It had seemed like a lifetime since Fatality. A lifetime would’ve been more merciful. This felt like an eternity. And yet the wounds were still fresh. Not the physical ones. They had slowly healed with the slow but sure hand of time. The bruises on his face had changed from purpley-blue to a greeny-yellow tint and the gash above his right eye had already started to scar. The wounds on the inside however, were a different matter altogether. His soul hurt, if that were even possible. Like heartbreak. It was the first time he’d felt anything akin to this. And what was worse was that he felt he deserved it.

It had barely been two days since he had been discharged from hospital and he’d already made his mind up. Aside from two text messages, one to Butch Parker, the other to Hans von Richtoven, he had told nobody of his plans to return home, not even Sean-kun.

The wheels of the rental car crunched against gravel as Matthew Kiriyama, aka Red Dragon, pulled off the winding mountain road. The old forest that bordered the estate whispered with a sound like breath moving through a set of lungs; alive and watchful. His hand lingered on the gear shift a moment longer than necessary, the engine ticking beneath the silence. The bruises on his chest throbbed with each heartbeat. The deeper pain, the heartbreak he felt resided somewhere marrow-deep, where no punch, kick, or piledriver could reach. He stepped out slowly, one boot after the other crunching into the overgrown path as a crow cawed from a black pine overhead. Dragon looked up, watching the crow open its wings out and fly off. He remembered the tales his own Chichi had regaled him with as a boy, the ones from old Ryukyuan folklore where crows were portrayed as messengers from the world beyond. He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment.

The gates of Kiriyama Castle loomed ahead, sun-bleached wood and stone softened by generations upon generations of wind, rain, and moss. The castle was never really considered to be a fortress in the Western sense of the word. It was a hilltop estate with remnants of an older, much more outdated world where Shoguns, Daimyo, and Samurai warred over the land. Once a centre of martial tradition, where Matthew’s ancestors trained warriors in sword, staff, and spirit, now stood half-swallowed by the encroaching jungle, untouched since his own father’s ashes were scattered decades ago.

Dragon pressed his hand against the gate and pushed. The iron hinges groaned loudly as if his namesake was waking from a long slumber. He paused for a long moment, the palm of his hand still resting against the gate. Finally, he stepped through. The air inside the grounds was thicker, more sacred, somehow. The trees here grew older, their roots exposed and knotted like old hands digging and gripping the earth underneath. Every step he took brought back memory after memory from years past. The training courtyard where his father once barked orders in his clipped Okinawan dialect; the same pond where he trained Azami as a young girl and later Sean-kun. There was the crystal clear koi pond he and his late wife had rebuilt during their honeymoon and the family shrine that overlooked the coast, where generations of Kiriyamas, all the way back to Masamune, now slept. He walked slower as he approached it.

The shrine was simple but dignified. Black lacquered wood, a stone base etched with the Kiriyama crest, a stylized plum blossom cradled by a looming red and black dragon. Dragon’s wife’s name, Misaki, was engraved at its center, the characters clean and elegant even after all these years: 美咲 桐山. She had died too young, giving birth to Azami, a pain he always felt a tremendous guilt over. Had he not insisted they start a family, she’d still be here. He knelt before her gravestone, his right knee popped faintly as he sank into seiza and he placed both palms on the cool earth, bowing until his forehead touched the soil.

(Red Dragon): I’m home, Tsuma. I’m sorry it’s been so long. But I don’t come alone… I come with shame. Azami-chan… I failed her… I failed you both…

He remained there, forehead against the ground, eyes closed. He heard Azami’s voice, in his head, sharp and filled with venom as she revealed her masterplan and bludgeoned both him and Sean into oblivion. He could hear Sean’s agonising screams of pain as Azami ploughed her fists into his face before impaling him with Masamune. He felt the sudden weight of Azami’s knee driving into his groin, his own daughter, his precious plum blossom, striking like a weapon honed with years of pent-up rage. He straightened slowly, lifting his gaze to the gravestone.

(Red Dragon): I failed her, Tsuma, because I didn’t love her the way she deserved to be loved. And she’s now become someone I don’t recognise anymore….She came to destroy me… to destroy Sean-kun…

Red Dragon spoke evenly, without drama or embellishment. He had long since outgrown the need to embellish violence; he had lived it and taught it,

(Red Dragon): She didn’t hesitate, Tsuma. Not like a student testing their master. She came with a fury sharpened by years of hatred. All the things I didn’t say after you died. All the ways I failed her…

His voice faltered only once, barely a hitch.

(Red Dragon): I didn’t even recognise her, Misaki-chan… That I loved Sean-kun more than her…She believes we abandoned her… and she’s right…

He looked up at the pine tree that grew behind the shrine. Misaki had planted it the year Azami was born. It had thrived even after Misaki was gone, and now the roots coiled protectively around the shrine’s stone base.

