A Dragonfly's Conviction

The story so far: It's 1867, 10 years prior to the events of Act I, six year old Seiko Tenmichi was kidnapped by a group of bandits who work for a bigger underground semi-yakuza organization. Their settlement, Takayama, is where she is being brought right now. Meanwhile Saitou Ichirō, Jinko's older brother who's been contactless while living in Takayama for years now, groups with a ronin samurai team, the Kodokuna Sonae, in order to infiltrate the organization's base "The Hades Bureau" because of their schematics.

---

“He’s... He's just as good as the witnesses say!”

“Naoya Shida.. is cutting us all off one by one!” The Third Tier warriors of the Hades Bureau were already scattering, their initial bravado fractured by the swordsman’s inhuman speed.

“Moreover.. he's finishing every person off in one strike! He doesn’t even grant them the dignity of a second chance!”

“That must be the work of his Jigen-ryū Kenjutsu style!”

“Chesto!” Shida roared, a guttural, terrifying sound ripped from his diaphragm as his blade flashed, slicing one enemy clean through the midriff. He ignored the spray of blood, his boots planting instantly, priming the next charge. “Chesto!” He roared again, and the next opponent, a man paralyzed by the kiai, stumbled into the path of the devastating cut.

The few remaining men waiting to jump him swallowed dryly, their fear a cold, metallic taste in their mouths. They could already feel what their fate truly would be—not a duel, but an execution.

Two of the men crouched low behind an overturned table, watching the swordsman tear through their comrades like a hurricane breaking a treeline.

“You see that?” one muttered, his voice tight and shaking. “That’s Jigen-ryū.”

The other swallowed, his throat dry. “What’s that supposed to mean? He’s just… charging, like a madman.”

“Charging is the whole damned point,” the first man hissed, clutching his spear tighter. “Jigen-ryū people don’t fence. They don’t test. They pick a line and ram through it. One strike meant to kill outright—no feints, no dancing. Look at the stance; the sword is already in motion behind his shoulder.”

Shida screamed again, a raw, animal kiai that carried across the chamber, vibrating the very air. Another man fell under a single, brutal diagonal cut.

The man listening flinched violently. “Why is he yelling like that?”

“To break you before his blade even gets there,” the man explaining said, desperation creeping into his tone. “They make you hesitate. One heartbeat of fear is enough.” He gestured with his chin toward another corpse collapsing into the mud and blood pooling on the floor. “See how he keeps going? They don’t stop moving. If he stops, he dies. So he never, ever does.”

They watched, horrified, as Shida stamped forward again, the ground shaking beneath each powerful Fumikomi step, his sword raised high behind his shoulder like a recoiling cannon ready to fire again.

“He’s not even blocking the return fire,” the man whispered, his eyes wide.

“He doesn’t need to. Jigen-ryū is all offense. It’s an insane style. You try to meet that head-on, and you’re dead before you even finish lifting your guard.”

Another scream cut the air—a choked gurgle—then another man dropped.

The man tightened his grip on his sword, his hands trembling so violently he could barely hold it steady. “That style was made for war, not single fights. You put thirty of us in front of him, and he’ll treat us like one long door he means to smash through.”

The man stared, pale as ash. “Then… what do we do?”

The other exhaled shakily, watching Shida pivot, his face a mask of fierce concentration. “Pray he runs out of breath before he runs out of bodies to cut.”

“That's enough.”

“Ngh?!” The two men looked behind them. A man noticeably larger than the others in both height and muscle approached, his silhouette filling the low doorway.

“I will be the one to cut him off. There is no need for awaiting exhaustion.”

“Jinbocho! You woke up?!”

“Huh?!” The brute replied, his voice a low rumble in his massive chest. “Amongst all this commotion, you think I wouldn't? I’m going to quickly slice this guy and go back to sleep.”

“Y-You know who he is, don't you?!”

“Of course. That’s why I said we don't need to wait for him to lose his stamina. Naoya Shida is a man who can take 200 more runts like you and still not get tired!” Jinbocho, the brute, said, his assessment chillingly accurate.

“A meathead like you sometimes knows their stuff, huh?” one of the crouching men muttered.

“Now move!” Jinbocho commanded, walking forward with utter certainty, his heavy footsteps shaking the wooden floor.

“Naoya Shida!”

“Haa! Chesto!” Shida sliced another opponent, sending the body flying. “Hm?” He realized he was being called out by the towering brute.

“Your opponent is me.”

“A meathead brute, huh? Fine by me,” Shida mocked, his sword returning to his shoulder.

“Heh. Just because I'm bigger and stronger than you doesn't necessarily mean I have any screws loose, you arrogant swordsman.”

“Stronger? I don't know what you're doing with your sword there, because determining the strength of a swordsman from how big their body is, is a fatal mistake.”

