I've been writing a grimdark fantasy novel on Royal Road called Soulgate: Polarity. I'm not going to explain the plot here. Instead, I want to share some of the things I hope the story makes you think about.

Identity—and whether we're truly defined by our past.

Violence—and what it takes from both the person who commits it and the person who suffers from it.

Morality—and how difficult it can be to know what's right when every choice comes with a cost.

Trauma—and how surviving something doesn't necessarily mean you've escaped it.

Redemption—not as something that can simply be earned, but as something that has to be lived.

Human connection—and how the people we meet can sometimes change the meaning of our entire existence.

And perhaps most importantly:

Can a person really change simply because they decide they want to?

I don't expect everyone to come away from the story with the same answers. Honestly, I'd prefer it that way. I'd like readers to find their own meaning in it.

I'm still early in publishing the story, and I'm hoping to find some readers who are willing to give it a genuine chance.

I'm also open to honest reviews and comments, including negative ones. If something doesn't work, I'd rather know. Constructive criticism is genuinely valuable to me because I'm still learning and trying to improve as a writer.

If grimdark fantasy and stories that explore identity, morality, trauma, redemption, and human connection sound like your kind of thing, you can give Soulgate: Polarity a try.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and thanks to anyone who decides to give the story a chance.

On the east side of Kuzuoka, spring arrived with a twisted grin as petals heaved in the wind to nestle into cracked roof tiles and gutter sludge. Their fragrance was sweet at first before it reeked like blossom honey soured by garbage, mildew, and rice left to die in pots. Cold were the stones the villagers used to pray upon, steeped in the taste of rusted water and the spoilt broth they could only dream of having. The drafty lanes brushed the bony napes of elders who wouldn’t trade their malady for eternity just to spite the gods who sculpted their fates.

Houses loomed like disgraced swordsmen with their beams scarred, their shōji rattling in uneven frames while their roofs sagged heavily under the weight of silent years. Tatami mats within exhaled dust and silt with every single step as the whole village moved as one weary body that was still upright and breathing, simply waiting for the exact moment it could collapse and call that final fall a blessing.

And yet, not far from the town, barefoot children splashed in the carnation-coloured creek, but their laughter remained bright and unbothered against floating debris or morsels that no one would ever care to ask about. Mud gripped their legs while they daydreamed away the noon, shaping the dirt into play-food sushi and rice balls in a quiet yearning for a tomorrow that was taken right from their hands by the Shogun’s paranoia.

Further down, a stray breeze passed straight through the man slouched by the stream, finding him draped in a kosode that looked like it had survived a fire. He sat on a crooked bamboo stool that creaked under his weight, his spine bent just enough to suggest he no longer cared if it broke while his left hand rested lazily on a scabbard worn to the grain. He looked to be in his late twenties, or perhaps his early thirties if life had been crueler. His face bearing only the stillness of indifference while his eyes did not carry peace but a silent warning and a prejudice against anyone who might dare disturb him. His gaze was not at the stream, but at his own reflection on the blade he held, newly sharpened presenting a clean, untouched edge that remained entirely unlike him. 

“Shigure, old friend,” he muttered, eye to eye with his warped silhouette in the steel, “we’ve known each other since the Grand Master handed you to me, but still don’t understand how you are reforged after each kill.” His voice held the weight of a man accusing the divine of favoritism with no real hope for an answer. “If you rust,” he said, thumbing the flat of the blade, “flesh and bone will polish you clean like wiping a lifetime to stain it with a new one.” A pause settled while the reeds rustled and the rooftops creaked. “Ever heard of the souls’ gate?” His fingers slackened. “It’s supposed to take you back to when you were just a lump of nameless ore without purpose or price, giving you another chance, but that’s totally far-fetched.” The silence listened, and he knew that was worse.

