The Great Hall of the Hokori Kingdom Palace overflowed with golden light, aged rice wine, and whispers masquerading as reverence. High above, upon a throne carved from black stone with edges red as ancient embers, the King laughed with a trace of mockery while watching the floating magical transmission before him: gladiators slaughtering like beasts, slaves weeping, blood in a grotesque spectacle.
Around him, the noble clans filled their ceremonial seats. Some feigned smiles. Others made no effort to hide their contempt. A few gazed at him as though he were a god.
"This circus..." the king said, raising his cup without looking at anyone. "How ironic that it should be the most honest thing our kingdom has produced."
At his side, Kyomu, his personal guard, stood in silence, eyes closed, hands crossed over his sealed weapon's hilt. His presence was the throne's shadow made flesh.
Then the air shifted. A young man—Kaien Ryuzaki, youngest son of the Ryuzaki Clan noble—stepped forward from the lower tiers, his voice shaking with fury.
"How can you call yourself king while delighting in your people's suffering? How can you laugh while your citizens are sold for less than broken stones? You're no leader—you're a dictator! A coward who won't soil his own hands!"
Silence fell over the hall. Not from respect, but from terror.
The torch flames seemed to die for a moment. The air thickened, turned cold... as if an invisible fang descended from heaven to devour every will.
The king remained unmoved. He set down his cup with grace and met the young man's eyes.
"In a world where we were born broken..." he said softly, almost tenderly, "to seek heroism is the greatest delusion. Only children cry for justice when the universe was born screaming—not from compassion, but from hunger."
He leaned forward slightly.
"Save the people? For what? Hope is pain's favorite joke. And I've no time for bad comedy."
Kyomu opened his eyes for the first time.
"Shall I cleanse this insolence, Your Majesty?"
The king shook his head slowly.
"Not worth staining our blades with such... fleeting blood."
The boy's father—the Daimyō Ryuzaki—strode to his son, face pale with rage, and struck him with a slap that sounded like a death sentence.
"You fool! Such madness, speaking before the throne!"
He bowed to the king, sweating, trembling.
"Forgive my son, Your Majesty. He doesn't represent our house. It won't happen again..."
The king's smile barely moved.
"I hope not, Jorikawa. I bore easily... and when I'm bored, cities burn."
Father and son were escorted from the hall. Once through the stone gates, the Daimyō whispered to his servants:
"Bind him. As a slave. Let his tongue pay for his freedom."
One of the guards looked confused.
"But what if the king pursues him anyway?"
The Daimyō clenched his teeth.
"Then at least he'll know the punishment came from me first."
Meanwhile, in the Great Hall, the king turned back to the floating coliseum image and smiled with anticipation.
"Come now, Yodaku... show me the real spectacle."
---
"Ladies and gentlemen!" the announcer roared from the coliseum tower, crimson-feathered cape billowing behind him. "Tonight won't be merely a dance of blows and blood! Tonight begins the Trial Phase! A series of challenges... not just physical, but mental, spiritual, existential. After all, where's the fun in repetition?"
The crowd cheered with excitement, others laughed in anticipation. Some nobles in their magically-protected boxes exchanged mocking glances.
"Mental trials?" a slave trader chuckled. "Bet on whoever cries first!"
"I say that 'Avaro' crumbles. He's been weak since last round."
"I say he rises! That one's got beast's eyes!"
A new magical screen emerged from the coliseum center, displaying Donyoku's face with his assigned title:
**The Blood Glutton - Fighter 057**
Aika tensed in the hidden stands where the supposed "reserve slaves" awaited their turn. Chisiki, quieter than usual, clenched his fist seeing his friend's vacant expression.
"He... shouldn't enter like this," he whispered.
---
Donyoku passed through the metal gates onto the field. Before him were no weapons, no opponents. Only a massive mirror—at least four meters high—set into a sinisterly smooth wall. Its surface seemed liquid, as if the reflection hungered for his soul rather than his face.
When he took a step, the world blurred.
A voice—calm, distant, as if speaking from within his heart—spoke:
"I'll show you one future you might build... or allow."
And then, the pain began.
---
Everything burned.
