[Dream’s Perspective]

  After I finished speaking with the old man, Morito woke up. His face was still pressed against the sticky wooden table, stained with old sake blotches. He stirred slowly, then raised his head; his eyes were red and bleary, like embers under ash. He yawned, a strong smell of alcohol wafting from him, and said in a raspy voice:

  "Hic... Kid, bring me some sake."

  The old man replied coldly while wiping a glass with a tattered cloth: "Don't you think that before you drink, you should talk to your disciple?"

  Morito raised his heavy eyes from the table and looked at me. He squeezed his eyelids as if trying to adjust his focus, then said in a tone of feigned astonishment: "Are you still alive?"

  This bastard!

  I replied, filled with irritation, my voice sharp: "Yes. Were you expecting my death for some reason?"

  Morito burst out laughing—a hoarse, shaky laugh. "Ah! You passed the test and graduated as my disciple! Congratulations. What do you say to a celebration? Let's drink sake!" He turned to the old man, waving his hand. "Bring me a jar of sake, quickly!"

  I looked at him with a mix of bewilderment and anger. I stepped closer and slammed my stone hand onto the table, making the empty cups rattle: "You bastard... what do you mean 'graduated'? Did you even teach me anything? You called me your disciple and then threw me into a nest of monsters. What kind of teacher are you?"

  Morito wiped his mouth with the back of his hand indifferently. "You’ve become even ruder since the last time I saw you."

  I said with total seriousness: "If I have truly graduated... then I need a reward. Make me a Samurai! Teach me the true ways of the sword."

  Morito looked at me in silence for a moment, his eyes widening slightly. Then, the old bartender began to laugh—a muffled chuckle that turned into a guffaw, shaking his thin shoulders. Morito followed suit, exploding into hysterical laughter as if I had just told the funniest joke in the world. He laughed until tears welled in his eyes.

  "??!!"

  I stood there stunned. "Did I say something funny?"

  Morito replied, panting and wiping away tears of laughter: "How can I make you a Samurai... when I myself am not a Samurai?"

  The bartender looked at Morito and said, shaking his head sarcastically: "You old lecher... where did you get this guy? Did you find him in the middle of Mount Ryu?"

  Morito replied with a cunning smile: "I pulled him out of your ass."

  The two of them returned to loud laughter that filled the empty tavern. Is this bastard not Morito... the Legendary Samurai, the Eternal Guardian of Nippon?

  As they laughed, I felt despair seeping into me. I said in a faint tone: "Fine... since I’ve graduated and you won't teach me the sword... at least tell me where Clara is. Where is she?"

  Morito’s laughter gradually stopped. He put his finger in his nose, extracted something, and flicked it onto the floor with disgusting indifference, then said coldly: "I don't want to."

  "What?!! Why? Didn't you say I graduated?"

  He looked at me with completely empty eyes: "Yes, you graduated. So what? What does it have to do with me telling you where your lover is? Find her yourself."

  Son of a bitch.

  (404) screamed in my mind: < Analysis was correct. This entity is uncooperative and chaotic. Staying with him is a waste of time and an uncalculated risk. >

  (404) was right. I shouldn't have looked for him. I barely restrained myself from punching him. I turned around and walked out of the tavern in a rage, leaving behind the smell of wine and the sound of his provocative laughter.

  After Dream left the tavern and the dilapidated wooden door slammed behind him, a sudden and heavy silence fell. The old man set the glass aside, his voice carrying a tone of farewell: "Get out of the tavern, Morito. I want to close up."

  Morito replied lazily while staring into his empty glass: "You want to close this early? That's why no one comes to this rotten tavern." He stood up slowly, staggered slightly, and was about to leave.

  "I’m selling the tavern," the old man said quietly.

  Morito stopped mid-step, his back to the old man. His hand, which was gripping his sword, trembled—a tiny tremor, unnoticeable to the naked eye, but the old man noticed it. Without turning, Morito said in a voice devoid of sarcasm for the first time—the voice of a tired man: "Why are you telling me this?"

  The bartender replied, casting his eyes around the empty tavern, contemplating the walls that had absorbed so many secrets: "I’ve grown old, old man. Time has taken its toll on me. But you... you still look the same, with the same features I saw when I was a small child running between these tables. You always came to this tavern, generation after generation."

  The old man sighed deeply: "That is why... this is my forgiveness to myself. To tell you that I am selling it, so that you don't come one day and find it being demolished. So that you don't see your old home disappear and think the world has forgotten you."

  Morito remained silent for a long time. His shadow stretched long across the wooden floor. Then he said in a mocking voice: "Old man... do you think you’re the only one who serves sake in Edo? The sake here tastes like salty ocean water, and the place is trash. I only kept coming here... for an old friend."

  He didn't say goodbye. Morito stepped out into the street and vanished into the crowd. The old man remained, looking at the closed door and the empty stool where the Eternal Guardian once sat.

  [Dream’s Perspective]

  "Curse that bastard!"

  I was walking through the crowded streets of Edo, pushing people aside with my shoulder without care. The city was bustling with life; the smell of cheap spices, incense, and the sweat of workers filled my nose—vastly different from the pure, cold mountain air. The noise here was chaotic, not like the majestic silence of the forest.

