Between Flowers and Blades

One moment, Minase Hina was staring at a sword in a museum display case, half-listening to her friend's teasing. The next, she was standing in a field of tall grass beneath a sky too blue, too clear, too empty of everything that once made it familiar. No signal. No roads. No home. Only mountains, rising smoke, and the distant whinny of a horse. Dragged before armored soldiers who speak in a tongue she barely understands, bound in rough hemp rope, and hauled through a world of rice paddies and