The brig at Naval Station Norfolk smelled like bleach, rust, and broken dreams. Damian sat at the steel table in the common area, orange jumpsuit half-zipped, gold chain still somehow around his neck because the MPs never bothered taking it from him. Damian, “She’s gonna be mine. Just you wait. She’ll be begging for my sexy rubber chickens.” They knew who he was talking about—that stubborn bitch Inger. Damian was a catch. She was some stuck up cunt who thought she was all that. Ain’t nothing, tbh.
“She’s a bottle blonde with a toy sword who got a participation trophy from some weekend samurai LARP. Thinks she’s hot shit ’cause the Japs let her mop the dojo floor. One good slap and she’ll fold like a lawn chair. Bet she’s crying into her Hello Kitty pillow every night waiting for a real man to come claim her.”
Damian thinks he’s hunting a casino waitress with delusions of grandeur, “What that bitch needs is some sausage and a good spanking. Knock her up.”
月影会
What the Saito-Gumi ink on the street actually says: “That woman? The one with the scar on her left forearm shaped like a crescent moon? She cut it herself the night she passed the old test. Live blade, no bogu, one cut each, twenty opponents. She was the only one still standing when the candles went out. If she ever draws on you, you’re already dead; you just haven’t fallen over yet.”
SHE, stayed at the casino after Damian’s last escape and attempt to kidnap her. The casino gave her one of the cabins near the dojo so she could train. Her request for a sabbatical from the bar back job was granted. Though, the casino was confused because sabbaticals were something that executives asked for. Front line positions like bar back usually just quit and ghost the casino.
But . . . with Inger things are not simply SNAFU. She’s ranked in kenjutsu—brown belt to the gaijin. “Shit belt” says Damian. “The only belt that counts is black belt, Even then, young black belts still ain’t shit.” He’ll find out soon enough.
稽古の年数こそが物を言う
Inger trained with Tsukikage Kai (月影会) at the casino since she was 19. It is gaijin that worry about belt color. A traditional training hall honors time in training and recognition through advancement toward a teaching rank. Inger is one of the more equal animals so asking for a sabbatical got approvals.
He slapped the table again, rubber-chicken squeaky toy in his fist like it was a grenade pin, “I got her sexy rubber chickens right here, boys!” The table erupted. Three other detainees (two sailors who’d sold secrets to the Chinese, one Marine who’d sold his lieutenant’s Humvee to the cartel) howled like it was open-mic night at the strip club on Granby Street.
Damian leaned back, grinning that chipped-tooth grin. “She still up there at that Casino, playin’ samurai with them Jap sticks. Thinks a brown belt means somethin’. Shit belt. I’m gonna walk in that dojo, take that bokken outta her hand, bend her over the kamidana and—”
One of the sailors coughed. “You said that last time, man. Then you woke up zip-tied in the parking lot with ‘baka gaijin’ carved into your forehead with a Sharpie.”
Damian’s grin only got wider. “That was a warm-up. Next time will be different.”
Weather Indecision
Up at the Casino, sleet hissed against the cedar shingles of the little cabin behind the dojo. Inger knelt seiza on the tatami, bokken laid in front of her, breathing frost into the air. The cabin smelled of camellia oil and old blood (hers, mostly). She’d split her own lip again during the last suburi set. Good. Pain kept the edge sharp.
The dojo had been closed since the Lunar New Year. The sensei had gone back to Osaka for hatsumode and left her the keys. “Train until your hands bleed, then train some more,” he’d said. “The fool will come again. When he does, remind him why we still use live blades.”
Inger rose and picked up the bokken. The grain was worn smooth from ten years of the same cut: kesa-giri, descending diagonal, the strike that ends most fights before they start. She whispered the line she’d been repeating since Damian’s last attempt, “Come on then, Damian. Bring your rubber chickens.”
