The rain drummed steadily on the white petals of flowers, each droplet a small, persistent beat in the heart of the storm. The trees groaned and shuddered under the onslaught of the wind, their branches whipped into frenzied dances as the swollen rivers below surged with newfound power, their currents devouring the land. Footsteps splashed through the muck, the sound growing louder as someone sprinted through the mire, the squelch of mud underfoot blending with the metallic clang of steel on steel—a sound sharper than any thunderclap.
The runner's pace quickened, the rhythm of his steps growing frantic. Above, a raven cut through the stormy sky, its keen eyes catching the chaos below. A boy, his hair an unnerving white against the darkened world, charged forward, a sword gripped in his trembling hand. His boots fought for purchase in the slippery mud, his breath hitching in quick, desperate gasps as he pressed on.
Ahead, a tall man stood like an unmoved mountain, unbothered by the storm raging around him. His sword hung lazily at his side, as if waiting patiently for the inevitable.
The storm didn't wait for introductions. Neither did they.
Wind lashed the field like a whip. Trees bowed in reverence or fear, their limbs rattling like bones in the gale. The clearing, normally a quiet space became a wet hell.
Yuga stood in the filth, his chest rising and falling in anticipation. His fingers itched around the hilt of his sword, the fabric of his trousers clinging to his legs from the rain. His breath fogged the air, not from cold, but the fire climbing his spine.
Kazutobi stood across from him, a silhouette in the storm. He had not yet drawn his blade. His cloak fluttered around his legs, water streaking down the length of it like rivulets off a statue. One hand rested lazily near his hip, the other hanging at his side.
"You sure?" Kazutobi asked, voice steady and calm despite the storm. "You've just opened your eyes and yet you look ready to die. Might be better to keep your pride intact for another day little wolf."
Yuga didn't reply. He didn't need to. The tension in his stance said everything. His hands were steady, but his shoulders were tight, almost rigid, like a coil pulled to the edge of snapping.
Yuga closed the distance in a straight burst of speed, sword raised, aiming a direct strike toward Kazutobi's chest. His stance was wide, feet pushing hard against the dirt for momentum. As the blade came down, Kazutobi shifted to his left with minimal motion, letting the sword cut through empty space. Yuga's forward motion forced him off balance. Before he could recover, Kaz planted his back foot, turned into the strike, and drove his fist straight into Yuga's stomach. The force folded Yuga forward.
Kaz grabbed Yuga by the hair and yanked him downward. His knee rose with perfect timing, slamming into the same spot just struck. Yuga dropped to both knees, arms shaking. He grit his teeth and pushed himself up again, bringing the white sword across in a tight horizontal arc. Kazutobi raised his sheathed blade and caught the blow mid-swing. The impact cracked through the clearing.
Kaz didn't hesitate. His leg moved quickly, a front kick to Yuga's ribs. The blow sent Yuga stumbling sideways, but before he could collapse fully, Kaz followed with a punch to the center of his nose. The second punch landed cleanly to the side of his torso, just above the hip. The third hit snapped his jaw sideways. Yuga dropped flat onto his side.
Kaz stepped forward and pressed the sole of his boot onto the back of Yuga's skull, locking him in place against the ground. Yuga's arms twitched. His fingers clawed at the mud, then curled into fists. Mana surged through him—unstable, bright veins of white flickering beneath the skin. He twisted his legs, broke free from the pressure, and rotated into a low crouch, spinning once and rising to deliver a sharp slash toward Kaz's arm.
Kaz stepped out of range by pivoting on his heel. He shifted his weight to his rear leg and rotated fully, sending his right foot into Yuga's sternum. The heel connected solidly, and Yuga's entire body jerked backward. Before he could land, Kaz advanced, closed the distance, and seized him by the throat with one hand. He lifted, turned, and brought Yuga's body down in a controlled slam, face-first into the ground.
Yuga groaned. His arms pushed against the earth, but Kaz kept pressure on him. The mud caked into his mouth and nose. Yuga reached to the side, grabbed a handful, and threw it upward. It hit Kaz across the face, obscuring his vision for a brief moment.
Kaz wiped it clean with one motion and answered with a heavy kick to Yuga's abdomen. The impact launched him several feet. Kaz moved immediately, jumping into Yuga's path. He raised his leg, dropped it fast—just short of crushing Yuga's skull, the air from the motion blasting dirt outward.
Yuga lurched forward, dragging the white sword along the dirt, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused. His boots slipped slightly in the wet ground, but he kept moving, shoulders tight, breath thin. Blood soaked into the cloth around his side, and there was a numbness in his left hand—he wasn't sure when that started. But none of it mattered. He gritted his teeth and forced his body to respond.
Kazutobi stood just a few steps ahead, silent and unmoving. The black sword remained untouched at his side, still sheathed. He hadn't needed to draw it yet.
