The wind howled through the mountains, carrying with it a curtain of falling snow. The forest was silent except for the soft crunch of boots pressing into the white ground.
Yakosobi Goru walked with a heavy basket of firewood on his shoulder, his breath steaming in the cold air. His worn coat was patched with old battle scars fabric torn long ago by blades and arrows and his battle hat shaded his sharp eyes from the glare of the snow.
He wasn't a soldier anymore. Those days were buried like the dead under the mountain.
The wind shifted. From the trees came the faintest echo footsteps. Not the calm rhythm of a traveler, but fast, uneven, desperate.
Yakosobi stopped. His hand reached for the handle of the Battleaxe strapped across his back.
Then she appeared.
A woman, long hair the color of blue silk whipping behind her, her gown torn and soaked from the snow. Her eyes bright and wide darted from side to side as if the trees themselves were chasing her. She didn't see Yakosobi until she crashed into him, nearly sending the basket tumbling.
Yakosobi caught her by the shoulders.
"Hey easy now. What's going on?"
But the woman didn't answer. Her chest rose and fell fast, her lips trembling. "Run… he's coming…"
Yakosobi frowned. "Who's coming?"
Before she could answer, the forest seemed to bend under a heavy step. The snow shook loose from the branches. From between the trees emerged a giant of a man wide as an ox, his breath fogging in the cold.
He wore armor unlike any Yakosobi had ever seen half-ragged, half-ceremonial, like something from a forgotten clan. In his hands was a katana, long and curved, its edge catching the pale light.
The man grinned. "Step aside, old one. The girl is not yours to save."
Yakosobi shifted his stance. "She ran this far. That makes her under my roof."
The big man's grin faded. "Then die under it."
The katana hissed as it left the sheath. Yakosobi drew his Battleaxe, its black steel head scarred by years of use. The two men faced each other in the falling snow — silence before violence.
Yakosobi inhaled deeply, lowering his weight, his knees bent in the Kitanaki stance.
His voice was calm as he whispered:
"Kitanaki Sun Breathing Slash."
The giant took one step forward, light on his feet despite his size, his boots barely touching the ground.
"Kitanaki Moon Step Walk, Wind Dance."
Snow exploded around them.
The first clash came like thunder. Steel met steel, the katana's arc sweeping low while Yakosobi's axe cut through the air like a burning sun. Sparks flashed, snow scattered, and the echo of metal rolled through the valley.
Yakosobi pivoted, driving the axe upward. The giant countered, spinning in his Moon Step Walk, the blade slicing through empty air where Yakosobi's neck had been a second earlier. The motion was too graceful for a man his size.
Yakosobi adjusted his footing, his boots digging into the snow for grip.
"Not bad," he muttered.
The giant sneered. "You're slow."
The next exchange was faster. Yakosobi struck horizontally, the Sun Breathing Slash igniting his muscles in a swift arc, cutting a path that seemed to push the snow aside. The axe bit into the giant's side armor sparks again but no blood.
The katana answered, slicing downward. Yakosobi barely blocked, the clash ringing like a bell across the frozen woods.
For a long moment, they circled, breath steaming in the cold. The woman Aozora Reina watched from behind a fallen tree, her blue hair tangled with frost, eyes wide with fear.
"Who are you people?" she whispered.
Neither man answered. The snow kept falling.
Then Yakosobi moved.
He dropped his stance lower, inhaled once more through his teeth controlled, measured, deadly.
"Sun Breathing Slash Second Form: Rising Flame."
He charged, axe spinning in a half-moon arc, body turning with the swing. The air itself seemed to twist as the axe found its mark the giant blocked, but the force drove him backward, cracking a tree trunk in half.
The ground shook.
The giant coughed, a grin breaking across his bleeding lip.
"Good. You remember how to fight."
Yakosobi's eyes narrowed. "Who sent you?"
The giant spat blood into the snow. "Ask your ancestors."
Then he vanished not truly gone, but moving so fast his outline blurred in the snow. The Moon Step Walk a technique for breaking rhythm, moving faster than the eye could track.
Yakosobi turned sharply, just in time to parry. Steel rang. His shoulder burned.
"Damn," he hissed. "You're faster than you look."
"Faster than you'll ever be," the giant growled, raising his katana high.
Yakosobi stepped back, drawing a breath deep into his chest the rhythm of Sun Breathing pulsing through his ribs. The world slowed. The falling snow seemed to float.
He gripped his axe with both hands and whispered,
"Kitanaki Sun Breathing Slash, Third Form: Dawn Splitter."
The axe came down with the full weight of the mountain behind it.]