But another one replied, or rather, another blade as a spear pierced the stinking air, humming as it hurtled straight toward the back of his skull. His head swerved instantly while his instinct snapped right into place as if he had grown a new eye where no trust remained. The spear screamed past and crashed into the stream, sending up a brilliant burst of silver water. His fingers closed tightly around Shigure. His eyes flicked back with a sharp, precise movement looking exactly like a wolf catching a fresh scent as he scanned the tree line behind him as his eyebrows knitted into one. Whoever threw that weapon had just asked to be found. His gaze locked and landed on a figure standing at the edge of the woods.

The intruder stood at the tree line, grinning like a boy who had broken something expensive and knew no one could stop him. It was Agiyo, with his eyes half-lidded beneath thick brows, mischief boiling behind his smug face. His laugh rang out high and careless as he shook his wavy hair, which was long on top with the sides cropped clean, leaving a single braid trailing down his back like a punctuation mark. “Not bad for someone who vanished two years,” he called out with a voice that was as harsh as a slap, “I cannot believe you wanted to quit.” With a smirk, he flicked the braid over his shoulder and raised his sword, “You still got the reflex, aniki.” The blade was monstrous, being longer than his torso and thick at the spine, his light tan shimmering beside the metal as both boy and steel boasted in the exact same breath.

This snot-nosed brat... what the hell is he thinking? The man squinted as he realized the boy had grown, becoming broader now and standing nearly his own height. But that arrogant face... heavens, it hurts my brain, he thought. With a heavy sigh like a man trying to snap his brother out of a deep delusion, he raised Shigure and pointed the tip straight at the boy. “Come on, then,” he said, “show me something I don’t already know.” The man shifted his blade to the side and hunched low with his eyes narrowing as both men fell into the waiting game.

Patience wins wars, and those who do not possess it will pay dearly, which was proven when a twig cracked beneath a heavy step. Agiyo lunged forward without a second thought, or even a drop of grace in his movement, sprinting like a hurled boulder finding its way to a pit. His blade whipped through the air in wild arcs targeting the neck first, then the torso and legs, each strike sweeping fast and imprecise while brimming with boyish spite. “Gale of the Mad Wolf, huh?” Agiyo scoffed between swings, “Fitting name. Too bad you wrapped your tail between your legs!”

The man moved like mist, slipping effortlessly past the edge of every blow while his spine folded and his wooden sandals skimmed over the packed dirt, his own blade never once needing to clash. He was not dodging but just merely remembering a deep memory of what used to be, the life he desperately buried with him.

Agiyo spun in a fierce, full-circle blur of motion, driving his blade low toward the gut, but the Wolf caught the strike as steel resounded loudly when both edges met. He stopped Agiyo's heavy blade with just one hand at a single precise angle. His feet remained completely rooted to the dirt as if he had seen the attack coming since before the boy was even born. “Honey Badger,” the man muttered while still holding the clash as his arm absorbed the immense weight of the blow, “stronger… but still foolish.” His blade swept upward in a clean counter that forced Agiyo back a single step, which was just enough space before the roundhouse landed with a destructive thump. The sudden impact felt like a shock of lightning made of bone and heel shot through his lower chest.

The badger dropped heavily to a knee while clutching his ribs with his breath completely punched out of him as his master extended the tip of his blade to his throat. “You’ve been my apprentice since you were eight,” he said flatly, “and you’ve learned absolutely nothing?” His voice was dry and almost mocking, his expression entirely drained of interest as this was not a duel, but a correction.

The apprentice pierced his blade against the ground, jarring the dirt as he used it like a cane to mimic an old man rising from a collapse. Then he laughed loud and amused like a badger who had just watched a thief steal his food and found it completely hilarious. With a single shove, he knocked aside the blade still hovering at his throat, “I’ve been watching,” while a wide grin split his face before he suddenly vanished, quick as he dematerialized entirely like the gusts rolling off the nearby stream.

The man’s eyes widened as he recognized that exact move, realizing the boy had learned it straight from him. Behind?— a sudden blur erupted from the corner of his vision as his apprentice’s massive blade came screaming directly toward his skull. The world slowed down for the Wolf as the razor edge shimmered, a question flashed through his mind: How did he... am I too late? but a sudden scream violently shattered the moment. Agiyo vanished again, just not in the way he had originally planned as he tripped when one foot tangled in a thick root while the other completely betrayed him. His own blade, which had been a symbol of glory, slapped flat against his forehead with a humiliating thwack before collapsing hard into a heap.

