# Chapter 10: The Weight of Emptiness

The red-eyed man across from me wasn't breathing right again.

What are you? I wondered for the dozen times, watching him hold his sword with technical perfection. What ancient being crawled into that body and decided to play human?

The crowd's whispers washed.

He tilted his head, a movement too smooth, and calculated. Those crimson eyes held amusement but no warmth.

The sun balanced on the horizon, painting everything the color of old blood. In moments, we'd begin our pointless display of sword.

Standing there, waiting.

---

Five Years Ago - The Minamoto Estate

The tea was always too hot.

My mother did it intentionally, I think. Watching me try not to flinch as the ceramic burned my fingers, maintaining perfect posture while my throat screamed from the scalding liquid. Small cruelties disguised as tradition.

"Your form is improving," she said, which meant it was still unacceptable but she was tired of correcting me.

I knelt on the tatami, legs long since numb, practicing the same ceremony I'd performed every day since I turned thirteen. Pour, serve, sip, suffer. The rhythm of a noble daughter's life.

"Lord Hashimoto will visit tomorrow," Mother continued, arranging flowers with precision. Each stem bent to her will, beauty through submission. "You'll wear the blue kimono I picked. It brings out the color of your eyes."

"Yes, Mother."

"And you'll smile."

"Yes, Mother."

"Seventeen is already late for engagement. We've been... generous with your time."

Generous. Like my life was a gift they could reclaim.

Through the paper screens, I could hear the real world—guards training, horses stamping, life happening without me. I existed in this beautiful cage, fed poetry and politics while my body ached to move.

"May I walk in the garden after?" I asked.

"With your escort."

"Of course."

Always with an escort. Always watched. Always perfect.

That night, I snuck out to meet Yamada-sensei in the abandoned tea house. He was one of Father's older guards, scarred and practical, who'd taken pity on the girl who watched sword practice with desperate eyes.

"You're late," he said, not looking up from maintaining his blade.

"Mother's lectures ran long."

"They always do." He gestured to the practice swords. "Twenty repetitions of the third kata, then we talk."

I moved through the forms, feeling my body wake up for the first time all day. This was real—the weight of wood, the burn of muscles, the possibility of becoming something more than decorative.

"Better," he said after. "Your transitions are smoother."

"I practice in my room."

"With what?"

"A fan. It has similar weight distribution if you hold it right."

He actually smiled. "Clever. But cleverness won't help tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Lord Hashimoto. He's shopping for a third wife."

My blood went cold. "Third?"

"The first two died in childbirth. He needs sons."

"And I'm... merchandise."

"You're valuable merchandise. Young, healthy, good bloodline." He paused, choosing words carefully. "He's forty-three."

Twenty-six years older than me. I'd seen him once at court—thick fingers, wet lips, eyes that stripped servants naked.

"I won't."

"You will. Or your family loses standing, your sisters lose marriage prospects, your brothers lose inheritance." Yamada's voice was gentle but honest. "This is the world."

"Then the world is wrong."

"Yes. But being right doesn't change it."

I practiced until my hands bled that night, trying to beat the truth into submission. It didn't work. Truth, like Mother's tea, burned regardless of what you wanted.

---

## The Next Day

Lord Hashimoto examined me like livestock.

"Turn," he commanded.

I turned.

"Healthy hips," he told Father. "Good for breeding."

Father nodded, discussing my body like I wasn't in it. "The Minamoto line has never failed to produce sons."

"The dowry?"

"Negotiable."

They haggled over my worth while I stood there, blue kimono perfect, smile painted on, dying inside with exquisite posture.

Later, excused while the men concluded business, I pressed against the screen to listen.

"She's spirited," Hashimoto was saying. "I noticed her hands. Callused."

"She helps in the garden," Father lied smoothly. "Very dedicated to cultivation."

"Hmm. Spirit can be broken. Sometimes it's more fun that way."

They laughed. Both of them laughed at the idea of breaking me for entertainment.

That night, Mother found me practicing with the fan again.

"Stop that."

"No."

She slapped me. Not hard—that would leave marks—but sharp enough to sting.

"You will be a wife. A mother. That is your purpose."

"That's your purpose. You chose it."

"I chose nothing. I survived it. As will you."

"By dying inside?"

"By enduring. Women endure, Yukiko. It's our strength."

"That's not strength. That's just delayed suicide."

