In the lobby of the inn, silence fell so abruptly it seed to stun the air itself.
A mont earlier, voices had still lingered in the room, low and uneasy, the way they always did when n like Nobusuke and his followers entered a place that did not belong to them yet behaved as though it did. But now no one spoke. No one even dared breathe too loudly. All eyes were fixed on Nathan.
One of Nobusuke’s n had already been thrown aside as if he weighed nothing at all, and the second stood frozen a few steps behind Nathan, his hand trembling around the hilt of his katana. Nobusuke himself remained where he was, narrowed eyes locked on Nathan with a look that could not quite decide between irritation and curiosity.
The won in the room had every reason to be horrified. In Minato, no one touched the n who served Morosuke. They swaggered through the streets like stray dogs that had learned they would never be beaten back. They extorted, threatened, dragged what they wanted from people too frightened to resist, and they did it beneath Morosuke’s shadow. His na alone was enough to make shopkeepers lower their heads and families bolt their doors.
And now his younger brother was standing right there.
More than one person in the room wondered whether Nathan had lost all desire to live.
Yet he did not look reckless. He did not look angry in the wild, unstable way desperate n often did before making a fatal mistake. If anything, Nathan seed almost unnervingly calm. There was no panic in him, no hesitation, no heat. Only a stillness that felt colder than rage.
He ant every step he took.
"You are dead!" the remaining man barked, though the threat ca out thinner than he had intended. He swallowed hard, raised his katana, and pointed it toward Nathan with a hand that betrayed him.
Nathan turned his gaze on him.
That was all it took for the man’s bravado to crack.
Nathan’s hand moved to the weapon at his side and drew Kyoi only enough to free it from the rest of its weight, leaving it sheathed. The gesture was quiet, almost lazy, but the instant the man saw it, sothing took hold of him. Fear surged up his spine. Instinct scread at him to strike first, to do anything before that calm man in front of him decided to move.
He lunged with a sharp cry, bringing the katana down in a killing arc.
Nathan barely raised Kyoi.
Steel t lacquered scabbard with a hard, dry sound. The blow should have bitten through, or at least left a mark, but the blade slid uselessly across the sheath without so much as scratching it. The force of the strike died there as if it had hit stone.
For one brief second, the man stared in disbelief.
Nathan looked back at him with the sa unreadable expression, then reached out.
His hand shot forward so quickly that most of the room never saw the motion, only the result. One mont the man was on his feet, the next Nathan had him by the throat, lifting him clean off the ground. His sandals kicked uselessly in the air. His katana slipped from his fingers. Both hands clawed at Nathan’s wrist, his face flushing dark with shock and suffocation.
Nathan tilted his head up slightly, eting the man’s bulging eyes.
Then, with a single brutal twist, he snapped his neck.
The crack echoed through the lobby.
It was a small sound, really, but in the silence it landed like a branch splitting in winter. Several won recoiled at once. One covered her mouth. Another stumbled backward until her hip struck a pillar. No one scread. The fear was too complete for that.
Nathan let the corpse drop.
The body hit the wooden floor with a heavy thud, and a heartbeat later the fallen katana clattered beside it, skidding to a stop near the entrance.
Only then did Nathan turn to Nobusuke.
For the first ti, Nobusuke’s expression shifted. Not to fear, not fully, but to sothing sharper. Appraisal. He looked down at his dead n, then back at Nathan, and a crooked smile slowly pulled at his mouth.
"Not bad," he said. "You’re strong. Those two were useless anyway." His eyes glead with the easy arrogance of a man who had lived too long without consequences. "How about working for ? I’ll pay you whatever you want."
Nathan started walking toward him.
His steps were unhurried. That, more than anything, made the room feel smaller.
When he was close enough, he stopped and asked, "You’re Morosuke’s brother?"
Nobusuke smirked, mistaking the question for caution. "I am. Which is why—"
He never finished.
Nathan’s fist drove into his stomach with a force so sudden and direct that the sound of impact burst through the lobby like a drumbeat.
Nobusuke’s body folded around the blow. His eyes bulged. The air fled his lungs in a strangled cough, and for an instant he simply stood there, too stunned to understand what had happened. He had not even seen Nathan’s arm move. One blink, and the man had crossed the distance between them.
His fingers closed weakly around Nathan’s sleeve as if he might steady himself.
Around them, the room seed to tilt into disbelief.
Nathan had struck Morosuke’s younger brother.
Not shoved him. Not threatened him. Not warned him.
Hit him.
Nathan lowered his eyes to Nobusuke with the detached contempt one might give sothing foul in the gutter.
"You ca to at the right ti," he said.
Then he seized Nobusuke by the front of his kimono and tore it open with a savage jerk. Cloth ripped apart in his hands. Layers split and fell away, leaving Nobusuke half naked, stripped down to the loincloth around his waist. Humiliation flashed across his face, hot and imdiate, nearly overtaking the pain.
"You— you bastard— sto—"
Nathan buried another punch in his gut.
Nobusuke cried out, the sound breaking apart into a helpless gasp as the blow hurled him backward through the entrance. He crashed out of the inn and rolled across the dirt outside, limbs twisting, skin sared with mud and dust.
The street erupted at once.
