Prologue

試練なき刃、只の鉄に過ぎぬ
試されぬ男、只の肉に過ぎぬ

“A blade that has never been tested is mere metal.
A man who has never been challenged is but flesh.”

Chapter 0: Prologue

“How tall?” a tall, fur-covered rodent’s voice demanded.

“Seven foot ten inches, sir.”

“Good heavens, welcome to the royal army. We leave tomorrow.”

Their tails struck the flagstones impatiently as the line advanced. Rat-folk soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, their fur blending into their worn clothing, each one towering over the next recruit.

“Next! Name?” he said, “Next! Name?” he said again.

“Next! Name?” the signing officer said as he looked up from the logbook sitting on the desk.

“Hideo! Sire!” said what seemed to be a boy who stumbled into the wrong line, excitedly announcing his presence while his eyes barely reached the top of the desk.

“… o~kay HI-DE...how tall are you?” the signing officer slowly asked as he raised himself off his chair, balancing himself with his bare tail.

“Five foot seven inches sir!” said the small, frail, furless creature, while throwing up a mock salute.

The signing officer looked over the makeshift desk, an aspiring soldier pointed down with his claw, twitching his snout a little. The signing officer followed the claw’s trajectory, and toward the front of the desk; a young human boy with wide-eyed readiness to serve smiled incessantly at him.

The signing officer didn’t reply.

“Son… ” he said, trailing off into a disgruntled father-like tone.

Hideo’s eyes shot open and his smile widened.

“No.” he said bluntly, returning his eyes to the desk after he did.

Hideo slammed a sword on the desk, it was too battered to be called a sword. The scratches splayed across the blade like abstract art, chips and faults in the blade flickered; the uneven line where the steel had been tempered shone imperfectly in the morning sun. The signing officer looked down at the blade and its stout owner with a small gern and a raised eyebrow.

“Look! I have a sword!”

“That doesn’t make you fit to be a soldier.” the signing officer rebuked.

Two rat-folk guards dragged Hideo away, “Best be on your way”, one said, setting him on the ground next to a pile of slightly mouldy crates.

Hideo patiently waited there, then for another hour or two, watching behemoth after behemoth sign up and be accepted. With his chin on his clenched fist and his sword in a wooden saya that was barely deserving of the name.

The last few rats are accepted as Hideo walked back up to the desk.

“Hey! I’m strong!” Hideo said while flexing his near invisible back muscles.

“You’re short! You’ll trip over your own sword!” the signing officer said while he packed up the log book and the thrown together desk. The guards behind him turned, laughing as the signing officer waved him off.

“Oh you’re gonna regr—” Hideo says as he is grabbed from behind and dragged away.

“Hideo stop bothering the army!”, the woman dragging Hideo quickly turned to the signing officer and shouted “Sorry!” she grinned playfully, “He’s just a little passionate!”

“But Mom!” Hideo groans.

“I don’t care!” she shouted as her face turned between the conversations of the signing officer and Hideo.

“You never listen to me!” Hideo’s voice shook, the coarseness of his dried out, tear-coming throat forced out the words: “You always assume I’m useless!”

He broke free of his mother’s grip, he clutched his sword by his side, sorting out the creases his mother left on his gi, then he set into a sprint, holding back tears as he ran into the nearby treeline.

Hideo’s mother sighed, “I’m sorry Officer, he just really wants to join. He’s been on about it since his birthday.”

Hideo’s mother wasn’t human. She understood the gravity of the situation and what it posed for Hideo. Her chocolate brown brunette fur and dainty whiskers portrayed a great gentleness. Her tired eyes weighed down by sleepless years combined with a posture crushed by hunched caregiving construed to the signing officer that she was a damn good mother, whether or not Hideo was rat-folk didn’t matter to her. He was sure of that.

“Keep him away from here” he said, shooing her, “he’s not breaking any law, he’s just… not worth processing.”

He looked at the treeline a moment too long, then his snout twitched.

Hideo, being born and found in Namamura, was technically a citizen, yet one who was looked down upon and thrown around; for a sadistic enjoyment or as a discriminatory jest, it still held true that his stature and the staggering difference in build made for a troubled upbringing.

She looked over at the forest Hideo had run into, sighed while turning to the officer, who had started to walk away.

“He’s only fifteen you know… ”, she said, with her hands on her hips, her tail swaying with a brush of anger, and her eyes penetrating the officer’s predisposition of the small scrawny human boy.

“I know that,” he snapped, turning around as his whiskers tightened and his tail straightening slightly with his shout, “hell, even the new recruits today are fifteen,” he says while waving his hands about in a fluster.

He sighed, releasing the tension that had built up from his shouting bout with Hideo.

“Could you even imagine how they’d treat him in there? Let alone how they treat the shortest of vermin?”

He stood there for a moment, looking at her with a deepness in his eyes.

She stared back, not blankly; just worried. Not because she thought he’d fail, but because she knew exactly what he’d be doing. And where he’d be doing it.

“Hyaa! Grraaaahhh!”

Hideo swung his sword wildly, its flaws perfectly shining in the light poking through the canopy. Hideo dropped the sword and slumped over onto his back against a rock, looking up through into the light between the leaves of the canopy. He sighed.

Laughter cascaded from a nearby tavern, trailed by the knocking and clashing of wooden swords that Hideo knew so well.

He got up and popped his head over a palisade to see two rat-folk training.

The wooden swords clashed, the wood knocking as they slammed together. The pressured rat feigned a retreat and swiped his tail under the other’s legs, tripping him.

He held the wooden sword to the downed rat’s neck.

“Ha! I win this time.”

The downed rat knocked away the piece of wood being held to his face, “Arrgg! You always do that!” he said as he got up and began to walk towards the tavern’s back door.

The rat there, dropping his wooden sword on the ground, sported an off-white gi, a navy blue pair of legged hakama trousers and a dirty, roped obi belt, in which sat his katana.

One’s ear twitched and his whiskers tightened slightly.

“Hey! Can I try?”

The two soldiers stopped instantly, they both slowly turned to see Hideo waiting, with one of the wooden swords already in hand, his grip too tight; his legs posed awkwardly; his head held a little too high.

The two soldiers stood there a moment, staring emptily at Hideo.

They burst out laughing, one of the rats’ tail wagged with gusto, slamming the edge of the tavern’s door trim. The other bent over on his knees thumping the ground with the back of his fist, wiping tears from his face.

Yet they laughed not cruelly, but at the impossible sight in front of them. A human adolescent who barely reached their shoulders, standing with a blade in hand with the confidence of a seasoned swordsman, yet the flippance of a wet noodle.

Hideo stood confused.

“Sure” he caught his breath after laughing and cleared his throat “Ahem, phew, you’re a funny guy”, he picked up the wooden sword and lifted it at Hideo, the tip pointing directly at his face.

“Easy now, only practice.”

But despite the makeshift stance Hideo fronted, the soldier noticed something.

The two inched towards each other.

Hideo’s stance was wrong.

His grip was too tight.

His feet shoulders were too high.

His hips were too far back.

“But his eyes.”
The soldier thought.

His eyes did not waver.

They moved closer.