Chapter 58: mories
"It's you?!"
"That…that patricide bastard!!"
Kujo Ran's face twisted completely with fear and shock.
"No wonder…no wonder you chose as a scapegoat!"
"Because I'm a mber of the Kujo Family…you ca for revenge!"
"Revenge?"
Outside the cage, Kujo Shiyan heard those two words and couldn't help but let out a cold laugh.
"No, no, no, don't misunderstand."
"After so many years, my hatred for the Kujo Family ended long ago."
"That damned old man has already paid the price he deserved."
"That knife back then—I deliberately left him one dog's life, severing his central nervous system."
"Let him spend the rest of his life bedridden like a cripple."
"That was the greatest tornt for him."
Kujo Shiyan rose to his feet, looking down at Kujo Ran from above.
"As for why I chose you?"
"That's because I know very well—anyone carrying the filthy blood of the Kujo Family will always make an attempt for the sake of profit."
"Just like 33 years ago…that group of people, for the sake of so-called 'bloodline purity,' killed my mother like slaughtering a dog…"
"And caused to lose the only person I cherished!"
Kujo Shiyan's expression gradually grew heavy, both fists clenching so tight his nails dug into his palms.
In a daze.
The dim warehouse vanished, the sll of blood dissipated.
Ti seed to begin flowing backward, the clock hands spinning wildly in reverse.
Returning to that spring when cherry blossoms fell, yet carried a chill.
……
March 9th, 1993.
33 years ago, Sakura Nation, suburban train station of Itabar City.
Ding dong!
"Attention passengers, the next stop, Rose Middle School…"
The announcent from the old-fashioned tram echoed across the empty platform.
Young Kujo Shiyan, dressed in a black overcoat with long hair, stood at the platform's edge.
He wasn't watching the train that rushed past at all.
He wasn't waiting for a train—he was waiting for a person.
The wind tousled his long hair.
He pulled a cigarette from his trouser pocket, just about to light it.
Slap!
A small hand suddenly shot out, snatching the lighter right from his grasp.
"Hey! Shiyan!"
The girl's scolding voice rang out.
"Didn't I write in my letters telling you to quit smoking? Why haven't you quit since coming back this ti? Don't you know cigarettes are bad for your health?"
Kujo Shiyan turned his head.
What t his eyes was a girl in a sailor uniform carrying a school bag, her cheeks puffed out in annoyance.
She had a head of jet-black long hair, fair skin, and clear eyes.
That was…the still-living…
Oriha.
"Sorry, Oriha."
Kujo Shiyan scratched his head, a shyness and indulgence particular to that age spreading across his face.
"Force of habit. I'll definitely quit next ti."
"Goodness…you."
Oriha let out a sigh and stuffed the lighter into her own pocket.
"You've been like this since middle school, always acting like such an adult. Keep it up and I won't talk to you anymore!"
Kujo Shiyan smiled, looking at the bright girl before him, and said with a grin:
"Because I want to grow up faster, so I can shield you from the wind and rain."
"And…the wind is strong today, but it can't blow away the heart that yearns to see you."
Oriha froze for a mont, then her fair cheeks instantly flushed red.
"You…where did you even pick up lines like that?"
"Seriously~ I'm so embarrassed! Idiot!"
Kujo Shiyan shrugged.
"Learned them in Huaxia over these 3 years."
"I learned a lot of things—that was one of them."
Oriha fiddled with her long hair, her gaze full of tender concern.
"Is that so?"
"Then these 3 years…were you doing all right over there?"
"Back then, to escape this place of heartbreak, you even chose to drop out and wander abroad alone…do you really have no regrets?"
Kujo Shiyan looked at her and shook his head from the bottom of his heart.
"No regrets."
"Because only by becoming stronger can I protect the people I want to protect."
"Once you graduate from school this year, I'll take you and Mom on a trip together."
"To see Huaxia."
"By then…you'll realize the world is truly vast, and where we stand right now is nothing but a drop in the ocean."
However.
Upon hearing the word "Mom."
Oriha's previously bright expression instantly fell.
"What's wrong?"
Kujo Shiyan keenly sensed sothing was off, and an ominous premonition rose in his chest.
"Oriha…is sothing weighing on your mind?"
Oriha was silent for a long while before lifting her head, her eyes already red.
"Shiyan…"
"Actually…Mom is already gone."
Boom!
Those words struck like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky, crashing straight down onto the crown of Kujo Shiyan's head.
He staggered back 2 steps in disbelief, his complexion draining white in an instant.
"Oriha…what did you say?"
"Mom…is gone?"
"Ha…haha, don't lie to , all right? This joke isn't funny at all."
"All these years I've been sending money and letters ho, and Mom was still writing back—how could she be dead?"
Oriha couldn't hold it in any longer. She stepped forward and grabbed his sleeve with both hands, crying out:
"It's true! Calm down!"
"Mom disappeared one winter a year ago…suddenly."
"We searched for a long ti…when she was found again…she…she was on a withered tree by the roadside…"
"She was murdered…hanging up there completely bare…like…like she was being made an example of…"
"The letters…I wrote them in Mom's place so you wouldn't worry and it wouldn't affect your work."
"Withered tree…hanging up there…"
Kujo Shiyan's pupils instantly contracted to pinpricks.
That was the Kujo Family's habitual thod for dealing with traitors and stains!
"It was them again!!"
"It must have been that old beast from the Kujo Family!!"
"Even after all that…they still couldn't let Mom go?!"
