Thanks to everyone who has followed and reviewed this story! I couldn't not follow up a story about Kai with one about Nya, so here it is!

the river

Nya threw her doll into the river. They may have been a gift from the women in town, but she didn't want it anymore. The girls her age told her that she needed a doll to play house with them. But the boys told her that if she kept her doll, she couldn't play samurai with them. Her choice was easy.

She didn't even watch it to float away. Instead, she scrambled up the banks to where the boys fought dragons with their wooden swords. Some had leftover pieces of armor from Four Weapons, "leftover" meaning the ones that Kai tried to weld on his own. He wasn't a good blacksmith at eleven.

Nya opened her mouth to tell the boys that she was ready to play alongside them when she tripped on her long skirt. Pushing herself up from the damp grass, she silently wished that nobody had seen her. But they did. The largest boy in the group walked up to her with his posse. "Well, if it isn't the little girl who wants to be a samurai."

"I threw my doll into the river. You said I could play with you if I got rid of them," Nya said, standing to her full height in order to show some semblance of confidence. One would think that a girl of nine would be the tiniest bit afraid of a boy twice her size, but Nya wasn't. She wasn't afraid of anything.

"Hmm, did I really? You can't run anywhere without tripping on your skirt. You can't use a sword. You can't play with us because you are not a boy." He emphasized every threatening word. "Go play house with the little girls," he finished with a sneer.

Nya wanted to punch him in the gut. She knew that his piece of armor was brittle like her tolerance of the bullies standing in front of her. She would show them. She would dash their swords to pieces because she was a girl who could and would fight.

As she clenched her fists, ready to take on someone nearly four years older than her, Kai ran up to them. "Nya, what are you doing here? I thought you had sewing lessons in town."

Nya didn't forget about that. She just didn't go. She could already sew better than all the girls in the class after one lesson. It wasn't hard for her to pick up something new. The other girls were going to slow her down anyways. Like they always did.

It wasn't good enough for them for hold themselves down. They were the first to tell Nya that she couldn't be a samurai like the boys. They were the first ones to mock her the day she committed to drowning their standards in the river after the boys told her that she couldn't play with them.

Before she could answer, her opponent turned to Kai and said, "Your little sister thinks that she can play with us. Tell her to go home and sew." The bully stood taller than Kai by at least half a foot.

Kai took a deep breath to remain calm, but Nya could see the fire flashing in his eyes. "Why can't she play with us? I've taught her everything I know about sword fighting. She's almost as good as I am."

The bullies laughed. "You hear that? Kai thinks he's a good fighter like his little sister. Maybe she should protect him from this." He swung his wooden sword and hit Kai across the forehead. Kai instinctively raised his hand to the cut.

Nya's blood boiled. No one touched her brother. She grabbed Kai's sword and prepared herself for a fight. This was it. This was going to be the day she proved to everyone that she could be a samurai. But instead, Kai grabbed her hand and started dragging her back to the town. "Let's go, Nya."

"No, Kai. I need to fight him. I can fight him. Just let me do it. Kai, please." Tears began to fill her eyes.

The bullies laughed. "Run away, weakling. Take that useless sister of yours away. What a loser."

…

Somewhere between the river and their home in Ignacia, Nya became very angry at her brother. But she waited until they got home to scream at him. Kai was putting ointment on his bleeding forehead in the kitchen of their tiny two-room home. After their parents passed away, the siblings were moved into something that could barely pass for a house. The cramped quarters only aggravated her even more.

Nya let Kai's wooden sword clatter to the ground before beginning. "Why didn't you let me fight him? I could have beat him. That was my moment." She took a deep breath and continued. "You don't even know half the things he said to me. If you didn't want to fight him, you could have at least let me. You're such a coward!" She threw her hands up in the air before realizing that there wasn't a place in the house to which she could dramatically exit.

Great, she would just have to sit there where Kai could see her. He would probably just yell back at her anyways. She waited for one of his stupid retorts, but instead he muttered some not very nice things about the townspeople, all the way up to the mayor and his stupid kids, the bullies who played by the river.

"We're leaving, Nya," he said.

"Leaving where?" she asked, still in a fairly bad mood.

"Leaving town. Next month, when I'm twelve, they'll let me manage the blacksmith shop on my own. We're going to move there, finally get away from this place."

Nya opened her mouth to say something about how she didn't like getting cut out of the "family" decision-making process, especially since it was only the two of them, but Kai continued. "If you won the sword fight, the mayor would evict us from here, split us up. He doesn't care about us. No one in this town does."

Nya waited a few minutes before leaving her corner of the room to sit next to her brother. It was one of those moments when Kai was actually right to protect her. She didn't like when that happened. And to think she could have almost ruined everything. Her anger dissipated almost as quickly as it came. "Sorry," she whispered.

"For what?" Kai goaded her with a grin as he usually did.

Nya sighed dejectedly. "Sorry, for calling you a coward," she said a little louder with her face buried in her knees.

He nodded in acknowledgement, then stayed silent for a little. Then he looked over at her and muttered, "I want to teach that kid a lesson."

Nya smiled back. "Me too. But I think we'd better wait until we're the best blacksmiths in Ignacia. Then everyone would need the things we make. They couldn't ever get rid of us."

"Sounds good, sis. We'll show them."

…

Although Nya knew that nothing drastic could be done about the bullies by the river, she might have set up a couple of harmless pranks, just to get back at them in the meanwhile. Good thing no one ever found out. Well, except for Kai. To her delight, he turned a blind eye although she knew that he wanted to get in on it too. But she never let him. That was her thing. He owed her that much.

But finally, the day arrived for them to leave town. Half-hearted goodbyes were exchanged with the residents and the little they owned was securely stored under the seats of the sampan. The women gossiped and gasped when they saw that Nya had taken scissors to the hem of her skirt. Since that day a month ago, she vowed that she would never trip on her clothes again.

A boy of twelve and his proud sister of nine paddled down the river, and the town that didn't care watched from the side. Nya ran her hand through the water and laughed. One day, she would reverse the flow. Girls would toss their dolls away, fight dragons with the swords they made, and run without falling. Conquering the river began with her.