“True that. However, this battle will be over in a second, Naoya Shida!” Jinbocho responded, pulling his massive katana free from its sheath.

“You're...” Shida closed his eyes, his entire body seeming to shrink slightly, gathering its focus inward.

“Ngh?!” Jinbocho felt an immediate, sharp drop in temperature—the pressure weighing in from the sudden, profound stillness emanating from Shida.

“Right about that.” Shida reopened his eyes, the feral light burning in them now intensified tenfold.

“Tonbo-no...” Shida slowly took his lethal stance, every muscle contracting.

Jinbocho readied his sword. Behind him, the two men who had been crouching also stepped forward, gathering their remaining courage, flanking their champion.

“Kamae!” (Dragonfly Stance).

Shida's posture was a masterpiece of controlled aggression. His sword was raised vertically behind his right shoulder, the blade angling forward, a terrifying lightning rod. He leaned his body aggressively, his center of gravity pitched forward. He put all his weight on the balls of his feet, primed for a devastating sprint, his stance narrow, like a runner poised at the starting block.

“Fumikomi!” Shida screamed, and charged forward.

The Fumikomi—his characteristic footwork—was not just a run. He stomped the ground when charging, creating a vibration that intimidated, and lending his body an explosive, almost battering-ram acceleration.

“Haaa!” Jinbocho roared, raising his own sword. He positioned his feet wide to anchor his stance, determined to absorb and crush the smaller man's charge.

SLASH!

“Shōooomen.. Giri!”

“HUH?!” Before the two flanking men knew it, the fight between Shida and the towering Jinbocho was over.

The blade came down in a brutal Shōmen Giri, splitting Jinbocho straight through the crown of his skull and the mask of his brute certainty. Shida did not pause to watch the body fall—he surged past it, his colossal momentum carrying him into the two men who had been closing in behind their now-collapsing comrade.

They froze for half a heartbeat as the massive corpse bowed toward them, falling like a felled tree. That crucial moment of paralysis was all he needed.

“And..” Shida continued, his voice a ragged gasp.

“Atemi!”

He snapped his left forearm out first, a sharp, blunt strike slamming across the nearer man’s throat. The impact tore the man’s balance away, sending him stumbling sideways with a strangled, useless gasp.

The second man stepped in to strike, panic turning his movement sluggish, but Shida met him with a sharp piston of the pommel—Tsuka-ate—driven straight into the bridge of the nose. Bone crunched, a horrifying sound of splintering cartilage. The man reeled backward, eyes watering in blinding pain, his guard completely wide open.

Shida pivoted with the movement, dragging his main blade free from Jinbocho’s corpse. One fluid step forward, and the arc of his follow-through cut took the throat of the man he had forearm-checked, dropping him before he could even recover his footing.

The stunned, nose-broken man tried to lift his sword again, blinking frantically through the tears and blood. Shida finished him with a short, downward cut—efficient, unceremonious—and stood still, his chest heaving, his sword dripping black blood onto the floor.

He grins, a wide, terrifying, savage grin, the teeth white against the sweat and grime. “Every battle a fool like you tries to play hero, and in every one of those battles…”

----- A Flashback Starts -------

“A fool like you loses!” An old man cried out, his wooden sword thudding against the child's chest.

A boy fell hard onto his rear, his wooden sword clattering uselessly onto the dirt. “Ouch! Old man! How about you sympathize with me for once! I'm only eleven, y'know!”

“Hm. You kids try to play hero every time you ask me to train you, and in every one of the training sessions, a fool like you loses.” The old man turned his back away, massive shoulders dismissing the boy.

“I already told you! I won't give up until you teach me the ways of the sword! I won't budge until.. UNTIL YOU TEACH ME HOW TO BE A SAMURAI!”

“I ALREADY TOLD YOU! YOU DAMNED BRAT, LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“Oi Shida run! The old man's gone berserk again!” The other three boys, wounded and defeated, yelled in pain, grabbed their own swords, and sprinted off, screaming, “We’ll win tomorrow!” “Damn you old man!” “My stomach hurts!”

The elder pointed after them, shouting into the dust: “Useless! Pathetic! You all swing like drunk chickens!”

Their shrieks trailed down the dirt path, echoing through the small village houses.

Shida got up slower than the others, rubbing the throbbing bruise on his shoulder. He dusted his knees, breathed unevenly, and walked the same path, but alone. The late-morning sun baked his shoulders. His wooden sword dragged behind him, leaving a thin, crooked trail in the packed earth.

As he reached the road cutting along the rice paddies, he passed the women carrying bundles of cut stalks, wrapped around their arms. They were talking, laughing, gossiping—their laughter gentle, never cruel.

“Oh, the boys lost again?” one said.

“Children these days,” another chuckled. “They never get tired.”

“Look at them run! Like little frogs escaping the pot.”

