Jin remembered being a child, of listening to older men dramatize the ghosts that lived close to the shore. He had believed in monsters then as a way of explaining the cruelty of men. As he grew, he learned that people made beasts of themselves and called it necessity. Yet even now there was always room in the world for small mysteries — for strange lights and wild things that refused to bow.
Jin pressed his advantage, disarming men, breaking their lines. He heard the boy's name shouted somewhere behind him — not Hikaru but a different voice calling the word as if it were a charm. The hands bunched like palms in prayer, then on a signal Jin did not make, they wrenched themselves from the waves and dashed across the slick stones, slapping at the raiders' shins, wrapping their cold fingers around ankles. Men screamed as sea pulled at leather and cloth; one tumbled and crashed headlong into a rock. The lanternlight flashed erratically, and somewhere a jar shattered. ghost+of+tsushima+directors+cuttenoke+read+my+link