The village of Tsuyoi lay in ashes. Mutilated bodies of elders, children, and women fell with the rain. Donyoku knelt, unable to breathe, unable to scream. Beside him, Chisiki lay with a hole through his chest, barely whispering his name. Before them stood the Hokori King like a cruel divinity, wreathed in light and blood.
"All this," the figure said, "happened because you weren't strong enough... decisive enough."
"No! I... I wouldn't allow this!" Donyoku tried to activate his Shinkon. Nothing happened. His soul stood naked.
The reflection shattered into a thousand fragments, each showing scenes worse than the last: Aika sold as a slave. Reiji crucified for disobedience. Hikaru forgotten as a martyr. Chisiki killing innocents from desperation.
"ENOUGH!" he screamed, clawing at the mental ground.
---
Meanwhile, outside, the crowd howled with laughter and cheers.
"He's crying like a child!"
"Look at that face!"
"Ha, brave 'Avaro'!"
"I lose five hundred coins if he faints!"
But not everyone laughed.
In the lower stands, several slaves began crying silently. Some covered their ears. They knew this wasn't mere spectacle. Many had endured such trials. None emerged unchanged.
Aika rose, feeling her heart tremble. Donyoku's screams echoed through the coliseum's magical corridors—a pure resonance of a broken soul.
"Reiji... can't we do something?"
Chisiki shook his head slowly.
"If you intervene now... you lose him forever. He must break through himself."
---
Within the trance, Donyoku crawled across a field of bones. All pride had vanished.
No light remained. Only ashes. Only death. Only guilt.
Donyoku ran among corpses that seemed to scream his name—his true name, the one he'd forgotten. The ground was flesh. The sky, smoke. In every corner, familiar faces stared with empty eyes, accusing him of weakness.
"It's your fault!" shrieked a faceless child.
"You promised...!" cried a burning old woman.
"Where's your strength, 'Avaro'?" spat his own reflection, wielding a broken copy of his Shinkon.
"ENOUGH!" Donyoku roared.
He fell to his knees, clutching his face, trembling. But he didn't cry. He howled.
He struck himself once. Then again.
"STOP! STOP ALL OF YOU! I DIDN'T WANT THIS! I... I JUST WANTED..."
He began clawing at his face, hard enough that thin lines of blood started running down his cheek.
"NO! DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!" he screamed at a corpse resembling his mother. "DON'T GIVE ME THAT FACE! I... I'M NOT A MONSTER!"
But he knew he was.
He collapsed to the ground, clawing at the earth as if trying to bury himself alive. His fingertips tore open.
"I want to wake up... please..." he wept. "Someone... help me..."
He punched his stomach. Another to his chest. He wanted his body to hurt more than his soul.
He screamed until hoarse. And finally, he murmured:
"I don't want to be me anymore."
Silence.
Only his ragged breathing. His blood dripping. His soul laid bare, shattered, naked.
And at that precise moment, in that pure and devastating crack, a presence began approaching.
A figure who'd seen him cry before, who'd saved him without meaning to. A figure who'd believed in him before he knew what belief meant.
Aika. Not her body, but her echo. A fragment of the most vivid memory in his soul.
"Will you really let this be your end?"
"I... I can't change anything..."
"Then why did you swear to protect us?"
Silence.
"Donyoku," the image said with a serene smile, "the future belongs to you. Though the world may curse you... you choose what burns and what blooms."
That's when the fog began to break.
Donyoku stood.
"This future... isn't mine!" he shouted, raising his fist toward the illusory sky.
The mirror exploded in the real coliseum. The magical field collapsed.
---
The crowd fell silent.
The "Avaro" had destroyed the event's strongest spiritual trial.
"DAMN IT!" a gambling noble shouted. "That cost me three servants!"
"This bastard..."
"He did it...!" came a distant, excited voice.
But Donyoku heard nothing. Tears still in his eyes, he breathed as if he'd just been reborn.
Reiji, from the hidden area, murmured:
"He didn't win. Not yet. But he chose not to lose himself."
---
"Pathetic!"
"I bet two slaves on his death!"
"Was that a trial or a weepy theater performance?"
The nobles' voices were poison wrapped in gold. From the stands, mockery after mockery rained like arrows, some disguised as laughter, others as pure contempt.
