The more I thought about it, the more impractical a scythe was, so I changed it halberd. Sorry for the fuck up.đ I went to deep into the symbolic route. But a halberd too, is associated with death.. so no harm doneđđ
Powerstones and comments are greatly appreciated. And if you enjoyed it, add it to your library.
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Yuki Jubei's POV:
Oh, hey. Would you look at that? The author finally remembered I exist. Took him long enough.
Dude....
My bad, my bad. We don't want to make him angry now, do we? He can be a bit moody.
Motherfucke....
Wow, wow, wow, kids are reading this! And don't look at me like that. I'm old, and I'm allowed to complain.
Ahem... Before he kills my character, let's get started.
Hello there, as you know by now, my name is Yuki Jubei.
You already know the titles. Berserker of the Yuki clan. Commander. Second strongest in the clan.
I've been killing curses since before most of the people in this estate were born, and I plan to keep doing it until my body gives out or the sake runs dry, whichever comes first.
Today started like any other day. Woke up at dawn, did my stretching, had breakfast, spent the morning with the boys, passing the tokkuri around, sharing old war stories that got a little more exaggerated each time we told them. The kind of morning an old man like me deserves, after decades of service. That was until, he showed up. Soran.
Now, I love that boy. Raised him since he was knee-high. Watched him grow from a scrawny brat with too much ambition into the strongest sorcerer the Yuki clan has ever produced.
But gods, I wish he'd inherited his father's chillness instead of his mother's attitude. That woman could convince a mountain to move with a single look, and Soran got every bit of it.
He walked into my quarters, sat down across from me, and told me his youngest son had awakened the Six Eyes.
I said, "Good for him."
He said, "You're going to train him."
I said, "No."
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Let's settle this the old-fashioned way."
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd... He beat my old ass like always.
Sigh, so there I was. Standing in front of a group of children who were far too excited to be meeting me. Holding my tokkuri, I wondered where my peaceful retirement had gone.
And then the kid arrived.
Yuki Reizan.
Four years old, tiny, and quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you pay attention, because silence in a child that young is never natural.
The moment he looked at me, I just knew.
I've trained hundreds of young sorcerers in my life. I've seen talent. I've seen potential. I've seen kids who burned bright and kids who burned out. After sixty years, you develop an instinct for it.
You look at a child, and something in your gut tells you what they're going to become.
My gut looked at Yuki Reizan and said: This one is different.
The way he talked, the way he carried himself. It was just so unreal.
The Yuki clan might just have its first Special Grade, I thought.
But as they say, genius never comes without a price. Every prodigy I've ever met has had something wrong with them.
And I was about to find out what Reizan's cost was.
Today's exercise was simple. Standard first-day stuff. Bring the kids to the shed. Show them a caged Grade Four curse. Let them see it, feel it, tell them the lie about fighting it.
I'd done it dozens of times.
The kids reacted the way they always did.
And that's what happened. They screamed, cried, grabbed each other. Daichi pretended he wasn't terrified. Tomoe's voice cracking. Haruto was on his knees, and was about to cry.
And then I heard it.
"How dare something like thisâŠ"
I looked down.
Reizan was standing at the front of the group. Not behind the other children.
He was staring at the curse.
And the curse was staring back.
Four red eyes meeting two blue ones. Neither of them was blinking.
My grin disappeared.
You need to understand something. A four-year-old child, faced with a cursed spirit for the first time, is supposed to do one of three things.
Run, scream, or freeze. Those are the options. Those are supposed to be the only options.
This child did none of those things.
He stood there and stared.
And before I could process that, he finished his sentence.
"How dare something like this exist in this beautiful world?"
What?
I needed to calm him down, as I could feel it building. The cursed energy inside him.
I needed to-
BOOM.
The temperature collapsed.
One moment, the shed was cold. The next moment, it was freezing. Frost spread across the stone floor from where Reizan stood. The torches along the walls flickered violently, their flames about to go out.
And then I felt it.
His cursed energy.
And oh boy, it was bad.
It pressed down on the shed like a physical weight. The air itself seemed to thicken. The kids behind me started screaming and crying.
They were shaking. Some from the cold. Some from the pressure.
Shit.
"Everyone, run out!"
But nobody moved, as they simply couldn't. The pressure was pinning them down.
Fuck.
I slammed my foot into the ground.
Glacier Arts: Frozen Field.
Ice detonated from my heel, a controlled blast that cracked across the stone floor and created a barrier between my students and Reizan.
One second was all I needed.
I moved.
I grabbed Saya and Tomoe with one arm. Scooped Haruto and Miya with the other. Kicked Daichi and Kaede toward the entrance with my foot.
"COMMANDER!" The guards yelled as they ran in.
"SEAL THE GATE!" I roared at them.
"But the young master-"
"JUST DO IT!"
The door slammed shut.
I stood in the sealed shed. Alone, except for the boy and the curse.
The temperature was still dropping. The talismans on the barrier crackled with strain, their cursed energy flickering as the cold interfered with their function.
And Reizan hadn't moved.
He was still standing there. Looking at the creature behind the barrier with an expression that I, Yuki Jubei, veteran of sixty years of combat, did not have a name for.
It wasn't anger, not exactly.
This was quiet. This was the kind of emotion that doesn't scream because it doesn't need to.
How the hell do I deal with this?
Reizan's POV.
I could feel my cursed energy going wild.
It poured out of me like water from a broken dam.
Responding not to my thoughts but to something deeper. Something that lived in the place where emotion meets instinct.
And I understood why.
Because things like this existed.
