Prologue
At the turn of the 20th century, thirteen-year-old Yori Sato left Osaka for Foshan to trade goods and prove himself a man. Bandits nearly ended that story—until the legendary Leung Jan descended from a treetop and shattered them with the “way of the intercepting fist.” Yori healed under Jan’s roof, learned Wing Chun, and, when war closed the seas, stayed long enough to become a disciple. In Hong Kong, he reunited with prodigy Yip Man, helped build a new school, and, after tragedy wiped out his own family in Japan, made Hong Kong—and the art—his life’s work.
Decades later, Yori and Yip co-founded Ling Shen Dao—Spirit Path Academy—where Yori’s son, Akio Sato, rose as the heir to a hybrid style that blended their lineages into what would inspire Jeet Kune Do. Success brought students, trophies…and rot. By 1964, Yip Man’s opium addiction stained the school’s honor. A confrontation inside the dojo became a public duel: Bruce Lee for Yip, Akio for Yori. Before a city’s eyes, Bruce maimed Akio—arm, leg, and nose broken—pushing the contest into cruelty. Yori leapt in to stop the beating; master met master in a final clash. Then, in a single treacherous strike, Yip drove a heart-punch through years of brotherhood. Yori died on the boards he’d helped raise.
In the silence that followed, Yip exiled the Sato line. Akio carried his father’s body home and the family art in his bones—vowed to guard it from those who would corrupt it for fame and coin. That vow passed to his son, Takuma.
Akio returns home in the long shadow of that betrayal—where a disgraced family rebuilds its name, and a grandson decides what the Sato style truly stands for when legacy, loyalty, and survival no longer point in the same direction.
Osaka, Japan: 1964
The wheel hit a rut, and the buggy lurched. The casket thumped once in the bed and settled. Steam feathered from the horse’s nostrils into the October air as Akio Sato drew the reins, and the lane opened onto the house his father had left as a boy.
It waited behind a leaning gate and a waist of pampas grass. Tiles had slipped from the roof like scales off a sick carp; moss stitched a green seam along the ridge. One shōji hung torn and crooked, showing a pale rectangle of dust behind it. In the back corner, the camphor tree stood black against a copper sky, trunk scarred, branches spread like a careful hand.
He stopped the horse. Silence pressed in—wet earth, leaf mold, the old tang of cedar. In the buggy behind him lay the cedar box—plain, rope-handled, strapped tight with canvas. He climbed down carefully. The leather brace bit his broken leg; the splint on his arm tugged with each breath. Pain mapped his body, but he had learned to walk inside its borders.
Akio stood at the gate and read the name board twice. 佐藤家. He could read it a hundred times; this was still the first moment his feet had touched Sato soil. He had spent a life fluent in business letters in Japanese, fights and prayers in Cantonese, and still felt like a visitor at his own threshold.
Akio: Father… I am here.
The latch lifted with a dry click. Gravel shifted as he led the horse under the sagging crossbeam and tied it to the stone post where lanterns had once hung. He set his palm on the casket plank. The cedar held a ghost of sun-warmth from the day’s ride.
Akio: You sleep until morning. I dig before dawn.
The engawa groaned under his weight. Inside, the front room wore dust that looked like snow that had forgotten how to melt. Tatami had heaved into dunes and troughs. A butsudan sat open on a low shelf—no incense, scrolls rolled tight with spider silk. He found a fallen broom and swept a path wide enough for two men: the living and the dead. The broom’s straw hissed, carving small islands of clean floor out of gray.
He walked the perimeter like a carpenter, eyes measuring. Eaves to scrape and seal. Tiles to reset. Paper to cut and paste taut across frames. A house came back from ruin the way a fighter came back from injury—slow insistence, hands that didn’t stop when the ache started.
He slid the rear shōji and stepped into the small yard. Wildflowers had swallowed the old beds. The camphor’s roots rose like knuckles from the earth. Beneath it lay a level square where, once, someone had raked gravel into ripples around a stone. He stood there until the place felt settled inside him.
Akio: Here. Under the camphor. You hear the wind. I hear it with you.
He limped back to the buggy, wrestled a shovel and mattock free, and set them by the tree. His fingers trembled; he let them. The trembling passed; purpose stayed.
