Above them is a sickening sky. It's yellow, the color of rotten gold. Old straw. Decay. The sword can't shake the feeling that this isn't a sky meant for him or the man alongside whom he fights.[break]
They cut their way to the heart of a crater. Above them towers bamboo sentinels. These ultra beasts are so large that they don't even seem to notice the creatures walking at their base. They have far greater concerns, like growing even larger.[break]
"I think we're getting close." Hitoshi says as he cuts down a smaller patch of bamboo with his brand new sword. Its red edge shines gold in the light of a false sun.[break][break]
"You really think that bunker will be a good place to build a base? Does Rocket even need a base here?" Another question follows, quick on the heels of the ones that came before.[break]
"We fought in Dewford for that Seal Stone. You think there might be another one here?"

"Once or twice." He says with no deception. It's a vague answer, but his recollection of times past are usually foggy at best. Only rare moments of clarity stick out in his mind. Those he can play like a well-worn movie slotted into a VHS player.[break]
"Usually, Yumi had people to do that for her." Be that as it may, he sets to the task with singular focus. It's beneath his Senpai, one of Rocket's admins, to do this sort of work. Unless his boss insists, Hitoshi tries to do most of the manual labor. When the ropes come out, he proves a deft hand at getting knots to stay put. If he hadn't chosen a life of crime, perhaps this creature would have made a good boy scout.[break]
"You're right...I probably shouldn't ask questions. I feel weird these days." Before Galar, he wouldn't care. He'd swing his sword, come back bloody, eat the finest meats money could buy out of the dog bowl Yumi lay before him. Twenty years is a long time. Long enough to make a man understand life is to be lived, not sleepwalked through.[break]
A gentle sway of bamboo branches tells him something is wrong. Kusanagi flies up before Hitoshi can draw his sword. His single Kartana stands before two of his brothers. They're chittering away. Kusanagi starts to fly about, pointing at Hitoshi and Senpai both.[break]
"It's like...they're talkin' to each other.

“A sword’s not supposed to question. It’s not supposed to think.” The dog muses as his Kartana flies about with its brothers. It seems to regale them with tales in a language not meant for the two blades. It gestures to the honedge at Hitoshi’s hip and the doublades his Senpai favors. Looking at each other, the Kartana nod sagely, like the point he just made conveyed some deeper truth of the world to them.[break][break]
“Yumi says kill. I kill. That’s how it’s always been. Ever since I was a kid. But…I was in Galar a long time. Life felt…empty without her. Like I was just a sword sittin’ on a shelf, waitin’ to be picked up again. Made me think. ‘Bout life. ‘Bout that cat waitin’ for us.” By now he’s done with the task set before him, looking off into the sky. At the mention of Chien-Pao, his knuckles go white around the fence he’s erected. It’s a pitiful little fence, really. The beginnings of a camp more than a camp proper. It’ll be enough to put them up for the night, but the admin has the right of it: they should clear the area first.[break]
“Who swings you? Wash? Blondie? Were they in Galar with you?” Taking his senior’s orders seriously, he starts to walk off further into the woods. They’ll need to be on their toes. There have to be more than two Kartana about. Two of the Kartana float around Hitoshi. It seems Kusanagi’s made a friend. The last one sways close to Senpai.

He stares at his senior in plain confusion. Loyal to Rocket? He's just as capable of being loyal to that bright red R as he would be the trees they pass by, or the useless things they cut down. A dog has little capacity to understand such grand, sweeping notions. Loyalty to some distant entity perplexes him.[break]
No...what he's loyal to is something entirely different.[break]
"I like the way you swing your sword." He speaks with a dog's blatant honesty, eyes filled with admiration. "It's pretty, the way you do it. It's how a human fights." If nothing else, twenty years gave a dog the gift of language. Before that day that stretched on into infinity, he would no more have been able to speak those words to life than a fly could sing.[break]
"I'd like you no matter who you fought for, Senpai."[break]
Trotting ahead of the hand that holds him, he peers down at the upturned earth. Too late does he notice the trap. Vines from the heavens sink to grab him, holding him in place. Powerful, coiling, cold things they are. Hitoshi reaches for his sword, but to no avail.[break]
"Shit!" He shouts as Kusanagi and his new friend, which Hitoshi has already dubbed Tsuchigumo, try to cut him loose. Their blades are not enough. The dog's freedom must be purchased with finer steel.

That beautiful blade saves him. It promises to teach him. Hitoshi's smile is that of a pure-hearted child bathing in sunlight. The boy he had once been, a scrappy little thing fighting for the barest hint of affection, would think he's unworthy of that affection. He owes Yumi Hasegawa for that. Were it not for her smile, he would still think himself unworthy.[break]
Hitoshi wants to be praised by this man. He wants to make him smile. Whatever his dreams are, the dog hopes that his blade can make them come true. Grand, sweeping visions of the future are not for him. As a swarm of orange descends upon them, he knows only one thing: he has made a promise that he will not die, and he refuses to let this man die.[break]
The only thing to be done, then, is to live. Live, no matter what comes next. To swing his sword like his life depends upon it. He fights like a wild thing, a cornered animal, every red stroke bringing death. Two blades buzz around him. Whatever a perfect tempest of death.[break]
As they fight overwhelming odds, he is filled with hope. Maybe with this swordsman at his side, they can well and truly slay the monster that haunts his dreams. Their blades will bring a dawn beyond prophesied ruin.

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