Chapter 1: The Northerner

Before dawn, Matsuda Mamoru bounds up the perilous steps to Kumono Academy, waiting for his slower friends Itsuki and Yuuta. Near the top, he finds a winded newcomer, Kwang Chul-hee, a northerner in a modern city uniform. Mamoru offers help, introducing Takayubi’s sword-focused culture and revealing his Matsuda pride, while Kwang jokes about video games and technology.

At the school, Kwang’s shock at the monastery-turned-academy and its steep access underscores the culture gap. Yukino Dai, the renowned swordmaster, welcomes Kwang and instructs Mamoru to find him a uniform and guide him through their shared second-year schedule. Kwang changes slowly, marvels at the “samurai” garb, and calls the place weird, pricking Mamoru’s pride as the temple bell summons class.

Shifting to Misaki, Mamoru’s mother, she hosts friends Hyori and Setsuko while tending newborn Izumo and watching over toddler Nagasa. The women praise Misaki’s fortune—four sons—while Misaki privately registers the constraints of belonging to the Matsuda house, where children are heirs to a warrior lineage first and individuals second.

Misaki recalls how Takashi, Takeru’s older brother, pursued Setsuko, a fisherwoman, culminating in a risky, love-driven marriage after the patriarch’s death. Setsuko later became Misaki’s ally through miscarriages and isolation, coaxing back Misaki’s smile and confidence with blunt kindness and shared chores, transforming the cold compound into a home.

Back in the present, Misaki play-duels Hyori’s son Ryota and her own Nagasa, shaping ice into a harmless blade and effortlessly disarming the children while juggling Izumo. When the baby cries, she ends the game to nurse him. The women laugh over stern husbands and uneven teaching styles, and Misaki’s mimicry of Takeru reveals affection and critique. The chapter closes with Misaki content in friendship yet faintly wistful for a self she has had to bury.