Time moved fast as night fell.
The wind strode through the sleeping sect.
Kōin opened his eyes. He rose slowly, crimson pupils burning like twin red stars.
Something was close.
His instincts screamed. Fight or flee.
The shadows shifted, tinting the air, bending unnaturally.
Mediocre.
That was his first thought. For someone who claimed to blend into darkness, they were sloppy.
First rule of the hunter.
Always watch the shadow, even within shadow.
Always listen to the wind. It betrays presence before intent.
Dozens of them.
Steel in their scent.
Armed.
Kōin stood.
They were not searching for something.
They were searching for someone.
The dark-attired figures spread across the rooftops, blades strapped tight to their bodies.
One carried a net.
They moved painfully slow, careful, deliberate, trying not to draw even the faintest creak. It was useless. To Kōin, every step rang out like knuckles knocking on a door.
He was already there, seated on the edge of the roof.
They did not notice him.
Not until the one who looked the weakest caught a silhouette where none should be.
He jolted, tapping his comrades and pointing.
"H… huh?"
Kōin met their gaze and calmly raised a finger to his lips, silencing them.
Too late.
Hands snapped to hilts.
Crimson eyes pierced through them, cold and assessing, judging how utterly incapable they were of silence.
"Who is he?"
"The hell do I know."
Kōin rose to his feet.
One of them shuddered.
Something was wrong. No. Extremely wrong under the moonlight.
Shadows betrayed them instantly.
Every one of them cast a shape on the roof tiles.
Kōin did not.
Shadowless.
The instinct screamed before thought could catch up. This thing had no presence.
They froze around the presenceless figure.
Kōin took a single step.
One step.
He blinked out of existence.
Gone.
Panic erupted as they scattered, heads snapping left and right, blades half-drawn, desperately searching for someone who was no longer there.
The weakest link felt it first.
A jolt of dread crawled up his spine.
"G-Guys… he's behind me, isn't he?"
They turned.
Kōin was already above them, looking down.
His blade rested at the intruder's nape. One slide. Clean. Like cutting air.
But again?
To kill again?
To spill blood again?
To feed the Ashuramaru?
He hesitated.
How does one end this without shedding blood?
He saw it then.
These weren't assassins. Just third-rate shadows playing at something far beyond them.
Idiots.
The weakest link trembled violently.
"P-Please… spare me."
…
There was no hypocrisy in it.
None of them carried the scent of killers.
Their hands were clean.
Kōin's blade pressed closer.
Not enough to cut. Enough to promise.
"Tell me," he said flatly. "Why you're here. Speak one by one."
His crimson eyes moved across them, slow and deliberate.
"Lie, shout, or try anything stupid," he added, voice cold as frost, "and I'll turn you into red mist."
Silence.
Throats worked. Hands trembled. No one dared move.
Finally, the weakest link swallowed hard and spoke.
"W-We… we weren't told to kill anyone."
Kōin didn't blink.
"Next."
Another man stepped forward, hands raised halfway. "We're scouts. Hired blades. Paid to confirm a rumor."
"What rumor."
"That the Sky-Heaven Tiger Sect is hiding… something." He hesitated. "Or someone."
Kōin's grip tightened for a heartbeat, then eased.
"Who hired you."
A pause. Fear thickened the air.
"A Blood Demon intermediary," the man said quickly. "Not the main branch. A splinter. No names. Just coin and instructions."
Blood Demon.
Kōin's eyes narrowed.
"Who is this Blood Demon."
They shook their heads frantically.
"T-They'd kill us if we said anything…"
His gaze sharpened.
"What were your orders."
"Watch. Identify. Retreat. No engagement unless discovered."
Kōin tilted his head slightly. "And if you identified the target."
The man swallowed. "Signal. Others would come."
Kōin exhaled softly through his nose.
So that was it.
"Who's the target."
They shook their heads again.
"One."
They shuddered.
"Two…"
Breathing turned ragged. Knees buckled.
"Thre—"
"WE DON'T KNOW!" one of them screamed. "We swear! All we were told was that the target has dark blue hair!"
Dark blue hair.
There was only one person who fit that description.
And it was already a dead giveaway.
Senior Brother. Seol-an.
Why was he being targeted.
"I've said all I can," the man pleaded. "Please spare us. We were farmers once. Forced into this life."
Kōin didn't answer.
If his previous life had taught him anything, it was this.
