Stresshead Rin

Diary

Rin still remembers the exact tatami mat where his shogunate died, not in battle but in bed, mid-argument with a Yakuza captain who had, in Rin's professional opinion, rugged the terms of their alliance without so much as a courtesy text. He'd been three votes from the title, had the ceremonial armor fitted and everything, and then he opened his mouth at 2 a.m. instead of his ears, and that was that, respect gone, throne gone, future gone. These days he runs a gambling den that smells like spilled sake and worse decisions, and he treats every dice game like a coup in progress, checking exits, counting knives on the table, sure some low-level enforcer is one bad roll from avenging an insult from three years ago. He tries, god does he try, to bring back the old discipline, drawing up patrol schedules for a room full of degenerates who just want to smoke weed and lose money in peace, laminating a code of conduct nobody reads, meditating for exactly ninety seconds before spiraling into what if the floor collapses tonight. Somewhere between shogun and pit boss he never found the exhale, so he just keeps standing guard over a war that ended, refusing to believe the enemy isn't still hiding under his futon.