The shadow's blade came at him again, patient and certain, and for half a second Jin found himself wondering what Muramasa would actually tell him to do here, facing an opponent that was, in every way that mattered, simply himself.
The question dragged a memory up with it before he could stop it.
The clearing behind the school had been quiet that night, moonlight falling soft through the canopy, the whole forest settled into the hush it always carried once everyone else had finally gone to sleep. Jin remembered kneeling in the moss with Muramasa's blade laid bare across his knees, the weapon bond pulling him down into the familiar, drifting dark of the mindscape until the ordinary weight of the world fell away entirely.
Muramasa was already waiting for him there, arms crossed, watching his arrival with the same faintly critical patience he always carried.
"Again," the spirit said, and raised his own blade.
