The first time I landed a clean hit, Genzo didn't say a word.
He just stood there, rubbing his forearm where the wooden staff had struck, eyes narrowed. Not in anger. Not even surprise. Just… thought.
Then he said, "Again."
So we did.
***
The days passed like water through a cracked basin—impossible to hold, impossible to measure. Dawn came before I opened my eyes, and by the time I collapsed each night, the sky was already black.
Strike. Block. Breathe. Again.
I bruised in places I didn't know I could. My palms blistered, then calloused. My arms trembled in the cold after training, but I still lifted the staff. Still swung.
Genzo didn't praise. He didn't correct often, either. When I failed, he simply adjusted—his stance, his pace, the angle of his blade—to punish the weakness as it appeared. He taught through pressure.
Through pain. Through silence.
But something shifted as the week dragged on. I started to notice the smallest things—how he no longer circled as wide. How his blade moved with less force and more intent. Like he was no longer testing me—but preparing for something else.
He was watching closely now.
Not just as a teacher.
As something else.
***
That morning, frost had crept across the wooden steps, and our breaths clouded the air like smoke.
We trained until my legs threatened to give way beneath me.
When we finally stopped, I collapsed onto a flat stone near the edge of the clearing, arms resting on my knees. Genzo didn't sit. He stood with his back to me, staring into the trees.
I watched him in stillness.
I was beginning to see it—not just the strength in his movements, but the way he held time itself, as if it moved differently around him. He never rushed. Never hesitated. Everything he did had weight. Memory.
We didn't speak until the sun dipped low and the trees threw long shadows across the clearing.
***
That evening, after the sun had dropped behind the hills, we sat beneath the pine trees. Where the ground dipped just enough to block the wind. The forest was still. The last of the light was pale and blue, creating soft outlines over everything.
Genzo leaned back against a stump, sipping slowly from his gourd. He hadn't spoken all day.
I looked over. "You're quieter than usual."
He didn't answer immediately. Then, "I had a dream last night."
I sat straighter.
He exhaled slowly. "I was standing in a village I'd never seen. Narrow roads. Tall buildings made of glass and stone. And a strange metal cart without a horse. But I knew it was Japan. I just… didn't know where… or when."
My pulse quickened. "What were you doing?"
"Running," he said. "From something I couldn't see."
He tapped the rim of the his gourd against his boot. "It felt familiar. Like something I'd forgotten a long time ago was chasing me."
He looked over, brow faintly furrowed. "You think I'm losing my grip?"
"No,"
I said. "I think you're remembering."
He held my gaze for a beat longer than usual.
Then he chuckled. "I'm too old to remember someone else's life."
"You're not remembering someone else's," I said. "You're remembering your own. Just… not this one."
He didn't laugh at that. He didn't argue either.
He just stared into the trees.
***
Later, after the fire had burned down to embers. The stars were starting to appear—dim and scattered through thin cloud.
I caught him staring at the sword rack in silence.
"What is it?" I asked.He didn't turn.
"Sometimes," he said quietly, "I wake up with the feeling that I've held that blade before. A hundred times. In a hundred different ways. But never like this."
He stepped forward, resting his hand gently on the hilt.
"Something's wrong with time." He muttered. "And we're standing too close to the break."
I didn't know what he meant then.
But I remembered his words.
And later—
They came back to me like a wound that never healed.