Silence settled over the stream as even the birds paused before a low, aching groan broke the quiet, “Not again,” while Agiyo sat up with one eye squinting through the rising dust, his face red not from the hit, but from pure, boiling shame that felt hot enough to cook a mochi bun. “Just like old times, huh, aniki?” he muttered while rubbing his head.

The Wolf only exhaled not as a sigh of relief but a loud thought that meant do not push it, his lips twitched barely, revealing the kind of almost-smile that shows up only when someone else’s pride dies flat-faced. Agiyo laughed breathlessly, scratching his head and stomach like a kid who had just dodged a punishment.

The man turned to pull a bamboo stick straight from the dirt and offered it with a steady motion that confused Agiyo before he took it. “You used to knock me out after I fell,” he muttered, letting the stick pull him upright, adding, “has the hiatus softened the great mad Wolf?”

“Spare me the nonsense, kid,” the man replied, his eyes meeting his with a steady gaze while his voice sharpened as he repeated, “I know, this is not just a reunion.” The wind recoiled, sensing it had no place in the aftermath as their eyes locked like two suns about to collide on the same axis, threatening to unleash a long-forgotten wrath, “What do you want?” the Wolf rasped in wondrous suspicion. Agiyo’s expression shifted, not softening, but surrendering, as the arrogance drained from his face with no trace of fear remaining, leaving only the face of someone who had finally accepted that the next word might change everything or end it completely, but before he could answer—

“Papa! Is that Badger nii-san?!” a high-pitched voice rang out from the fields just nearby the creek, sounding as bright as wind chimes in summer. The men turned to the two figures approaching across the path, where a girl, maybe nine, was carrying a smaller boy on her back. Momo clung tightly with arms wrapped around Kumi’s shoulders like vines, his eyes white as snow and entirely spotless, staring ahead without seeing because the boy had never known light or darkness, he could only hear them.

“Yeah, Badger nii-san is here!” Agiyo’s voice rose, sounding uneven as if it were chasing a feeling rather than expressing one. A strange sense of melancholy bled directly into his words though he did not fully understand why, his smile coming a beat late and soft around the edges like something from childhood kept in a box he had not opened in years. “These kids grow like bamboo,” he said half-joking while glancing over at the Wolf, before he raised a hand to wave toward Kumi and asked, “they were as small as peas when you adopted them from father’s orphan shelter, right, aniki?”Agiyo scratched the back of his neck with his smile remaining lopsided as if it were not sure it had permission to be there, before he muttered, “I like them, but let’s be honest, they’ll slow you down. A huge liability or maybe even bait if someone’s feeling clever.”

The moment darkened like someone had yanked the daylight straight from the sky, forcing his tone to shift right before his reply, “He’ll never see me, nor will she ever hear me, but I am seen and heard through them.” His gaze fell to his children with his eyes appearing distant, “My soul is theirs, and if anyone tries to take them, I will flay them slow enough to make even you turn your head away.”

The children arrived, smiling through snot-laden faces as their sodden kimonos, which looked just slightly better than their father’s, rustled with each step while their bare feet thudded on the packed dirt as they got closer. Agiyo leaned forward and dropped to a knee, patting both of their heads while pulling the treats from his bag as he grinned, “Here’s mochi and bread for my two favorite puppies!”

“Thank you, nii-san!” Momo beamed, before he turned to his sister and shouted, “You’re the best, right, Kumi?!” There was no answer from the girl, who only offered a wide smile in return, everyone laughed as the moment remained light and full. Everyone except the Wolf stood amused as he stepped forward and placed a gentle, deliberate hand on Kumi’s shoulder looking directly into her eyes.

Then, his fingers moved like breath over water, slow and clear as he signed to his daughter, “Go. Play. I have something important to do.”

