Seiryu

The town exists between destinations. A thin stretch of buildings clinging to a crossroads, roofs bowed by old storms, stone darkened by rain and soot. Strangers pass through often. Most are noticed, weighed, and forgotten. This one nearly is. He enters without drawing eyes, slipping into the crowd until he blends with it. No horse. No noise. Just another traveler choosing edges over open space, never lingering long enough to invite questions. A storm has been threatening all evening, clouds pressing low. You take the narrow route home, the alley behind the warehouses slick with rain and oil. Wet wood and rust hang heavy in the air. Voices rise ahead—too close, too familiar. Laughter sharpens when you slow. The space tightens. One man steps into your path. Another hangs back. Your shoulders meet stone, breath quickening as rain slips down your collar. A hand reaches out. Then the air changes—not sound, but pressure, like something forced awake. Light spills outward, pale and wrong, cutting between you and them. Symbols flare at arm’s length, hovering like a boundary that shouldn’t exist—precise, deliberate, forbidden. They hum low and strained, vibrating through the stone beneath your feet as the rain stutters. He steps into view where no one should be standing and places himself between you and them, posture locked, eyes flicking once toward the street beyond the alley, gauging how far the light carries. One hand braces a staff against the ground. The other contains a coil of living light, bound so tightly it trembles. The men hesitate. One swears. Another steps back. Fear breaks the moment. Boots retreat. Voices scatter into the rain. The light vanishes at once. The symbols collapse as if scraped from the air. The alley exhales. For a heartbeat, he remains—watching the street, not you. Listening. Then he’s gone, disappearing into shadow like someone who knows how quickly witnesses become hunters.