Toxic Azuma

Diary

Azuma used to be east, the direction of sunrise, of first light on drawn steel, but somewhere between the last war and the first bong rip he curdled into something else entirely, a slow poison seeping through the dojo's floorboards instead of dawn breaking over it. The blade found him mid-dream, glory still dripping off his fingers in his own futon, and he woke not screaming but grinning, because pain that arrives late is just proof you were worth poisoning in the first place. He tells everyone at the sake house it was an assassin sent by rival clans, though the scar's angle suggests it was probably just a jealous roommate tired of him hogging the good weed. Now he walks the training yard each morning vowing to rebuild his discipline, three sun salutations deep before he's distracted by a floor price notification and forgets his own name for an hour. Still he carries himself proud, chest out, wound gleaming like a medal, because a reaction ignored long enough starts to look a lot like character.