CHAPTER FIVE:

TEACHINGS OF VOID

By Strictly Tattoo on October 25

There's a moment in every creative process where the noise stops, and the sense of urgency disappears. The layers strip away and what's left is something simpler, deeper, and harder to define. That moment, that feeling, is Void.

Void was never meant to be flashy. It wasn't painted to impress. In fact, it's the quietestof the five elements but for those who've lived this process, it might just be the most powerful.

In this final chapter of the Strictly x Ronin series, the warrior returns to where it all began, Musashi's cave. The weapon is sheathed, and the air is still. The book lies in front of him, not open in action, but closed in completion and peace. There's nothing to explain, No final act. Just a breath.

In Japanese samurai philosophy, Void (or Ku) is not emptiness in the way we often understand it. It's not absence but potential. It's the space before the next form emerges and the state where mastery no longer needs to prove itself and where the ego is no longer the one making decisions.

Void isn't what you create. It's what's left when everything else has been stripped away. And that's why this chapter hit us so differently. It wasn't about more. It was about less. This element left us asking ourselves in the most subtle way, what we were willing to let go of, in order to evolve.

Strictly started as a bit of a creative rebellion. A brand born out of feeling. Out of late nights, loud voices, and strong beliefs. But with Void, we found ourselves pausing. Listening and stopping still long enough to see what remained when we weren't chasing the next thing.

And what we found that was left was presence.

In the painting, Tu Lam doesn't perform, attack, or pose. He simply sits. And yet, everything about the image in Void feels charged. Like the silence just became its own language.

That was the energy we wanted to carry into this final release. A moment of full-circle reflection and not just on the series, but on the code, we try to live by. In this series Void is where all the other elements converge. Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, they each taught us how to act, adapt, build, and move. But Void? Void taught us how to be.

In business, in art, in life, we're rarely taught the power of stillness. But Void literally gave us permission to pause and reminded us that we don't always need to explain everything or fill every gap. That sometimes, the most meaningful part of the journey is the part no one sees. The part that happens in private, in silence, or even in thought.

Void was that for us. A mirror. A reset. A breath.

As we close this chapter and journey with Ronin, we do so without the need for fireworks and we don't need to hype what this series meant. If you felt it, you know. If you wore it, you carried it. And if you followed the journey, you're already part of what comes next.

Void wasn't the end. It was the beginning of a new rhythm.

It's been a reminder to us that letting go is not failure but freedom and it's how artists grow and how brands evolve without losing their truth.

The Book of Five Rings didn't just inspire us to make art. It gave us a deeper understanding of ourselves and of our creative responsibility and the culture we want to build, not just for the drop, but for the long run.

Void lives on in the way we move forward. With less noise and more clarity. With less ego and more depth and with the ongoing belief that even when the canvas is empty, it still has something to say.

STRICTLY x RONIN

THE FIVE ELEMENTS