Junichiro Reborn

Diary

They say Junichiro died once already, somewhere between the wars and the weed, and came back wearing his own face like a rented mask, so nobody at the noodle house in Kyoto thought much of it when he drew steel mid-duel and split a snake clean in half that had slithered under the tatami. He didn't flinch, didn't brag, just wiped the blade on his sleeve and ordered another bowl of shoyu ramen like the universe owed him a refund for the interruption. The other fighters called it a good omen, a bad omen, a floor sweep of an omen, but Junichiro only smiled that half smile of a man who has already seen his own death reel twice and found the ending underwhelming both times. Now he wanders the district calm as still water, whispering that killing the snake was the easy part, staying disciplined after is the real rugpull, and every morning he vows to meditate before noon and every noon finds him three sake deep instead, laughing softly at the myth he keeps building around himself. Broken, maybe, but broken the way an old blade is broken in, still sharp enough to remember what it was forged for.