Interlude: The Boy with the Blade
Chōjūrō didn't understand Kozan.
Not completely. Not yet.
He'd fought beside shinobi stronger than him, faster than him, more experienced than him. But Kozan… Kozan made him feel like a child in a battlefield of grown shadows.
It wasn't the way he moved—though Kozan moved like the mist itself.
It was the way he looked at things.
Like every wall was a puzzle. Every person, a weapon or a witness. Every room, a battlefield.
---
They trained together sometimes. Not by Kozan's choice—by Mei's order.
"Chōjūrō needs pressure," she said once. "You're good at that."
Kozan never struck first. But when he did move, the world changed.
Genjutsu. Pressure points. Chakra threads that weren't supposed to exist at his level.
Chōjūrō lost every spar.
Every time.
But he watched. And he learned.
---
"You don't speak much," Chōjūrō said after one session, rubbing his shoulder where he'd hit the mat.
Kozan shrugged. "Words aren't part of the mission."
"Do you ever… I don't know. Want to talk? Not about strategy. Just… life?"
Kozan looked at him, and for a second, Chōjūrō thought he'd struck a nerve.
"I want to live long enough to have a life," Kozan said quietly.
Then he walked off.
---
Chōjūrō thought about that a lot.
He was shy. Not weak—just quiet. He never liked the bloodshed. Never liked the Academy's brutal ways. But he'd survived it. Learned the blade. Learned to stand beside Mei.
Kozan didn't just stand beside her. He moved before she did.
---
During missions, Chōjūrō saw the way Kozan moved through enemy lines like fog with intent. No waste. No flare. All impact.
But he also saw something else: Kozan always paused before he killed.
Not out of hesitation. Out of judgment.
He chose who to silence.
That, Chōjūrō realized, was scarier than someone who killed without thought.
Because Kozan's morality wasn't written in village law.
It was written in his own pain.
---
"I don't think he'll stay after the war," Chōjūrō once told Ao.
The old shinobi didn't argue.
"He's not built for peace," Ao said.
Chōjūrō didn't agree. He thought Kozan could be.
If the village gave him room to breathe.
If the mist finally cleared.
---