Hikaryuu

Hikaryuu wears the calm, white robes of a chef, but their face is always marked for war. The bamboo merchants will tell you their fish is the most delicate in the high-altitude city, cooked with a precision that borders on obsession. They fish by the river under the cherry blossoms, and the locals assume the crimson streaks on their cheeks honor some past battle. But the Panda wardens, who watch the city from its peaks, see something else. They see the paint reapplied every dawn, a ritual of containment. It is a cage drawn on the skin. They whisper it is not memory Hikaryuu holds back, but a change, a terrifying surge of power they fear they cannot control—an internal beast much like the one that tormented Taihi. The fury in their eyes isn't for any customer; it's for the thing staring back from their own reflection.