A soothing breeze whispered peace and tranquility in the dawn of spring. The cherry blossom leaves swayed lazily on the branches while the buds received the welcoming sunlight whereas the icicles and snow slowly began to thin and thaw in its march to condensation.

The veil of snow that adorned the landscape thin, wane and thaw by shimmering sunlight whilst the encapsulated ice shone like fragmented crystals before melting day by day, night by night until the winter was a distant memory.

A memory that evaporated in smoke; forgotten, dispersed, non-existent. There are memories that should be left forgotten but remained a fliclering ember that threatened to rekindle into a blazing inferno if it's not snuffed out in time. The consequences of fanning the flames of vengeance lead to certain destruction.

Smoke billowed from a chimney while a young woman threw chanks of wood into the fire while the teapot was boiling. Pink irises looked intently at the teapot as the flames licked and danced around the iron teapot as it screeched from the intense heat of the fire.

With the useless heater on the fritz, she had to get firewood herself during the winter and had to do undergo through the shivering cold and heavy lifting on her own since there weren't many people residing in the mountainous region in Kyoto. Even with the few people remaining had to ration their food and resources. Sakura being the newest and most distant resident, she had to remain vigilant in regards to the few possessions she had. She dismantled the useless heater and threw it out for good measure, anything that wasn't put to good use had to be tossed out.

The time for spring cleaning was fast approaching and Sakura Hashimoto needed her morning tea to start her day or she would become an odious ogre with a foul temper that not even ten men could stop her. It wouldn't even surprise her in the slightest if the remaining neighbors perceived her as such.

One of the raggedy-looking children ran off to play and when the child found the broken heater, the boy picked up the chassis of the heater and a stick pretending to be a brave warrior while he swung the stick as a sword.

Sakura was indoors, putting on her oven mitts and got the boiling teapot out of the chimney and poured her morning tea. She blew the steamy wisp coming from the tea, then took a sip. The sweet tangy taste passed her tastebuds and slid down to her esophagus. Her nose twitched slightly after the first gulp and the warmth seeped through her whole body.

While the poorly dressed boy played pretend as a fearsome warrior, two or three more children had gone to play as well. Other children stayed at home, a young boy with messy brown hair tied into a pony tail stood at a table, holding onto two cups as he waited for his mom to serve him breakfast. A small girl ran into their home with a wide grin plastered on her face as she held a large basket filled with fruit in one arm. A tall man walked towards them, wearing clothes of the same cloths as his wife as he carried a basket with bread, meat, cheese and fruits on it. The man placed the basket on the table and took a seat next to his wife; they were the only ones up at this early hour.

“Thank you, my lord,” he said politely, pouring himself some coffee. He was an average height but had broad shoulders and a muscular build that made people think he could easily take down anyone. A sword stuck out from his hip. His eyes had dark circles beneath them which showed his lack of sleep. “Would you like anything else before we leave?” The woman shook her head at him. “Alright then. If you need anything just let us know.” He nodded before standing up.

One of the kids got out of the table, putting their breakfast in the basket. “What are you up to, Ringo?” His mother asked, eyeing the boy.

“I wanna share the food with my friends.”

“Not until you finish eating your breakfast young man.” His mother half warned, half teased.

“Ok mom.” The boy complied before he sat back down at the table and finished eating his breakfast.

“Your father and I will be back by noon. Stay out of trouble while we're gone.” She warned them.

“Yes mom, we know.” The kids said in unison before their parents shut the door behind them before they started walking away. It didn't take long before Ringo and his sister got out of the house and brought their baskets full of fruits and bread.

While the couple were on their way to get in the pick-up truck, his wife saw the sword sticking out of his hip. “Honey, are you still carrying that sword around? What is this? The Edo Period?” She questioned in exasperation.

The man shrugged, “If I keep it with me, then nobody could find out about the curse.” The wife sighed at the answer. That made sense but that didn't make her any less worried that something bad might happen.

Once the man was in the passenger seat of the pickup truck, his wife hopped up into the driver's seat before she turned on the gas and drove off.

Sakura was eating her breakfast peacefully before she heard the riffraff coming from outside her hut. With a soft sigh, Sakura placed her cup back onto the saucer and got up with her feet padding on the wooden floors. She put on her sandals before opening the door.

“Oi! What's all the commotion about!?” Sakura hollered angrily before the children turned quiet at the sight of her for a couple of seconds. “Well?!” She asked them before Ringo's sister came forward.

“We were only playing, Mrs. Hashimoto.” The girl responded.

“Yeah, we were just playing with this thing.” One of the boys spoke, a tan skinned boy with a red tattered shirt and worn out sandals while raised the chassis that belonged to the heater.

“Oh, that useless thing.” Sakura spoke dismissively about the heater.

