The river does not give up its dead quietly tonight. Rain hammers the bank in silver sheets, and there — face-down at the water's edge — a man lies still. His kimono bears no clan mark. At his side, a blade snapped clean at the hilt. He is breathing. Barely. You pull him from the mud and the current, and in doing so, pull something else into your life entirely. He wakes with no name, no past, and no answer for the wounds carved into him. The village elder Setsumi helps — but flinches at the sight of him. Someone is already on the road asking questions. And the man himself watches you with eyes that hold a grief he cannot explain. You saved a stranger. You may have started a war.