STEEL LOTUS

The Blood Price

The rat died between Kaito's fingers

He squeezed until the tiny spine snapped, then dropped the carcass into his sack. One of twelve. Enough for a day's meal if he found a merchant willing to trade. Three would go to rent his corner of the alley. The rest he'd eat raw

Survival had a taste. It tasted like blood and desperation.

Footsteps splashed through the puddles behind him. Kaito didn't turn. He knew the rhythm—heavy, uneven, the gait of a man who'd had too much rice wine and too little sleep. A harbor enforcer. One of Captain Daigo's dogs.

"Boy." The voice grated like stones grinding together. "You the one selling information about the Oda survivors?"

Kaito's hand moved to his belt. His fingers found the hilt of a rusted knife—not his father's blade, too dangerous to carry openly. Just a piece of scrap metal he'd sharpened against a stone.

"Don't know what you're talking about," he said, keeping his voice flat.

The enforcer laughed. "Liar. We've been watching you. You ask too many questions. You look at the wanted posters too long."

Kaito turned slowly. The man was massive—easily twice his weight, with arms like tree trunks and a scarred face that had seen too many brawls. His uniform bore the crimson crest of Captain Daigo's private army. His hand rested on a serrated blade.

"Let me walk," Kaito said. "I'll forget your face."

"You'll forget nothing." The enforcer drew his weapon. "Captain wants you alive. Something about your eyes. Says they remind him of someone."

The Sight of Ending activated without warning.

Kaito's vision fractured. He saw the enforcer's death—a blade through the throat, blood spraying across the wet stones, the man's eyes going wide with disbelief. The vision lasted only a heartbeat. Then reality snapped back.

He knew exactly how to kill this man.

The knowledge burned in his skull like a brand.

"Last warning," Kaito said, his voice barely a whisper.

The enforcer lunged.

Kaito moved. Not fast—he didn't have the strength for speed. But he moved exactly. His rusted knife found the gap between the enforcer's ribs, the same gap he'd seen in the vision. The blade sank deep. The enforcer choked, his own sword swinging wide, carving nothing but air.

Kaito twisted the knife. Pulled it free. Stepped back.

The man collapsed, gurgling, his blood mixing with the rainwater.

Kaito stood over him, breathing hard. His hands shook. They always shook after the Sight showed him something. The visions were never wrong. He'd learned that the hard way.

Three years ago, he'd seen his father's death in a flash of impossible clarity. He'd tried to stop it. He couldn't.

Now he carried the curse of knowing the end before it arrived.

A shadow moved in the alley's mouth.

Kaito spun, knife raised, ready to—

"Easy, boy." The voice was old, rasping, familiar. "It's just me."

Riku limped into the light. The old swordsman's face was a roadmap of old scars, his left leg dragging slightly behind him. He leaned on a wooden cane that was more weapon than support.

"You killed one of Daigo's men," Riku said, glancing at the body. "That complicates things."

"He was going to take me alive."

"I know." Riku's eyes were hard. "That's why he's dead. But now they know you're here. They'll send more."

Kaito wiped his knife on the dead man's uniform. "Let them come."

"Don't be stupid." Riku grabbed his shoulder, his grip surprisingly strong for an old man. "You want revenge? You want to rebuild the Oda name? You can't do that dead in a gutter."

Kaito looked at the body. At the blood spreading across the stones. At the crimson crest of the man who'd murdered his family's enemies.

"Then what do I do?"

Riku released him, glancing toward the harbor. A ship was docking—one of the imperial freighters, flying the Shogunate's golden sigil.

"The Academy," Riku said. "You infiltrate the Academy. You climb their ranks. You learn their secrets. And when you're strong enough, you burn their world down."

Kaito followed his gaze to the ship. To the symbol of everything he hated.

"One problem," he said. "I can't cultivate. My core is shattered. Everyone knows an Oda can't—"

"Your core isn't shattered." Riku's voice dropped to a whisper. "It's sealed. The generals who murdered your family didn't kill you, boy. They locked your power away so you'd never threaten them again."

Kaito's blood went cold. "How do you know?"

"Because I was there." Riku met his eyes, and for the first time, Kaito saw something other than bitterness in the old man's gaze. He saw guilt. "I served with your father at the Siege of the Eastern Pass. I carried you from the burning temple myself."

The world tilted.

"You're lying," Kaito breathed.

"I'm telling the truth." Riku reached into his tattered coat and withdrew a scroll—old, yellowed, sealed with the Oda Clan crest. "Your father gave me this the night he died. Told me to give it to you when you were ready."

Kaito took the scroll with trembling hands. He broke the seal. Inside, written in his father's sharp, unmistakable handwriting, was a single line:

"The Sword Emperor's Testament lives in your blood. Claim it, my son. Burn them all."

Rain began to fall harder. Thunder rolled across the harbor.

"Get to the Academy," Riku said, backing into the shadows. "I'll hold them off."

"No." Kaito reached for him. "Riku, wait—"

The old man smiled. It was the first time Kaito had ever seen him smile.

"Don't waste my sacrifice, boy." His hand found Kaito's shoulder one last time. "Make them pay."

Then he was gone—just a flicker of movement in the dark, heading toward the sounds of approaching boots.

Kaito's throat tightened. He wanted to run after him. To fight. To die with the only man who'd ever shown him kindness since the massacre

But his father's words burned in his hand.

"Claim it."

He turned. He ran.

Behind him, the shouts of Daigo's men erupted. Metal clashed. Riku's war cry echoed through the alley.

Kaito didn't look back.

He slipped through the shadows, clutching the scroll like a lifeline, the name of the Imperial Academy burning in his skull.

Ryu Kenzaki.

That would be his new name.

He'd carve it into the empire's heart.