They said the mountain breathed cold winter air into the land. That the wind moved through its ridges like a living thing that sweeps across the stone paths carved by ancient feet and rattling chimes that hung beneath the eaves of the old Raiden temple. Clouds rolled low against the peaks which veiled the sky so completely that only the faintest pale light bled through. It was like the ghost of the moon hiding somewhere beyond that gray veil.
It was here, far above the world she once knew, that Michiru began the quiet work of becoming herself. The hermit who took her in called himself Ryuu Satoru and was a swordsman of the Ryuu clan who had once lived within the stronghold’s walls. He had been surrounded by farmlands, politics, and the strict rule of the village below. It was age that had carved stillness into him. His hair had grown silver and long, tied loosely at his back, and the scars across his hands spoke of battles that no longer required retelling. He carried no bitterness of his exile as he had walked into the mountains decades earlier and never returned.
Those who remember him spoke of a swordsman who grew tired, as if the purpose had simply left his soul. The mountain belonged to silence and Satoru had chosen that silence. That was until Michiru arrived at his door; cold, exhausted, and hollow from the life she had left behind... He did not ask her why she had come or even what roads she had walked prior. He only asked one question,
“What do you wish to be called?”
In answering that question Michiru took the first step toward becoming whole. He nodded, as though the choice required no proof.
Satoru’s home did not resemble a warrior’s refuge. There were scrolls resting in careful piles beside small wooden altars. Faded talismans hung along the walls, and hand-brushed ink strokes marking prayers no longer spoken in public shrines. A crackling hearth burned slow and steady through the cold, along with the smell of old cedar drifting through every beam. To Michiru, it felt like stepping into a memory of faith. Not the rigid doctrine of the Moon Country Shrine, but something older, quieter. A thing closer to breath than to law. And above it all, the Raiden temple stood just beyond the ridge like a solemn silhouette carved against the sky. The monks there spoke of how the storm god did not belong to thunder alone, and that the will to endure was also of his domain. It was this reason Michiru had come all this way, as if it was a thing she had always known even without it being spoken.
Training from the old man began not with a sword, but with walking. Down the stone path, across the frozen grass, and up the slope again before dawn. Satoru watched in silence and corrected nothing at first. The Ryuu clan had raised countless swordsmen, but he had come to believe that most learned to swing before they ever learned to stand. So he allowed Michiru to move the way her body already knew. Neither forcing masculine hardness into her steps or a soft gentleness. She simply learned to feel weight and to recognize where her posture fractured beneath memory of her old life. Every step became an act of unlearning and of peeling away the years spent shrinking herself to survive. It was only when Satoru saw steadiness return to her form that he placed a wooden blade in her hands.
The first lessons were deceptively simple. Things like how to raise the blade, lower the blade, and how to breath. They went over it again... and again... and again...
It was a thing to be done not with power, but rather an awareness of self. Where others had shouted commands, Satoru acted like the mountain itself. He was patient, grounded, and yet unyielding without aggression. His strictness lived not in violence, but in expectation. He did not praise effort nor soothe failure. Instead, in true Socratic fashion, he waited for Michiru to recognize the difference between pushing herself and finding the balance within herself. There were many moments when doubt pressed against her chest and the old voices whispered that she only belonged in the shape the world intended of her. Yet here, amidst the wind and temple bells, those shadows began to loosen their hold.
Satoru never asked about the softness in her movements and never questioned why grace came before strength for her. Unlike previous teachers, he saw no contradiction in it. He recognized her true potential as a sword that refused to break despite being hammered into the wrong mold all her life. Even the nights in the mountains carried a different silence than the shrines of her childhood. Instead of candle smoke and ceremonial echo, she heard the distant sounds of the world. The valleys yawning far below, rock settling with ancient patience, and wind tracing its way across cliff faces. The moon, when it pierced the clouds, painted the world in a pale blue that was the most serene color she had ever seen. Here, Michiru would stand alone on the ridge, breath steadying as the air cooled her lungs. She remembered the prayers she once whispered in secret to the quiet presence beneath the sky. She had once believed in the Moon because she needed something that saw her and knew who she truly was. Now, the mountain could see her too as it basked in the glow of the Moon. It was balance and Michiru finally began to understand what that meant.
The Ryuu had long lived beside spirits, curses, and forces too vast to fold neatly into language. As such, Satoru stopped trying to name them and simply spoke of them in the strictness the world required. To be balanced is to remain disciplined and grounded while the world shifts quietly beneath you. This is how he trained her body while her soul learned to breathe again. Even the day she failed a form for the first time, he did not scold her. He had taught countless warriors who shattered themselves in pursuit of perfection and who believed the blade must always strike true or lose its worth.
He had learned from that mistake and recognized that Michiru’s stumble did not come from weakness of will. It came from instability by the return of previous teachings. It was in how her hands tightened on the hilt, shoulders trembled, and the old conflict returned. She expected punishment and yet only heard silence. So, he allowed silence to hold the lessons that she was too fragile to hear yet. This path allowed her to fall apart without breaking, and then to rebuild herself anew. It was the first time in her life that failure did not erase something, but rather built upon it instead. When she lifted the blade again… her stance mirrored truth.
Winter was still present and would not yet soften into a thaw. So, her training would continue through the prayer chimes that sit a great distance above them for another month. She allowed the breath of the spirits to flow through her as her eyes constantly watched for change in the horizon, as if the temple of Raiden would one day call her to worship. It did not, rather the chimes served as a reminder to continue forward.
In doing so, she began to understand a deeper truth about the world. A thing she spoke to herself one morning and the words stuck.
