Into Mist, Into Shadow

My thoughts race. I've little time. I am hunted even as I hunt.
 
We made it from the Sidean Coast easily enough. Cannonfire harried our exit, but Nobler--a capable oarsman, as it turns out--and I were able to navigate a way through, and we made our way to open waters.
 
Stormy waters, as it would turn out. Orlando, his time spent so long on the sea, detected the hand of Zephyros even before a cloud was in the sky. We made our way towards land--few things are more perilous than being in a small boat tossed about by wind and waves.
 
Yokozu was our refuge, a small town in a bay crested by a pirate's nest. But we didn't know about the pirates yet. Mooring our longboat, Orlando finagled some sake from the dockmaster--nothing like the Dragon's Dream from home, nor even Mirrormoon, but a pleasant enough echo. My companions found accommodations, while I sought the shrine of this place's guardian.
 
It was a well-kept place, a shrine maiden watching over my prayers as I held my vigil.
 
She was familiar with my faith, knew it to be one frequented by Draconians. And the Draconians she knew...
 
My first trial as a Blade of House Senhotep, my first mission for my country, was to track down the Bearded Dragons, a pirate crew comprised primarily of traitors and mutineers from the Draconian Imperial Navy, and make an example of their leader. Dragonborn slaying dragonborn, we mused, would demonstrate internal strife and bitter weakness, but to make an example of one to quell the rest? An ample demonstration of our will.
 
The captain, Ha-Jun Ka, was a foul copperhead full of hatred and spite, but that made him overestimate himself--and I only had everything to prove. Chasing the pirates for days with a small team--Amiri was with me that day, my friend's pride was priceless--we incapacitated their crew while I challenged Ha-Jun Ka. A stray shot from the crew attempted to find my head, but Amiri killed the man and sent the bullet astray. To this day, I still keep the scar on my aural fringe, modified though it has been. It reminds me forever of my scorn for the implements.
 
Ka would have been humiliated to refuse the challenge of a hot-blooded youngster such as myself, and his crew shamed even among their breed of scoundrels. So he accepted my challenge, cutlass in hand, and I killed him in the resulting duel.
 
The first of my own people I have killed. It was an elegant feat, one which garnered me much praise in the following weeks. One which also gained me an enemy, it would appear.
 
Gaku was the quartermaster of the Bearded Dragons, a poisonous figure with an exotic array of weapons. A cruel and capricious vermin with a love for visiting his captain's punishments upon the crew. When we initially took the Bearded Dragons' ship, Gaku was responsible for the death of one of our people, another wasting away at the hand of his poisons.
 
This is the dragonborn whom the shrine keeper knew. And apparently, he had made a home with his crew in the rocky outcroppings near Yokozu. She informed me that, aside from a weekly tithe the rats demanded of the townsfolk, Gaku was here for other reasons, reasons much more malign than simple coin.
 
I thanked her and left, leaving a sketch for the shrine. She spoke to me as I went:
 
"You do not have the hands of an artist. You have the hands of a warrior."
 
It seemed an odd jab at my art. As this journal keeps, I've tried my hand at poetry. I've tried my hand at music, as well. Nothing feels so natural as the smooth scratches of graphite on parchment--save perhaps the lightness of a sword in my hand. I wonder if she knew that. As a Blade of House Senhotep--as a servant of Draconia--I have embraced a life of asceticism, of simplicity. I was raised with a sword in my hand, and pursued art, culture, politic and humility in an attempt to temper that blade. One who kills without code sows disharmony in the world.
 
The first tenet of Katsuhito's Sun Arts is as follows:
ONE. My Blade is the blade of my People. It is drawn by Duty, guided by Righteousness, and tempered by Conscience.
 
The first tenet of Morikage's Moon Arts is this:
ONE. My Blade is the blade of my Country. It is drawn by Necessity, and kills by Necessity.
 