Then they saw Shida behind them, walking slower, not running, not laughing, his face a mask of silent humiliation.

A few of them murmured in a quieter tone.

“That one… he has no parents.”

“Always alone, that boy.”

“Must be hard on him.”

Shida kept his head down, letting the straw shadows from their bundles fall over him like a curtain he didn’t want to pass through.

But one woman stepped forward. She was in her mid-twenties, simple kimono, hair pinned with a lacquer comb she treasured. She lived next door to Shida. She always greeted him softly.

“Shida,” she said, her voice warm, tapping his shoulder with a motherly concern. “Are you hungry?”

He froze. Then nodded once, unable to speak around the knot in his throat.

She smiled warmly. “Come. I made onigiri stuffed with sweet soy pickles. Your favorite, isn’t it?”

His eyes lit, even through the deep sadness and shame.

The other women giggled lightly as she handed him two warm rice balls wrapped securely in thin bamboo leaf.

“Eat slowly,” she said, her eyes gentle. “I don’t want you choking again.”

“I won’t…” Shida muttered, but he was already stuffing one into his mouth, savoring the salty, familiar sweetness.

As he chewed, she looked down fondly at him. A child with no home, no parents, no one to look after him—except her, if only briefly.

Days passed. Then weeks. Then months.

Shida visited her porch almost every other day. Sometimes she gave him food—hot miso soup filled with taro, crisp rice crackers dipped in soy, roasted barley tea he gulped too fast. Other times she made him help hang laundry, which he did horribly. But she laughed, and he glared, and they both pretended it wasn’t the best part of their day.

He played with the other village kids in the fields, wooden swords in hand, still pretending to be great samurai. She watched them from her doorway, smiling softly, her hand often resting over her abdomen.

Life was simple. Life was gentle.

And then, one afternoon, all of that ended.

It began with shouting—harsh, unfamiliar voices that carried poorly.

Then the sickening sound of things breaking.

Bandits—five or six—had slipped through the forest path that descended rapidly into the village. They had blades. Ugly ones. Rusted ones. But they were still blades, capable of tearing flesh.

They tore through doors. Stole grain. Ransacked houses.

Villagers hid, paralyzed by fear.

But the kids—Shida’s friends—ran to stop them. Brandishing their blunt wooden swords. Screaming courage they didn’t possess. Trying to guard the village like the samurai they dreamed of being.

The bandits didn’t hesitate. They cut one down instantly, the wooden sword clattering uselessly away. Another was beaten senseless with the blunt of a sword hilt. Another got thrown against the dirt so hard his neck bent at a sickening angle.

And Shida wasn’t there—he had been out gathering firewood far up the riverbank.

The woman was humming to herself, carrying ingredients in a basket as she walked back home. She was smiling gently, imagining Shida’s eyes lighting up when she made the savory meal he loved.

She rounded the corner—

And froze.

Children screaming. Bandits swinging. Blood already staining the dust.

The basket fell from her hands, rolling away, the contents spilling across the path.

“STOP!!” she screamed, running toward them.

The bandits ignored her, stepping over a collapsed child.

“STOP! PLEASE!! THEY’RE JUST CHILDREN!!”

She grabbed one bandit’s forearm, but he shoved her aside with savage force. Another pulled her violently by the hair and threw her heavily to the ground. Her lacquer comb snapped and flew into the dirt.

She crawled desperately toward the smallest boy, shielding him with her arms, terrified, hysterical—

A rusted blade rose high.

Villagers finally came rushing from all sides, screaming, chasing the bandits with sickles and hoes.

But too late.

By the time the panic subsided and the bandits fled, vanishing into the shadow of the woods, the ground was scattered with bodies.

Among them—

The woman.

Her favorite necklace ripped from her neck. Her simple kimono torn. Her eyes open, fixed on the midday sun. Her body still.

Blood soaked into the earth beneath her, dark and rapidly cooling.

A crowd grew around the scene. Villagers cried. Men shouted curses at the forest. Children sobbed for their broken friends.

Shida arrived last.

He pushed through legs, squeezed between robes, stumbling in confusion. “What happened? Why’s everyone— let me through— hey— move—”

His heart beat faster, a frantic, choking rhythm.

Something was wrong. Something felt—cold.

His breath caught sharply.

He saw her.

Her hair splayed out on the dirt. Her basket overturned. Food spilled—the savory sweet soy pickles scattered everywhere.

Blood soaking the earth beneath her.

And his friends—broken, gone.

Shida’s throat broke open with a sound he didn’t recognize—a howl, a wounded animal in human skin.

He clutched her shoulders, shaking her with hysterical strength. “No… no, no, no— wake up— please— please— get up— you said— you said you’d cook today— you said—”

His tears mixed with the dust and blood on the ground. He cried until his voice gave out, a raw, painful screech.

And when there were no tears left, something colder replaced them.