From the road came a bicycle bell and a brief wash of Kansai chatter that he understood clearly and felt strangely outside of. A dog barked twice and fell silent. He pictured walking to the neighbor for help and saw the questions, the formality, the delay piling up like cordwood. Ritual had its order. The law could come after.
He loosened the straps and slid the casket down. The thump traveled through his boots and settled behind his breastbone. He knelt and set his forehead on the cedar lid.
Akio: I will bury you at first light. I will set this house in order. I carry the name the way you carried me.
He stood slowly and breathed through the pain quietly. In the kitchen, a drawer stuck halfway open from rust; he coaxed it open and found a box of long matches. He lit a thin candle he had brought from Hong Kong for this day. The flame wobbled, caught, and drew a clean line through the smell of age. He set it before the empty butsudan, joined his palms, and bowed.
Akio: Forgive the lateness of my arrival. Forgive the place where I learned to bow.
His own accent brushed the words—book-perfect, a shade foreign. Fluency did not make soil; seasons did. He would have to learn Osaka by its weather and its work.
He stepped beneath the camphor again and measured the grave by strides—six long, one deep. He set the shovel blade, put his heel on the iron, and pressed. The ground had drunk autumn well; it gave with a reluctant breath. He set the first square of earth neatly aside, the way Yori had taught him to fold a gi smooth before a bout. Ritual mattered; it gave chaos fewer places to sit.
Akio: Tomorrow—tiles, paper, nails, tar. A ladder. A carpenter who remembers your name.
Wind threaded the leaves with a dry whisper. He pretended he understood. He dug three more clean bites and stopped when the edge of the world fuzzed with the leg’s throb. He wasn’t burying his father tonight; he was telling the ground to expect them. That was enough.
On a crooked nail by the door hung a brittle straw raincloak. He shook out a small storm of dust and draped it over the casket against the dew. He wiped his palms on his trousers and rubbed stiffness from his fingers.
Inside, the candle held a steady two-finger flame. He slipped off his shoes at the genkan out of stubborn respect, even though the floor beyond was a grit of years. He laid his coat by the door and stretched on the least-buckled stretch of tatami with the casket within reach. The house creaked as cool air slid in and old wood remembered its shapes. He mapped tomorrow the way a corner maps a comeback: roofline, eaves, paper, gate, stone. Under that, he mapped, quietly, the long road back to Hong Kong—the school that had spat him out, the man who had cracked a heart with one strike.
Akio: We rebuild first. We fight after.
Rain began, the small, straight kind that stitches across tiles instead of drumming. He listened until it matched his breath. The horse settled. Somewhere, water trickled in the gutter and then flowed smoothly. Before sleep took him, he reached and set his palm on cedar one more time.
Akio: Good night, Father. Tomorrow, this is a Sato house again.
Mist lay low over the fields, thinning as the first light climbed the ridge. The rain had rinsed the air clean; the camphor leaves still dripped in slow rhythm. Akio Sato woke stiff on the buckled tatami, reached for the cedar lid, and rested his palm there a moment before he sat up. The candle had burned itself into a shallow lake of wax. Outside, a crow called once and went quiet.
He rose carefully. The leather brace tugged at his bad leg; the splint on his arm reminded him where to keep his elbows. At the sink, he filled a cracked bowl and stepped into the yard. He poured water over his hands and rinsed his mouth, letting the cold bite shore up his spine. Steam lifted from the earth where the shovel had bitten last night. The ground would give.
He set the shovel and the mattock by the camphor’s roots and tested his grip through bandage and callus. He marked the rectangle again with his boot heel—six long strides, one deep, a little wider at the shoulders. He breathed once, twice, and put his heel to the iron.
The soil cut more easily than he deserved. Each press brought up a square that smelled of rain and old leaves. He worked in sets—five clean bites, then a breath against the pain; five more, then a lean on the shovel while the leg stopped shouting. The horse in the lane snorted and settled. Somewhere in the distance, a train bell rang, thin in the cold.
Akio: We do this right. Slow is right.
He tamped the walls with the flat of the blade to keep them crisp. Roots braided through one corner; he worried them loose with the mattock and set them aside, neat. He measured depth with his forearm, the splint an unwanted ruler. When the shovel rang on a buried stone, he knelt and levered it out, rolling it to the edge for later—marker, weight, memory.
A neighbor’s bicycle hissed past on the road. Kansai vowels drifted over the fence, friendly and unremarking; Akio caught every word and still felt like he stood a half step outside the sentence. He let it go. The hole deepened; the world narrowed to breath, angle, lift, and set.
