Fearful and reluctant, Akado reached for Toge, her family’s ancestral katana, and wrestled with whether to wield it. She sought guidance in the many bruises on her arms. But the marks only offered shame. They were the rewards of her failures at the hands of lesser men, with lesser minds.

She turned away, frustrated, when the hiragana on the wall caught her eye. “Greatest force requires highest will.” She wanted to be that greater force. A weapon of elegance and unlimited strength. An honored member of shi. But the mirror told a different truth: a broken jaw and bruised ribs, images of a prideful girl not worthy.

Some sacrifices have too great a cost, she told herself. But what price for life? Outside, the heavy clomp of boots on pebbles announced the end of her deliberation. A choice had to be made.

“Akado,” a brutish voice commanded. “Akado!” Her fingernails brushed the ridged handle. As she closed her hand, the decision was made.

Huito sneered as she emerged from the dojo. Tall, with a weathered face and barrel chest, he was clad in armor that had seen more wars than Akado had seen winters. Raising his Tachi, he charged, spitting, “Toge? You haven’t the skill, child!”

She ran towards him, fearless. Their blades clashed, and his force sent her skidding on her knees. Using the momentum, she brought Toge hard across his thigh as she slid behind him.

The katana singed through his armor with a ping, separating muscle from bone. Huito reeled, crying out, and fell to one knee. Furious, he pounded the wound with his fist to intensify the pain. Akado grinned in defiance and stood proud. Toge then took its payment.

A flash of fire streaked between her shoulder blades. She staggered, fingers spasming as she struggled to keep hold of the ancestral weapon.The pain blurred her vision and she barely caught Huito leaping towards her, his fist coming down hard towards her chest. She mustered a weak parry to the side and countered with a slash up his bracers.

But the maneuver opened her stance and his quick backhand brought the butt of his blade crashing into her helmet, sending her sailing all the way across the garden.

Blood was pooling below Huito but, driven by brute rage, he charged again.

Akado, her eyes on the rogue ronin, kept her grip steadfast on Toge’s blade while the payment was paid. From underfoot, a splinter shock ricocheted up her shin, driving a thousand tiny fractures into her femur.

Instead of retreating, she embraced the pain. She let it roll up her body until her limbs cracked at every joint. Then she took HER payment. All the strength Toge could give. She called it all and  sent its power to her legs in a single, explosive burst of power.

It propelled her into the air within grasp of Huito’s cracked grin, sickly eyes and soiled tongue. Her blade cut him from navel to crown and she watched his expression shift from overconfidence to miscalculation. With a ripping tear, Toge cleaved metal, skin, bone, stomach and spine. His torso, now halved, fell away in a disgusting, ghoulish soup-like splay of muscle and muck. 

Mid-assault, Akado’s body went limp and she fell, tumbling to a thudding stop. Barely alive, one eye full of blood, ribs shattered, she glimpsed the ronin’s body a few paces away.

Grunting, she dug Toge’s handle into the earth and pulled her failing body closer to it. Panic was keeping her conscious. The handle was growing hotter and the final payment was coming due. 

She kicked off with her left ankle, the one she could still feel, and gave herself a jolt. The handle and her hand were melding into a single ember of heat and pain. Another kick. Crack. Her jaw had broken itself. Another kick. She gurgled nonsensical spits of suffering and stretched Toge out as far as she could and dropped its tip into Huito’s pool of blood.

The pain eased and her jaw snapped back into place. The searing heat of the handle shifted and became a rush of inflowing energy. Her eyes rolled back in sated relief. The blood payment would heal her wounds but the scars would be deep. When it was over, a metal husk was all that remained of Huito.

Back in the dojo, Akado looked at Toge, now cleaned and polished, and placed it back on its stand. She bowed to it, hoping she’d never need to call upon it again.