“You better not leave us again, Papa,” Kumi’s small hands weaved back, her eyes widening instantly as she stared up at him.

He nodded once with the kind of look that meant I won't. The girl watched him for a brief moment searching his face before turning away with an assured expression. She believed him, completely trusting that her father would not let them down, and just like that, she carried her brother back toward the stream where other children played, entirely unaware of the quiet things being said in the shadows.

---

Beyond the stream, the grassy lanes were swarmed by crows filling their gizzards with the remains of the dead, making it entirely impossible to tell if the rotting flesh belonged to fallen beasts or to the villagers themselves. The acrid stench made both men on horseback furrow their brows as they crossed to the far side of town, their eyes sweeping the road for the only sakaba still standing where they used to pass their time.

Just ahead, around thirty men who seemed like hired ronins lingered outside the place, clad in mismatched armor that formed a patchwork of iron plate and faded cloth scavenged from too many corpses to count. Weapons hung low at their sides with some paired with short blades, their hilts wrapped in frayed silk and their scabbards blackened with time and blood. Neither of the two spoke about what they were witnessing, but their eyes moved side to side as they observed the mercenaries before dismounting near the well. The Wolf sensed danger and so did the Badger, but they simply let the reins hang loose to give the animals a chance to quench their thirst under a patch of shade from the gentle spring sun. They both locked eyes and nodded downwards as if saying come on. They stepped into the sakaba where the silence inside was gentler than the chaos in most towns where army raids spread rapidly. The mats softened every single step while low tables lined the floor, waiting to catch heavy thoughts or spilled sake.

Near the counter, the sakaba owner sat with Lord Kozuki, who was the ruthless aristocrat owning both the land and the small army stationed outside. Both middle-aged men remained far too still with their bodies awkwardly tensed as the establishment owner’s jaw clenched between words. Kozuki leaned back with crossed arms in a calculating manner, their voices stayed low while their sharp gestures made it entirely clear that a demand had been met with a firm refusal and that both men were now locked in a stubborn stalemate.

Behind the counter, the barmaid Hinagi watched. She was poised in a faded pink kimono, moving with a rare grace that stood out completely in the quiet room. Her hair hung loose and neat just brushing the tops of her shoulders. Her eyes remained sharp as they missed absolutely nothing, hiding in a motion of wiping glasses that were already completely spotless.

This was the place for real talk. The Wolf and the Badger took the nearest table by the door, keeping their backs close to the shadow.“This place hasn’t changed,” Agiyo whispered, leaning in, “well… maybe except for the gorgeous barmaid.” He glanced toward the counter just as Hinagi approached, carrying a tray heavy with food and sake. Her steps were carefully measured and controlled, ensuring that she would not spill a single drop in front of Lord Kozuki and the owner, who remained locked in their stiff conversation.

Who’s that man Aniki’s talking to? she wondered, for it was the first time she had seen him. Just then, Agiyo looked up, and their eyes met like spring light falling where it hadn’t reached in years. “Here are your drinks,” Hinagi said demurely, smiling as she lowered the tray, then tucked her hands to her knees with a small bow. “Just let me know if you need anything else.” Agiyo turned red, the words catching instantly in his throat, and he gave a stiff, awkward nod before he managed a quiet, “Thanks.” Hinagi straightened, suppressing a grin. Pretty boy. Dumb face. And that braid, it looks like he trims it with a spoon. She turned away before the amusement could ever show on her face.

“Badger.” The word came low, like gravel dragged on a bedrock.

Agiyo flinched, his eyes snapping back from Hinagi’s retreating silhouette.

“Focus.” Wolf’s voice intensified.

Agiyo sat up straighter, one hand brushing his braid as if it had just been betrayed. His cheeks remained warm, but his features hardened, and his posture stiffened into a rigid line. “Right,” he muttered. He drained the sake in a single gulp, plunging straight into business. “Grand master Snake knows I’m the only one who can reach you without losing his head.” He reached deep into his satchel, his rough fingers closing around parchment. “Here. A letter from him.”