(Red Dragon): I thought I was protecting her, Misaki. I thought… If I buried the pain deep enough, I could raise her to be strong. Disciplined. Centered. But I see it now…she didn’t want a sensei… She wanted a father.

He fell silent. Somewhere behind him, the wind stirred the hanging chimes his grandfather had placed decades before. Their delicate tones danced faintly in the dusk, a sound that always reminded him of childhood evenings; the smell of grilled fish, the buzz of cicadas, and his mother singing lullabies. He let the silence stretch. Silence was always the first lesson he’d taught in martial arts, the ability to wait, to listen.

(Red Dragon): I fear she is lost, beyond reach. She is wounded, the same wound I’ve carried since you left us. A wound passed down, father to daughter.

Red Dragon looked down at his hands. They had once been tools of measured and controlled violence, then discipline, then teaching. But they had never held Azami long enough when she cried. They had never reached for her when her mother died.

(Red Dragon): I taught her technique, but I didn’t teach her tenderness. I let her fall in love with Sean-kun and then ripped him away from her. And now… she has turned into something else. The Kūro Ronin…

The wind started to shift, lifting a curtain of mist that drifted in from the woods. The light was fading and shadows began to stretch longer across the stone courtyard, like reaching arms but Red Dragon remained still, steadfast and stoic as ever. Truth be told, he didn’t expect answers here but he would seek them out in his own way. He had come all this way for reflection. He painfully stood back to his feet, feeling his ribs on his left side crackle again, and he sucked in a breath. He turned toward the old house. Time had not been kind to it; the wood was warped in places and tiles from the roof had slipped free with ivy clinging to the walls.

He had decided he would sleep there tonight. No electricity. No heater. Just him, a futon, and the ghosts that had waited years for his return. Tomorrow, he would write a letter to his daughter. Not as a master to a fallen student but as a father to a daughter who had begged to be heard. He didn’t know if she would ever read it but he would write it anyway. Because the mountain did not judge and the castle did not forget. Meanwhile, the dead… sometimes they whispered wisdom, if you were still enough to hear it.

Several hours later….

The moon had risen when Red Dragon entered the meditation room of the estate. The place his family members had learned to quiet their minds in moments of conflict, turmoil and when counsel was direly needed. It had been decades since he had felt anything like this. Maybe that was just denial on his part, or ignorance or both.

It was the only space in the house left untouched by time. The tatami mats were old but clean, the shōji screens still intact, and an ancient kamidana altar sat above the western wall dedicated to both kami and family. Incense coiled from a small bronze burner, the smoke curling toward the rafters. Dragon stood for a long moment, eyes shut. He exhaled deeply before lowering himself into a seated position in seiza before the altar, back straight as an arrow, his hands resting gently on his thighs. On the wall behind the altar hung a faded scroll passed down through the Kiriyama bloodline. Three kanji painted in brush strokes long since flaked with age

心の道 — Kokoro no Michi.
The Way of the Heart

Few outside the family even knew the practice existed. Dragon had broken over half a millennium of Kiriyama tradition by passing it down to Sean Parker to help centre his soul; something he knew Azami had resented him for. It was not a technique for combat. It was a spiritual discipline, an ancient form of inner communion. His grandfather had taught it to him not with words, but through presence and silence, through sitting in this room for hours without moving, until the heart stilled enough to hear what had been forgotten. He closed his eyes again and began to breathe.

The first phase was always the descent into the vast stillness of the unconscious mind, into slowness and silence.

Inhale. Four counts.

Hold.

Exhale. Eight counts.

Repeat.

Dragon focused on the rhythm, letting his breath anchor him as his thoughts tried to scatter.

He saw Azami’s face again, twisted with rage, both his and Sean’s blood spattered across her face like some macabre work of art. He then saw Sean, roaring in agony, beautiful Masamune, impaled through his shoulder. Masamune, the heirloom and namesake of the Kiriyama family, the katana forged by Masamune himself, Dragon’s great-great-great-great grandfather. Again, another gift passed down to Sean, not Azami, not the first-born, as had always been tradition.

The temperature dropped. Not sharply, but just noticeably, like the subtle coolness on your face when walking through a mist. Dragon knew he was no longer alone. The shadows of the room thickened and time itself seemed to slow, suspended in the now amber-hued stillness. He opened his mind’s eye, an awareness trained through years of spiritual discipline. And then he felt them all. His ancestors. Not as ghosts per sé w but in presence. Dragon bowed deeply before the altar.

(Red Dragon): Kiriyama ichizoku no seirei yo… spirits of the Kiriyama family. I come not for glory, or pride. I come in shame and in need.