"The greatest sword is not forged in the most brutal flame, but rather, it is one which endures a raging storm without losing its edge."
[Marked for Training, WC: 1293]
It was here, far above the world she once knew, that Michiru began the quiet work of becoming herself. The hermit who took her in called himself Ryuu Satoru and was a swordsman of the Ryuu clan who had once lived within the stronghold’s walls. He had been surrounded by farmlands, politics, and the strict rule of the village below. It was age that had carved stillness into him. His hair had grown silver and long, tied loosely at his back, and the scars across his hands spoke of battles that no longer required retelling. He carried no bitterness of his exile as he had walked into the mountains decades earlier and never returned.
Those who remember him spoke of a swordsman who grew tired, as if the purpose had simply left his soul. The mountain belonged to silence and Satoru had chosen that silence. That was until Michiru arrived at his door; cold, exhausted, and hollow from the life she had left behind... He did not ask her why she had come or even what roads she had walked prior. He only asked one question,
“What do you wish to be called?”
In answering that question Michiru took the first step toward becoming whole. He nodded, as though the choice required no proof.
Satoru’s home did not resemble a warrior’s refuge. There were scrolls resting in careful piles beside small wooden altars. Faded talismans hung along the walls, and hand-brushed ink strokes marking prayers no longer spoken in public shrines. A crackling hearth burned slow and steady through the cold, along with the smell of old cedar drifting through every beam. To Michiru, it felt like stepping into a memory of faith. Not the rigid doctrine of the Moon Country Shrine, but something older, quieter. A thing closer to breath than to law. And above it all, the Raiden temple stood just beyond the ridge like a solemn silhouette carved against the sky. The monks there spoke of how the storm god did not belong to thunder alone, and that the will to endure was also of his domain. It was this reason Michiru had come all this way, as if it was a thing she had always known even without it being spoken.
Training from the old man began not with a sword, but with walking. Down the stone path, across the frozen grass, and up the slope again before dawn. Satoru watched in silence and corrected nothing at first. The Ryuu clan had raised countless swordsmen, but he had come to believe that most learned to swing before they ever learned to stand. So he allowed Michiru to move the way her body already knew. Neither forcing masculine hardness into her steps or a soft gentleness. She simply learned to feel weight and to recognize where her posture fractured beneath memory of her old life. Every step became an act of unlearning and of peeling away the years spent shrinking herself to survive. It was only when Satoru saw steadiness return to her form that he placed a wooden blade in her hands.
The first lessons were deceptively simple. Things like how to raise the blade, lower the blade, and how to breath. They went over it again... and again... and again...
It was a thing to be done not with power, but rather an awareness of self. Where others had shouted commands, Satoru acted like the mountain itself. He was patient, grounded, and yet unyielding without aggression. His strictness lived not in violence, but in expectation. He did not praise effort nor soothe failure. Instead, in true Socratic fashion, he waited for Michiru to recognize the difference between pushing herself and finding the balance within herself. There were many moments when doubt pressed against her chest and the old voices whispered that she only belonged in the shape the world intended of her. Yet here, amidst the wind and temple bells, those shadows began to loosen their hold.
Satoru never asked about the softness in her movements and never questioned why grace came before strength for her. Unlike previous teachers, he saw no contradiction in it. He recognized her true potential as a sword that refused to break despite being hammered into the wrong mold all her life. Even the nights in the mountains carried a different silence than the shrines of her childhood. Instead of candle smoke and ceremonial echo, she heard the distant sounds of the world. The valleys yawning far below, rock settling with ancient patience, and wind tracing its way across cliff faces. The moon, when it pierced the clouds, painted the world in a pale blue that was the most serene color she had ever seen. Here, Michiru would stand alone on the ridge, breath steadying as the air cooled her lungs. She remembered the prayers she once whispered in secret to the quiet presence beneath the sky. She had once believed in the Moon because she needed something that saw her and knew who she truly was. Now, the mountain could see her too as it basked in the glow of the Moon. It was balance and Michiru finally began to understand what that meant.
The Ryuu had long lived beside spirits, curses, and forces too vast to fold neatly into language. As such, Satoru stopped trying to name them and simply spoke of them in the strictness the world required. To be balanced is to remain disciplined and grounded while the world shifts quietly beneath you. This is how he trained her body while her soul learned to breathe again. Even the day she failed a form for the first time, he did not scold her. He had taught countless warriors who shattered themselves in pursuit of perfection and who believed the blade must always strike true or lose its worth.
He had learned from that mistake and recognized that Michiru’s stumble did not come from weakness of will. It came from instability by the return of previous teachings. It was in how her hands tightened on the hilt, shoulders trembled, and the old conflict returned. She expected punishment and yet only heard silence. So, he allowed silence to hold the lessons that she was too fragile to hear yet. This path allowed her to fall apart without breaking, and then to rebuild herself anew. It was the first time in her life that failure did not erase something, but rather built upon it instead. When she lifted the blade again… her stance mirrored truth.
Winter was still present and would not yet soften into a thaw. So, her training would continue through the prayer chimes that sit a great distance above them for another month. She allowed the breath of the spirits to flow through her as her eyes constantly watched for change in the horizon, as if the temple of Raiden would one day call her to worship. It did not, rather the chimes served as a reminder to continue forward.
In doing so, she began to understand a deeper truth about the world. A thing she spoke to herself one morning and the words stuck.
"The greatest sword is not forged in the most brutal flame, but rather, it is one which endures a raging storm without losing its edge."
[Marked for Training, WC: 1293]