[Touken Ranbu] Mr. Zhao's Citadel

Mr. Zhao is an utterly ordinary member of the many Saniwa. Like the other Saniwa, he is dedicated to preserving the history of the country that commissioned him, searching for lost swords, occasionally hauling a shovel around while sick, and practicing hanafuda now and then. Though Mr. Zhao has scant spiritual power and is of pure Asian descent, he believes that hard work can solve any problem. He had thought that once his trial period ended, he would have nothing more to do with them. He had planned to save tens of thousands of koban as a welcome gift for the next Saniwa, and worried day and night that the short swords would be looked down on by their next Saniwa if their training levels were too low... But with every extra thought he gave to them, the softest place in his heart quietly made a little more room for them. The one-month term is drawing to a close. The story of the Honmaru is only just beginning. A note before we begin: I will do my utmost to avoid OOC. There will absolutely be no corruption or broken swords. There are some personal headcanons, marked with *. A slow-paced, lighthearted story about friends and family (except for one particular attendant), following their everyday lives. The Saniwa of this Honmaru, Zhao Jian, is an ordinary person. He has neither the strength to rip apart a gun god nor the protagonist's halo. Through the little details of everyday life, this story hopes to show readers how the Saniwa and the sword warriors, and the sword warriors among themselves, go from complete strangers to supporting one another. I hope this will make the story feel more realistic. Appendicitis, no luck with the rare drops no matter how much I grind, getting so angry at the game I quit, Chinese New Year, second-degree frostbite... With so many excuses, I feel like throwing in the towel. I'm planning to write out the plot direction and ending, along with the little scenes between the swords that I've already thought up, then delete the document and clear my phone's storage. Then Yasunori spoke his welcome line as if he could read minds. After hundreds of attempts without getting a rare drop, I changed my attendant to Imanotsurugi. As soon as I opened the door, he lowered his voice and asked if I was going to stay here forever. Tap him once: I'll protect you! Tap him again: Let's go out and have fun together~ I hugged the little angel and sobbed. Graduation season is coming, and I don't have much time left to write in an environment where life's pressures don't weigh so heavily on me. Here, I'm planting this flag: the eight chapters I owed from taking leave from October 20 to October 27 last year, plus the eleven chapters owed from October 31 to December 3, and, um... counting two updates a week, along with the extra holiday chapters I originally planned, rounding it all up, fifty chapters. Ah, terrifying. I'll finish every last one. Starting today, the regular schedule will be two updates a week, every Tuesday and Thursday, with a catch-up chapter on Saturday.