The Blue Soul

The Serpent’s Feast

The storm had exhausted itself, leaving the world raw and glistening. Mud clung to Hiroshi’s sandals like a beggar’s plea, and the air hummed with the metallic tang of rain-soaked earth. Kaito trudged beside him, his stomach growling loud enough to startle a crow from its pinewood perch.

“Patience,” Hiroshi said, though his own hunger gnawed at him. Ahead, a carriage lurched through the mire, its wheels spattering filth. “Carriages mean food. And trouble.”

The woman holding the reins was a vision—her kimono the color of midnight silk, lips stained cherry-red. But Hiroshi’s eyes lingered on her hands. Too smooth for a farmer’s wife. No calluses. No scars.

“Good morning!” Hiroshi called, bowing just deep enough to seem harmless. “We’re travellers seeking food. Any villages nearby?”

Hikari’s straw hat tilted, revealing eyes like fractured jade. “Strangers shouldn’t wander these roads.”

Hiroshi grinned. “Nor should a lady drive a carriage alone. Yet here we are.”

Kaito stiffened. His father’s charm was a blade, disarming, then cutting.

The guest house crouched at the forest’s edge, its walls sagging like a drunkard’s smile. Inside, dust motes pirouetted in sunbeams, and the air reeked of mildew and burnt ginger. Kaito’s nose wrinkled at the stench of neglect.

“Yoshiro!” Hikari barked, her voice sharp as a whip. A one-eyed man scrambled from the kitchen, clutching firewood.

“Apologies, Mistress! The oven—”

“Useless,” she hissed, though Hiroshi caught the flicker of calculation in her gaze. A rehearsed dance.

Yoshiro’s eye patch sat crooked, but his hands—scarred, nimble—betrayed him. The Butcher of Kiso Valley. Still alive.

The meal arrived: golden fish crisp as autumn leaves, rice steaming like mountain mist, pickled radishes glowing like stolen suns. Kaito’s chopsticks trembled.

“Eat slow,” Hiroshi murmured. “Poison’s bitter when rushed.”

Hiroshi dipped his chopsticks into the fish, lifted a morsel to his nose. Sesame oil. Ginger. And beneath it—the faint tang of tsubamegashi, the swallow’s death.

He crunched a raw onion, salt-drenched. “Try it, Kaito. Builds character.”

Kaito gagged but obeyed.

Hikari returned with sake, her steps deliberate. The bottle glinted, innocent as a dew drop.

“A toast,” she said, pouring. “To safe roads.”

Hiroshi let the liquor pool on his tongue. Tsubamegashi bloomed—sweet, then metallic. He swallowed, smiling.

“Your brew lacks subtlety, Hikari-chan. Let me show you.”

His sword flashed. The bottle split, spilling poisoned liquor.

Hikari’s tanto gleamed. “You always did talk too much, Hiroshi.”

Yoshiro lunged, cleaver raised. Kaito’s kunai found his eye—thunk.

“Good throw,” Hiroshi said, pride warming his chest.

The fight was ugly, desperate. Hikari fought like a cornered fox, her brother’s blood slicking the floor. When Hiroshi’s blade pierced her heart, her last breath was a laugh.

“You’ll drown in their shadows… Takahashi.”

They buried the siblings beneath a twisted pine, Hiroshi reciting old prayers.

“Why spare her?” Kaito asked.

“Mercy?” Hiroshi wiped his sword. “No. Answers.”

But Hikari’s corpse offered none. In her sleeve, they found a slip of rice paper: Tadami. Moon’s peak.

The horses fled at dusk, sensing their riders’ tension. Hiroshi watched Kaito grip his reins, knuckles white.

“You hesitated,” Hiroshi said. “With Yoshiro.”

Kaito stared ahead. “He looked… sad.”

“War is sadness. Remember that.”

As they rode, the Blue Soul hummed against Hiroshi’s back—a low, mournful song. Kaito glanced at it, uneasy.

“Does it… speak to you?”

Hiroshi’s jaw tightened. “It remembers. The gods. The blood. Her.”

Her. Aiko’s name hung unspoken, sharp as the blade’s edge.

The city loomed at midnight, walls black against starless sky. Hiroshi crouched in the tree line, the Blue Soul’s pulse syncing with his own.

“Why here?” Kaito whispered.

“Ghosts.” Hiroshi’s breath fogged. “My old sensei. A woman named Aya. If anyone knows who wants us dead…”

Kaito frowned. “You trust her?”

“Trust?” Hiroshi chuckled. “She’d sell her teeth for a copper. But she knows.”

Aya’s teahouse hid behind a faded curtain. Inside, an old woman nursed a pipe, her face a web of scars.

“Hiroshi-kun.” She exhaled smoke. “Still carrying that cursed toothpick?”

He unsheathed the Blue Soul. Its edge caught the light, sapphire veins pulsing.

Aya’s grin rotted. “Ah. They’ve heard its song.”