That night, he went to the old man’s house.

He knocked once. Twice.

He bowed low. “Train me.”

The old man slid the door shut, ignoring him.

The next day he knocked again. The rain fell hard enough to sting his skin. He stayed, sitting outside the paper door, drenched.

The old man ignored him completely.

The next day he returned. Heat shimmered from the dirt. His shirt stuck to his back. His legs trembled from hunger and fatigue. He stayed.

The old man pretended not to hear him.

On the seventh day, Shida collapsed outside the door, his face pressed to the step, still whispering with his last reserves of strength: “Train me… please…”

The old man finally slid the door open. His massive silhouette filled the frame, eclipsing the light.

“...Come in, boy.”

Shida stumbled inside, falling to his knees, his body failing him. He pressed his forehead to the floor in full prostration. “Please… train me… I’ll do anything… just… I have to become stronger… to protect… to kill those bandits… to—”

“Enough,” the old man said, his voice flat.

Shida choked on his own breathing.

“I will train you,” the elder said, “but this is your last chance.”

He held out a wooden sword. “Slash me. Even once.”

Shida’s eyes widened, then absolute fury flooded them. “Don’t you care what happened?! The kids of our village died! She died— she was— she was so dear to me— and you didn’t even come when the commotion— and now you’re still saying—”

The old man snapped: “Don’t waste your chance, boy. Your anger is useless if it does not move your feet.”

Shida swallowed. His voice trembled with uncontrollable rage and terror. “I’ll beat you then.”

They stepped into the backyard. The cicadas screamed their death hymn. The air thickened with unspoken violence.

Shida charged.

The old man didn’t wait this time—his wooden sword cracked against Shida’s shoulder with ruthless, surgical precision. Shida fell face-first into the dirt.

“Useless!” the old man barked.

Shida got up, his lips bleeding. Charged.

Crack—a strike to the neck dropped him again, the force nearly snapping his head back.

“Too slow!”

Shida got up again. Charged.

The old man parried, swept his leg, and threw him so hard the boy skidded across the ground, tasting the dirt.

“Pathetic!”

Shida gathered dirt in his fists, pushing himself upright, his teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached, his face smeared with sweat and silent tears.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Each time he was knocked down harder, his body swelling with bruises, until he was a weeping, beaten mess.

But he kept rising.

Until finally—nearly broken—barely breathing—he whispered:

“Even if you don’t train me… I’ll still become stronger… somehow… somehow… so their souls can rest…”

His voice cracked, the sound of a child’s heart breaking.

“And after that…”

He lifted the sword with shaking, battered arms.

“I’ll come back… and kill you, old man!!!”

The old man froze, his massive form rigid.

The boy charged one last time, all form and skill abandoned. This strike wasn’t strong. Wasn’t skilled. Wasn’t elegant.

But it was everything he had left in his small, wounded soul.

The wooden sword hit the elder’s ribs—clean.

The old man stumbled backward, tripped over the garden stone, and fell onto his back, staring at the sky, his eyes wide.

Silence.

Then—

His eyes filled with hot, sudden tears.

“I… I will train you,” he said, his voice breaking, shattering his professional facade. “You stubborn, foolish, relentless boy…”

He wiped his cheek with his sleeve, the shame of his tears apparent.

Shida blinked, confused.

“...Why are you crying?”

The old man looked away, up at the sky. “You’ll know someday,” he whispered, his voice trembling again. “When you surpass me.”

He closed his eyes.

“...When you become the man I failed to be.”

And the flashback faded into the present—the roar of the inner storm now translated into the physical world.

The final man of the Third Tier—the one who had tried to hide—realized he was entirely alone, staring at the sweat-soaked, blood-splattered demon who had just massacred more than thirty full fledged men.

Shida’s sword lowered slightly, pointing at the floor, before he brought it back up to his shoulder in the fearsome Tonbo-no-Kamae. He grunted, forcing his jaw together, spitting blood and saliva onto the floor.

“Tch..” Shida grunts his teeth together, the taste of vengeance sweeter than any mochi. “COME ON YOU BASTARDS! I will slash all of you down! COME AT ONCE AT ME, WHY DON’T YOU?!”

The final man didn't move. He simply dropped his weapon, fell to his knees, and threw his hands up in a desperate gesture of surrender.

Shida stopped. He looked at the trembling man, then surveyed the carnage: the scattered limbs, the pools of blood, the bodies heaped like refuse. His own chest was heaving, but the energy still pulsed, restless, demanding more targets.

He slowly turned his back on the final survivor.

“I don’t kill rats who don’t fight,” Shida spat, his voice heavy with contempt. “Clean up your mess. And pray I don’t find you ever again.”

He sheathed his sword with a resounding clank. 

"Shunsui-san.. even this battle I won, was for you.

And now, Ichirō-dono, please make your way fast."