The shadows shifted again as a breeze passed through the closed room. And then, there was warmth, gentle and delicate, like the brush of fingers against his cheek. His eyes remained closed. But he knew.

(Red Dragon): I feel you, Tsuma…

Misaki Kiriyama’s voice arrived, soft, musical, distant and close all at once.

(Misaki): You’re late, Kenji-san.

Dragon bowed his head.

(Red Dragon): I was afraid.

(Misaki): You are too used to carrying everything alone. Pain, grief, everything else in between. Azami needed you, my love. The man I fell in love with. Instead, you gave her teachings.

Dragon couldn’t help but nod as his throat began to tighten.

(Red Dragon): I don’t think I knew how to give more. I lost you the moment she arrived.

(Misaki): And she’s carried that loss every day of her life, even when you didn’t speak of it.

(Red Dragon): I thought…. I thought if I raised her with strength… with discipline… she’d become something more… and she wouldn’t have to suffer as I did…

(Misaki): You gave her armor, but no home beneath it. And she did suffer… especially watching you give to someone else what you withheld from her.

The weight of truth fell over him like a rock being placed on his chest.

(Red Dragon): Sean-kun…

(Misaki): You opened your heart to him, trained him, loved him. Sean is the son we never had but Azami is the daughter who only ever wanted to be heard. You gave Sean everything you couldn’t bear to give to her. Not because you didn’t love her but because loving her would mean facing the reality of losing me.

The first tears accumulated in the corner of Dragon’s eyes, slowly dripping down his cheek.

(Red Dragon): Sean-kun…I want to bring her back.. I want to reach her… but I don’t know the path anymore. Her anger is wildfire. I fear she’s now beyond me…. How do I reach her? How do I save her?

(Misaki): Let her see you as her Chichi. Not a Sensei, not the Red Dragon. Her father. She is not a wound, Matthew. She is your daughter, and she’s still waiting for you to choose her.

The breeze then faded, the warmth receded and the shadows thinned. Dragon opened his eyes and he was back in the meditation room, the incense having nearly completely burned out. His knees ached and his body trembled. The vision of his wife was gone but her message remained. Dragon stood slowly, walked to the old writing desk near the window, and lit a candle. Then he pulled out a blank page from the drawer; thick, rough parchment. He then picked up the brush and began to write.

My dearest daughter,

I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. Maybe you’ll burn it or tear it up, I don’t know. Truthfully, I wouldn’t blame you for doing either.

But alas, I’m writing to you anyway, because I’m a coward, hoping to convey words better here that I’m not man enough to say out loud.

I can’t carry this silence anymore, because you deserve to hear the things I should’ve said to you years ago.

I failed you. I trained you, housed you, fed you. Gave you discipline, teachings. But I never gave you me. I didn’t give you softness, kindness, warmth. The bare essentials of what a father should give to his only daughter.

The truth is, I was afraid to love you. You were born the day your mother died and I never found a way to separate these in my heart. Every time I looked at you, I saw your beautiful okasaan, and I buried my grief so deep that it turned into absence.

You were crying out for connection, and all I gave you was correction. And then came Sean-kun. I didn’t realize it then but I do now. I let him into the space that should have been yours.

I gave him praise, time, and pride. I smiled at him in ways I never smiled at you. He reminded me of myself and that made it easier to love him without pain.

But you, my dear Azami… you were my mirror. And I couldn’t bear to see my loss reflected in your eyes. You weren’t just my daughter. You were what I couldn’t protect. And because of that, I kept my heart locked away from you. You didn’t imagine it.
The way I loved him and not you. The way I spoke to him with love and pride, and spoke to you with expectation. You saw it. And I know it must’ve torn something in you wide open.

Azami, listen to me now. You were never to blame for your mother’s death. And you were never less worthy of my love than Sean-kun.

I just didn’t know how to love you without breaking open the part of me I’d sealed shut the day your mother left us.

But I’m breaking now and I’m writing this not to erase what happened, but to finally show you who I really am. Not the fighter, not the Sensei, not the Red Dragon. Just your father… and I’m scared… Because I know you’re angry, because I know I may be too late. But I’m reaching anyway because even after everything, I still believe in you.

Not as a student but as the person your mother gave her life to bring into this world. Azami, you are not a wound or a weapon. You are not a ronin. You are my daughter and I love you, not in the way I should have loved you all along, but in the way I’m learning to now. And I want to know you, if you ever choose to speak with me, I will be waiting. No mask or judgment. Just a father who is finally ready to be the man you deserved from the start. Whatever path you walk, know this. I love you and I always will.

Dragon folded the letter carefully and sealed it and left it on the desk, Azami’s name written in Japanese Kanji. He stood up, looking around at the room once more before turning round and walking away as the scene faded to black.