"If that's Hokori's new generation, we're doomed," muttered an old man with braided beard as he drank wine from a kneeling slave.
Despite the noise, Seita remained motionless, his pale pupils fixed on Donyoku. Inside, he was ice. But deep down, that small gesture of resistance the boy had shown... that broken tear that didn't become submission... reminded him that not everyone was condemned.
"He didn't fall," was all he said, quietly, as if it were a verdict.
---
Two hooded guards approached the arena. Donyoku remained silent, tears gone. Only emptiness. As if he'd been drained from within.
They lifted him carefully, but without respect. Like someone picking up a stone that had been in the way too long.
His steps were slow. Even his thoughts ached. Not from physical wounds... but because in his mind, the images of a future he couldn't forget still echoed.
Already in the dark exit corridor, he began to wonder:
"Do we really do this for a cause...? Or are we just fleeing a reality we've already lost?"
The words didn't come out. He only thought them. But in his chest, something began to crack slowly, as if each unanswered question carved a new fissure.
---
He was left in a stone room. It had a hard cot, a small candle, and the silence of one who survives without knowing why.
Donyoku sat down and stared at the floor.
Until the door opened softly.
"You made it..." Chisiki said, his voice warm but broken.
He approached with firm steps, showing no pity, only respect.
"Not everyone could come out of there with their soul intact..." he added. "I don't know if I myself could."
Donyoku didn't respond. But he lowered his head. His eyes shone with exhaustion. His face still bore the marks of his own nails.
Chisiki sat beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You're not alone, do you understand? No one should carry that pain in silence. And you... you endured something that wasn't meant to be borne."
That's when the door burst open.
"Donyoku!"
Aika ran to him, her breathing ragged, her eyes flooded.
Without saying another word, she embraced him tightly.
He remained still at first. As if he didn't know what to do with so much human warmth.
But slowly... his trembling hand closed around the fabric of Aika's dress, as if clinging to her was the only real thing left.
And in that silence, broken only by the ragged breathing of three exhausted souls, a different feeling began to emerge:
It wasn't hope.
It wasn't strength.
It was companionship.
And sometimes, that was enough to keep going.
---
Meanwhile, in the dark alley where Reiji, Bokusatsu, and Seimei stood,
A venomous whistle cut through the air.
The Viper retreated a few steps, his chest rising and falling with an irregular rhythm, almost anxious, almost... excited.
"I shouldn't..." he spat with a twisted smile. "I shouldn't be enjoying this."
His arms began to mutate grotesquely, bones stretching, flesh breaking and reforming like an endless worm. Both arms became sharp fangs, curved as if his entire existence wanted to pierce.
But that wasn't all.
His jaw opened beyond human limits, revealing black glands that began secreting thick toxin. It evaporated, and the air grew heavy, unbreathable, dense with death.
"Did you think you could traverse this world without paying a price?" he roared. "Even adults don't understand it! And you... want to change it!"
Reiji gritted his teeth.
Seimei flowed like water, dodging thrusts with brutal elegance, his expression calm, but his breathing growing shorter.
Bokusatsu received several cuts, but his monstrous skin held. His body was an aberration, but that same horror was what kept him standing.
Reiji drew his sword with one hand. The hum of his katana, Honō no Kokoro, vibrated with internal heat, almost imperceptible, but furious. His gaze grew intense. This time he wouldn't fail.
For a few seconds, chaos became pure art:
Metal, bone, and poison collided in a dance of death.
Every misstep meant a grave.
But the toxic mist continued spreading. With each passing second, breathing became punishment. The alley walls themselves trembled.
Reiji took half a step back. His katana still burned, but doubt crept in.
"At this rate... it'll finish all three of us," he said between gasps, feeling his vision blur.
Then, Seimei found an opening. A single crack in the enemy's erratic movements.
With a sublime gesture, he invoked his Shinkon's stroke, and shadows entwined like living ink. He immobilized the enemy.
He was about to strike the final blow.
But...
"Heh... didn't expect this much," The Viper said. His eyes showed no hatred, but something strange. Twisted admiration.
"That's why... you've earned something special," he added.
And then, everything changed.
