Chapter 2: The Iron Blossom
The transition from the wild mountain passes to the port of Akashi was marked by a heavy, stagnant pressure that settled in the back of Ryuu's throat. To the common eye, the city was a thriving hub of commerce; to Ryuu, it was a spiritual bottleneck where the natural flow of the world's energy was being choked by the weight of gold and iron.
He entered at dawn, a shadow in indigo. He didn't use the main gates; he walked along the narrow, moss-slicked sea wall where the spray of the tide acted as a natural veil.
High above, in a timbered watchtower, two of Lord Ozu's archers were fighting the morning chill. One of them, a man with a scarred nose, squinted through the mist.
"There," he whispered, reaching for a heavy-draw yew bow. "A vagrant on the sea wall. The Lord's orders were clear—no unauthorized entry while the Westerners are in port."
The archer notched an arrow, the iron tip glinting. He drew, held for a heartbeat, and released. The arrow hissed through the air, aimed perfectly at the stranger's shoulder.
But the stranger didn't duck. In a blur of movement that defied physics, the man flickered—a Flash-Step that left nothing but a fading afterimage. By the time the arrow buried itself in the mossy stone, the sea wall was empty.
"Where did he—" the archer gasped, spinning around.
He looked back toward the harbor, and his breath hitched. The stranger wasn't hiding in the shadows of the docks. He was hundreds of yards out, his sandals moving with a steady, rhythmic gait directly atop the churning black water of the bay.
"Joji... look," the archer stammered, dropping his bow. "He's... he's walking on the waves. He isn't even sinking."
The two men watched in a terrified silence. Every time the man's foot touched the surface, a small, circular ripple of pure, clear light pushed back the oil and the filth of the harbor. He walked as if the ocean were a temple floor, heading toward the private gardens of the Governor's estate.
The mist in the Governor's maze was not the thin, morning variety. It was thick, heavy with the scent of wet pine and the stagnant, metallic tang of the city's drainage. Ryuu moved through it without a sound, his indigo cloak appearing as nothing more than a shifting shadow against the manicured hedges.
To Ryuu, the world was a layered tapestry. He saw the stone walls of the estate, but he also saw the faint, golden threads of energy that pulsed through the mortar. He saw the guards on the battlements, but he also saw the grey, sluggish weight of their boredom clinging to their shoulders like wet wool. It wasn't "spirit-sight" to him; it was simply sight.
He rounded a corner and stopped.
A girl sat by a stone basin, her back to him. She was draped in stiff, ivory silks that seemed to swallow her small frame. Her dark hair was pulled into a severe, Western-style bun, but several thick coils had escaped, hanging defiantly against her amber neck.
She didn't turn when he approached. She didn't need to.
"The water here is dead," she said. Her voice had the resonance of a hollow log struck in the deep forest. "It hasn't seen the sun in a hundred years. They keep it in stone pipes and wonder why it turns to rot."
Ryuu stepped beside her. He looked into the basin. To a normal man, it was clear water. To Ryuu, it was a swirling vortex of muddy, suffocating brown.
"The mountain it came from is weeping," Ryuu replied.
The girl turned then. Her eyes were wide, the color of polished mahogany, and they didn't just look at his face—they traced the faint, hum of lightning that always simmered around his hands.
"You're a Skywalker," she whispered. It wasn't a question. "I haven't smelled a storm since they took me from the Great River."
"I am Ryuu."
"Zola," she said, standing up. The heavy silks rustled like dry leaves. "They call me a Princess so they can justify the cage. But I am just a key. The man in black... Saint Valerius... he looks at me and sees a door."
The Shadow on the Balcony
High above them, on the mahogany balcony of the dining hall, the glass doors slid open with a sharp clack.
Saint Valerius stepped out, followed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of armored boots. Valerius didn't look like a conqueror. He was slender, his black robes tailored with monastic precision. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, and for a moment, the moonlight caught the lenses, turning them into two soulless silver discs.
"The air is crisp tonight, Lord Ozu," Valerius said. His voice was a gentle, melodic baritone, the kind of voice that made mothers trust him with their children.
Ozu joined him, leaning over the railing. "The girl is in the garden. My son is eager for the ceremony. Once the bloodlines are joined, our trade monopoly is settled."
Valerius smiled. It was a kind, grandfatherly expression that never reached the cold, calculating depths of his pupils. He wasn't looking at Zola. He was looking at the air around her, watching the way the mist curdled and pulled toward the man in the indigo cloak.
"Indeed," Valerius murmured, his hand resting on a small, leather-bound book at his hip. "Everything must be in its proper place for the Great Restoration. We cannot have... weeds... in the garden of Roses"
He turned slightly to the man standing in the shadows behind him. A knight in blackened silver armor, his breastplate etched with a rose that seemed to glow with a faint, sickly internal heat.
"Sir Marrok," Valerius whispered. "The traveler in the garden is a rare specimen. Do not break him more than is necessary. I wish to study how his kind still breathes in this age of iron."
The Silver and the Steel
In the garden, the atmosphere shifted. The crickets went silent. The smell of sage was suddenly drowned out by the scent of ozone and burnt incense.
"Go," Ryuu said, his hand finally closing over the hilt of his sword. He didn't draw it, but the wood of the scabbard groaned under the pressure.
Zola didn't argue. She saw the way the shadows behind Ryuu were lengthening, taking on the jagged shapes of mountain peaks. She turned and vanished into the mist, moving with a grace that suggested she was stepping between the very molecules of the fog.
A weight hit the center of the garden.
The ground cracked. Sir Marrok had dropped from the balcony, forty feet of steel and bone landing without a stumble. He didn't draw a weapon. He simply exhaled, and the mist for ten feet around him vanished, incinerated by a sudden burst of white radiance.
"The Shepherd has noticed you, pagan," Marrok said. His voice was muffled by his visor, sounding like stones grinding together in a deep well.
He lunged.
Ryuu didn't see a man charging; he saw a pillar of artificial, blinding light. He Flash-Stepped to the left, but the Knight anticipated the move. Marrok swung a heavy gauntlet, and the air itself seemed to solidify into a wall.
Ryuu parried with his scabbard.
The impact was unlike anything he had felt. It wasn't just physical force; it was a cold, piercing energy that bypassed his muscles and bit directly into his spirit. He was sent flying back, his boots carving deep furrows in the gravel path.
He looked at his arm. A thin, perfectly straight cut had opened on his bicep. No steel had touched him, yet he was bleeding.
"You move like the wind," Marrok intoned, his hand reaching into the air. A blade of shimmering, white light materialized in his palm—a Relic of the Rose. "But the wind eventually dies. And the Rose is eternal."
Ryuu stood his ground, the blue lightning finally dancing openly along the length of his sheathed sword. "The Rose is a flower," Ryuu said, his voice dropping into the low, vibrating register of the Storm-God. "And flowers only grow because the earth allows it."