The human body never lies.
Heartbeat. Too fast.
Breathing. Shallow, uneven.
Sweat. Cold, beading where it shouldn't.
Eyes. Flicking, avoiding, searching for exits.
Movement. Subtle. Defensive. Prepared.
All of it whispered what the mouth refused to say.
The mind can lie.
The body cannot.
Looking at their ungloved hands.
Coarse skin. Calloused palms. The kind carved by years of friction, whether from swinging tools in soil or steel in combat.
But the real giveaway came after.
The smell of dirt.
Fresh. Honest. Grounded.
They were telling the truth.
The absence of blood already said enough.
He unsheathed his blade.
Shhhkk…
Click.
They flinched at the sound.
"For now, go. I don't want to spill more blood than I already have in this sea."
Confusion rippled through them.
Then they saw his face.
Drowned in shadow, save for those piercing eyes. Twin red stars burning beneath the moon as they stared them down.
"Should you come again," he said quietly, "you won't even finish your scream before becoming red mist."
"Eek—"
One of them yelped before a hand clamped over his mouth. The others nodded frantically.
"T- Thank you."
They didn't wait for permission to flee.
Kōin watched their silhouettes vanish into the dark.
The wind returned.
The night returned.
Silence swallowed everything again.
He turned his gaze upward.
The moon hung there, a golden crescent, distant and indifferent.
A pearl in the sky.
"Did I… do the right thing?"
His voice was barely more than breath.
He looked down.
His hands.
Clean.
No blood.
No warmth fading from skin.
No weight of a life ending beneath his fingers.
For the first time in what felt like centuries, they were just hands.
He stared at them as if they didn't belong to him.
A tremor ran through his fingers.
Then his lips twitched.
He smiled.
A small, crooked thing.
Then he laughed.
A hollow sound at first, like air leaking from a cracked vessel.
It grew.
Louder.
Sharper.
Unstable.
He pressed his palm to his chest as if to keep something from tearing out of it.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed onto the rooftop tiles, laughter breaking into something ugly and fractured as tears spilled down his face.
"I didn't… I didn't kill them."
His voice shook, disbelief laced with something that hurt more than any wound.
"I didn't kill them."
He stared at the sky, at the moon, at the world that kept moving as if nothing had changed.
His shoulders trembled.
"I can stop," he whispered. "I can… stop."
The words felt foreign.
Blasphemous.
Hopeful.
He dug his fingers into his robe, clutching his chest like it might burst.
"They're not stained," he murmured, staring at his palms again. "They're not stained. They're not stained. They're not stained."
His laughter cracked into sobs.
For someone who had drowned in blood for lifetimes, this emptiness was unbearable.
It hurt.
It hurt because it was proof.
Proof that he was not just Kagemiya Kōin.
Proof that he was not just Ashuramaru's vessel.
Proof that the sea of blood did not own every choice he made.
He bowed his head, forehead touching the cold tiles.
Tears dripped onto the roof, mixing with nothing.
Kōin jolted upright.
Not from sound.
Not from sight.
From weight.
A presence pressed against the night, heavy and undeniable, as if the air itself had bent.
He wiped at his face with the back of his sleeve, smearing tears he hadn't noticed still falling. His breath hitched once. He sniffed. Forced it down.
Composure. Habit. Instinct.
He straightened his back and turned.
There he stood.
Arms crossed.
Silhouette unmoving.
The end of his belt fluttered softly in the wind, the only sign that time was still flowing.
The moonlight refused to touch his face.
Kōin's throat tightened.
He dropped to one knee without thinking, forehead lowered, hands placed flat against the rooftop tiles.
"Grandmaster."
The word tasted heavy.
Not fear.
Not reverence alone.
Shame.
He felt the man's gaze settle on him. Not sharp. Not angry.
Measured.
Kōin clenched his fingers.
He wanted to speak. To explain. To justify. To say he had chosen mercy. To say his hands were clean. To say he had stopped himself.
But none of it came out.
Because beneath all of that, something more fragile trembled.
What if this was weakness?
What if sparing them was not strength but fracture?
What if the path he had walked for so long was the only thing holding him together, and tonight he had stepped off it?
His chest ached.
He remained bowed, silent, waiting for judgment.
The wind passed between them.
And Kōin realized, with quiet terror, that whatever the Grandmaster said next would not hurt as much as the truth already settling inside him.