He paused when the cut earth reached his hip. He smoothed the bottom, then spread a layer of cedar needles he had raked together with the broom. It was a small mercy against damp and time, and it felt right beneath the tree his father had once climbed as a boy.
He limped to the engawa and fetched the ropes he had untied from the gate post. The canvas straps creaked as he loosened them from the casket. He tied the ropes through the side handles—double-turn, square knots his father had made him practice until his fingers remembered them faster than his tongue. He dragged two planks from an old rain barrel and braced them as skids.
Akio: We take the weight together, Father. I do not drop you.
He set his shoulder to the cedar and eased the box onto the planks, inching it to the grave’s lip. The leg burned; he breathed through it. He fed the rope hand over hand, braced, and lowered, stopping to reset footing when the earth shifted. The casket slid, bumped once against the cut wall, and came to rest on the bed of needles with a careful, final sound.
He stood looking down until the morning blurred. He blinked it clear. He untied one rope and pulled it back up, coiling it slowly. Then he knelt, pressed his forehead to the edge, and spoke to the open sky.
Akio: You are home. You sleep here. I build above you.
He went inside and found the small ink stone and brush in a cracked lacquer box at the back of a drawer. The brush hairs had splayed from years, but they drank water and ink all the same. He planed a thin plank from one of the barrel staves with a dull chisel until it took an even face. Kneeling on the engawa, he painted his father’s name—佐藤 頼—stroke by stroke, the characters steady despite the tremor in his fingers. He added the date and a single line beneath that would have made his father smile in its bookish, careful form: 「風を聞け」—Listen to the wind.
He set the fresh marker at the head inside the cut, braced by two stones. He laid a small packet of tea beside the lid, tight-wrapped in paper from Hong Kong that still smelled faintly of harbor and salt.
Akio: You drink first. I will fix the kettle soon.
He took up the shovel and began to return the earth. He worked from the sides, letting dirt fall soft and even, breaking clods in his palm before they could thud. He tamped each layer with the flat so the ground wouldn't sink in later. When the mound rose, he set the large stone on top and ringed it with four smaller ones, a compass of weight. The camphor leaves hissed in a small wind that came and went without touching the road.
When it was done, he stood still until his breath found the same pace as the tree’s. He pressed both hands to the mound and bowed, long enough for the leg to complain and be ignored.
Akio: I come back with incense. I come back with a bell. Today I bring a hammer, paper, and nails.
He carried the tools to the engawa and leaned them against the post. In the front room, he straightened the butsudan and set the candle’s wax puddle aside for scraping. He picked up his coat, then set it down again and opened the shōji wide to let the house breathe.
Akio: Tiles, paper, nails, tar. Ladder. Rope. A carpenter who remembers our name.
He said it like a kata—counted and true—so his body would start before his doubts could. He took the painted brush and, on a square of newspaper, wrote the address of the lumber yard Uncle Haruo had once used, sounding the syllables under his breath to make sure his mouth kept pace with the characters. He tucked it in his pocket.
He limped back to the camphor for one last check, set the straw raincloak neatly over the fresh mound against any noon shower, and rested his palm on the top stone. The stone was cool; the sun would warm it soon.
Akio: I'm going now. I come back before the shadows turn.
He slipped into his shoes at the genkan, shut the door with a hand on the frame to steady the leg, and stepped onto the lane. The horse flicked an ear, accepted the reins, and turned toward town. Behind him, the house watched with blank windows and a door that would need rehanging. Ahead, roofs caught the early light; someone’s radio scratched a morning song.
He did not look back until the corner. When he did, the camphor’s crown lifted above the gate the way a hand lifts to bless. He bowed to it—awkward, formal, correct—and walked on.
By late morning, the lane had dried to a firm ribbon. Akio Sato led the horse at a walk, the buggy wheels clicking small stones against the verge. A white strip of cloth tied to the casket rope marked mourning to anyone who knew what to look for. The town showed itself one shopfront at a time: tiled eaves, cloth door-curtains, a transistor radio somewhere mumbling train times and weather.
He stopped by a small police box—a kōban—where a uniformed officer read a folded newspaper behind the window. The officer looked up, took in the brace on Akio’s leg, the casket rope, and the careful way he held himself.
Officer: Good morning. Do you need directions?
