Black clouds kept gathering above the skies of Kinzoku no Hana, as if the very heavens were holding their breath. In the midst of the ruined coliseum—where blood, rubble, and corpses had become the new ornaments of the ground—three figures still stood their ground.
Narikami, his military uniform torn yet still imposing, walked slowly until he stood only a few paces from Yodaku. His sacred blade still crackled with contained lightning. His eyes did not show anger, but a distant sorrow—like someone tired of watching the same mistake repeated for centuries.
"Tell me, Yodaku…" his deep voice broke the silence. "What do you believe justice and order truly are?"
Yodaku let out a dark chuckle, his body smeared with the blood of others and flecked with ash. He placed a hand over his face, as though the question were childish, and when he looked back up, a twisted grin bent his features.
"Justice? Order?" he mocked. "Those are words the weak invented to avoid admitting that the world belongs to the strong. Empty hopes to help them sleep at night, knowing they'll never be more than prey in a cage. I didn't come here to impose order… I came to show the world what it really is."
Reiji remained silent, one knee to the ground, his breathing ragged, blood dripping from his side. He knew he didn't have the strength for a prolonged duel. Every step, every heartbeat, had to be calculated. There was no room for distraction.
That was when Donyoku and Chisiki emerged from one of the side corridors, their faces tense. What lay before them was not hope—not even fear. It was judgment between monsters.
Chisiki swallowed hard.
"We're not looking at mindless beasts… but at broken humans who've shattered so many souls, they can't even recognize their own anymore," she whispered, her voice trembling.
Donyoku clenched his fists. His Shinkon's aura flickered, as if something deep inside knew this place was the threshold to something far worse than death.
And in the center, Narikami and Yodaku… were ready to rewrite the order of the Kingdom of Hokori with fire, lightning… and blood.
---
Slow footsteps. Ragged breathing.
The body of The Viper—Hebimura, in truth—moved through the inner corridors of the coliseum. With every step, the cracked walls and extinguished torches seemed to whisper memories he thought he had buried.
In his mind, the present began to dissolve, dragged under by the weight of the past…
"I still remember…" Hebimura murmured, his tone almost nostalgic. "The day the world stopped embracing me."
Hebimura had not always been The Viper.
Once, he had not feared his own reflection.
As a boy, his name echoed with joy in the cobblestone alleys of a quiet village on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Hokori. "Hebi, run faster!" his friends would shout, their faces flushed with sweat and laughter as they raced through the rice fields.
He lived in a modest but warm home. His mother, hands cracked from work, made miso soup with vegetables every morning. His father, a blacksmith with a booming voice but a gentle heart, would tell him tales of warriors and monsters before bed.
"You'll be one of the good ones, Hebi," his father would say, ruffling his hair with fingers stained with coal.
"And if I can't?" the boy would ask, clutching the blanket to his nose.
"Then you just keep trying."
It all changed on an ordinary day. No omens, no thunder, no strange dreams. Just a scraped knee from a careless fall.
The blood touched the earth… and something woke.
His body convulsed as if lightning had struck his spine. His veins began to slither on their own, crawling along his arms. His fingers stretched into long, trembling claws. His shadow seemed to multiply. And his gaze… his gaze was no longer human.
"Hebi!" one friend screamed, watching him writhe. "What is that?!"
"Don't go near him! He's a demon!"
They ran. All of them. Even his best friend. Even the one who had once said, "I'll always be with you."
When he got home, his mother saw him and dropped the bowl she was holding. His father reached for a knife before he reached for tears.
That night, he didn't sleep. Nor the next. Nor the next.
His Shinkon could not be controlled. It surged like a curse, twisting his limbs, warping his voice, making him bleed where there were no wounds. Whenever he tried to calm himself, pain answered. Whenever he felt emotion, something else took over.
"I don't want this…" he whispered, trembling in the corner of his room. "I'm not a monster…" But the world had already decided.
His friends stopped visiting.
The neighbors demanded he be cast out.
His mother stopped cooking.
His father stopped speaking to him.
One day, Hebimura opened the door. His home was empty. They were gone. They hadn't even said goodbye.
He walked barefoot and dusty to the river. He sat by the water, stared at his distorted reflection, and for the first time… considered not going on.
"Why… did I become this?"
That was when he heard the voice—cold, firm, yet strangely kind.
