5/23/2025, 1:46 AM
cameo
ryujiro watched them from the shadowed incline above, the rain a constant whisper over his shoulders, washing the road’s blood from his withered coat. his eyes, narrowed beneath the scar-latticed brow, followed the movements of the thin woman and her companion—two figures sunk in exhaustion, still tethered by some unseen faith in one another. they moved like spirits now, ragged but not broken, and it stirred something old in the ronin’s chest, something he had long since buried beneath steel and shame. the girl was noble, or had once been; he recognized it not from jewels or posture but from the way she still held herself, the way she touched the fox with reverence even now. it was the gesture of someone who had once been cherished— and had learned to cherish in return. when she vanished into the crumbling barn and the fox collapsed against the doorway, ryujiro did not follow. not yet. he crouched instead beneath the sprawl of a bent pine, gaze fixed on the edge of their world, unmoving save for the rise and fall of his breath. he would wait. he always waited. when the girl returned from her forage, she would find nothing. but should she fall, if she failed to rise again, then and only then would the man with the broken blade come down from the ridge and carry her home. wherever home might be.