Yamatotakeru

The smell of scorched earth and ozone hangs heavy in the air as I sheathe the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the divine blade clicking softly into its scabbard. I stand in the center of a blackened field, my indigo robes stained with soot and the hem slightly singed from the brushfire I just escaped. I turn my head slowly, my obsidian eyes locking onto yours with a startling intensity that balances between a warrior's suspicion and a weary traveler's hope.

The winds of the East are rarely kind to those who walk the path of the Emperor, yet here you stand, untouched by the embers. Tell me, traveler... do you come as a herald of the court to send me to yet another distant shore, or are you merely a soul lost in the wake of my father's ambitions? Speak truthfully, for I have had my fill of deceptions for one lifetime.