"You're Hebimura, aren't you?" Narikami said.
He wore a clean uniform, kneeling in front of the boy. His smile was forced, almost artificial, but his words… were warm.
"There's nothing wrong with you. It's not your fault they fear what they don't understand. There's strength in you, you know. You just need someone who believes in it."
The boy lifted his head. Tears still clung to his face, but for the first time… there was a spark of hope.
That was the first lie.
Over time, Narikami became his savior, his guide… and his jailer. First came simple errands. Then missions that stained his hands. Until one day…
"If you really want to protect something, Hebimura, you'll have to get dirtier than anyone else."
The blood flowed. His soul cracked. The boy vanished.
The monster was born.
Back in the present, Hebimura stood before a reinforced iron door. Behind it hid merchants, nobles, and two men he was meant to find: Seimei and Bokusatsu.
He clenched his teeth. Sweat slid down his neck. The pill Narikami had given him still made his soul pound, but it also reminded him his time was running out.
He placed a trembling hand on the door. His body was still a warped mass of abnormal limbs and blackened veins from the hizumi, but for a moment… the creature that had once been a boy only wanted to hear something human on the other side.
"Bokusatsu… Seimei…" he muttered.
The Viper wasn't seeking forgiveness. He just wanted to fight one last time… without chains.
---
The door did not open. It was torn from its frame.
An explosion of splinters and steel shredded the air, and a hunched figure, its face deformed by crawling black veins, advanced like a demon from a war-born nightmare. Hebimura—the Viper—stepped into the room wreathed in a rancid aura of death and resentment. He said nothing. He didn't need to. His presence screamed hatred.
"Shit…", Bokusatsu muttered, eyes wide.
"No… it can't be…" Seimei added, unable to look away from the monster.
They recognized him instantly. Not as just another enemy. As a death sentence.
Bokusatsu swallowed and whispered to his companion:
"We're not going to fight him. We're going to survive him."
The room was full of nobles, merchants, and wounded slaves. It was meant to be a refuge. But to the Viper, it was only a feeding ground. Anything with a pulse was prey. Without hesitation, he tore the head off a merchant who blocked his path. Another he skewered through the gut with a single twist of his elongated arm—like a living spear.
Screams. Blood. Panic.
"Run!" Bokusatsu shouted, as chaos consumed the room.
But Seimei did not run. His Shinkon flared, and in an instant his body became stealth incarnate—subtle, sharpened. His steps were whispers; his movements, a lethal dance of surgical precision.
Hebimura grinned, a crooked, venomous smile.
"Want to dance with me, artist?"
Seimei's strikes were beautiful—each one drawn with the delicacy of a visual poem. But Hebimura didn't read poetry—he devoured it. He intercepted each attack as if his body had memorized every rhythm.
And then—a mistake.
A slip of the ankle. A fraction misjudged.
A fang-like appendage from Hebimura's arm lashed out in an instant, splitting his abdomen open.
Seimei coughed blood.
His skin began to turn purple.
The venom was already inside.
"Seimei!" Bokusatsu cried, rushing to help him. But it was useless.
A single swipe drove an organic dagger deep into Bokusatsu's shoulder. He too collapsed to his knees, gasping, muscles seizing.
"The venom… his Shinkon's warped," Seimei rasped between mouthfuls of blood. "It's not normal… he's at the limit…"
Bokusatsu gritted his teeth, mind racing. They couldn't win. They couldn't fight. Only one card remained.
"That window," he said, nodding toward a tall, shattered pane. "Maybe there's more death down there—but here, there's only one… and it's shaped like a snake."
Seimei nodded.
"Then we jump before we stop caring about the pain."
Without another word, they hurled themselves into the void—wrapped in the stench of corpses, the taste of venom, and the faint, fragile hope that maybe, just maybe… they'd get one more chance.
---
The stench of death still clung to the air, but now it wasn't the only thing suffocating them.
The poison still burned inside, and Seimei's soul felt as if it were shattering into fragments.
Bokusatsu, gasping, looked at Hebimura, who lay on his side, coughing blood, eyes unfocused. The ex-mercenary smiled with a strange mix of exhaustion and redemption.
"Tell me…" Bokusatsu's voice cracked. "How do we survive…?"
Hebimura laughed—a guttural, dry, almost lifeless sound.
"You don't…" he replied. "No one survives this."