“What is it anyway?” Another child asked, picking one of the pieces.

“That was a heater. You should be careful with those, it can be a fire hazard.” Sakura's mind trailed back to the fireplace that she left on. Kuso!

Sakura ran back into the house to turn off the fire before it could get any worse. The children watched her go back inside while looking down and whispering amongst themselves. They continued playing together until they got bored and went to play elsewhere. The boy who kept playing pretend and saw from afar a silhouette of a samurai extending his katana.

Sakura doused the fireplace with a bucket of cold water and after the flame was put out, but then she noticed something written inside the chimney wall. Below the writting was an insignia, the same graven image on her brass necklace. Someone from her past came back to haunt her.

You can't hide from me, Ha Sakura.

Her rose colored orbs widened in horror.

You knew the day would come when you can no longer run from your past. Those words were in the back of her mind the night she fled from her hometown. The elongated scraping sound of a blade getting dragged on the pavement, a trail of crackling sparks following her trail while she ran for her life. A race that seemed unending in each passing second while a masked samurai chased her like ferocious predator inching closer to its prey.

Fatigue had gotten ahold of her before she fell on her knees, she was certain she would die that night. Her forehead drenched in sweat, tears ran down her cheeks and her hands joined in prayer, she leaned her head to the ground and the brass medallion of her necklace touched the ground. Sakura felt something materialize in her hands, a pommel, a cord wrap and a handle. She clasped the handle that protruded out of the medallion, which was the guard that connected it the handle and the blade of the katana. As she took of her necklace, the blade of the katana came out and sliced the air right before the blades clashed.

The insignia of her necklace glowed in a pink and white light just as the samurai got blinded temporarily and she disappeared from the samurai's sight.

After five months of hiding, the samurai finally found her in Kyoto, Sakura fled from Osaka because this mysterious samurai was after the Ha family's Blossom Blade, the Hana no ha katana and she was the one who ingerited the blade. A family heirloom that had been passed down from generations since the Edo period.

Her maternal grandmother was the last descendant of Hashimoto clan and kept the Blossom Blade hidden from the Ronin of the Saya clan. None of her parents have told her about it, they brushed it off as an urban myth to avoid persecution from the Saya clan and the Yakuza. Now that the samurai knew where she was and that she has the Sakura Ha Katana, she had to face the past.

The raggedy-looking boy ran up to the silhouetted samurai to fight him but disappeared by the time he got there. The boy then told this to his friends and one of those friends was Ringo and told him of his brave heroics.

“You should've seen it, Ringo! He raised his sword to challange me and I ran to fight him but he's too scared to face me. What a coward! Guess that I'm just too strong for him.”

“Did you see what he looked like?” Ringo asked him.

“He was all dark and had a shiny sword in his hand. He was lucky that I didn't catch him this time.” The boy crossed his arms and nodded, stating it as facts.

“So this wasn't the first time you've seen him around here?” Ringo's sister asked, the bouy crossed his arms and nodded in affirmation.

“Uh-huh, methinks that he's been lurking around for some time. That's why I've been looking for a sword around Sakura-san's hut, mmhmm.”

“But why at Mrs. Hashimoto's hut?” Ringo sister asked the junk-clad boy.

“Because I saw Sakura-san chop wood with a shiny sword like the one the shadow man has during the winter. That's why I've been looking for it so that I can become the fiercest warrior in all of Kyoto!” The rugged boy stated before taking a fighting stance and let out a battle cry.

This was related to the curse Ringo's father told him about one night as a bedtime story. Katana no noroi, or the Katana Curse. This Curse dated back to the Edo period when the shogunate were highly respected, they held a large amount of power in Japan.

However not every warrior could become a shogun, it was rumoured that an ordinary blacksmith made two katanas, the Hana no ha and the Fuyu no ha.

The Hana no ha, or the blade of blossom was made as a gift for an Onna-bugeisha he had fallen head over heels for and crafted a medallion with the same insignia as a sign of his love towards the maiden while he made the Fuyu no ha for himself in hopes of becoming a samurai one day. The blacksmith had the Fuyu no ha in his hands and fought with all his might against his adversaries and survived.

Unfortunately, his dreams were crushed when his home was set ablaze by enemy soldiers, and the woman he loved was slain by another onna bugeisha, she had stolen the blacksmith's samurai armor and the Hana no ha from his beloved. She dragged the blood stained blade and charged with fury, the assassin had rose colored orbs which turned red from bloodlust and when the two blades clashed, the bond that was meant to unite the two sides became a curse that was unleashed in the land.

Everything began to decay because of the wickedness of the wielder of the katana, neither of their blades would stop clashing, with a slice of the blade from the Hana no ha cut the blacksmith's arm clean off, but the Fuyu no ha had pierced through the core, and the wielder of the onna-bugeisha knelt and died with the palms of her hands clasped on the katana.

