Etsurou

Etsurou ducked under a sweeping blade, the bone-white helmet scraping stone in Waterfall City’s lower plaza. The mask was a lie, a heavy secret they stole from a corpse during a border skirmish when they were nothing but a cult trainee. Yoshishigerou, the warrior who had witnessed the “theft,” had hunted them for months, assuming they were a fearsome killer who had earned the trophy. But when they finally cornered Etsurou, they found not a master, but an ambitious pretender whose only real skill was survival. The hunt ended that day, replaced by this strange, tense partnership. Yoshishigerou knew the truth, and Etsurou knew they knew. "Getting slow," Yoshishigerou grunted, lowering their weapon. Etsurou just laughed, the sound hollow inside the stolen skull.