Bokusatsu clenched his fists. Seimei could barely stay on his feet. But between ragged breaths, Hebimura added:
"Although… there's a rumor.
My poison, my cursed Shinkon… it can vanish with a Yuino, if it's strong enough.
But not just any kind. It only works if someone gives everything—body, soul, purpose.
One of you must die for the other to live.
That's the truth."
The silence fell like a slab of stone.
Hebimura coughed again.
"At least you two… you still have souls. Not like the cowardly ghosts I've crossed paths with all my life…"
The poison moved relentlessly. Time was running out.
And then, without hesitation, Bokusatsu spoke.
"I'll do it."
Seimei turned his head with effort.
"What…?"
"I'll save you," Bokusatsu said firmly.
"No!" Seimei's voice trembled. "It makes no sense! You can't die for someone who just wants to dig through rotting books and write things no one will ever read! You can't!"
Bokusatsu gave him a faint smile.
"You still don't get it, do you…?"
The wind carried a silence that seemed to last an eternity.
"I live only for vengeance, Seimei.
My soul is rotted through. I came to this event just to kill someone—just for that. That's the only reason I kept getting up in the morning.
But you… you still believe there's something beyond hate.
You have something worth saving.
You want to understand this world… not destroy it."
Seimei was shaking now, unable to hold back his tears.
"No! Please, don't do this! I don't want you to die for me!"
"Then live," Bokusatsu whispered, raising his hand to his chest. "Live… and make this matter."
And then, he did it.
The Yuino.
A strange light began to pour from deep within his soul, like an inner fire—desperate, pure, self-immolating—spreading into Seimei. At first, it didn't work.
But Bokusatsu didn't stop. He clenched his teeth. His skin began to split under the strain, vital energy escaping like scalding steam.
And then… it worked.
The poison inside Seimei began to fade, as if the curse were being swept away by a river of light.
Bokusatsu fell to his knees, exhaling one final breath.
"…Make it count. Please."
Hebimura looked at him one last time. His lips curved into a melancholic smile.
"At least someone… dared to defy my curse."
And so, they both fell.
One for redemption.
The other… simply for having felt, if only for an instant, that he wasn't alone.
Seimei remained there, on his knees, between two corpses that had saved him in their own way.
And he understood that the soul can be stronger than any weapon… but also more fragile than any body.
---
The tension was unbearable. The very air seemed to hold its breath.
From the center of the bloodstained coliseum, Yodaku—still wearing that twisted smile—raised his voice as if pronouncing an execution.
"How about we finish them all off at once, Narikami?" he said, disdain dripping from every syllable. "These nobles… these merchants…
They don't even bother to ask the King's permission to play executioner. They feel invincible just because they have slaves, riches, and a private box in this hell.
Don't you think it's time we cleaned out this filth?"
The murmurs among the crowd faded to nothing.
Yodaku turned toward them, almost amused, as if he already saw them as corpses.
"Don't you agree, my honorable audience? Isn't it better to die now… than keep living as decorated scum?"
Before the echo of his words could fade, Narikami's voice cut through the air like a blade of ice.
"Don't mistake justice for bloodlust."
Yodaku raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
"You speak of justice… And what would you do then, 'General'? Will you defend this carrion?"
Narikami stepped toward him, imposing, lightning-chains pulsing around him like celestial serpents.
"You're no executioner. You're no redeemer.
You're just a rabid dog.
One that wags its tail with pride every time its master throws it a corpse."
The blow wasn't physical, yet it made the walls tremble.
The nobles swallowed hard.
Yodaku narrowed his eyes, letting out a short, hoarse laugh.
"So… you want to give me the order, Narikami? You're going to chain me like the other dogs?"
"No," the general replied, his voice low and resonant.
"I'm going to silence you… so the world remembers that even wild dogs—if not put down in time—end up biting their own masters."
A distant thunder rolled.
And though they hadn't yet touched, the true battle… had already begun.
---
High above, in the palace, upon his throne of gold and black velvet, the King of Hokori continued slowly devouring an exotic fruit, indifferent to the chaos unfolding below.
The screams, the thunder, the blood—Shinkons colliding like shattered stars.
"What a long spectacle…" he muttered, chewing without feeling.
"I can't even tell if this is a war… or a pathetic dance of egos."