Yuga stepped into range and swung wide, a horizontal cut aimed for Kaz's ribs. Kaz turned with the blow, shifting his weight to his back leg, letting the blade pass through air before he stepped in and rammed his palm into Yuga's sternum. The breath left Yuga's lungs in a single cough, his body folding from the hit, but he didn't stop—he brought the blade around again, this time with both hands, aiming for Kaz's hip.
Kaz blocked it with the back of his armguard, angling the strike down, letting it lose all power, and then returned a precise punch to Yuga's jaw. Bone cracked. Yuga staggered, stumbled back, but raised his sword once more. His guard was falling apart—elbows flared out, footing uneven. Kaz rushed him this time, closing the gap with two quick steps, and caught Yuga's wrist with one hand before driving a knee into his ribs.
Yuga wheezed and folded inward, nearly dropping the sword, but he twisted out of Kaz's grip and attempted a clumsy thrust. Kaz slapped the blade away and brought his leg up, landing a clean, solid roundhouse kick into Yuga's side. The younger fighter's body spun from the force, landing hard on his shoulder.
Grunting, Yuga rolled and pushed himself up again. His hands were shaking. He pulled mana into his arms—rushing, unstable, hot under the skin—and it fizzled the moment it reached his elbows. His control was gone. Whatever he was trying to cast, it shattered under pressure.
He let out a hoarse cry and ran forward, dragging the sword behind him. At the last moment, he swung up in a vertical arc aimed for Kaz's shoulder. Kaz waited. The moment the blade neared him, Kaz raised his sheathed weapon, caught the swing on the flat side, and used his free hand to jab Yuga clean in the throat.
Yuga choked and staggered back, clutching at his neck—but Kaz wasn't done. He stepped in and drove his knee forward, landing it square in Yuga's stomach.
The hit sank deep. Yuga's body folded around it. His arms dropped, the sword slipped from his fingers, and he collapsed to both knees, gasping soundlessly, his body swaying on the verge of blackout.
Yuga clutched his throat, gasping like a man yanked from drowning. Each breath tore through him—wet, jagged, desperate. His ribs ached. The bruises along his body pulsed with heat. In the clearing ahead, Kazutobi walked away in silence, his boots brushing through a sea of white flowers. But they didn't sway—they knelt, every petal bowing as if they, too, feared the weight of the man who'd just made a mockery of him.
It made Yuga sick.
He stared at the man's back. Fury boiling. Shame souring the back of his throat.
Without a word, he dragged his hand through the dirt, fingers closing around the white sword—the one that mocked him as much as Kaz did. He didn't rise. He didn't scream. He just aimed it like a spear, arm quivering.
A sudden crack of light burst across his forearm, like a whip made of lightning striking out from the blade. His veins lit up white, then electric blue—glowing like fire beneath his skin. The light crawled across his shoulders, down his neck, through his jaw. It pulsed like it had a mind of its own. A heart of its own.
And it hurt. Gods, it hurt.
The sword trembled in his grip as he forced it to obey, channeling every drop of unstable mana into it. His body convulsed. His jaw clenched. The light in his veins began to spiral, branching out wildly like roots splitting stone. Steam poured from his every orifice.
Then—he threw it.
The sword screamed across the field like a comet.
Kazutobi turned just enough.
The blade grazed his cheek, slicing a clean line of red down his face before stabbing into the ground behind him with a deafening crash. The moment it struck, the earth shattered. The ground cracked open, jagged and steaming, tearing through the flowers like a wound in the land itself. The sword stuck out of the rubble, humming with spent energy, glowing faintly.
Kaz's eyes narrowed.
But Yuga wasn't by the tree anymore.
He was already moving—hobbling forward, magic sputtering across his skin in twitching pulses. His body was falling apart. The glowing veins looked like roots now, splitting up his neck, curling around his face. His breath came in shuddering bursts, each step unsteady, each muscle on the verge of collapse.
But he smiled.
A sick, stubborn, stupid smile.
He stumbled toward the white blade, wrapped his hands around the hilt, and yanked. The moment it left the earth, lightning surged up his arms. His body convulsed violently, but he powered through it, dragging the blade behind him as he swung it upward in a reckless arc toward Kaz's neck—too fast to stop. Too wild to block.
But Kaz didn't flinch.
He stepped in, calm as ever, and brought his foot down like a judge's gavel.
The black boot slammed onto the blade, stopping it cold. The force rattled Yuga's bones. Then came the heel—rising, then crashing into his chin with brutal efficiency. Yuga's head snapped back. He hit the dirt so hard it knocked the breath out of him. His vision sparked.
Kaz didn't draw his sword.
He hadn't even touched it.
"No magic to save you, little wolf," he said flatly.
Yuga choked on blood. He could barely move, but something inside him refused to lie still. He roared and lunged, throwing himself at Kaz, arms wide like he meant to drag the man down by sheer will alone.
He lifted Yuga off the ground and slammed him into the nearest tree. The sound was ugly—shoulder against bark, bark against spine. Yuga grunted, kicked at Kazutobi's thigh, but Kaz didn't flinch. He held him there a moment, breathing calmly. His voice was quiet now. Firm. No teasing.
