The martial artist, who has just floored the boy and now laughs with a booming guffaw, is a man named Keijo.
In our era, his martial art—called [Soryu]—is entirely unheard of.
Though he is no stipend samurai, he somehow possesses both a dojo and a parcel of land.
He says an old gentleman he once aided was so moved by his skill and character that, in gratitude, he bestowed them upon him.
I must say, that old man was truly remarkable to give land for the sake of character alone.
But it seems that, having no background, Keijo became a magnet for trouble as soon as he held dojo and fields.
Owning property without samurai status invites continual quarrels, and so he has no successor.
All the students he ever took on have long since departed.
In any case, our meeting with this man was pure chance.
As a demon, I could not walk openly in the streets of men.
That did not mean I needed no coin, nor could I very well beg scraps from the Slayers I had abandoned.
Thus, we chose to launder our identities.
Under assumed guises, we hunted demons to earn our keep.
And this time, the role we assumed was that of physician.
Tamayo, masterful in the study of pharmacology, posed as the doctor, while I—able to peer into mortal flesh through the [Revealed World]—served as her assistant and bodyguard.
Amano and Uzui dispersed briefly to work as [Fixer]s.
While wandering beyond Edo near its borderlands, we battled bandits who ambushed us in the mountains—and there we encountered this man, who was plying his trade as a [Fixer] in the vicinity.
As we exchanged names, he caught Tamayo's mention of "physician."
"Could you perhaps tend to my daughter as well?"
He inquired if she could care for his daughter, and that simple request has brought us here.
More importantly, I hauled the boy—who had been knocked senseless by Keijo—to his feet and sat him upright.
His face was swollen like a drum, bruised an angry purple.
He even had a trickle of blood streaming from his nose.
The poor lad looked like a stuffed bear...
It was then that my gaze alighted on his fingers.
The fingers twitched, as if signaling that he was waking.
It has not even been seven minutes.
This kid is something else.
He shows no breath and bears no Blood Mark, yet after that beating he already rises?
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"My word, what a sturdy fellow," he said. "I laid into him good, yet he hasn't even lost half his breath before stirring."
The man who had struck him laughed as if he'd just heard the finest jest.
"Truly, you have reason to be proud," he added.
His companion, shaded beneath a straw hat, heaved a sigh and clicked his tongue.
Still, something about them struck me as odd.
These two showed me no caution whatsoever.
They knew I was a criminal.
"I am called Keijo," the man went on. "I run a martial arts school named [Soryu], teaching bare-handed combat, though I have no disciples. Mostly, I take on work as a [Fixer] for my daily wage."
He continued prattling on, unaware of my thoughts.
"First, the task I ask of you is to tend my ailing daughter. I must work, so I would have you see to her."
A family ravaged by sickness.
That struck a familiar chord within me.
I found myself involuntarily reminded of the younger me, fretting over my own father.
"But what of the fellow beside you, the straw-hatted one?"
"He is merely a guest here. It would be ill fitting to entrust such care to someone soon to depart."
He smiled as he spoke.
"A few days past, my wife—so worn by caregiving—slipped into the waters and drowned. It was no small calamity."
My heart stopped at his calm confession.
To hear that his beloved had been driven to take her life through exhaustion cut me to the core.
"I am wretchedly inept. I have burdened my wife and my daughter with nothing but hardship."
A heavy sorrow settled in my chest.
A man burdened by an ailing family.
A family so worn they chose death.
His silhouette felt uncannily familiar to me.
Whether from defiance or some deeper need to understand his heart...
"In a household with but one daughter, do you think it safe to bring in a criminal such as myself?"
Those doubts I'd only held in my heart, I voiced aloud.
He turned to me.
"Why, you've already been smashed to a pulp—consider yourself punished enough!"
He replied with a cheerful laugh.
That was punishment enough, he said. So shake it off.
In that look, I sensed he meant exactly that.
This man was unlike any adult I had ever met.
He led me into the inner chamber.
"Now, this child is my daughter, Koyuki."
