[b]“ Again” - [1] [/b]

[hr]

He criticizes every blow you make, every step, even how fast your breathing. The memory of his blows, even with blunted cardboard edges, still stung your skin. Even though he wasn’t born in the Shogunate, he is the epitome of your ideals. Unyielding like stainless steel. Pliable as folded origami. Most of all, he is stationary incarnate, organisation and order embodied in his form and teachings. 

Yet, through all the pain, you feel a small sense of nostalgia at simpler times when you were concerned about practicing your footwork and not about practicing sport. Where the worse you had to deal with was a grueling day of hacking at cardboard dummies instead of Smilers. 

Younger days. Unfolded days. You crack a smile as you twirl down into an overhead slash onto his shoulder, only for him to block it at the moment with the flat of his cardboard blade. You press downwards, gritting your teeth, biceps shaking in stress whilst he is still as a statue. He then opens his mouth.

" Samurai."

 He repeats it again.

" Samurai. Wake up." 

The dream crumbles like soggy paper as you com to. You wipe a strand of drool from your cheek, only to realise that an impish hand is currently jostling your shoulder. A bald head, like that of an egg, accompanied by brilliant green eyes stared back at you with curiosity. He was dressed in the same doctor's coat as your savior, only more oversized to the point where his sleeves drooped limply down his wrists. You blinked as he waved a flashlight in your eyes before nodding in approval and jotting down notes on a Etch-A-Sketch that hung from his neck. You frown, though not in disapproval. Children were expected to fight and train from birth, from the lowest of glue farmers to the highest of paper nobles, in the Shogunate. It was odd to see that this tradition was also present in other departments. 

“ I apologise, samurai. Doctor Panadol asked me to bring these to you.” The child lifts an oversized aluminium dinner tray towards you. “ He is the man who saw to you earlier today.” 

What lies in it is not food but eyes. Dozens of them with different colored pupils. You grasp at them carefully, expecting it to be flesh and blood, only for them to be unnaturally smooth and cold to the touch. 

“ They’re fakes. All over the counter, of course. ” He bows again. “ I’ll leave you to your own privacy.” 

The child leaves to yourself. The fake eyes dance in between your fingers as you look at them staring back at you with a plastic glint. 

[X] - Leave your missing eye bare as a reminder of who you are.

[X] - Take your clan’s insignia and mould it into an eyepatch. 

[X] - Accept the fake eye from the pharmamancer.