"You don't get strong by swinging harder. You get strong by surviving long enough to learn when not to swing."
Then he let go.
Yuga dropped to the ground, coughing. He pushed himself up on one elbow, sword somewhere in the mud beside him, rain starting to fall in thick drops across his back. He looked up through wet hair, defiant even now.
"You done?" he chuckled.
Kazutobi looked at the sky, the storm rolling in heavy overhead. Then back down at Yuga.
In that moment, Yuga felt an emotion he had come to know intimately—self-loathing. It clung to him like a second skin, heavy and suffocating, wrapping around his ribs until he could barely breathe. He hated his weakness, hated the way he could never quite give up even when he should, when every nerve screamed for him to stop. That single, reckless impulse—to push further, to keep moving when all hope had dried up—had carved deep trenches of suffering into his life, left him bleeding from wounds that no healer could see. And yet, he never learned. He never listened. He couldn't. Pride wasn't just stubbornness—it was a curse he had inherited, a rot he carried in his bones. "Pride isn't a personal sin—it is a universal one. It is an empire killer. A story ruiner. A tragedy in slow motion."
That truth haunted him, and somewhere deep down, he knew it: only when he could accept it—truly accept it—could he ever be free. But until then, he remained shackled by it. And so, in a fit of wild, furious desperation, he ran. He sprinted toward Kaz with the white sword clenched in his trembling grip, eyes burning, not with courage but shame. There was no technique in his movements, no elegance or control—just a flailing storm of emotion and refusal. A man sprinting into the jaws of a god, a fool to his own pride. And that, among so many others, would always be one of his greatest sins.
Kazutobi's fingers finally wrapped around the hilt of the black blade.
The rain paused. Not stopped—paused, like time itself had held its breath. The wind didn't dare move. Even the thunder, once rumbling in the distance like a restless beast, fell utterly silent. Something shifted—not just in the battlefield, but in the world.
Then, slowly, Kaz drew the sword.
It didn't screech. It didn't roar. It whispered. A thin, hollow hum spilled into the air, and the sky responded. The moment the edge cleared the sheath, a seam split the clouds above them—like an invisible blade had sliced through the heavens. The storm was cleaved, a clean rift yawning open from horizon to horizon, letting beams of raw golden light shine through, painting the sky in jagged shafts of brilliance.
Yuga couldn't move. He barely breathed. The pressure coming off the sword made the air feel dense, like trying to inhale through wet cloth. The white sword in his hands—once warm, pulsing with energy—felt like a toothpick in the face of a war god.
Kaz raised the blade with one hand.
No stance. No windup. Just one straight lift, like someone placing a letter on a table.
Then, with a single downward motion, he brought it down.
"Sky Cutter." Kaz whispered.
The slash wasn't fast. It didn't need to be. It simply was.
And the world broke.
The blade didn't just cut the air—it erased it. The very molecules screamed apart, torn from one another. The wind exploded downward, punching a crater into the dirt around Kaz's feet as if gravity had tripled. But it didn't stop there. The earth split. No—shattered.
A howling wave of force carved outward from the swing in a straight line, gouging through the earth like it was butter. Trees in the distance were bisected at the trunk, falling apart in perfect silence before their tops even realized they'd been cut. Massive rocks cracked and peeled like bark. The very terrain warped.
And then came the ravine.
It didn't open—it formed. In one instant, the flat battlefield was replaced with a jagged wound in the land, stretching at least forty meters deep and wide enough to swallow a wagon whole. Mud, rock, water—all gone. Vaporized along the cut's path. What remained was a raw, ragged trench that belched steam and sizzled with mana-rich air.
Even the clouds above, once boiling with storm, had been torn apart. Sunlight now poured through a gash in the sky—dead center along Kazutobi's swing.
Yuga barely had time to cry out as the ground beneath his feet buckled. He stumbled back, the earth caving in. The slope behind him collapsed like a landslide, and his balance disappeared.
The void yawned below.
And then, just as his foot slipped—
Kazutobi's hand shot out, catching the front of his shirt in a vice grip.
Yuga dangled over the edge of the ravine, staring down into the abyss Kaz had carved with one swing. One sword. One motion. The destruction that followed defied logic. The land hadn't been attacked—it had been rewritten.
His sword had fallen, tumbling into the gorge below.
Kaz looked down at him, impassive.
Yuga didn't speak. He didn't have the words.
Kaz didn't mock him. He didn't even glance down the ravine. To him, it was nothing.
He let go.
Yuga hit the ground with a muddy thud, coughing, groaning—still alive, but battered and small. The trench beside him stretched on endlessly, a reminder to the power he couldn't begin to match nor understand.
Kazutobi slid the black sword back into its sheath with a click that echoed like a bell tolling the end of a war.
Then, without turning back, he started walking.
"Fuck off, kid. You're wasting my time." he muttered, and slowly disappeared into the mist as the torn sky slowly began to seal shut.