Morning light spilled across Owari, pale and cool, touching rooftops and fences before daring to reach the ground.
Mikan stood alone in the yard.
Her breath came in sharp, measured pulls. In through the nose, deep into the chest. Out through the mouth, slow but controlled. Again. Again. She circled the training dummy with light steps, bare feet brushing packed earth as if afraid to disturb it.
Pressure Breathing.
Big sister Ichigo had sent a simple manual only days ago, written in her neat, disciplined hand. An apprentice technique. Nothing flashy. Nothing lethal on its own. Just breath, timing, and control. A way to work on both stamina and lethality.
Mikan moved.
She inhaled as her arm snapped forward. A blade left her fingers and struck the dummy's neck. She shifted, exhaled, then inhaled again as she twisted past the dummy's shoulder, another knife flashing toward the eye. Her steps never stopped. Ankles. Calf. Shoulder. Each throw paired with a breath taken at the exact moment her body demanded more than it should have been able to give.
The air burned her lungs. That was good. That meant it was working.
By the time she stopped, sweat ran down her temples and soaked the collar of her clothes. The dummy looked less like wood now and more like a corpse pinned in place. Blades clustered where tendons would snap, where vision would vanish, where movement would die.
Mikan bent forward, hands on her knees, breathing hard.
"Good," Budo said from behind her.
She straightened slightly, turning her head. Her father stood near the edge of the yard, arms folded, having watched the entire session in silence. His eyes lingered on the embedded knives, then on her breathing.
"Very good work," he continued. "But starting today, you will use Pressure Breathing the entire time during combat. No switching it on and off. If you do this daily, your stamina will become something others can't match."
Mikan nodded.
No complaint. No sigh.
That surprised him.
Lately, her martial drive had sharpened. There was a quiet focus in her movements now, a hunger that hadn't been there before. Budo wondered if it had anything to do with Lord Hideyoshi?
"Let's head inside," he said instead.
As they walked, Budo glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She had grasped the technique far faster than he expected. Faster than most apprentices. Were all his children this gifted? Had he simply never noticed?
Life had been… calm, lately.
Since Ichigo joined the Kizoku clan and Ringo entered the Shinken, gifts had begun arriving. Money. Food. Manuals... Tokens of goodwill from would-be suitors. The kind nobles sent when they get their ass beat by your daughters and dare to try another approach instead.
He sighed... but he was grateful. Truly.
They were worried about Merun, of course. He was too. But that boy had always been more capable than he let on. Those eyes of his carried something sharp, something calculating. He liked to pretend he was immature, liked to laze around, liked to be underestimated.
Budo sighed.
Why did he have to knock out the noble squires? No, why did he try to attack Master Iaiashin herself??? He had only ever seen her command Martial Seniors on battlefields while he was a humble martial apprentice in the clan. And Merun had tried to assassinate her in their home.
Because of that, Budo hadn't been able to refuse her proposal. Taking Merun with them to "test" his capabilities, in exchange of giving him a pardon to the crime of attempted assassination. Whatever that truly meant.
His scars ached at the thought.
Gods knew what happened to commoners who crossed nobles.
A knock sounded at the door.
Budo paused.
He opened it and blinked. "Ah. Lord Hideyoshi. You're here again."
Mikan stood behind him. She tried to ignore the visitor, but still cast him a sidelong glance.
Hideyoshi looked… tired. Sad, even.
"This is important," he said quietly.
He suddenly kneeled and bowed "I'm really, really sorry! I'm afraid the Furutsu household must migrate to Gifu."
He produced a parchment. The seal gleamed with a golden flower, elegant and unmistakable.
An order from the Noble Iaiashin household.
Budo and Mikan stared at it.
"…What?"
Nashi took a peek from the kitchen, "Oh look who it is! You want to eat lunch, Hideyoshi?"
.———
Merun woke to the smell of straw.
He was lying on a bed of packed thatch, staring at a low wooden ceiling. For a moment, his mind drifted. It felt like he had been in a long, strange dream. A warm one. Vague shapes. A beautiful woman's presence. Soft thighs beneath his head. A sweet kiss full of life—
He snorted and laughed quietly. "Get a grip," he muttered. "Degenerate."
Then he moved.
His left arm rose with him.
Merun froze.
He stared at it. Flexed his fingers. Felt the strength in the joints, the weight, the blood rushing clean and whole.
"…It's back?"
Something brushed his face.
Woosh.
His tail slid past his nose.
His eyes widened. He twisted, nearly tumbling off the bed as the tail coiled behind him, thick, alive, powerful.
"No way."
His body felt wrong. Not injured-wrong. Alive-wrong. Packed with energy, dense and heavy, like his muscles were filled to the brim with something that didn't want to stay still. He inhaled and felt power surge in response.
Almost the same level as the Divine Arsenal.
Almost.
"How…?" He pressed a hand to his chest, searching for some explanation. There was nothing. Just static. Just the fight. Just the moment everything ended.
He exhaled, sharp and uneven.
Light spilled through a small window. Morning sunlight filled the hut, catching on drifting dust. Outside, he heard voices. Not raised. Not frantic. The sound of people working because they had no choice but to keep moving.
Merun sat up.
His heart dropped.
He knew this place.
Odani.
Or what remained of it.
Half the village was gone. Roofs crushed inward. Boats split and dragged onto shore like broken toys. Villagers moved through the ruins in silence, lifting stones, stacking wood, tying nets with hands that trembled from exhaustion and grief. In the center of it all lay rows of bodies, each covered in white cloth.
A priest stood among them, head bowed, murmuring prayers that felt too small for what had happened.
No clansmen.
No officials.
No one to answer for it.
Merun's stomach twisted.
They were peasants.
Just like his family.
The thought hit harder than any blow. If this could happen here, then what was stopping it from happening in Owari? From happening to his father. To Mikan. To anyone who couldn't afford power.
Memory crashed over him. Noritsugu. The duel. The surge of strength. That brief, intoxicating certainty when he thought he had found his path, when overwhelming suppression finally worked.
It made him sick now.
Children cried near the bodies. One girl clutched at a cloth, small fingers digging in as if she could pull her parent back. An old man gently held her away, his face hollow, like something essential had already been taken from him.
Merun looked away.
This wasn't collateral.
This wasn't fate.
This was because of him.
The power thrumming in his body felt wrong. It felt heavy. Like it didn't belong to someone who had caused this.
He sank back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, jaw tight.
"…Did the villagers save me?" he whispered. "Why would they?"
His eyes drifted to the side.
Something sat beside his pillow.
A small, angular device. Dark glass. A curved frame that hugged one side, with a short arm that looked like it was meant to hook behind the ear.
"…Huh."
He picked it up.
It was lightweight. Cool to the touch. The lens shimmered faintly.
"This looks kinda like… a scouter?"
He laughed once, then stopped.
"…No. No way."
He snapped it onto his face.
The lens flickered to life.
Symbols flooded his vision. Rows of sharp, unfamiliar characters layered over each other, glowing pale green. Circles pulsed near the edges of his sight. Thin lines traced shapes in the room, tagging distances and angles.
"...What?"
The text wasn't the same as the one from the pod.
And he still couldn't read a damn thing.
"Fuck, I really should have learned how to read," Merun muttered.
He tapped the side. Nothing. Pressed again. Then harder. He fumbled with the small buttons along the frame until the display shifted.
Numbers appeared, dynamic and ever changing.
"…Oh?"
His pulse quickened.
He looked down at his body.
The numbers jumped. Spiked. Dropped. Climbed again.
Then it stabilized.
Merun's breath caught. His eyes nearly pop out of its sockets.
"How is this possible?!"