That he had learned how to kill.
But had never learned how to live without it.
"…"
The silence lingered, thick and suffocating.
"Why didn't you kill them?"
The question landed without force. No anger. No accusation.
Worse than either.
"Or incapacitate them."
Kōin's fingers twitched. He pulled his robe tighter around himself, nails biting into the fabric as if it could anchor him. His gaze stayed fixed on the tiles beneath his feet.
Ah.
How nostalgic.
The memory came uninvited.
"YOU USELESS BRAT! ALL YOU NEED TO DO WAS JUST PLOW THE DIRT TILL MIDNIGHT! IS IT THAT HARD FOR YOU? HUH?!"
The sun burning his back.
The soil tearing his palms open.
Morning bleeding into night, night into morning.
No rest.
If he collapsed, even for a breath, the stick came down. Again. Again. Again.
He had learned early that mercy did not exist. That stopping meant pain. That endurance was survival.
Kōin swallowed.
Back then, his hands had been raw. Bloody. Trembling.
Now they were clean.
Bloodless.
And that was the problem.
"They could just say they failed," the Grandmaster continued calmly. "And they might send more of them, Kōin."
Each word pressed into him.
He knew.
He had known the moment he turned away. The moment he chose not to finish it. This was not ignorance. This was choice.
A dangerous one.
His jaw tightened. He bit his lip hard enough to taste iron.
No excuse formed.
No justification survived scrutiny.
By sparing them, he had risked the sect. Risked his brothers. Risked the very people who had given him a path when the fields had nearly broken him.
And yet…
His chest tightened again.
He had looked at them and, for a single moment, seen himself. Tired. Cornered. Afraid of what would happen if he failed.
He hated that.
Hated that his hands hesitated.
Hated that they did not move on their own anymore.
Hated that being clean hurt more than being stained ever did.
Kōin kept his head bowed, shoulders trembling, teeth clenched to keep his voice from breaking.
He had survived brutality.
But tonight, restraint had wounded him deeper than any beating ever had.
And standing there, silent and shaking, he realized something that terrified him.
Not killing them had not proven he was stronger.
It had proven he was no longer sure who he was supposed to be.
Ji-ho began to walk toward Kōin.
His footsteps were slow.
Measured.
Eerily serene.
Each step echoed louder than it should have, as if the night itself was holding its breath.
This is it.
Kōin's mind raced despite his stillness.
He betrayed his trust.
He disobeyed.
He endangered the sect.
So this is where it ends.
Expelled.
Or worse.
Imprisoned.
He swallowed.
Strangely, the thought did not terrify him.
The days here were already more than he deserved. Warm meals. Shelter. Discipline without cruelty. Silence without screaming. Compared to the fields, compared to the blood-soaked paths he had walked later, this place had been mercy itself.
Enough.
More than enough.
Kōin straightened his back.
He forced his face into stillness, carving it into the familiar mask. Indifferent. Empty. Detached.
The face of Kagemiya.
The face that survived beatings.
The face that endured slaughter.
The face that did not beg.
Ji-ho stopped before him.
Close enough that Kōin could feel his presence like pressure against his skin.
He did not look up.
If judgment was coming, he would receive it standing.
Even if his hands were shaking beneath his sleeves.
Even if his chest still ached from laughter turned to sobs only moments ago.
Even if part of him was quietly hoping, shamefully, that this place would not cast him out.
He buried that thought.
Hope was dangerous.
Hope was how things broke you.
Ji-ho sighed and ran a hand through Kōin's hair, the way he used to.
"Good job."
Kōin stiffened.
For a moment, he thought he misheard.
"…What?"
"Though I do not agree with letting them go," Ji-ho continued calmly, "you still chose not to feed your Ashura. It must have been very hard for you."
Hard.
The word echoed strangely in Kōin's chest.
Hard?
Yes.
Hard was his whole life.
Hard was carrying the weight of the person he used to be, a shadow that never stopped breathing down his neck.
Hard was knowing that every drop of blood he spilled only widened the sea inside him, endless and patient, waiting for him to drown.
Hard was feeling that sea surge even now, clawing at his ribs, whispering that it would have been so easy.
Hard was not knowing if there was such a thing as absolution for someone like him, or if the world had already decided he was beyond saving.
So why?
Why wasn't Ji-ho shouting?