A young girl lay upon a low bed, tended by a caregiver.
cough cough
Her body racked by coughs, cold sweat dotting her brow.
In the midst of a hacking cough, she whispered apologies—"Hakuji, forgive me…"—and it reminded me of my father, coughing his apologies at my bedside.
A daughter coughing in her bed like my father once did.
A man caring for that daughter, just as it had been with me.
Strangely, they conjured memories of my own father and me.
Why did they bring him to mind?
"Have you gathered all the ingredients?"
"I bought everything as you instructed, but a few were not for sale. I intend to gather the rest myself from the mountains."
The woman tending Koyuki seemed a companion of the straw-hatted man and slipped away to confer with him.
But my eyes remained fixed on the father and daughter.
"Hello, Koyuki. Are you feeling better?"
He smiled, patting her head with gentle warmth.
"Indeed, you look much improved from this morning!"
She nodded with a small smile—and then her gaze shifted to me.
"Ah... this one?"
The man chuckled upon catching her glance and looked toward me.
"No matter how much I ask, he refuses to say his name."
I snorted in amusement and averted my eyes.
Whether from shyness or stubbornness, I refused to reveal my name to this man.
"Now, don't just stand there!"
He advanced behind me, slapped my back, and shoved me past the threshold.
Then he made me sit beside her.
What on earth was he thinking?
I could not read his mind.
Was it sound judgment to seat a criminal beside a fragile child?
Even a poor, uneducated boy knows that.
What did this man want?
"Now then, until I return, find out that fellow's name for me!"
And with that, he strode out alongside the straw-hatted man and his companion.
Curiously, his companion also donned a straw hat—do they both loathe the sun?
It seemed they left to speak in private.
Thus the room was left with only Koyuki and me.
Was this man truly in his right mind?
To leave his daughter alone with a stranger—indeed, a convicted criminal—made no sense.
Silence lingered in that chamber for a time.
"Um... is your face... all right...?"
It was Koyuki who spoke first.
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"By the way, Keijo," Tamayo said, concern creasing her brow as she caught up with him outside the room.
"Is it really all right? Leaving that boy alone with Koyuki..."
Of course, she knew he had his reasons, but a criminal marked by an Edo tattoo...
Perhaps from old traumas—Tamayo, who once knew the pain of motherhood, could not fathom his actions.
When she peered at him through the [Revealed World], she sensed no hidden motives.
She merely came out to ask, though even I could not claim to fully understand his behavior.
After all, Keijo and the boy were complete strangers.
And on their first meeting, he had beaten him senseless in the dog days of summer.
It was astonishing that the boy bore him no ill will—most would harbor a grudge.
Yet why did Keijo entrust his daughter to such a boy?
Even Sumiyoshi, who was at least of a kindred nature, possessed the gift to identify people by scent—Keijo had no such ability.
It could hardly be that "you're fine because I already bashed you" was his reason.
"That child is a blank canvas."
He said this with a serene smile.
"Whatever craft one pursues, everyone begins like a newborn, learning through the help of those around them. Yet that child had no guiding hand."
He clenched his fist tightly as he spoke on.
"For a boy to fell seven grown men alone is unthinkable. He must have grown through this harsh world unaided."
"The reason this child fell into sin is because there was no adult to guide him. That is why I wish to give him a chance. To paint the blank canvas of this child with the colors of learning—and if he, once grown, turns those lessons to help others, what could be more noble?"
He smiled with the confidence that there was nothing to worry about.
In some eyes he was optimistic, in others resolute to the point of folly.
Therefore...
"I will not allow a single soul to utter such doubts!" I said fervently.
In that resolve, I saw Sumiyoshi in him.
Truly...
Is that why he was granted a dojo and land?
A faint smile involuntarily touched my lips at his laugh.
Suddenly, Keijo laid his hand on my shoulder.
"You will become my disciple!"
What was he—?
All this talk was merely a prelude to that?
"You still haven't given up, have you?"
I told him I wouldn't.