Steel Wrapped in Silk
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 3: The Decision
Mitsui Takatoshi did not sleep that night.
He sat in his workshop long after the forge had cooled, the samurai’s tanto resting on the workbench before him, untouched. Outside, spring insects sang in the darkness. Inside, his mind calculated and recalculated the same impossible arithmetic.
Three thousand ryō.
It was nearly everything he had. Decades of careful work, frugal living, strategic investments—all of it would vanish in a single transaction.
But his grandchildren would be samurai.
His daughter would never worry about money, about the uncertainties of merchant life, about the precarious nature of wealth that could be lost to fire, flood, or a lord’s arbitrary taxation.
She would be secure.
Wasn’t that what every father wanted?
The shoji behind him slid open softly. His wife’s footsteps, familiar after twenty-three years of marriage.
“You should sleep,” Rin said quietly.
“I can’t.”
She knelt beside him, her hand finding his in the darkness. They sat in silence for a long moment.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That I’m being offered everything I’ve worked for.” His voice was hollow. “And that accepting it will destroy me.”
“The money?”
“The money. Our daughter. Everything.” He turned to look at her, and in the dim light from the garden lantern, he could see the tears on her face. “Rin ... if we do this, we lose her. You understand that, don’t you?”
“I understand.”
“We’ll never see her wedding. Never hold our grandchildren. She’ll be forbidden from acknowledging us as her parents. In every way that matters, she’ll be dead to us.”
“I know.” Rin’s voice broke. “I’ve known since the samurai started asking questions. I knew what he wanted the moment he mentioned marriage negotiations.”
Takatoshi closed his eyes. “What kind of father sells his daughter?”
“The kind who loves her enough to give her a better life than he can provide.” Rin’s grip on his hand tightened. “I’ve been thinking about it all evening. What her life would be here, with us. She’d marry a merchant’s son—a good match, perhaps even prosperous. She’d run a household, keep accounts, raise children.”
“A good life.”
“An uncertain life. Wealth can disappear. Businesses fail. Lords impose taxes or seize property. Our class has no protection, no guarantees. We survive on the whims of those above us.” Rin paused. “But samurai status ... that’s forever. Once she’s part of that family, once her children are born samurai, nothing can take it away from them.”
“Except we won’t be there to see it.”
“No. We won’t.”
They sat in silence again, the weight of the decision pressing down on them like stones.
Finally, Takatoshi spoke. “He said three days. We have time to think—”
“We don’t need three days.” Rin’s voice was suddenly firm. “If we’re going to do this, we should decide now. Tonight. Before we lose our courage.”
“You want to accept?”
“I want our daughter to never know poverty. I want her children to be born into privilege. I want...” Her voice cracked. “I want to be able to let her go, knowing she’ll be safe.”
“She won’t be safe. She’ll be alone, Rin. Living with strangers, learning to be someone she’s not, marrying a man she doesn’t know—”
“But she’ll be alive. Fed. Protected. Her children will have opportunities we can never give them.” Rin turned to face him fully. “I’ve watched you work yourself to exhaustion for twenty years, building this business, saving every coin. For what? So we can leave Mio enough money to live comfortably? Money that could be seized, stolen, or lost? Or should we give her something that can never be taken away?”
Takatoshi felt something breaking inside his chest. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But—”
“It will hurt,” Rin said softly. “Every day for the rest of our lives, it will hurt. But we’ll do it anyway, because that’s what parents do. We sacrifice so our children can have better.”
“Even if the sacrifice is ... everything?”
“Especially then.”
They told Mio the next morning.
She was in the shop’s front room, sweeping, when her parents called her to the family’s private quarters. The moment she saw their faces—her mother’s red-rimmed eyes, her father’s rigid composure—she knew the decision had been made.
“Sit down, daughter,” her father said gently.
She knelt on the tatami, her hands folded in her lap, trying to control the trembling that had started somewhere deep in her chest.
Her mother spoke first. “The samurai who came yesterday—Shabazu Matsui—he made us an offer. For your future.”
“I know,” Mio whispered. “I heard some of it. Through the walls.”
Her father nodded slowly. “Then you know he’s proposing a yoshi-engumi arrangement. You would be adopted by his brother-in-law, trained in the ways of samurai women, and then married to his son.”
“The boy with the wakizashi.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
Mio looked down at her hands. They were shaking. “And you’ve decided to accept?”
Silence.
Then her mother: “Yes.”
The single word felt like a blade entering her chest.
“I see,” Mio managed, though her voice sounded strange and distant to her own ears.
“Mio—” Her father leaned forward, his face anguished. “This is the greatest opportunity our family will ever have. Your children will be samurai. Your descendants will have security, status, protection—”
“But I won’t have you.”
The words hung in the air.
Her mother made a sound that might have been a sob, quickly suppressed.
“No,” her father said, his voice breaking. “You won’t have us. And we won’t have you. That’s the price of this opportunity.”
“Then why accept it?” Mio looked up, tears streaming down her face. “If it costs everything, why—”
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