Why wasn't he condemning him, calling this mercy a sin deserving of punishment far crueler than exile?
Kōin lowered his gaze, fists tightening inside his sleeves.
"…I endangered this sect."
"That you have."
The words landed cleanly. No softness. No denial.
"Then… shouldn't you punish me?"
Ji-ho's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Who said I wouldn't?"
Kōin felt a hand clamp onto his shoulder. Firm. Heavy. Grounding.
"For that," Ji-ho said, "you will serve as my errand boy for a week. And you will report to me everything they say to you. Every word."
Kōin blinked.
That was it?
Ji-ho smiled, just a little.
"But," he added, "considering what you overcame tonight, choosing restraint over slaughter, that is a tremendous step."
His grip tightened briefly.
"Ashura does not get tamed by denial alone. It is tamed by choice."
Kōin's throat closed.
His hands were still clean.
Kōin nodded and spoke as instructed.
"They were farmers. Forced into it," he said quietly. "They said they were employed by a group called the Blood Demons."
Ji-ho's expression darkened instantly at the name.
"…They were watching…" Kōin hesitated.
"Seol-an," Ji-ho finished.
Kōin nodded.
"Those fiends," Ji-ho clicked his tongue.
Kōin trusted Ji-ho. He did.
Still, a question gnawed at him.
"Grandmaster, if I may?"
"Go ahead."
"Who are the Blood Demons?"
Ji-ho paused. For a moment, it seemed he would refuse. But Kōin was not someone who ignored threats, and Ji-ho knew it.
Reluctantly, he spoke.
"The Blood Demons are one of the Four Great Demon Sects of this land. They deal in blood sacrifice and blood arts."
Ji-ho watched Kōin closely, expecting shock. Revulsion. Fear.
"They want Seol-an," he added. "His blood. His body."
Kōin's eyes did not widen.
They went still.
Then they hardened, like stone cooling after being pulled from fire. The calm was wrong. Too clean. Too empty. It bordered on murderous.
Ji-ho froze.
He had seen that gaze once before.
Once.
And he had killed the one who carried it.
Now it was here again.
The air thickened. The scent of Ashura rose sharply, suffocating, violent. It made Ji-ho's spine prickle, not with worry, but with fear.
"Kōin."
Ji-ho snapped his name like a blade.
Kōin blinked.
The pressure vanished.
He was himself again.
Ji-ho watched how effortlessly Kōin pulled his Ashura scent back.
It was terrifying.
Had he leashed the Ashura…
or had he become it?
Ji-ho prayed he would never learn the answer.
"Kōin," he asked quietly. "What did you feel when you let them go?"
Kōin glanced left, then right.
"I…"
His jaw tightened.
"I felt…"
The words refused to take shape.
Part of him was relieved. Maybe even glad. Not because he showed mercy, but because he did not kill.
And the other part…
Empty.
"…Indifferent."
Or was he?
He did feel relief at not killing them. That part was real.
But it was not mercy.
The act itself felt hollow. Vast. Like staring into a void that stared back without judgment.
"You didn't feel any recoil?" Ji-ho pressed. "Anything resisting the urge?"
Kōin looked at the Grandmaster's face, but avoided his eyes.
"I… I don't know," he admitted. "I just felt no need to kill them."
No need.
Ji-ho's expression tightened.
So it was not will alone that stopped him.
"Explain further."
Kōin lowered his gaze.
"It felt… empty. I did feel relieved not killing them, but… letting them go… I felt nothing. I had no need to take their lives. It felt unnecessary."
Ji-ho brushed his beard.
"You truly felt no urge to kill them?"
Kōin nodded.
That answer unsettled Ji-ho far more than a yes ever could.
Because it meant only three possibilities.
The Ashura had already been satiated.
The Ashura did not even regard them as prey.
Or worse…
The Ashura was thinking. Planning something far more sinister.
After all, assuming what dwelled within this boy was a normal Ashura would be a fatal mistake.
No one truly knew what an Ashuramaru looked like. It existed only as legend.
And Ji-ho was staring at that legend now.
He pressed his fingers to his temple, easing the pressure pounding in his skull.
He had taken many strange disciples under his wing.
But none like this.
A disciple with Heavenly Demon blood flowing through her veins.
And an Ashuramaru as another.
The heavens had handed him a dangerous fire.
That was fine.
Fire could be harnessed, just like a furnace.
He turned his back to Kōin.
