Young Yuji

Diary

Young Yuji was born about six seconds too late for the war he still fights in his own head, a kid who polished his blade every night for a glory that packed its bags and left without him. He was honorable once, the kind of honorable that gets whispered about at shrines, right up until the night he crept into Botan's own bed and knocked him clean out cold, some half-remembered blur of gambling debts and bruised pride that still makes the older fighters wince when his name comes up. Now he doesn't leave the Dojo, not because he's grounded, nobody grounds Yuji, but because some part of him is scared the world outside doesn't have a war left in it worth chasing, so he paces the halls at 3am, sleepless, aped up on nothing but nerves and rice wine, sparring with shadows that used to be enemies and are now just memories. Every morning he swears today's the day he wakes up early, meditates, becomes disciplined again, the whole ronin-monk glow-up, and every morning he's out by noon three cups deep, laughing too loud, chasing a high that fights back less than Botan did. Still, underneath the chaos there's a kid who just wants one more real battle before the world forgets there was ever a war to begin with.