[Author's Note]
Lately there's been so much forced hate towards the story. I know so of u are actually curious or giving constructive feedback (You know who u are.)
But mostly these haters just spam brainless gifs and trash comnts, making the real fans stay in the background. They get even madder when i ignore them... Their goal isn't to be constructive. They just want to stop the fic from continuing, just like they do to many other stories. they do this consciously or unconsciously.
To everyone who loves this fic and wants it to go on, u can relax. I hear u and i understand u. Keep supporting so this story can reach the place it deserves. By then, i guess the haters will eventually give up and leave...
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With Kashimo's victory, the battle on Fuka's side also ca to an end.
Every sorcerer the Zenin clan had sent was dead. She had used no techniques. From beginning to end, she had relied on raw, physical skill to dismantle them. The mountain road was a river of blood, with broken bodies scattered across the dirt in a chaotic, silent ss. The air was thick with the scent of iron. Fuka leaned against a tree, her robes so saturated with blood it was impossible to tell what was hers and what belonged to the n she had killed.
Her hair was wet and matted against her face as she gasped for air. Her chest heaved with every breath. The tension that had held her together during the slaughter was dissolving, replaced by a wave of exhaustion that made her fingertips tremble.
Then, she felt it.
A massive, suffocating volu of cursed energy was slowly fading in the distance. She knew that presence. It was so familiar it made her heart seize in her chest.
She began to move.
"Master... Master..."
The words were a quiet murmur, barely a breath. She stumbled toward the source of the energy, oblivious to the blood and the sharp stones beneath her feet. She had only one thought in her mind.
She had understood everything Kashimo had said to her that day. She knew what he craved and what he searched for. But she wasn't strong enough. Not even close.
She couldn't give Kashimo the kind of love he wanted. That lethal, burning connection found only on the edge of death. That was a gift only an equal could offer.
She kept running, her eyes burning.
When she reached the edge of the battlefield and gripped a splintered tree trunk for support, the sight before her made her freeze.
A massive crater, over four hundred ters wide, had been carved into the earth like a wound from a teor. The rock at the edges had been lted by the heat, cooling into a layer of glass that shimred with a ghostly light under the pale sky. The bottom of the pit was a wasteland of jagged fissures and lightning scars, as if a giant hand had reached down and torn a piece out of the world.
In the center of the ruin, Kashimo stood.
He looked small in the middle of the wasteland, but he was the only thing that mattered. Charred tracks still marked his limbs and the corners of his mouth, though his reverse technique was slowly nding the scorched tissue. He was naked and covered in gore, but he stood perfectly straight, like a blade fresh from the forge.
Not far away, Zenin Sawara's corpse lay among the rubble. Half his body was a blackened ruin, already beginning to rge with the scorched stone.
Fuka gripped the tree so hard her nails dug into the bark.
The sound of slow, rhythmic clapping broke the silence of the graveyard. It was steady and deliberate.
"You actually did it, my friend."
Kenjaku had appeared at the edge of the crater, only twenty ters from Kashimo. His black monk's robes moved slightly in the wind, and he wore his usual, unreadable smile. He continued to clap, the sound echoing hollowly through the pit.
"As part of our vow," Kenjaku said, his voice dropping to a calm, practical tone, "I will teach you everything I know regarding barrier techniques."
Kashimo gave a short, silent nod. It was a settled matter.
He seed to sense her then. He turned his head, his gaze traveling across the ruined woods and the settling smoke until it landed on Fuka.
He didn't say anything.
He simply looked at her for a mont and then started walking in her direction. His pace was steady, as if to tell her that it was over and it was ti to move on.
Fuka watched him approach. Her lips moved, but she couldn't find a single word. She let go of the tree, her blood-stained hands hanging at her sides as she waited.
Kashimo stopped when he reached her.
The wind blew across the crater, kicking up fine grit that stung his healing skin. He didn't look at her. He kept his eyes on the horizon, his voice level and devoid of emotion.
"I have nothing left to teach you."
He paused for a mont.
"Go, Fuka."
He turned his head slightly. His face was still marked with the black lines of his own lightning, but his eyes were clear and terrifyingly focused. It wasn't hatred or boredom she saw there. It was a transparent, absolute calm, as if he had prepared to say these words a long ti ago.
"Go to Edo. Go back to the Shogunate. Go wherever you want, as long as it's far from here."
He looked away.
"There is nothing left between us."
He started walking again. He moved past her without looking back, his bare feet steady on the jagged stone and ash.
Fuka stood in the center of the road, paralyzed.
She opened her mouth, but her throat felt heavy, like it wouldn't let her speak. Her hair was matted with blood that had already dried into hard, dark crusts. She watched his back as he walked away, step by step, until the smoke and the broken mountains swallowed him.
She didn't even realize how far he had gone. Even the wind had stopped.
Kenjaku walked past her a mont later.
He paused to look at her, his eyes carrying a touch of clinical curiosity. He looked at her the way one might look at a tool left in the rain. He tilted his head, his smile widening slightly.
"If I were you," he said, as if offering a piece of friendly advice, "I'd go back to the capital and take the Shogunate for myself. With your strength, you could own all of Japan. Why would you bother following him?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and followed Kashimo, his robes snapping in the breeze.
Fuka was left alone.
The wind picked up again, whipping the corners of her blood-soaked robes against her legs. She stared at the spot where Kashimo had vanished for a very long ti, and she did not move.
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A/n: Just a quick note about Kashimo's binding vow from last chapter so there is no confusion:
The 50% reduction in technique performance specifically refers to the efficiency of cursed energy used for physical transformation and body modification.
This is exactly why he manages to survive after using the technique. Instead of the energy being consud by a full body reconstruction, the massive boost in his total cursed energy reserves allows him to channel that power into offensive output (like those high-density evaporative electromagnetic waves) while in the Mythical Beast Amber state.
And yes, this Binding Vow is permanent.
I'll leave the Domain Expansion's effect to your imagination for now...
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900 power stones = 1 bonus chapter. We're so close, don't forget to vote with your power stones!!
For early access to 15 chapters ahead: p@tre~~/Demonic_Fiction (Link is in the synopsis and my profile).
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