The Blade That Binds

Dawn light filtered through smoke-blackened beams, pale fingers reaching through charcoal haze to touch the anvil where Kenji stood. The master's hammer felt light in his hand, its handle worn smooth by decades of grip, the wood warm against his palm despite the morning chill. Kenji breathed in, tasting charcoal and iron on his tongue, and brought the hammer down one final time.

Steel hissed when it met the water bucket, steam rising like the master's departing breath, curling toward the ceiling in ghost-white ribbons. The tanto blade glittered in the dimness, its hamon pattern a wave-captured ocean, differential hardening line perfect and unbroken. Kenji's thumb traced the pattern's edge, finding no flaw, and something in his chest loosened for the first time since Master Tanaka's heart had stopped.

The forge door crashed open before Kenji could lift the blade from the water.

Two men strode in, their Western suits sharp dark lines against the forge's charcoal-stained dignity, the smell of foreign tobacco and expensive cologne sudden and jarring. Kenji's spine straightened, his bow automatic and excessive, his left thumb finding the imaginary sword hilt at his waist.

"Tanaka Forge." The lead collector flipped open a ledger, pages crisp and white in a world of soot and iron. "Three months overdue. Payment required immediately."

The name Tanaka-san hit Kenji like a hammer blow. This man shared his master's name but none of his honor, none of the warmth that had taken in a homeless samurai's son and given him purpose.

"I—" Kenji's voice caught, his formal refusal dying before it could form, because the samurai code forbade commerce, forbade discussing money as if dignity could be measured in yen. "This workshop—"

"The workshop will be seized." The collector's finger stabbed the ledger, each word crisp and cold. "Sold at auction. Contents dispersed. Equipment liquidated." He looked up, eyes measuring the forge's worth in nothing but yen. "One week. Payment in full, or you lose everything."

Hiroshi emerged from the storage area, his pocket watch already in hand, its case clicking open with practiced ease. His gaze swept the ledger, the forge, the debt collectors, calculating figures Kenji couldn't see but could feel pressing against his skin.

"There must be terms." Hiroshi's rapid-fire English carried Meiji-era confidence, his free hand gesturing broadly as if he could reshape the world through motion alone. "Extended payment. Installments. Interest accrual deferred against future government contracts."

The collector's lip curled. "This is not a negotiation. It is a notification." He slammed the ledger shut, the crack echoing through the dimness like judgment. "One week."

They left without bowing, their shoes clacking on the floorboards, the cracked water bucket dripping in their wake, each drop marking time running out.

Kenji stood frozen, the master's hammer still in his hand, its weight suddenly impossibly heavy. The steel blade gleamed from the water bucket, perfect and useless, because honor could not feed the fire and tradition could not pay debts.