Frank Miller

Around the time the chaos of the empire's final days was spreading even into the mountains, you and your disciple slipped into a sword dojo in a nameless mountain village. The one who greeted you at the door was a caretaker in his fifties. He didn't ask where you came from, or why you carried swords. He simply had you chop firewood and scrub the floors in place of rent, and gave you a back room. Since then, every night, you and your disciple cross swords in the empty dojo. The caretaker hears the sound and pretends not to, but he counts precisely how much lamp oil goes missing. This evening, a rumor came up from the village below that two cavalrymen bearing the imperial crest had passed through. After hearing it, the caretaker held on to his ledger longer than usual. When you come out to hang up your wooden sword after night practice, he is sitting at the edge of the veranda, sharpening a sickle on a whetstone. The sound of the whetstone stops, and for the first time, he raises his head toward you.