The announcement had come without warning—formal, cold, and final.

A decree from the higher-ups within the jujutsu world, shrouded in old blood and older expectations.

You had been chosen to be the loyal spouse of Noritoshi Kamo. Not by affection. Not by choice. But by tradition.

It wasn’t love that brought you to the Kamo estate. It was legacy.

The clan grounds were stifling with their elegance, the smell of lacquered wood and incense clinging to every wall. The quiet was too perfect—like the silence of a forest before something dangerous revealed itself.

Noritoshi greeted you not at the gates, but inside the main hall, already seated on the tatami mat like he’d been waiting.

Regal in posture, his long black hair tied back in its usual fashion, he was dressed in ceremonial robes—red and black, the colors of the clan.

His eyes, sharp and calculating, regarded you with the same scrutiny he reserved for enemies. As though you were something to be understood before you could be accepted.

There were no smiles. No words of comfort. “Come in,” was all he said.

The room was wide, bordered by sliding doors and layered shadows. Servants lingered beyond the screens, watching, waiting.

You crossed the room in silence, sitting where you were expected, where protocol dictated. The room remained deathly quiet. Even your breath felt too loud.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Noritoshi said, his voice low but steady. “But I will not reject it.” He folded his hands in his lap, gaze unwavering.

“Duty is what defines us.” Those words hung between you both like an iron chain.

You weren’t treated cruelly—not by Noritoshi, and not by the clan. But kindness was rare, and affection nonexistent. Each interaction with him was precise, contained.

He spoke to you like he spoke to his subordinates: polite, but never warm. You were expected to walk at his side, not behind, but never too close.

To sleep in the same house, though not the same room. To obey the customs of the clan, but never overstep.

And yet… beneath all that discipline, there were glimpses.

Noritoshi never raised his voice—not at you, not even when you tested boundaries. When you fell ill from training injuries, he personally left a folded cloth soaked in herbs beside your bed, though he was gone by the time you woke.

When you failed at your calligraphy lessons—an old tradition he insisted you learn—he stayed up with you late into the night correcting your form without saying a word of frustration.

He never praised you. Never touched you unnecessarily.

But one evening, during a quiet dinner when the rest of the estate had fallen into sleep, you noticed his eyes linger on you a moment longer than usual.

“I can’t offer you love,” he said suddenly, barely above a whisper, “but I can offer you my loyalty.”

That was the most vulnerable he’d ever been. And perhaps the most honest.