In the Land of Hot Water, on the outskirts of a certain town, inside a cheap and dilapidated rented room.
Light filtered through dust-covered windows, dimly illuminating the cramped space.
The boy stood in the center of the room, looking at the woman before him—his mother, Yōko.
Her gaze was vacant, fixed on some indeterminate point, her lips continuously murmuring low, indistinct fragments of words.
A heavy weight pressed against the boy's chest—fatigue from the long journey, numbness born of countless shattered hopes.
But at this moment, more than anything, there was an almost desperate agitation. He stepped forward half a pace, his voice dry, as though forced out of his throat: "Mom!"
"Where is my little sister?"
His eyes locked tightly onto Yōko's face.
That face—its brows and contours so familiar—had once cooked for him, had once shown anxiety when he fell ill as a child…
But now, the expression upon it was so foreign, shrouded in a hazy gloom that seemed to shut out everything, as though the one sitting before him were merely a strange soul wearing his mother's shell.
Yōko seemed not to hear him at all. She did not even lift her eyelids; only her muttering grew slightly louder, breaking into scattered syllables: "…Holy God's blessing… grace… light… doomsday… purification…"
The boy clenched the fists hanging at his sides, his knuckles faintly whitening from the force. In the room, there remained only his mother's hollow rambling, and the sound of his own increasingly heavy breathing.
The boy was named Yamagami Motoya, born into a once-prosperous family in the Land of Hot Water that had operated a hot spring inn.
He was the second son, with an elder brother above him and a younger sister below.
If the world had continued along its original course, he might have inherited the family business, guarding the ancestral bathhouse and spending a steady life amid rising steam and idle conversations with guests.
But the flames of the Second Shinobi World War spread across the shinobi world. Even the Land of Hot Water—renowned for its hot springs and tourism, and known as a nation of wellness—was not spared.
Tourists plummeted, and the family's income was abruptly cut in half. His mother, Yōko—the woman who harbored an intense need for control deep in her bones—began turning all the pressure and frustration of life into sharp, cutting words, pouring them day after day onto her silent husband.
In the end, his father, unable to bear it any longer, chose the same outcome as many who had been driven into a corner.
The war finally ended, but the wounds did not heal.
In certain parts of the Land of Hot Water, an organization called the Holy God Church quietly rose to prominence, preaching doomsday salvation and the grace of a Holy Son.
Yōko, whose mind had long since fallen out of balance, quickly became immersed in it. She sold off the family's assets—the ancestral land, the bathhouse they depended on for survival—and donated large sums of money to the church, exchanging them for those illusory blessings and promised fortunes.
In the end, even the house that sheltered the family of four from wind and rain was sold, and the household was completely declared bankrupt.
In order to support himself and help cover the household expenses, Yamagami Motoya joined the local security force at a young age. In his daily work, he was responsible for maintaining and managing certain weapons and equipment, scraping by on a meager salary.
He had thought that no matter how bad life got, as long as his family was still there—at least his older brother and his younger sister were still there—it would be enough.
Until that day, when news came like a bolt from the blue—his elder brother, who had always silently borne everything, had actually followed in their father's footsteps.
He hurried back to the place where their home used to be, only to face not just his brother's cold body, but an even more soul-shattering truth.
His little sister was gone.
Looking at the woman before him who had completely lost herself to madness, Motoya turned around, preparing to leave this suffocating place.
At that moment, a hoarse, broken voice came from behind him.
"Motoya… where are you going?"
Motoya paused, not turning back, his voice hard as stone: "Since you won't tell me where my little sister is, I'll go find her myself!"
After a brief silence, Yōko's drifting voice sounded again: "Your little sister… has already enjoyed the Holy Grace and ascended to the other world… She's gone to a paradise without pain to enjoy the Holy God's immortal blessing… This is her good fortune…"
Boom!
Those words were like the sharpest thunderbolt, cleaving straight into Motoya's mind.
He whirled around, his body trembling violently out of control, his teeth clenched tight, chattering.
That worst possibility—the one he had always been afraid to think about, the one he had desperately avoided—had actually been confirmed in such an absurd and cruel way, from his own mother's mouth.
His last shred of hope shattered.
Only after a long time did scalding liquid finally break through the dam of his eyes, sliding down his face—young, yet already caked with the dust of hardship.
He stared at the woman in front of him, his voice hoarse, mixed with endless pain and resolve: "Mom… this is the last time I'll ever call you 'Mom.'"
