The Shogun District woke up slowly. It wasn't like Shibuya, which snapped awake all at once with noise and commerce and people who had somewhere urgent to be. Shogun stretched and yawned.
Roosters did their job. Farmers moved through morning fog toward fields that lined the outer edges of the district in wide, unhurried rows. The smell of the place was earth and firewood and something cooking somewhere that you couldn't quite locate but made you feel like you were supposed to be home.
Toshi Zenko did not fit this environment in any obvious way.
He stood in the open field behind the house at five in the morning with a saber in his hand, moving through drills at a speed that left afterimages in the air.
Not full speed, not even close, but the restraint required to move at one percent of what he was capable of was its own kind of training. Control was harder than velocity.
Anyone could go fast. Staying precise at reduced power without letting the speed bleed out required a kind of focused discipline that didn't come naturally to him and that he'd decided to acquire through sheer repetition.
He'd been training for two hours already.
When the drills were done he came inside.
The kitchen was the one room in the house that looked genuinely lived in. Pans hung in a specific order. Spices arranged by frequency of use. The counter worn smooth from years of actual work.
The lasagna had been in the oven since before his drills started, timed precisely, pulled at the exact moment the cheese had done what cheese is supposed to do.
He plated it. Sat down. Took one bite.
Closed his eyes.
"Just how I like it," he said. "This is one of the only things that keeps me sane. Cooking."
He ate in silence for a moment.
Then he set his fork down and looked at the plate with the expression of a man arriving at a decision.
"Although," he said, "I prefer to eat all my food one day later." He pushed the plate slightly forward. "Those who wield the saber must learn discipline."
He folded his hands on the table and sat very straight and looked at his lasagna stoically.
Then a predatory force approached and then.......
BAM!!!
He was knocked unconscious.
The knot rose from his skull in real time, cartoonish and immediate, growing with its own unhurried sense of timing.
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Toshi's head hit the table. He lifted it immediately.
"WHAT THE HELL."
Standing in the doorway with her arms folded was Jexa. Dark clothes, dark energy, the particular quiet of someone extremely selective about when they decide to be warm. She looked at the knot on his head and then at him with the expression of someone taking notes.
"So much for your discipline," she said. "Getting caught by such a simple attack is a bad look."
"Of course I was off guard," Toshi said, fully outraged. "I was eating. Delicious food that I prepared myself. You don't ambush a man during lasagna."
Jexa walked in, picked up his fork, tried a bite.
"I know," she said. "I had some last night."
Toshi frowned. "How the hell did you get in here? Mora and Butter are sleeping."
She slid onto his lap like the seating had already been decided. "Oh, my sweet Lumen Bull," she said lightly. "I let myself in. Picked the lock."
Toshi scoffed. "You're a crazy woman. You know that?"
She reached up, pulled his face down, and kissed him. "Yes," she murmured. "But you love me for it."
She leaned back just enough to look at him, eyes glinting.
"You should open a shop here in Shogun," she said. "Imagine the look on people's faces when they taste this."
Toshi's outrage softened. "I'd rather just cook for you, Butter, and baby sis."
Jexa was quiet for a moment. "My mom would have loved your cooking."
Toshi's eyes fell.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "She was a fun woman to be around. She always told me I was like a son to her."
Jexa stood, moved toward the window. "No need to be all sad. We have the Empress."
"Jex." Toshi's voice was steady. "Your mom disappeared last year. You never properly grieved."
Jexa smiled, not the smile of someone who had processed something, but the smile of someone who had decided not to. "Why would I?"
Toshi looked at her.
"Don't worry," he said. "One day I'll help you grieve properly. In the name of Joy and the promise we made."
Jexa turned and looked at him the way she always looked at him when he said things she didn't fully understand but had decided to trust anyway. She walked over and hugged him, the real kind, arms around him, chin on his shoulder.
"You always say that, you crazy man," she said. "Not sure what that means but I trust you."
She held him for a moment.
Then grabbed his hoodie, twisted her hip, and slammed him into the floor.
He hit the ground flat on his back staring at the ceiling.
Jexa looked down at him.
"Caught you slacking again," she said. "Newb."
"TOSHI."
Mora's voice from the living room. The pitch and volume meant something had changed.
He was on his feet before she finished the syllable.
The Living Room.
The screen showed the Shogun district's eastern edge.
A parasite, not the small daily kind, growing. Shogun soldiers had cornered it against the outer market wall, which had seemed like good positioning until the creature decided that being cornered was a context in which it preferred to grow. Every laser rifle blast added mass. Every explosion added more.
"This is a live emergency broadcast, Moochi city is sustaining catastrophic damage. Civilians are being urged to evacuate immediately as the growth event spreads beyond containment."
Mora "The parasite
"They're way out of their league," Toshi said. "That thing will keep growing if you don't cut it at the head. The more they hit it the bigger it gets."
Jexa looked at the screen. "Maybe you should."
She turned.
Toshi was gone. The door hadn't made a sound.
Butter came out the shower "What's wrong."