Passersby halted mid-step. Heads snapped around. A woman carrying a basket nearly dropped it. Two laborers coming from the market stopped so abruptly they nearly collided.
"What happened?"
"Look— soone got thrown out!"
The man on the ground groaned and tried to push himself up, but another voice rang out, incredulous and loud.
"It’s Nobusuke!"
"No, it isn’t."
"It is! I’m telling you, that’s him!"
"Who in their right mind would do that to Nobusuke?"
The answer ca before anyone could finish asking it.
Nathan stepped out of the inn.
He erged into the gray daylight with the sa terrible composure he had worn inside, and the sight of him silenced the crowd more effectively than any shouted order could have done. Several people instinctively stepped back. Others did not move at all, as though fear had rooted their feet to the ground.
There was no need for him to speak.
Sothing about him pressed outward, cold and deadly. It was in the steadiness of his posture, the absence of strain in his breathing, the dark, unreadable calm in his eyes. Two n lay broken because of him, and Morosuke’s brother was writhing in the dirt at his feet, half stripped and choking on pain, yet Nathan looked untouched by the violence, as if this had been nothing more than a brief interruption to his day.
A thrill of dread ran through everyone watching.
Even Nobusuke, face twisted and pale beneath the gri, finally looked up at Nathan with sothing he had likely never offered another man before.
Fear.
"M-My brother will kill you for that!" Nobusuke shouted.
His voice cracked under the strain of humiliation and rage. His face had gone bright red, whether from pain, fury, or the sha of being sprawled half naked in the dirt before half the street, even he likely could not tell anymore.
Nathan took a single step.
To everyone watching, it did not even look like movent. One instant he stood a short distance away, and the next he was already there, directly in front of Nobusuke.
The crowd blinked in startled disbelief.
"Hii—!"
The sound that tore out of Nobusuke’s throat was not a threat this ti, nor the swagger of a man accustod to standing behind his family na. It was a shrill, naked cry of fear. He stared up at Nathan as though he were looking at sothing inhuman.
Nathan’s black eyes held no heat. No excitent. No satisfaction. Only a hard, rciless coldness that made Nobusuke’s panic deepen.
Then Nathan reached down and seized a fistful of his hair.
"Ughyaa! Let go! Let go of !"
Nathan did not answer.
He simply turned and began to drag him.
Nobusuke’s body lurched violently over the ground, his hands clawing at Nathan’s wrist, his legs kicking uselessly as his bare skin scraped through dust and grit. The sandy street tore at him without rcy. His hips knocked against the earth. His heels dug furrows behind him. Each desperate twist of his body only made the humiliation worse.
The people of Minato parted before them in stunned silence.
They moved aside almost instinctively, like water splitting around the prow of a ship. No one dared interfere. No one dared even step too close. They could only stare at the impossible sight unfolding before them: a dark-haired, foreign-looking ronin walking through the streets with steady, unhurried steps while dragging Nobusuke — Morosuke’s younger brother — by the hair like a common cur.
Shock passed from face to face.
So looked pale. So openly trembled. Others glanced around as if expecting Morosuke’s n to pour into the streets at any mont and restore the order they had always known. But none ca. There was only Nathan, moving forward with frightening calm, and Nobusuke, writhing and choking in the dirt behind him.
At first Nobusuke kept shouting threats.
"You’re finished! Do you hear ? Finished! My brother will skin you alive! He’ll cut you to pie—ahh! Stop! Stop!"
His words broke apart every few seconds as the dragging jolted through his body. The threat in them grew weaker with every yard. Pain stripped pride quickly. By the ti they had crossed another stretch of road, his voice had changed.
The curses beca pleas.
"Please—wait—stop... stop—"
Nathan ignored every word.
His gaze remained fixed on the structure ahead, large and imposing even from a distance, rising above the district like a statent carved into the earth. Morosuke’s castle.
It stood there with the weight of power and impunity, the sort of place built not only to defend a man’s wealth but to remind everyone beneath it of their place. Nathan looked at it without awe.
He had wanted to handle this peacefully.
That had been the intention. He had no taste for pointless chaos, no need to leave blood behind him wherever he walked. But once again, the world had made its choice before he could make his own. Once again, violence had stepped in front of reason and dared him to look away.
That woman, Nana.
He had only needed one look to understand what kind of person she was. There had been kindness in her, sothing plain and genuine, the sort that did not hide behind performance. She had not deserved fear. She had not deserved cruelty.
And she certainly had not deserved to be killed the very next day for nothing.
The thought hardened sothing inside him.
This world had a way of revealing its ugliness too easily. Earth had never been gentle either — he knew that better than most — but here, brutality walked openly in daylight. It did not even bother disguising itself. It took what it wanted in front of everyone and trusted fear to do the rest.
Nathan was no hero. He did not think of himself as one, and he had no desire to beco one.
But there were things a man could witness only so many tis before silence beca its own kind of guilt.
So if peace was no longer possible, then he would deal with Morosuke the only way left.
With violence.
Ahead, the castle lood larger with every step.
Behind him, Nobusuke’s begging grew hoarse and broken, swallowed by the sound of his body dragging over the road.
And all along the street, Minato watched it.
User Comments
0 comments from readers