I have lived my life tempering my blade with a fondness for the arts, for companionship, for society. I am dedicated fully to my faith. I trust the will of the Great Spirits.
 
And yet I do not know what they wish of me. I wish sometimes to wield a pen, and yet I am a Blade. I was raised to fight with duty, defend the righteous with word and deed, follow a conscience which speaks of honor and mercy. And yet I kill by necessity. It is not lost on me that I wielded my rash'tam, my Moon Blade, when I killed the second of my own countrymen.
 
It was not long after a returned to the inn that a mist swept over town, a gloomy miasma. This was no storm.
 
There was a knock upon the door. I opened it, and I was seized by a demon from my past.
 
Gaku is a burly scalefolk, and I wiry for our kind--but as soon as he dared lift me into the air, I unleashed our heritage as a scourge upon him, adding to his scars. Scars which should have reminded him always to cower. He was upon me again in another instant, two of his companions slavering like dogs outside. He wields his unorthodox weapon with skill.
 
But I had a song in my heart and lightning in my spirit. Even as his chains cinched my throat, my rash'tam found his gut. My companions opened fire even as I growled for them to leave him to me. Either they care too much for my safety, care nothing for honor, or they, too, were too fixed upon the kill. Orlando's song filled me with the strength of a hundred dragonborn. I would right this wrong.
 
A green dragonborn, Gaku belched poison upon me, which my o-sode absorbed the brunt of. Would that I could better maintain it--it has seen me through much. And I felt this poison course through me, fire in my veins, fever in my head, and with this I rose.
 
Using his own bind against him, I used a River Spirit Reversal to flip Gaku upon the ground and finish him, taking his other eye. Nobler sustained another devastating shot before he and Orlando leapt upon one crewmate and killed him. That fierce warrior really must keep himself away from the receiving end of firearms. The other crony's pathetic shot went wide, shaking in fear as he was, and I killed him with a Rising Sun cut. It was as if he'd never faced a true swordsman before.
 
It was uncanny seeing the floor of this rickety inn painted in Gaku's blood, knowing I had made it so. But I had set the past to rest. One loose end bound shut... until I saw what the worm held with him.
 
A gimmick weapon, a coward's implement--no use to me. I almost broke it over my knee, before remembering my companions required implements with which to defend themselves. Orlando had no qualms wielding a traitor's weapon. A strength of his, perhaps.
 
I also found a note upon Gaku, another phantom from years past. A four-pointed symbol at the bottom of a warrant ordering our deaths--ours specifically. It looked like the talon of a bird, scratched dark upon the paper.
 
I had seen writing with a similar marking after my first assignment, taking it immediately to my sister upon my return. Hikari augments her tremendous skill and social aptitude with a practical knowledge borne of much experience. When I gave it to her, she told me it was nothing, and I never saw it again.
 
"Nothing" does not demand the blood of four travelers. Perhaps my sister sought to protect me--even more ominous, perhaps she did not know herself what this symbol heralded. But that it should appear again before me...
 
There was no time to waste. Now was the perfect time to strike at the heart of these pirates, with the poisonous head of the snake severed from its writhing body. I left my lamellar armor in our room, favoring the subtle capabilities of my shozoku. Nobler came with me, into the night, after I tended our wounds--he is remarkably resilient.
 
The fog remained, drums echoing in the gloom. I heard wolves howl, saw their stalking bodies in the dark. The murk shifts and stirs. I melt into the shadows. Nobler is gone, the beasts too cunning for him. Too late. Too late. I must press forward. The moon is my friend. I am beset on all sides. My blade glows in the dark. The water is gone. The waves are silent. The fog remains. The beasts are close. Answers whisper to me across the bay. The pirates are near. Always more damn pirates. Always more damn dogs. Now they are near again. I smell their rancid breath. I see the flashing of their fangs. I hear them howling at the moon--the Moon.
 
I am a Blade. I am drawn by Necessity. I kill by Necessity.
 
Great Spirits protect me.