Page 217 of Celestial Combat

“Yakuza,” the master’s voice was soft but firm in Japanese, the single word echoing like a gust of wind through the rafters. “You ask to be forged in the path of the sword. Do you understand what you carry in your blood?”

Zane’s jaw tightened. I watched as he steadied his breath. “I am no thief.”

The master paused. “You ask to be forged in the path of the sword. Do you understand what you carry in your blood?”

I felt each word rest on the steamed wood beneath our feet.

Zane inhaled deeply, stepping forward. “I carry my past – and a mission of vengeance. I have walked darkness and survived, but only at the edge of steel and self. I seek balance. I wish to prove myself through the sword, not fear.”

Themaster was silent for a long time. Then his head turned, directly to where I was.

My eyes darted to Zane who gave me a small encouraging nod.

“Kali,” I bowed. “I am not with the Yakuza,” I said, voice soft but strong. “I am here to support Zane on his journey.”

He nodded at me, though his eyes seemed fixed somewhere else. “Your spirit is clear.”

He paused, hand hovering near the kamidana on the wall. “The sword does not choose worth. Only truth.”

Zane breathed out. “Thank you, Master. I promise I will train with honesty.”

The master nodded again. “Very well. We may begin.”

Throughout the day, the blind master helped Zane clear his mind through meditation, breathing and mental exercises.

Outside the dojo, a walled garden opened wide to a frozen landscape brushed in stillness. Snow dusted the stone walkways and curled at the corners of ancient wooden fencing. The air was crisp and clean, each breath visible and fleeting. Bare-limbed plum trees reached skyward like open hands, and in their midst, the women waited.

The women samurais were already barefoot in the frost. Their movements were slow and exact, like poetry in a language I didn’t speak but still felt deep in my bones. They moved as one: sharp, elegant, lethal. There was something ancient in the way they flowed – like they’d come from the earth itself, born in silence and steel.

I stepped onto the frozen tatami mat laid out in the courtyard, its surface just rough enough to burn, and spent the day training with the best warriors I’d come across.

The first hit was tough. A flick against my shoulder. I tried to match their speed, their center of gravity, but one was already behind me, sweeping low with a leg, silent as snowfall. I hit the mat with a thud that made the birds in the trees scatter.

But I got up. Again. And again.

My hands were numb, skin burning raw, breath rising in clouds. But for every blow, every graceful toss that left me gasping, I learned something. About rhythm. Control. Quiet power.

We moved across the clearing like shadows chasing sun. The other women watched, impassive, their faces carved fromstone and winter. But when I landed a solid counter – just one – they nodded. Only slightly. But I felt it like fire in my chest.

I understood why Zane had come here.

There was a clarity in this discipline. It asked for everything you carried but hadn’t yet shed.

When it was over, Zane and I bowed to the master and his students, thanking them for the help.

“The man whose debt you seek, might have buried his soul. But not the truth.” The master touched Zane’s chest, over his heart. “Let the truth be your compass, not your burden, Minato-san.”

Zane bowed his head. “Thank you, master.”

I realized Zane had not sought speed or strength.

But clarity.

And in that ancient hall, beneath the gaze of scrolls and sacred groves, he had found it.

Thelate afternoon sun draped Kanazawa in molten gold as Zane and I walked side by side through the narrow streets, our footsteps soft against the weathered stone. Lanterns hung overhead, swaying gently in the breeze, their paper sides painted with rust and moss. Windows framed scenes of everyday grace: elderly locals drinking tea, koi darting in narrow canals, steam drifting off simmering pots in open-air kitchens.

Ahead, a vermilion Torii gate appeared – bright and bold, its paint fresh against centuries-old wood. It stood at the entrance to a quiet shrine, offering a threshold between the ordinary and the sacred.

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