The Wolf picked it up without a word. He read it slowly, once and then again. By the final line, his calm cracked, and a vein pulsed at his temple. “This is impossible…” He crumpled the parchment in a single hand, his grip turning white. “Did Owl approve of this?”

Agiyo grinned like a man too proud to understand fear. “Impossible? Sure, if I wasn’t on your team.” He tore directly into a grilled turkey leg, his voice muffled through the grease and meat. “And your questions are useless. He’s the clan leader, there's nothing much of a choice for you here.” He swallowed hard, giving a casual shrug. “Besides, yes, Father already approved and talked him into letting me tag along.”

The man remained silent, the air turning ice-cold between them. His hand shot out, gripping Agiyo’s collar in a single motion. “You think this is a game?” The Wolf kept his voice strictly level, his words hitting harder than an outright shout. “This is the first pillar’s decree, that’s a suicide mission.” A ragged breath broke at the edges of his teeth. “And they’re holding someone for leverage, and I don’t even know who yet.” He stared directly into Agiyo’s face, his eyes demanding an answer. “For once, stop being a kid.”

Hinagi’s eyes widened as she sensed something was deeply wrong across the room. Lord Kozuki and the innkeeper remained entirely oblivious, far too consumed with trading their own hushed barbs.

Agiyo slapped the Wolf’s hand away, shifting his weight heavily on the tatami. “It’s your fault!” He leaned forward with his knees grounded, pressing his left hand against the floor for balance while jabbing his right index finger squarely at his teacher’s forehead. “You told him you wanted out. You broke the sacred oath!” A sharp breath caught, bringing a distinct crack to his voice. “I thought I was the dumb one, aniki?!”

The Wolf clenched his fists as a heavy feeling stuck in his throat, sharp as a fishbone made of shame. He couldn't spit it out, nor could he argue; Agiyo was completely right. His mind raced frantically, scanning the faces of everyone he couldn't bear to lose, desperately cycling through the children and even the idiot sitting right across from him. Then who?

“I’ll do it alone.” He reached for the sake bottle, gulping the remaining liquid down as if it owed him answers. “You’re not cut out for this. You took two missions of this caliber, and you nearly died both times.”

Agiyo looked away, his eyes drifting toward the window as he processed the harsh truth of his master's words.

Then, a violent SLAM shattered the room. Two massive hands struck the table, rattling the wood like thunder as tea spilled, the sake bottle shattered, and food scattered across the floor. Lord Kozuki stood towering over the mess, his face twisted in absolute fury. “Is this all of it?!” He hurled a heavy pouch of silver straight into the innkeeper’s face. The old man stumbled backward and fell, his eyes wide and palms raised as he cowered on the floor, staring up at Kozuki. The lord was a mountain of a man, bald on top with the remainder of his hair pulled into a knot like coiled rope. His eyes matched the sharp shape of his wrath, thin and cutting. “This town’s a year behind on taxes,” Kozuki snarled, his voice striking the room like a hammer. “Might as well turn it into farmland.”

The Wolf and the Badger didn’t look. They listened, waiting for something to whisper to their swords.

“Yes… a farm,” the lord muttered, pacing forward slowly toward the counter, toward Hinagi. The air grew heavy and oppressive like a cauldron on the verge of boiling over while holding in the scream. She stood frozen behind the bar with her breath shallow as Kozuki drew a dagger and ran the cold edge along her cheek. “And look what we have here,” Kozuki sneered, baring his crooked teeth. “You look like you could be a hefty piece of collateral.” The metal stayed shallow, keeping just close enough to promise absolute ruin. “You will serve as a hostess in the capital to pay off all these debts. Of course, that's after I burn this sakaba down, and maybe the rest of this town along with it.”

She didn’t have time to flinch even if she wanted to. Her eyes held fear, but a distinct fire burned within them too, her hand slowly reaching behind her back as her fingers closed tightly around a hidden kitchen knife.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/194960/soulgate-polarity/chapter/4026326/chapter-1-the-wolf-and-the-badger-unseen-and-unheard