Because in a world of mountains and wind and wildflowers and people who smiled when you waved at them, things like this crawled out of the darkness and existed for no reason other than to destroy.
Just hunger, malice, and the collected filth of human suffering given a body and set loose.
I looked at the curse behind the barrier. Now it ran back and was pressing itself against the far wall of the cage, as far from me as it could get. Its seven limbs were folded around itself.
"Things like you don't deserve to exist in this world."
The words came out steady, like a fact.
"And you will be the first sacrifice of my journey."
I reached for my cursed energy and guided it through the channels I'd memorized from watching Yuka.
But when the energy reached my palm and began to condense, what formed was not a fan.
It was something else entirely.
Something that resonated with me. Something that resonated with my goal to bring death upon these impurities.
A halberd .
The symbol of death. The weapon that, accross europe, meant one thing.
The end.
It felt just right in my hand. Like it was meant to be there. Like my cursed energy had been waiting to make this shape since the day I was born into this world.
I circulated the energy through my body the way I'd watched Jubei do it minutes ago.
Strengthening my limbs just enough to swing the weapon freely despite my four-year-old body.
I then turned to Jubei.
He was standing behind me, with his naginata in hand, his body fully reinforced with cursed energy. Ready for combat.
But it was his face that was.... weird?
He was looking at me the way you look at something you don't understand. Something that doesn't fit into any category you've built over a lifetime of experience.
Whatever, it didn't matter right now.
The only thing that mattered was the impurity behind that barrier.
"Open the cage."
Jubei stared at me.
"Open. The. Cage."
For a long moment, he didn't move. I could see him running his brain, deciding what to do, and what not.
Then he moved.
He stepped forward, reached for the barrier tags on the cage door, and pulled three.
The barrier flickered, and a gap opened in the web of cursed energy, just wide enough for the cage door to swing open.
He stood beside it, his weapon ready.
I appreciate it, but his help wouldn't be needed.
I walked in the cage.
The curse was at the far end, pressed against the bars. Its seven limbs were braced against the iron, its grotesque body coiled as tight as it could manage.
And its eyes.
Its four red eyes were locked on me.
And in them, I saw something I didn't expect.
Fear.
This creature.... This thing born from human suffering, this abomination that existed only to destroy, was afraid?
Of me?
A four-year-old boy carrying an ice halberd.
Something twisted in my face, and a smile bloomed on my face. Not the warm one I'd discovered on the plains.
No no no no no.Â
This one was different.
"So you have emotions?"
I kept walking slowly.
The halberd dragged behind me, its blade scraping across the stone floor.
The curse pressed harder against the bars. Its claws scrape against iron, trying to run away.
Alas, .that was not going to happen.
I kept walking until I was close enough to see every detail of its hideous face.
The funny thing? It was crying.
"Hahahahahah....." A weird laugh escaped form my mouth. But what can I do? The situation was so hilarious.
A monster born from misery, weeping in misery because of a child.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
But then, it lunged.
Desperation, I guess. All seven limbs extending at once, claws aimed at my throat, its rotting mouth open to bite my head.
Sadly for it, I could see it.
Every movement, every muscle, and every shift in its cursed energy. I could see it.
One step to the left.
One swing.
SLICE...
The ice edge was so cold that the wound didn't bleed at first. The flesh froze on contact, crystallizing along the cut.
The thing was sliced into two halves.
The creature screamed in agony as it tried to drag itself away from me. Its remaining limbs scraped against the stone, pulling its broken body toward the corner of the cage. A trail of dark fluid smeared across the floor behind it.
It bleeds too. I noted.
I didn't let it get far.
I stepped forward and drove the halberd down through its chest. The blade punched through its body, pinning it to the floor like an insect on a board.
It thrashed mindlessly. Its limbs flailed in every direction, scraping against the halberd's blade. More dark fluid sprayed from the wound, speckling my face and my robes.
I didn't wipe it off.
I just looked down at it.
"Hey."
It stopped thrashing.
"Look at me."
And it did.
Its four red eyes, swimming with tears, rolled upward and found mine. There was nothing behind them now except pain and fear. No malice. No hunger.
For a moment, just a moment, I felt something flicker in my chest. Not sympathy, but a question.
You were born from suffering, and you never chose to exist.
But it flickered past.
But neither did the people you would have killed.
"Can you tell me," I said quietly, "what is life?"
The creature stared at me. Its mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again, but no words came out. Just a wet, rattling sound that might have been an attempt at speech or might have been nothing at all.
"Guess you're not that smart."
I formed a second halberd in my left hand.
Raised it and drove it through the creature's skull.
The thrashing finally stopped, and so did the screaming.
The four red eyes went dark.
And then, slowly, starting from the wound, the creature's body began to crumble. Its flesh turning to ash, its limbs folding and collapsing like a structure losing its supports one by one.
Gone.
Like it had never existed at all.
"Be proud," I said to the empty space where it had been. "You played your part in purifying this beautiful world."Â
I released both halberds. They shattered simultaneously, breaking apart into thousands of tiny ice crystals that hung in the air for a moment, glittering like stars in a frozen sky.
Then they dissolved into nothing.
I turned around.
Jubei was standing at the entrance of the cage. He hadn't moved from his position.
The blood of the curse was on my face. I could feel it cooling against my skin.
And I was still smiling.
Making me think if I was mentally okay?
I am fine... I concluded.
"Are we done for today?"
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So..... yeah. A competely normal MC full of warmth and love.... I guessđ .
Hope I did not overcook with this chapter. Let me know your thoughts.