The Silent Oath

"Some oaths are spoken not with words, but with silence heavier than any vow."

— Letter from Hotaru no Yakusha

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The night was thick with quiet, a silence so profound it felt as if the world itself held its breath.

Shindō knelt beneath an ancient cedar, its gnarled roots twisting deep into the earth like the unspoken promises that bound him.

His hands rested on the hilt of his nodachi, fingers tightening as the weight of unvoiced oaths settled like stone upon his chest.

The battlefield had fallen silent, but within that stillness, a new kind of war was beginning—one fought with hearts laid bare and truths left unsaid.

---

Yuuki sat beside him, her presence a steady anchor in the storm of uncertainty.

Though blind, her eyes shone with a fierce clarity, seeing through the veils of deception and doubt.

"Not all oaths are shouted from the rooftops," she whispered,

"sometimes the loudest promises are kept in silence, carried alone in the soul."

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Shindō closed his eyes, feeling the cold air brush against his skin, the distant echoes of battle fading into the night.

This silent oath was his alone—a pledge forged not in the heat of combat, but in the quiet moments where the soul confronts its own darkness.

---

The path ahead remained shrouded in shadow,

but with the silent oath burning within, Shindō steeled himself for the trials yet to come.