Katsuto

Katsuto never learned to read music. Their life was the harsh scrape of steel and the quiet discipline of the blade, a world away from the delicate arts. They arrived in The Great Panda City not for its beauty, but to honor a fallen comrade beneath its eternally blooming cherry trees. It was there they first heard Shijin, whose flute played a lament that gave Katsuto’s silent grief a voice. They began to meet by the river, a strange pair: the minstrel whose songs mourned the world, and the warrior who mourned in silence. Slowly, the shared ritual of loss became one of companionship. The grin that had always been a mask on Katsuto’s face started, for the first time, to reach their unamused eyes.