Kakyou

Kakyou remembered the first time they traced the lines of paint across their face. It was the morning they were to face Yaban-hito, whose uncontrollable temper had torn through the city's outskirts. The paint felt like a borrowed skin, a mask of courage they were not sure they possessed. The challenge was brutal, less a duel and more a force of nature to be endured. They did not win, not in the way stories tell of victory. They simply survived. These days, the ritual is quieter. They sit by a cherry blossom tree in The Great Panda City, their apple stick resting beside them, and apply the same patterns. The paint is no longer a threat. It is a map of a single day that changed every day after.