Akio (bowing a touch too formally): Good morning. Yes, please. The Sumitomo Bank—where is it?
Officer: Right at the crossroads, then just before the second signal. And… my condolences.
Akio: Thank you.
The bank smelled of ink and floor wax. Frosted glass panels reflected the street behind him. He slid his passport and Hong Kong notes under the teller window. The teller, a woman with a neat bun and a white armband, compared the photo to his face, then glanced at the white mourning cloth tied off on the rope outside.
Teller: Currency exchange, is that correct?
Akio: Yes. Into yen, please.
She conferred with a manager who brought a heavy stamp and a ledger. Minutes later, she counted out crisp notes—one thousand and five-hundred—and a handful of coins. She placed them in a paper envelope, squared the stack with a practiced tap, and pushed it through.
Teller: I’m sorry for your loss. Please take care on the road.
Akio: You’re very kind. Thank you.
He left the bank lighter in the chest for reasons money never quite explained. The horse flicked an ear as if to ask whether grief could be paid down like a bill. He stroked its neck once and moved on.
The hardware store held the smell of oiled wood and iron. Saws and planes hung in tidy rows; bins of nails lay like dark gravel. A wiry proprietor with varnish under his nails watched Akio read the shelves the way a carpenter reads a wall.
Shopkeeper: Repairs?
Akio: An old house—roof and paper doors. Everything, really.
Shopkeeper: Start with hands and eyes. I can sell you nails, a hammer, saw, plane blade, patch for small leaks. Tiles and a proper ladder—lumber yard and tile mason will be faster.
Akio ran a palm along a hammer’s handle, feeling the balance answer his grip. He chose a crosscut saw, a spare blade for a small plane he’d found in the house, two chisels, a tin of asphalt patch, a roll of hemp twine, a coil of manila rope, boxes of 50mm and 75mm nails, a packet of rice-paste glue for paper doors, and two rolls of shōji paper tucked in long sleeves. The shopkeeper wrapped each in newspaper, then tied the bundle with a cord.
Shopkeeper: You’ll want a spirit level and a chalk line. Paper doors go faster when the lines are true.
Akio: Then I take them. And a box of tacks. Please.
The bell on the door jangled as he stepped back into the sun. He stowed the bundle beneath the bench and led the horse on to the lumber yard at the edge of town—stacks of cedar and pine under tin roofs, a small office with a calendar showing autumn festivals.
Yard Manager: What are you building?
Akio: Repairing. I need a ladder—five meters—and planks for temporary roof walks. Also, two good beams to shore the eaves.
Yard Manager: We can cut planks to length. The ladder we deliver tomorrow morning by truck—first run, if you like.
Akio: Tomorrow is good. What time?
Yard Manager: After eight. I can also give you a card for a tile mason. If your roof uses kawara, he’ll save you three days and a broken ankle.
Akio smiled despite himself. He had never liked admitting when a specialist could do something his hands could not.
Akio: Give me the card. I’ll ask him to inspect this afternoon.
They wrote the address and a sketch map on the back of a receipt. Akio paid the deposit and watched two workers slide cut planks and beams into the buggy with a care that respected both wood and grief.
On the way back, he stopped near the temple gate where a shop sold incense, candles, and small household bells. Brass pendants chimed like polite rain when the door curtain moved.
Proprietor: Offerings?
Akio: Incense, please. A small bell. Candles. And—if you have it—black crepe for the gate.
The shopkeeper wrapped everything in soft paper. The bell gave a clear, thin note when he tested it—enough to cut the sleep out of a room without scaring it.
Proprietor: May the ancestors watch over you.
Akio: Thank you.
He bought two onigiri from a stall—the vendor’s wife slipped an extra pickle into the paper because of the white strip on the rope—and ate standing at the cart, the rice hot against his palm, the vinegar sting clean in the nose. A delivery bicycle clattered past with crates of milk bottles in wire racks; a bus coughed at the corner and lurched away. The town moved at the honest speed of small engines and legs.
He made the final stop at a pay phone outside the post office. The receiver felt cold and heavy. He dialed the number from the tile mason’s card and waited through three slow rings.
Mason: Tile work.
Akio: My name is Sato. I have a family house near the east paddies—roof tiles slipped, some cracked. Can you inspect today?
Mason: After three. If you can point the way.
Akio: The gate leans—camphor tree in the back. I’ll wa