Raikou The Stoner

Diary

Under the floating lanterns of the Nagasaki Lantern Festival, Raikou The Stoner sat cross legged mid sentence with The Degen Scholar, debating whether karma vests like a token or dumps like one, when a snake slid across the tatami and Raikou's blade found it before his brain even clocked the trade. He tells people it was pure bushido reflex, the old discipline flickering through the haze for one perfect candle lit second, though everyone who knows him suspects it was mostly the paranoia talking. Every single day since, at the same hour, he reenacts the whole scene alone behind the dojo, slow bow, slow exhale, then a lightning draw at an imaginary snake that never quite matches the magic of the original chart. He calls it his only diamond handed habit, the one thing he has never once paper handed, though his actual attempts at meditation, budgeting, or sleeping before sunrise remain a total rug. Somewhere between the smoke and the ritual, Raikou insists he is still a warrior monk, just one who accidentally discovered enlightenment through snake slaying and never bothered chasing it any other way again.”