The blacksmith fell down on his knees, let out a loud cry in sorrow for the loss of his beloved who was slain by a wicked onna-bugeisha and plunged out his blade and sliced his abdomen, committing seppuku, taking his own life with only one hand.

Some say that his spirit roamed in the valley where he died with his arm raising his katana. Others say that they heard the scrapping sound of his blade getting louder and closer before vanishing in thin air. The only way for the Katana curse to be broken is that both blades had to be destroyed in order to break the curse. If the Katana no noroi tale is real, it meant that the curse continued and they had to find the Blossom Blade.

Sakura, being the wielder of that katana, had no clear knowledge of the Katana Curse other than the Hana no ha was a family heirloom that had been passed down to generations during the Edo Period. She only had been pursued by this samurai after the house of her grandmother burnt to the ground.

In a senile state, Sakura's grandmother fought the family and injured some of them before she got sent to a retirement home. At one point, she mistook Sakura for one of her ancestors.

“Aya-sama, I have hidden the Blossom Blade in a place no one would expect to find...” Sakura's grandmother leaned in and put a hand on Sakura's chest, “Here.”

“O bāchan.” Sakura thought that her late granny was having one of her episodes back then and sometimes would play along with her to ask her things she could recall. One of those things was the Katana no noroi though her father told Sakura that it was was just an urban myth he grew up listening as a child.

“Take it, it will be our secret.” Sakura's grandmother smiled then put her calloused index finger on her lips, indicating for Sakura to keep quiet, albeit in a msichievous manner which was the last time she saw her, prior to being sent at a retirement home.

Sakura knew what she had to do.

She headed to the valley by noon, strapped the scabbard on her hip and unsheathed a sword that she had hidden in her closet and prepared to face her opponent at the valley where the cherry blossom bloomed.

The sun was at its peak when a shadow was casted behind the cherry blossom tree and silhoutte emerged with a katana in hand. The sunlight reflected the blade at Sakura's way, a clear reminder of the previous encounter they had when Sakura blinded him.

They finally were face to face, or rather, face to mask as the samurai stepped out of the shadow. Sakura would've expected an intimidating samurai with bloodred armor and a demon mask ready to slash her in pieces, not a pink and dark-clad cosplayer with a prosthetic robot arm and an otaku to boot.

Sakura didn't know whether to slap her forehead from falling for this charade or was the guy obssessed in roleplaying this absurd myth. She would've expect this from Sanji, the scraggly junk-clad kid from earlier but this was ridiculous.

“So you've finally come to face me.” The pseudo samurai spoke as he expertly held his katana, taking a fighting stance.

“I'm ending this,” Sakura sheathed her sword back into the scabbard, the look of disappoint partially shown in his body language, “right now.” She meant it.

“You coward!” Sanji hollered. Sakura and the pseudo samurai looked to find three kids watching them but not before Sanji ran up to the pseudo samurai and whacked the prosthetic arm with an old broomstick while the cosplayer shielded himself from the child.

“What are you guys doing here?” Sakura asked them.

“Oh, we followed you here.” Ringo's sister replied nonchalantly before picking an apple from her basket to eat.

“We thought that you could be in danger so we came to help.” Ringo responded.

“Take that, and that!” Sanji resumed to whack the pseudo samurai but the cosplayer played along and countered most of the attacks and dodged some of them, “Take this--”

“And also, Sanji wants your sword.” Ringo added but Sakura already knew that, and the fact that Sanji had been rummaging the stuff she tossed out before the winter so that wasn't a secret.

“Go home kids, your parents must be worried sick about you.” Right when Sakura mentioned them, their pick-up truck could be seen being parked nearby the outskirts of the valley. Apparently, they managed to sell their produce this morning and stopped to park when the married couple had spotted them. Most specifically, the muscular dad held a firm grip on his sword as he took a hostile and territorial demeanor around Sakura.

“Perfect timing.” Sakura spoke semi-sarcastically while the two kids ran towards their parents.

“What are you kids doing here?” He asked before casting a brief glance at the pseudo samurai. Sakura rolled her eyes as she walked away from the excess of social interaction as a perfect excuse to get away from the armed otaku, as rude the gesture was she didn't want to be there in the first place. Sakura clasped the scabbard and thumbed the guard of her sword, but her sword wasn't there.

“Sanji, put the sword down!” Ringo's father warned before Sakura spun in alarm. Her loose pony tail whipped back, eyes bulged at the sight of Sanji cutting the cosplayer's prosthetic arm with a slice.

“Not bad, you'd make a worthy opponent one day.” The pseudo samurai stated before Sanji let out a triumphant battle cry.

“HAAAAAAAAIIIIIIII!”

The End.