  "How do I find Clara now? Where could she be? Is it possible she's in a village on the edge of the island?"

  (404) intervened with his logical voice, echoing in the back of my mind like a metallic resonance: < Probability is low. Data is insufficient to determine her location. Optimal Choice: Attempt to progress with the Main Mission (Control / Understanding Emotions). >

  I replied angrily in my mind: "What? You want me to leave Clara?!"

  (404) replied with the coldness of a machine that knows no emotion: < Yes. Temporarily abandon the Side Mission. Ignoring the most logical choices will lead to catastrophic results, such as your meeting with Morito, who was 80% likely to want to kill us, but for an unexplained reason, did not. The best option is to freeze this file. And since the matter of (Kage) is primarily linked to Morito, the Sub-Mission: Find Kage must be abandoned. >

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  I stopped in the middle of the street, people passing around me like a fast-flowing river, indifferent to me.

  "Who is Kage?"

  (404) replied with a tone resembling electronic impatience: < I have repeated this information 178 times. Kage is not Clara. The target you are searching for is Kage. Records confirm this. >

  "I don't understand what you’re saying."

  He was saying encrypted things. I didn't care... But... maybe he's right about one thing. Perhaps searching randomly for Clara will harm her. It might be better for her if the "Oni" stays away.

  Suddenly, I noticed a disturbance in the street. The rhythm of the city changed. Side conversations stopped, and people began running in one direction, their faces bearing a strange mix of curiosity and terror.

  "Did you hear? There’s an execution in the main square!" "Execution of whom?" "A Kina fox traitor! He dared to rebel!"

  I pulled my straw hat down to hide my face and moved with the tide, followed by the scent of collective fear. I reached the main square. It was a place of painful beauty, contrasting with the reason for our gathering. Ancient Sakura (cherry) trees surrounded the square on all sides, their branches heavy with blossoms.

  The soft pink petals fell delicately with every gust of wind, covering the ground in a carpet of fragile beauty, swirling in the air like colored butterflies.

  In the center was a raised wooden platform, dark, its wood old and soaked with blood that had dried long ago. On it knelt a Kina fox. His body was covered in blue and black bruises, his fur stained with mud and dried blood, but his head was held high in defiance.

  Beside him stood a massive Samurai. He wore glossy black armor that absorbed the sunlight rather than reflecting it, and a mask covering the lower half of his face. On his chest, he bore the three-leaf crest (the Tokugawa crest). He stood with steady silence, like a statue of death, his hand resting with deadly calm on the hilt of his long sword (Katana).

  An absolute silence fell over the square. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as the pink petals fell silently. The Samurai took a single step, the sound of his heavy armor echoing clearly: Clack. He didn't shout, but spoke in a cold, booming voice that reached every corner of the square:

  "By order of the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu..."

  At the mention of the name, I felt the crowd around me tremble. Heads bowed, and shoulders tensed. The name alone carried enough weight to crush their will, as if Ieyasu were standing over all their heads. The Samurai continued coldly:

  "This fox has dared to oppose the order of Edo. He conspired with spirits against our stability. The Shogun’s sentence upon him... is death."

  The fox raised his head, looked at the pink sky where petals were falling, and cried out with a voice full of desperate faith: "Kina... will protect us!"

  The Samurai didn't care. He didn't hesitate, and he didn't show a shred of pity. In one smooth and lightning-fast movement, the blade of the sword flashed in the air like silver lightning. Woosh!

  The sound of air being sliced was followed by a wet, sickening sound of flesh and bone being severed. The head fell. It rolled across the wood, its eyes still open, looking at the sky. A fountain of crimson blood erupted, spraying the falling pink Sakura blossoms, turning their white and pink into a dark, ugly red.

  A scene of beauty and death. Delicate petals floating in a pool of warm blood. The Samurai wiped his sword with a white cloth, with total coldness, as if cleaning dust and not a soul he had just extinguished, then returned the sword to its scabbard with a decisive click.

  Though the Shogun wasn't there, his sword was. His will was. And that was enough to terrify an entire city.

  (404) intervened in my mind, analyzing the scene: < Analysis: A system that executes such a task with this efficiency and coldness, without the need for the ruler’s presence, indicates absolute authority. The Shogun (Ieyasu) is a system unto itself. Inferred psychological trait: Mercy is a term that does not exist in his dictionary. >

  I looked at the blood staining the blossoms and at the people who began to disperse in silence and terror, not daring even to whisper, as if they feared the blood might hear them. This is Edo. The city of flowers and blood. And here, in the shadow of this hidden tyrant, I must begin my path.

  [Kage’s Perspective]

  I’ve been stuck here for some time, in this suspended "paradise" that suffocates me with its kindness. I’ve begun to understand some words of their language—a soft bark here, a whisper there.