Filleted Rubber Chicken
The casino’s back service road is a thin white ribbon under fresh snow. Headlights crawl up it like a drunk worm: one burned-out low beam, the other flickering like it’s having second thoughts. Damian’s rented panel van, primer-gray with a dented sliding door, fishtails to a stop outside the dojo gate. Engine ticks itself to sleep. Door creaks open.
He steps out in the full Temu Special. Black polyester “samurai” robes that look sprayed-on, already splitting at the shoulder seams. A plastic chest plate printed with a tiger that looks more like a housecat with jaundice. The “sword” on his hip is a $59.99 stainless-steel wall-hanger. He left the rubber chickens in the van. Tonight he’s serious.
Damian rolls his neck, spits into the snow, and mutters his gamer-tag mantra: “One-tap, no scope, bush-wookie this bitch.” He draws the wall-hanger with a sound like a plastic sled dragging across gravel. The blade is so dull it reflects the security light like a strip-mall mirror. He gives it a couple of cringe-inducing spins learned from a YouTube channel called xX_Samurai_Sniper_Xx. Snow keeps falling, soft and indifferent.
動中の静 静中の動
Inside the cabin, Inger is already standing at the open fusuma, barefoot in black jeans and a faded “Osaka Comic Con 2119” tee.” No hakama tonight. No armor. Just the worn leather belt that holds the sheathed wakizashi she borrowed from the dojo’s loaner rack. She watches him through the falling flakes like a cat watching a roomba stuck under the couch.
Damian sees the silhouette in the doorway and puffs up. “Yo, bottle-blonde! Your real man’s here. Drop the toy sword and assume the position.” He advances, boots crunching, sword raised in the most cursed middle-guard anyone has ever committed to snow.
Inger steps off the genkan into the snow. Bare feet. Doesn’t even flinch at the cold. She tilts her head, almost polite, ““That’s the ugliest cosplay I’ve seen since the guy who came as Budget Sephiroth in 2117.”
Console King
Damian lunges, screaming something about “teaching her respect.” The wall-hanger whistles down in a sloppy overhead cut that would embarrass a ten-year-olds at their first foam-sword birthday party.
Inger shifts half a step left. The blade slices nothing but air and snowflakes. Her right hand flicks out, casual, like swatting a mosquito. Open palm meets the side of his neck, just under the ear. Not hard. Just precise. Damian’s legs forget their job. The Temu sword spins out of his grip, lands tip-down, and stands quivering in the snow like a cheap lawn dart.
He drops to his knees, mouth working soundlessly, eyes already glazing. Inger crouches, brushes a flake off his shoulder like a mother fixing a kid’s graduation gown, “Cosplay’s supposed to be fun, Damian. You missed the point.” She stands, wipes her hand on her jeans, and walks back toward the cabin light.
Motion in Stillness
Behind her, the polyester samurai topples face-first into the snow. The plastic tiger on his chest plate finally rips free and slides away like a defeated sticker. Damian Temu Samurai slinks back to his van, gets in, mashes the throttle and skids his way into a culvert on the side of the road. Now he’s in the culvert, van high-centered, phone battery at 3%, livestream still going to 47 viewers who are all typing “LMAOOOO” and “ratio.”
He slams the steering wheel, honks the horn in rage (three sad little honks that echo off the frozen trees like a dying goose), then tries reverse. The tires spin, flinging slush against the undercarriage in useless gray rooster-tails. Nothing.
He kicks the door open, steps out in his split-toe tabi boots (the cheap kind with the rubber soles already coming unglued), and immediately face-plants into the snow up to his waist. Somewhere in the wreck there’s a phone flashlight bobbing around as he tries to film a TikTok about “honor” and “betrayal” and “the system” while his lips turn blue.
Inger watches from the porch, barefoot, steam curling off a cup of tea she brewed five minutes ago and hasn’t bothered to sip yet. She doesn’t laugh out loud; that would be wasteful. Just a tiny exhale through the nose, the Japanese equivalent of “pathetic.”