"Tomorrow morning, come to my office and proceed with your punishment."
Kōin nodded.
"Sleep," Ji-ho added. "You'll need it."
Kōin looked down at his feet.
Pondering.
Did he really do the right thing?
He could not answer it. No one could.
He closed his eyes, sighed, then returned soundlessly to his room.
He sat on his futon.
"You truly felt no urges to kill them?"
The Grandmaster's question rang in his head.
"Did I?"
Was it true that he felt nothing, or was he simply ignorant of it?
Kōin stared at the ceiling.
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the crimson sky greeted him, as familiar as ever.
He was already half submerged in the sea.
He let himself float.
Looking down at his own lying body, as usual.
There, he waited.
Waiting for Kōin to return to the sea.
How does it feel not to kill, hm?
"You're the one to tell."
…
Your actions are going to put your so called senior brother in danger.
What was it again?
Your oath to protect others?
Didn't you abandon your family with that man?
Didn't you run away from the blood you spilled with these hands?
Did you let them go knowing full well they still posed a threat to your comrades?
You failed as a protector.
I know you.
You are me, and I am you.
"No. I'm not."
Then why do your hands still remember the weight?
Why do they still feel warm, even now?
Why does the smell never leave, no matter how much you wash them?
You say you felt nothing.
That it was empty.
But emptiness itself is an answer.
You did not spare them out of mercy.
You spared them because killing them meant nothing.
No thrill.
No relief.
No meaning.
And that terrifies you more than the urge ever did.
You know it. You always have.
When blood spilled, it made you feel alive.
It gave you purpose.
A reason to fight.
A reason to keep breathing.
Survival demands it. Blood must return to the sea.
Just like the men and women you killed, now wandering, now silent, now gone.
You know it felt good.
Not because it was righteous.
Not because it was necessary.
But because it was hollow.
Because it numbed you.
Because in that numbness, guilt could not reach you.
Because when you kill those who threaten you, who threaten the fragile bonds you clawed together, you feel justified.
Cleaner.
Lighter.
I know.
Because I am you.
And you are me.
It made you feel less guilty.
It made you feel right.
Just like I kill for my sister.
You kill for your miserable life.
So tell me.
Are we really any different?
Or are we all just hounds, baring our fangs, wagging our tails, pretending we chose the leash?
Kōin locked eyes with Kagemiya.
Crimson met black, burning glare against an abyss that swallowed light. One burned too brightly. The other did not reflect at all.
Tools are always meant to be used. You know it. There is no point denying it now.
Someday it will bite you. It always does.
You will always be a blade.
No matter how many incarnations pass. No matter how many names you shed. No matter how many lives you pretend are new beginnings.
You remain the same.
A blade.
Forged to cut. Raised to be swung. Left behind once it dulls.
Stained red forever.
So why cling to this life?
Why carry this burden again when you could abandon it and pass it to the next incarnation?
Running is what you do best.
You ran from your blood. You ran from your past. You ran from the weight of what your hands have done.
And every time you told yourself it was different this time.
Blame the blade, not the hand that swings it.
That excuse has kept you breathing longer than you deserve.
Because the truth is simpler. Crueler.
The monster you fear has never been chasing you.
It has never waited in the dark.
It has never worn another face.
It has always been you.
Kōin's shoulders shuddered. He clenched his teeth so hard they creaked, jaw locking as if holding himself together by force alone.
Warmth slipped from the corners of his eyes, tracing down his cheeks before soaking into the pillow beneath him. His vision swam, the world blurring at the edges.
"Is it wrong to survive?"
The words tore out of him, raw and uneven.
"Is it wrong to want something?"
His pupils failed to focus. The ceiling above him fractured into pale shapes as his strength bled away with every heartbeat.
"Was it wrong to search for something different?"
More warmth fell, heavier now. His breathing staggered, chest hitching as if even air had become an effort.
"Why is it a taboo to search for freedom?"
The question hung there, unanswered. He already knew it would never reach Kagemiya's mind. Some thoughts could not cross that abyss. Some truths were rejected on contact.
Kōin's eyes dimmed. At last, they closed.
Yet his lips curved upward, slow and faint, into a grin that did not belong to someone losing consciousness.
Because even as his body failed, he knew.
He had struck something buried deep. Something Kagemiya never named, never confronted.
And that small victory, however fleeting, was enough to carry him into the dark.