breathy sound that felt like it hadn't escaped him in days.
"Fine," Shiro said, shaking his head. "Maybe the book's a lost cause."
Saya smiled warmly. "You don't need fancy words to learn, Shiro. You have spirit."
Rin, still chasing the chicken, suddenly froze and grinned. "Hey! Why don't we make our own moves? Like… the Squiggle Slash or the Chicken Dance Defense?"
Khan rolled his eyes but couldn't suppress a small smile. "Only if you want to get clucked at."
The room filled with laughter, light and brittle but real. For the first time in a long while, Shiro felt a flicker of something else—hope.
Maybe he wasn't just a broken soul thrown into a brutal world. Maybe, just maybe, this ragtag family was the first step toward becoming something greater.
And tomorrow, well… he'd face whatever came with fists, a rusty blade, and maybe even a little dance.