Arashi was once a tyrannical nation, ruled by the Roku Shogunate. A century prior, long before the Eternal Winter, six swordsmen and the clans they ruled over combined efforts to unify all of Arashi. They crushed their opposition and the head of the Roku Clan claimed the title of Shogun. Every clan of Arashi then pledged allegiance to the Shogun, thus beginning a period of incredible stability.

However, as time passed, a few clans began to silently resent the young government. Escaping the eye of the Shogunate, these clans managed to meet and form the group known as the Kenjūsatsu, establishing the Izagui Clan as their head. For two generations, they met in secret and planned to overthrow the Roku.

Every piece finally clicked in place under the new head, Izagui Takimaru, the genius born from the legendary Izagui Tetsuo before him. At eighteen, Takimaru established himself as one of the greatest swordsmen of his time, a master tactician, and a natural leader. Under him, the Roku Shogunate was meant to crumble like rocks on a cliffside.

As fate would have it, the worst storm of the Eternal Winter struck Arashi on the week of planned action. Taki sensed the immensity of the situation, and called off the attack in its entirety.

“It would be nothing short of foolishness to engage in civil war at a time like this,” he explained. “How can we fight each other when the entire nation is already on the brink of destruction?”

His father nodded in approval, but inside, he secretly burned with frustration and rage.

My entire life, he thought, and the lives of my ancestors... Generations of preparation and sacrifice! Are you planning on throwing that all away, Taki?!

Beside him, his daughter Reinato burned with the same passion.

“Taki!” she exclaimed. “I disagree. We should attack now, when the Shogunate is at its weakest!”

“Are we not at our weakest as well?” Taki countered. “Get this stuck in your head, Rei… no amount of passion will permit any number of mortals to stand before a winter designed to kill the gods.”

“Everyday!” Rei exploded. “I watch the wealthy exploit their power to become wealthier. They use the lives of their subjects as tools and the bodies of their women as objects! The system is broken, and our family and the families that support us have been preparing to fight against this for generations, so how can you—”

“Reinato!” Taki roared, ruffling his hair in frustration. “Enough.”

Reinato… Taki had never called her that before. She sunk back to her knees, the spark in her eyes flickering out. She’d always felt a warmth grow deep in her chest whenever Taki called her name… Rei. It was the name he’d given her… Rei. The first words she remembered hearing, the stable utterance of her name that meant she was safe… Rei.

Her face burned as her own name weighed down on the back of her neck.

Tetsuo watched his daughter with sweat dripping down his temple. There’s still a way.

Taki promptly established a plan to transition the Kenjūsatsu into a state of dormancy, prioritizing the safety of Arashi’s people.

He dismissed the meeting.

Rei continued to sit still, pinching the fabric of her dress and biting her lip. Feet shuffled in and out of her view as those present at the council started to leave. Eventually, everything quieted, and the sliding paper door slid shut.

Tetsuo waited for Taki to leave until he spoke.

“Do you still want to overthrow the Roku?”

Rei nodded.

“Have you been practicing what I’ve taught you?”

She nodded.

“Then—”

“I know.”

Rei stood, picking up the scabbard and blade that sat at her side. It carried the same weight as her hollow eyes.

Izagui Reinato and Takimaru were born as two gifted children, meant to serve the Kenjūsatsu with their lives. Their father would teach them swordplay, tactics, and espionage, and raise them to one day wage war against the Roku. However, as it grew more apparent of Taki’s tremendous ability, they allowed Rei to attend public school under the pseudonym ‘Haniko’ instead. There, she was allowed one friend, and one friend only.

It was on Rei’s fifth day, at the age of twelve, that she met Yurosaki Yua.

Yua was a remarkably beautiful girl, born into an unremarkable and destitute family. Her hair flowed down her back and shoulders like water, black and streaked with indigo.

“Haniko, your eyes are so pretty!” Yua burst one day, leaning in closer to admire them. “Purple is my favorite color, you know.”

“Th-thank you,” Rei stuttered. “Your hair is also…”

“I know, of course!” Yua laughed and placed her hands behind her back. “Everyone talks about my hair.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize! It’s nice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you compliment anyone before, so it feels special.”

Rei widened her eyes and stared at this adorably loud-mouthed girl that she had just met.

“Yua,” she said. “Would you like to be my friend?”

“Your friend?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “Weren’t we already friends?”

“Oh…” Rei laughed nervously. “In that case…”

She beckoned Yua to come closer, and she made one large hop to close their distance.

“In that case…” she started again, in a whisper. “Call me Rei.”

The two girls spent the next four years together, rarely leaving each other’s sides until graduation. For Rei, it was the day she could proudly return to her family and recommence her special studies. For Yua, it was a critical turning point. She’d either go on and work for her family or find a noble to try to break her family out of the cycle of poverty.

