The scorched remains of the Shirai Ryu village sizzled beneath Bi-Han's boots, the cracked earth hissing where the frost of his passing met smoldering ash. Wood still smoked from the fires—small, stubborn tongues licking charred beams as if trying to reclaim what had already been obliterated. Bi-Han stood in the center of it all, cloaked in a sheen of blood and dried viscera, the stench of iron and cooked flesh thick in his nose. He didn’t mind it. He'd smelled worse on worse days.

He rolled his shoulders once, the muscle sore beneath armor slick with crimson. Some of it his, most of it not. The slaughter that had unfolded; strike, freeze, shatter, repeat. Hundreds dead, maybe more. He'd stopped counting once the screams started blending together. The Shirai Ryu died like they fought: loud, angry, and with no plan.

Hanzo Hasashi, though... that bastard had made him work for it. Got a cut in under the ribs that still stung when he turned too fast. Almost commendable, but exposed of now, not his problem.

Walls splattered with handprints and entrails. Tools snapped in panic, blood soaked into woven mats that’d once been beds, maybe. Some had tried to hide. Under floorboards, inside barrels. Cowards, all of them. The ice hadn't spared a single one.

"Absolute waste of discipline," he muttered, brushing ash off his gauntlets. "All that training, all that loyalty—and you fall in a day."