She slapped me again, harder. "You will marry Lord Hashimoto. You will bear his children. You will bring honor to this family."

"I'll die first."

"Then die quietly and conveniently, after providing heirs."

She left me there, face stinging, fan clenched in my hand. Through the window, I could see the moon, free and distant and absolutely unreachable.

Unless, I thought, I stop being who they need me to be.

---

## Two Weeks Later - The Journey

The wedding carriage rolled through mountain passes, taking me to my new cage. Six guards, two servants, and me in layers of silk that cost more than villages.

Yamada was among the guards—Father's last kindness, sending a familiar face to hand me over to my husband. He rode close to the carriage, occasionally catching my eye through the window. We'd planned this for days, every detail.

"Bandits!" someone screamed.

Right on schedule.

The attack was choreographed chaos. Yamada's friend, a ronin named Tetsu, led a group of desperate men against our escort. Real violence to sell the illusion.

I kicked open the carriage door, already changed into servant's clothes hidden beneath my wedding kimono. The noble daughter stayed in the carriage. Someone else ran into the forest.

"Lady Yukiko is dead!" Yamada would report. "Thrown from the cliff during the attack."

They'd search for a body they'd never find. Eventually, they'd give up. Honor required a funeral whether there was a corpse or not.

What I hadn't expected was Ishida recognizing me. One of Father's younger guards, sharp-eyed and ambitious.

"Lady Yuki—"

My sword found his throat before he could finish. My first kill. His blood sprayed across my stolen clothes, warm and real and absolutely irreversible.

He looked at me as he died, confused. This wasn't in the script. Noble daughters didn't kill. They endured.

"I'm sorry," I told him, meaning it. "But I'm not her anymore."

Yamada found me after, still standing over the body.

"You did what was necessary."

"I murdered him."

"He would have dragged you back. Back to that marriage, that life, that slow death."

"So I gave him a fast one instead."

"Yes. That's the choice sometimes. Kill or be killed, even when the death is slow."

"Am I a monster?"

"You're free. Same thing, different name."

---

## Years of Erosion

Freedom, I learned, was another kind of death.

No name. No home. No purpose except continuing to not have purpose. I wandered between provinces, selling my sword to anyone who'd hire a woman. There weren't many.

"You're skilled," they'd say, "but..."

But I was wrong-shaped for killing. Wrong-voiced for command. Wrong-everything for the world I'd escaped into.

So I stopped trying to fit. I let the noble daughter rot away completely, taking with her every dream, every hope, every stupid belief that life had meaning beyond momentum.

I killed when paid to. Ate when I could. Slept where it was dry. Existed without being.

Men tried to assault me. I killed them.

Women pitied me. I ignored them.

Children feared me. Smart children.

Three years in, I stopped remembering my sisters' names.

Four years in, I stopped missing them.

Five years in, I met a red-eyed man who moved like nothing I'd ever seen, and for the first time since I'd murdered Ishida, I felt curiosity.

---

## Present - The Platform

The memory faded as Tsurugi shifted his stance. Back to now, back to this meaningless tournament where we'd dance for strangers' entertainment.

But watching him, I understood something. I'd become empty by having everything taken away, piece by piece, until nothing remained. But him?

He was never full to begin with.

Those techniques he'd used—I'd recognized some from scrolls that were ancient when my grandmother was young. He moved through centuries of combat knowledge like someone who'd been there, watching, learning, never participating until now.

"Ready?" he asked, and his voice was wrong too. Not the words but the way they emerged, like someone pulling strings to make meat produce sound.

"Are you?" I countered.

He tilted his head again, that too-smooth movement. "I'm never ready. I'm just present."

Human language. Perfect grammar. No understanding.

What are you? I wondered one last time.

"Good enough," I said aloud.

The judge raised his hand. The crowd held its breath. Two empty things faced each other across sand that would soon taste blood, though whose hardly mattered.

I raised my sword, muscle memory taking over where consciousness failed. He mirrored me, perfect form without feeling.

Let's see what you really are, I thought.

His red eyes met mine, and something looked back that had never been born, never been young, never been anything but watching. Something that wore that body like I wore emptiness—badly, obviously, but with no better options.

The judge's hand fell.

We moved.

And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I was about to fight something that had learned to be human the way I'd learned to be nothing—through observation, imitation, and the complete absence of any other choice.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.