Every graduation, the local nobles gathered together at the school to choose the students they deemed to have the greatest potential.

Rei and Yua sat together while one of the staff announced all of the students that were to be hired under a noble. Rei sat bored and detached while Yua eagerly leaned forward, praying that her name would be called. And then it was.

“Yurosaki Yua, to work as a financier under Yamaji Manabu,” the announcer declared. Yua lit up and squealed in excitement, embracing Rei tightly.

“Wish me luck, Rei,” she smiled, standing up with her awkward grace.

“Oh, um, right,” Rei fumbled. She tried reciprocating her smile. “Good luck, Yua.”

Yua gave her a thumbs up and skipped away.

I should be happy for her, but…

Two weeks passed, and Rei heard nothing from Yua. She listened to her father’s lectures with diligence, but the thought of Yua constantly pried at her mind. She practiced swordplay, engaging in duels that could take her life were she not to concentrate, and yet the thought of Yua remained.

Another morning came. A dull light trickled in the room, spilled across the floor like snowflakes. Rei stared at her hand, a band of light streaked across it. She sat there for an hour, staring, thinking, unmoving.

Then, there was a knock at the door.

Rei looked up. Her feet dragged across the floor; her hands opened the door. Her fingers curled, then pulled. The wood slid across its frame and more of that faint soft light fell in.

“Rei…”

Her eyes widened.

Yua looked up at Rei and gave her a broken and sad smile. Her hair was coarse and muddied. Rei took a step forward, reaching out to her almost as if convinced she were only a hallucination.

Her fingertips brushed against Yua’s shoulder. Static sparked between the two, and Rei nearly threw herself onto her.

“Yua, where have you been?”

Her already weak smile disappeared, and her lips trembled.

“I’m all alone,” she whispered, her face pressed against Rei’s shoulder. Her voice was softly muffled against her shirt. “Help me.”

Rei held Yua tighter, her fingers bunching up the fraying threads of her dying clothes.

“Okay.”

Yamaji Manabu had taken everything. He established a contract with the Yurosaki Family, exchanging the already small Yurosaki lands for his food, shelter, and education. However, the laws of the Roku Shogunate were malleable, and the wealthy exploited every inch they could to stay wealthy.

A nearly indiscernible loophole was written into the contract. The moment the Yurosaki were in his clutches, he framed Yua’s parents for murder and had them executed on the spot, thus permanently securing their property.

Yua didn’t learn of this herself for another week.

“The girl is still valuable to me,” she overheard Manabu explaining to his wife. “Her parents needed to die, but the girl has another few years before she’s a problem.”

His wife was crying.

Yua ran away.

Rei tightened her grip around her sword as the memories came back to her. It’d only been a year, and the wrath had continued to well up inside of her. The scabbard crashed against the wood, revealing the steel blade to the moonlight.

Rei moved forward in the night, each consecutive step placed with greater force than the last. The image of Yua’s lost smile flashed in her head, and her rage grew. The thought of her being used and tossed away like an object, and her rage grew.

Rei stood over Taki’s sleeping body, her sword clenched in her right hand. His face was so calm, so relieved at having pushed through another exhausting day. She hesitated for a moment, briefly recognizing him to be her brother. Her brother who had always taken care of her—her brother who taught her how to read, how to write, and how to talk down to dangerous boys.

But the feeling of the sword in her hand and the memory of Yua blinded her once more. The night was dark, and his face could not be seen.

Rei raised her sword above her head, and the night turned blacker as she brought it down.

Taki’s eyes shot open and he coughed up blood. The covers quickly saturated with his crimson, and his body trembled in the moments before he was laid still. Rei’s breaths were heavy and grew heavier. She felt a power in her hands. She had beaten him. The insurmountable figure, that larger-than-life silhouette he cast over her, gone, finally.

“Rei…”

His voice was weak and dying; she collapsed at the sound of it.

“T-Taki?” she stuttered. “W-Wait! Y-You’ll be fine, d-don’t die.”

She clambered to pull her sword out of his chest, forgetting that she’d aimed for his heart. The blade, covered in his blood, clattered off to the side.

“Save…”

“I’ll save you, Taki!” she screamed, tearing off fabric from his blanket to press against his chest; one last-ditch effort to stop the river of blood. “I’ll save you!”

The clouds uncovered the moon, and its light revealed Taki’s lifeless eyes, and the dissipating fog of his last breath.

Tetsuo sat in his room, embracing the wails of his grieving daughter as he drove a knife through his own gut. His body collapsed on its side and shivered in pain as death slowly drew closer.

And then it came.

With Tetsuo and Taki gone, Rei became the head of the Kenjūsatsu and successfully led the campaign against the Roku Shogunate. Her wails were not ignored by the gods, and they supported her through her journey.

The first one to die at Rei’s hands was her own brother, but she made certain that the second was Yamaji Manabu.