"Yui no keiyaku: Hebimizuchi."
(Contract of the Bond: Hebimizuchi)
---
The explosion of energy was brutal.
The ground cracked, the walls bled poison, the world contracted as if a massive serpent had opened its eyes among mortals.
His Yuino... activated.
The Viper began to change:
His spine elongated, his legs became scales that crawled, his arm-fangs sharpened further.
His pupils split into three, and his entire body became a pendulum between man and monster.
"Only two people..." he spat with a distorted voice. "Only two forced me to use this before.
Neither survived."
Now he was faster. More lethal.
The air became blade.
The mere touch of his body was a slash. Each strike left a trail of venom and death.
Bokusatsu was thrown against a wall, his spilled blood evaporating upon touching the ground.
Seimei tried to counterattack, but his movements were too precise for such an unstable enemy.
And Reiji... stood at the center.
Katana in hand. Soul about to shatter.
He knew that if he hesitated once more...
The Viper would kill them all.
---
The Viper roared, but not like a beast...
But like a being born in despair, a monster that carried poison as tongue and pain as sword.
Reiji Mikazuki gasped, covered in cuts, venom, and contained rage.
Honō no Kokoro, his katana, vibrated with a faint but constant fire, like a whisper of something greater... something awakening.
Seimei retreated, shielding himself from the venom that spread like mist.
Bokusatsu bled, growled, and resisted, but his monstrous skin already showed cracks.
"This guy..." Seimei murmured through gritted teeth "...is really cornering us."
The Viper smiled, deformed by his activated Yuino. He no longer looked human.
Two sharp fangs for arms, toxins spewing from his mouth, and a deformed body that slithered like a serpent through reality's cracks.
"Do you see it now?" he spat with contempt.
"This isn't a tournament, idiots. It's a pit. And here the truth is that none of you deserve to leave."
But then Reiji took a step forward.
Just one.
Seimei shouted from a distance:
"Reiji, no! His venom field is altering the spiritual flow!"
But Reiji didn't retreat.
He took a step.
Then another.
And then he remembered.
A distant voice. A forgotten promise.
"You can't change the world if you don't survive it first."
His eyes rose, and for the first time, they weren't those of a guide.
They were those of a warrior.
The Viper noticed. Something in him had changed.
"What are you going to do, kid? A more elegant cut? An illusion? A pretty phrase before you die?"
Reiji didn't respond.
And the world... trembled slightly.
The katana blazed. But not with external fire.
It was spiritual fire, heat that came from the soul.
Honō no Kokoro recognized it.
"I'm not fighting for honor, or justice," Reiji whispered.
"I'm fighting... because if I don't, this hell swallows us all."
His arms tensed.
His gaze became sharper than any blade.
And then...
"Kokoro no Homura – Daikiri." (Flame of the Heart – Great Cut)
The cut wasn't a common attack.
It was a release.
Everything exploded.
The technique pierced the air, shattered the venom, tore through The Viper's arrogance, and left a spiritual scar on the world itself.
The Viper fell to his knees. His Yuino dissolved like wet clay.
Silence.
The Viper screamed.
Not from pain.
From fear.
For the first time in years.
He jumped backward, his Yuino wavering, his body still vibrating from the impact of the blow.
"What... what the hell was that...?"
His breathing was irregular.
His body, trembling.
There was blood... and fire.
"This wasn't a common Shinkon..." he murmured.
"Was it... a Tsugumono?"
Reiji fell to his knees.
Bokusatsu supported him.
Seimei covered him with a light barrier.
But by the time they looked up, The Viper had disappeared into the smoke, leaving only drops of venom and the feeling that the real war... was just beginning.
---
Bokusatsu, still bleeding, let out a guttural laugh.
"Idiot... you almost died. But damn, it was beautiful."
Seimei smiled without admitting it.
Reiji remained silent.
His katana still burned.
His soul too.
And somewhere in the invisible sky, a star fell.
---
That night, among poisons, screams, and mirages, a kingdom's soul trembled... not from fear, but because, for the first time in years, something other than horror had begun to burn.
Thank you for reading this chapter of Chi no Yakusoku.
If you enjoyed it, don't forget to follow for the next step in this dark blood oath.