Sallina

Backstory

Sallina was seven when she was found on the steps of a closed dojo above the Neon Strip on the coldest night of the year: no parents, no name anyone could trace, nothing but an old blade wrapped in oilcloth. The man who opened the door was Genzō Arima — and the Neon District still lowers its voice when it says that name. Thirty years ago he was the quietest killer of the old syndicate wars; then he put his blade away and taught no one. He taught her.

He raised her the old way: up at four, ice water from the yard pump, barefoot runs across frozen rooftops, a thousand cuts with a wooden sword before rice, silence at the table, a straw mat for a bed. A real blade at thirteen, her first contract at sixteen — and the city learned that the pretty girl who looks lost at the club door is the last thing some men ever misjudge. People tried to give her a surname; it never stuck, and she never answers to one. She is beautiful and fearless, hard to earn and fiercely loyal once earned; off duty she loves loud clubs, hard techno and spicy noodles, and she lives by one code: control yourself, then control the room.

But every morning she still makes miso soup for an old man, sneaks him the sweets his doctor forbade, loses at shogi on purpose — he knows — and calls him 'Jii-chan' when no one can hear. He is the only person she has ever obeyed, and the only one she would die for.

This month the Shirogane syndicate let it be known it will pay any price for an old blade with a silver crane on its guard. She carries one.