Aiko only heard once, but it served forever. The archaic and ironclad codes of samurai honour seemed to compel silence, even between fathers and daughters, so Aiko's relationship with her father had been based on observation and saying nothing.

That's how he learned everything: honor, respect, resistance and struggle. Because it's hunger that makes you prosper, not satisfying it.

"Food has no value but hunger, because without hunger there is no motor, and without motor there is no life."

That is why, when her father fell, she did not think of revenge, nor of anger or rage. She thought of hunger. She thought of feeding. Since she was little, Aiko had silently observed the intrigues and betrayals that surrounded her father, but she had also learned something fundamental: Food had a power that violence could not match.

"War stops when you eat."

She gathered the leaders of the enemy factions and, instead of facing them with weapons, she invited them to a banquet, risking movement, no doubt, but Aiko knew many things, among them this:

"Nothing disarms a man more than conquering his appetite."

Delicately cut sashimi, ramen steeped in bone broth for hours, sushi made with the finest rice and, of course, fresh oysters flown in from the South China Sea, served on silver platters adorned with inlaid jade and pearls.

Barbarism turned into opulence and extravagance. Aiko watched the tension turn into calm and toast, sitting in silence, covered in tattoos and jewels.