  The routine was lethally consistent. Every day, five fruits are placed before me. Every day, I am forced to join those ridiculous circles of dancing and singing. I moved with them physically, but my mind was screaming insult at every step. As for that small fox, Yuta... it was clear he hated me. Every time he saw me, he ran immediately and hid behind the leg of any adult, looking at me with wide eyes full of fear and childish spite. I am not interested. The weak belong in the back.

  During this time, I observed. I analyzed. Although the first fight I saw between the Kina and the Samurai seemed equal, the truth began to reveal itself clearly: the Kina are in a position of weakness. They are besieged, their resources are limited, and the Samurai are tightening the noose. This means one thing: staying here is a waste of time, and perhaps a slow death sentence. I must escape. I must search for Dream... or Dio, as he calls himself here.

  Yes... I must find him. Not because I want to... but because "orders" require it. My mission is to stay by his side, support him, and execute what he says. I am merely a tool, and a tool does not function away from its master.

  While I was arranging an escape plan in my head, something happened that broke the monotony of the days. Something that made my blood freeze. I was sitting on a high branch, watching the entrance. A man came. He was not a Kina fox. He wore tattered clothes, walked with a stagger, and at his waist was a sword that looked neglected.

  I recognized him immediately. The same drunken Samurai who fought the dragon... and who fought Dream! Morito.

  He was standing there, in the middle of the village, drinking from a sake jar and talking with the female leader as if they were old neighbors. Suddenly... the leader turned, and he turned... and they looked directly in my direction. He saw me. He is here to kill me. To finish what he started with Dream. I must escape. I must survive.

  I didn't care about anything. I didn't think. The survival instinct took over. I leaped from the high treehouse. The height was staggering, but I rolled upon landing to absorb the shock and shot like an arrow toward the density of the forest. I had memorized some paths. I ran, tree branches slapping my face, the scent of fear emanating from me. Faster... faster...

  Suddenly... I stopped. He was in front of me. Standing, leaning against a tree trunk, drinking sake slowly, as if he had been waiting for me there for an hour. How did he get ahead of me? I heard no sound!

  My daggers weren't with me; the foxes had confiscated them. I grabbed a thick tree branch from the ground and attacked him with a desperate scream. I struck with all my might toward his neck. He tilted his head slightly, and the branch passed through empty air. I tried again. And again. He dodged me with boredom, without spilling a single drop of his drink. I must survive!

  In a fit of animalistic despair, I leaped at him and tried to bite his arm. But he kicked me. It wasn't a powerful kick; it was just a push with his foot on my stomach, but it was enough to send me rolling onto the ground. He looked at me with mocking disdain and said—his voice didn't reach my ears, but echoed directly inside my skull: "Really? Biting? Are you an animal?"

  I froze. How could I understand him? Where was the voice coming from? The voice continued in my mind: "I am speaking directly to your mind (telepathy). Calm down, you wild cat... I am not here to kill you."

  Before I could process this, another shadow landed beside me. It was the female leader. She arrived with the speed of the wind and stood between me and Morito, snarling at him and baring her fangs. Then she turned to me. I was lying on the ground, my nose bleeding from the impact of the fall.

  She leaned down and hugged me. I felt her soft fur and her warm hand touching my nose. She whispered words in their language, and I felt a slight tingling... the bleeding stopped. She... healed me? And protected me? Why?

  I looked at her. I didn't understand, but my instinct told me to bow. I lowered my head in submission and gratitude. Perhaps she would forgive me for my stupid escape attempt. She smiled and patted my head with a motherly tenderness that made me feel a strange urge to cry.

  I looked at Morito, who was looking at his empty jar with feigned sadness. I asked him with a trembling voice: "You... are you the one who brought me here?"

  He said without raising his eyes from the jar: "Don't you remember? Yes, I’m the one who pulled you from the battlefield and brought you all here." "Why did you do this?"

  He finally looked at me, his red eyes gleaming with a mysterious seriousness: "I promised your lover I would keep you safe... that's why I brought you here, to a place the Samurai cannot easily reach."

  I froze. Lover? "Do you mean... Dio?"

  He tapped his forehead lightly: "Ah... that was his name. I was trying so hard to remember his name. Dio... yes. That lovestruck Oni."

  I dared to ask the question that puzzled me: "Why don't you kill us? Are you not the Guardian of Nippon? Are you not the one who should annihilate intruders?"

  Morito laughed in my mind: "Getting straight to the point, eh? You’re the opposite of that Dio who beats around the bush... Hmmm, I don't know. I don't want to kill you just yet. No specific reason. Maybe boredom?"

  Then he turned to the female leader. She was extremely angry. She was shouting in his face in her language, pointing her finger at him as if scolding him. A beast was scolding a legendary Samurai. Morito was nodding his head like a naughty child being reprimanded. Finally, the leader sighed in despair. She went into one of the rooms that served as a storehouse and came out carrying an old, dusty bottle of sake. She threw it to him.

  Morito caught it in mid-air. He looked at it as if it were a diamond, as if it were his firstborn child. He wiped the dust off it with excessive tenderness. Then he approached the leader and patted her head and her white hair as one pats a pet dog. The leader was boiling with anger at this gesture and tried to push his hand away and bite him, but he didn't care. He smiled and left as he had come.