Flames of anger burned in his chest, nearly ready to swallow him whole. He wanted to roar, to smash everything before him, even to…
But when he looked at that face—still familiar, yet now nothing more than an empty shell—all those violent impulses were pressed down by a deeper, heavier helplessness.
He could not raise a hand against that face, even if what lived beneath it was no longer his mother.
He did not linger for even a moment more. He turned and strode out, slamming shut the creaking, rotten wooden door.
In the cramped room, darkness returned, leaving only Yōko facing the air, continuing her numb, incomprehensible muttering.
…
Motoya returned to his own even cruder single room in the security force dormitory area.
He did not turn on the light. By the faint daylight seeping in through the window, he walked silently to the bed, bent down, and dragged out an old but sturdy wooden chest from beneath it.
He opened the chest. There were not many odds and ends inside—only two items, carefully placed.
A sheathed katana, and a matchlock firearm with a structure that looked somewhat rough, but whose barrel had been maintained to a gleaming shine.
That katana was a standard-issue weapon distributed to him as a town security soldier. As for that firearm, it was not standard equipment at all—it was something he had assembled, piece by piece, by collecting parts during duty and spare time, then tinkering, cobbling, and modifying it bit by bit in the security force's abandoned little workshop.
He took out the two items. The cold feel of metal came through his palms, yet strangely, it suppressed the seething heat churning in his heart.
Without sparing the shabby room another glance, he turned and left without looking back.
The venomous fire of vengeance scorched his organs, yet the cold reality was like a basin of icy water poured over his head.
The Holy God Church… its tendrils spread throughout the Land of Hot Water. It was not something an ordinary security soldier—one who could not use ninjutsu—could possibly shake.
Reckless fury would only make him, like a moth, plunge into deeper darkness and vanish without a sound.
He needed power—power strong enough to tear apart those layers of hypocritical shelter.
His elder brother was gone. His younger sister was gone. This family was already shattered beyond repair.
But at the very least, he could not allow the tragedy that had befallen him to descend so easily upon others again.
That thought was faint yet tenacious, barely igniting a glimmer of light amid the ashes of despair.
Grow stronger… but where?
Chakra—he could refine it. That energy did indeed flow within his body.
Yet ironically, no matter how he tried, he could not release that energy in the form of any ninjutsu, as though he had been born missing some crucial conversion component.
The path of a shinobi was closed to him.
Then the remaining choice seemed to point toward one place—the neighboring country near the Land of Hot Water that coexisted with the shinobi system and placed greater emphasis on tempering the body and mastery of weapons: the Land of Iron, the nation of samurai.
As he walked out of town, the dawn light was faint, yet it could not dispel the gloom in his heart.
Passing by an old utility pole, a brand-new propaganda poster pasted conspicuously against a mottled wall caught his eye.
On the poster was a middle-aged man with a refined bearing and gentle features, dressed in luxurious official robes, his smile perfectly measured.
Abe Taisei!
Ranked first among the officials of the Land of Hot Water, after the aging Daimyō gradually ceased handling state affairs, this Grand Minister had single-handedly held power and led the country's economic recovery following the Second Shinobi World War.
Looking at that sanctimonious face, the suppressed anger in Motoya's chest flared again.
The Holy God Church was running rampant in the Land of Hot Water, bewitching the people, amassing wealth, and costing lives. If one were to say that this high-and-mighty ruler was completely unaware—or entirely uninvolved—he would never believe it!
"Traitor to the nation!"
He forced the words out through clenched teeth.
He reached out, his five fingers digging fiercely into that glossy poster, and tore it violently down the middle!
He crumpled the torn paper into a ball and threw it into the muddy roadside ditch, as though casting away a piece of nauseating filth.
Tightening the pack on his shoulder, gripping the hilt of the sword at his waist and the firearm in his bosom, he stepped forward—toward the north, toward that land famed for steel, wind, snow, and bushidō—the Land of Iron—walking firmly, without once looking back.
"Ascend to the other world, the Holy God's immortality."
Along the road, the howling wind and snow struck the boy's face again and again. Yet more chilling than the blizzard was his mother's final words, which made him tremble.
An immortal grace?
The boy drew a deep breath, his gaze turning resolute.
This journey was only to seek a master and learn the way of the sword; the road ahead was long and uncertain.
When he returned, he would exhaust everything, execute the traitor to the nation, and sever immortality!
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