Overwhelming hatred erupted from Kujo Shiyan's eyes.
He wasn't known by the noble Sakura Nation surna "Kujo" for nothing.
But in reality…
His mother was nothing more than a hostess who worked at a dance hall.
And he was the illegitimate child left behind by the current Kujo Family head, Kujo Takeichi, after a night of drunken indiscretion.
The other party had never intended to acknowledge him as a son—considered his existence a stain on the family.
From the mont he was born, he was kicked into the slums. Beyond the ager hush money sent each month, they neither saw nor cared for him.
But his mother was beautiful, and she was kind.
Even though she was a hostess, even though she had no choice but to force smiles at n to feed her child.
What was noble was never the profession, but the person.
Oriha was a baby girl his mother had found abandoned on a snowy road one night walking ho from work.
That year, Kujo Shiyan was only 3 years old.
Even though the household was so poor they could barely scrape by, his mother gritted her teeth and raised the infant girl.
He never forgot how his mother had gently asked him that day.
"Shiyan, would you like a little sister?"
Growing up in a dance hall, young Kujo Shiyan looked at that small face, purple from the cold, and nodded heavily.
From that day, he swore he would protect that little sister forever.
Life was very hard, yet also fairly tranquil.
Until the year he turned 10.
His mother was hospitalized after being abused by a custor.
That day, in the hospital corridor, he overheard those n mocking his mother.
"Hey, Koichi, is this the head's woman? How did she feel?"
"Average. No idea what the head ever saw in her."
"Shh, keep it down—if the head finds out you lot did this, he'll definitely kill you!"
"What's there to be afraid of? She's just a prostitute. No telling how many n she's been with—the head won't care."
These words entered the ears of Kujo Shiyan, rely 10 years old, and without a mont's hesitation he charged at them.
But being too young with a frail body, he was instead tied up and beaten rcilessly.
He ca away with a body full of wounds, and the cruellest truth this world had to offer.
The weak—they weren't even entitled to dignity.
Only when a passing doctor appeared did those n finally stop.
The doctor brought Kujo Shiyan to his office, and with precise knife technique and needlework, helped him cut loose the ropes and stitch his wounds closed.
Through their exchange, Kujo Shiyan learned the other party was a doctor from Huaxia, visiting Sakura Nation for a technical exchange to study Western dicine.
But what drew Kujo Shiyan's attention wasn't the dical skills.
It was the scalpel dancing between the doctor's fingertips—as if it had co alive.
'If I had knife technique like that…could I kill off all those people who bully Mom?'
So he knelt on the spot and requested to be taken as a disciple.
But the doctor refused without a mont's hesitation.
"Your eyes hold nothing but hatred."
"My dical skills are for saving people. My knife…is only used to excise disease."
"Take care of yourself."
"When you've figured things out, co find ."
Kujo Shiyan bowed in disappointnt.
"Thank you. I won't disturb you further."
The aning was clear—he couldn't bring himself to let go of the hatred.
But hearing that, the doctor stopped walking, the corners of his mouth curling upward.
Thud!
Without turning back, the doctor's finger moved.
A card flew out in an instant, embedding itself deep into the wall beside Kujo Shiyan's neck.
"You're still too young, your bones haven't even finished growing."
"Co find when you're 15. My na is Huang Hun."
"Rember…my knife kills no one—it only kills 'demons.'"
With that, the doctor left.
Kujo Shiyan trembled as he pulled out that card.
On it, embossed in gold lettering, were 3 characters:【Arashin-kai】.
He had seen that na on television news.
That was a top-tier assassin organization feared by every nation in the world!
Ho to 12 divine-seat holders of ghostly, godlike abilities!
Kujo Shiyan etched that address firmly into his mind, then stuffed the card into his mouth and swallowed it whole.
……
5 years later.
At 15, having saved up enough travel money from odd jobs in the black market, he set off resolutely for Huaxia.
There, he found the doctor.
What followed…
Under the doctor's hellish special training, his strength advanced by leaps and bounds, and he went on to carry out countless assassination missions across Southeast Asia.
In the end, he rose to 6th place on the International Hitman Ranking.
Kujo Shiyan took a deep breath.
He looked at Oriha, who stood before him with tears streaming down her face, and forcibly suppressed the surging killing intent within.
Coming back this ti, he had accepted a mission—and it was also to reclaim justice for himself.
That was: to assassinate the Kujo Family head, Kujo Takeichi.
"Oriha, stop crying."
Kujo Shiyan reached out his hand and wiped the tears from her face.
"I'll handle this matter. Trust ."
"But right now, it's inconvenient for to show my face—the Kujo Family likely already knows I'm back."
"I'll send you to school first. It's safer there."
"Once I finish my business, we'll leave this place and never co back."
Oriha clutched his hand, her eyes full of worry.
"Shiyan…don't do anything foolish."
"Promise —no matter what happens, stay alive."
Kujo Shiyan nodded, his gaze flickering.
"I will."
After that.
The 2 boarded the tram heading toward the suburbs.
Half an hour later, they arrived at a private boarding school situated halfway up a mountain.
It was a school that looked beautiful, planted full of red roses.
On the plaque at the school entrance it read:
Rose Middle School.
However.
What Kujo Shiyan could never have imagined.
The place he had sent Oriha to for safety…
Would beco the greatest regret of his life…
The most unacceptable…
And most terrifying nightmare.
Because the very instant he saw Oriha through the school gate and turned to leave.
One step away.
This school…
Beca hell.
User Comments
0 comments from readers