"Are you offering that because you expect to be your puppet forever?" I asked, my voice still laced with confusion.
He paused.
Then...
"Fuhahaha..."
A low, rolling laugh rumbled from his chest.
It caught off guard.
The entire platform went quiet. Even the surrounding practitioners froze.
Everyone stared.
It might’ve been the first ti they’d ever heard him laugh.
Even I—his child—had never heard it before.
"You’ve really grown so balls, huh?" he said, shaking his head with a smirk. "Didn’t think I’d ever say that about a woman... but balls, you’ve definitely grown."
I looked at him, my brows twitching, eyes wide in disbelief.
His expression didn’t change.
It was calm, cold. And more than anything, absolute.
"No matter," he said, his voice flat, carrying a weight that felt like a stone dropped into my chest. "From now on, you’ll train. And you’ll keep training... until every single bone in your body breaks—until your knees hit the ground and stay there, crushed under the weight of your own weakness."
The air felt heavier after his words.
A chilling silence wrapped around us.
Without so much as a glance, he turned around, his clothes rustling softly behind him as he walked away with slow, deliberate steps, like he hadn’t just sentenced to hell.
Did that an...?
Was he ordering to return?
To co back to him... as a man?
"And also," he added, without turning, "I don’t think kindly of boyfriends."
His voice was like a blade dipped in casual venom.
"So if you have one, I’d strongly advise you not to bring them here. Not on my field. Or else..."
He paused.
A soft breeze rolled in, brushing past as the final part of his threat settled into the air like dust.
"...I might just cut them in half."
I stood there frozen, watching his back as he grew smaller in the distance.
Wait.
Boyfriend?
Did he just say—boyfriend?
Then that must an...
A flicker of heat rose in my chest.
No.
I shouldn’t assu anything.
I still had no idea what went on in that twisted, unreadable head of his. His thoughts were always buried beneath layers of silence and steel.
But even so—
Right now, in this mont...
It felt like I had just taken a step forward.
Just one.
But one more than before.
***
Sword Saint’s POV
My footsteps echoed faintly behind as I walked away with my back turned and my arms heavy.
I didn’t look back.
Not even once.
And if I did... I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep walking.
I wouldn’t be able to take another goddamn step.
This whole thing... all of it—it was karma. Plain and simple.
Everything I’d buried was clawing its way back up from the grave to tear at .
I never thought... not once in my life... that the secret I’d hidden for so many years would be brought out into the open like this.
The wind blew across my face as I looked up toward the sky, where the clouds drifted lazily, completely unaware of the weight pressing down on .
Johanna.
That was her na.
My sister.
Johanne’s aunt.
I had nad him—no, her—after my sister.
The sister I lost.
I didn’t even question it at the ti. It just... felt right.
But never in my wildest thoughts did I expect Johanne to grow up to mirror Johanna’s spirit so clearly.
Not just in na, but in strength. As well as in fire.
I used to look up to Johanna. As a kid, I thought she was invincible. A warrior. A goddess in flesh.
She was the reason I ever picked up a sword.
She was the fire that first lit my path.
Johanna and Johanne.
Two won. Different tis.
But the sa unyielding spark.
They were strong. Proud. Untad, in fact.
But won—no matter how strong—were still fragile.
That was what I kept telling myself.
Because every woman I ever loved... died.
My mother bled out the day I was born.
The woman who raised , the one who nursed when I cried, was butchered during a bandit raid. She couldn’t defend herself. She died screaming.
My sister trained harder than anyone I knew. She pushed her body past its limits. But her body gave up. She broke from the inside out.
And my wife...
She didn’t even have a fighting chance. Her body was too weak. An illness snatched her away like a thief in the night.
They were all gone.
Every single one of them.
And the one thing they all had in common?
Fragility.
That belief carved itself into my bones the day I watched my daughter take her first breath.
She was born a girl.
And in that mont, fear swallowed whole.
What if she was like her mother?
What if she had inherited the sa weakness?
I couldn’t let her have that.
I couldn’t go through that again.
So... I did sothing no father should’ve done.
I changed her.
I found a woman.
A strange one—soone who dealt in odd things, whispered rumors said. It was said that she could change a person’s gender with nothing but a flick of her fingers.
She seed like soone who got off on chaos. Mischief sparkled in her eyes.
But I didn’t care.
I paid her. I paid her to turn my daughter into a boy. I paid for silence as well as for secrecy. For sothing that should’ve never been done.
She didn’t ask questions.
She didn’t hesitate.
She just snapped her fingers—and in a heartbeat, my daughter was gone.
In her place was a boy.
I didn’t stay. The mont it was done, I walked away. Left that cursed place behind.
But guilt? Guilt doesn’t let you walk far.
It caught up with the second I stepped outside. Every step afterward felt like I was dragging chains.
But I didn’t turn back.
I couldn’t.
I just kept walking. Kept pretending.
My wife never knew.
She was unconscious before she ever laid eyes on our child.
I paid the midwife off and told her to keep her mouth shut and to take this secret to the grave.
And when my wife finally held her—already transford—she sensed sothing was off. I could see it in her eyes.
But she said nothing.
She accepted it.
And I let her.
Still, the guilt inside kept growing. It festered.
And then... my wife’s illness took her life, just as I feared it would.
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