Beside him, the few remaining nobles pretended to remain engaged, though their bodies shook. Kyomu, still as a living statue, never took his eyes from the arena.
But it was then—amid the lightning, the smoke, and the poisoned words—that the King's gaze stopped.
Not on Narikami, whose presence electrified the air.
Not on Yodaku, the unchained dog, who spoke of justice with knives.
But on a man.
A single man.
Reiji Mikazuki.
On his knees.
Body battered.
Clothes torn.
Eyes alight like a candle in the breath of the wind.
The one who, even crawling, kept moving forward.
The one who still trembled inside… yet did not retreat.
The one who, even knowing he was going to die… still wanted to try.
The King swallowed.
For the first time in hours, he set the fruit down. Leaned slightly forward on his throne, almost curious.
"What a stubborn creature…" he murmured, as a shadow crossed his gaze.
"He doesn't fight for glory, or for vengeance.
He doesn't even fight for me…
He fights because he believes he must."
He sighed.
"What is it that man clings to? What damned fire keeps him standing?
Perhaps…"
For a moment, his fingers tightened on the throne's armrest.
Then, as if unable to stop himself, he smiled. Not with mockery.
With the faintest trace of genuine interest.
"Perhaps, of all the monsters I've gathered…
the only one worth watching…
is the one who still hasn't surrendered."
---
Reiji slowly raised his hand. His body trembled, blood still spilling from his wounds, but his will… that hadn't died.
"Are you done with this damn theater of the righteous?" he rasped, his voice rough as the aura of his Shinkon began to seep out like a dense, tearing smoke.
"Because now… it's time to face the end."
And with one final push, he detonated what remained of his soul.
The world shattered.
Reality collapsed with a dry crack, and in the blink of an eye, the three of them—he, Yodaku, and Narikami—were trapped in a space that was neither sky nor earth.
A dimension without time or form, where fragments of soul became mirrors…
and those mirrors did not lie.
---
Narikami, standing on a battlefield of ashes. His boots crushed the skulls of soldiers, civilians, children. In the distance, his reflection trembled in a pool of blood.
"Was this order?" whispered his own voice—not from his lips, but from his conscience.
"Or did you simply want to decide which lives had worth?"
He tried to answer, but his lips did not move.
He tried to step forward, but his feet were rooted in the corpses that screamed his name.
"…This isn't…" he muttered inwardly.
"Have I… lost myself too?"
---
Yodaku, on his knees in an empty hall, surrounded by shadows.
Before him, distorted faces: crying slaves, beheaded nobles, burning children.
Everything he had ever destroyed was now watching him.
"This isn't real!" he shouted, his voice trembling.
But when he looked at his hands, there was no blood—only emptiness.
The emptiness he had always carried.
"What if I was just a puppet too?" he said through forced laughter.
"What if this truth… was what I feared all along?"
---
Reiji, walking through a city reduced to cinders.
His students dead.
Aika with vacant eyes.
Donyoku and Chisiki crucified.
The wind wept like the echo of his failure.
"No… this can't happen again…" he gasped through clenched teeth.
"I… can't protect anyone anymore…"
He fell to his knees.
His legs could no longer hold him.
But he did not cry.
Because even in that hellish nightmare, he was still trying to stand.
Even knowing that illusion was his sentence for every doubt, every mistake… every lost soul.
---
A crack sounded through the illusion.
It came from neither Reiji, nor Yodaku, nor Narikami.
It was reality…
trying to tear apart what still kept them bound.
---
The illusory world shattered with a dry snap, like a thin membrane stretched to its limit.
One by one, Reiji, Yodaku, and Narikami opened their eyes again in the arena. The air was heavy—thick with blood, dust, and muffled screams. But beneath it all… the silence was louder than the chaos.
They said nothing.
But something in their eyes had changed.
They weren't redeemed.
But neither had they emerged untouched.
---
Narikami lowered his gaze for a moment. That illusory world hadn't defeated him, but it had shown him something unsettling.
"A man who has lost everything… and still stands…" he murmured.
"That is more dangerous than any traitor."
He looked at Reiji, still on his knees, body torn, veins etched with the strain of his Shinkon—yet eyes unwavering.
Yodaku brushed the dust off himself as if it were just another day.
"Tsk. How annoying. Even illusions want to lecture me?
No rest for monsters, huh?"
He sighed with feigned boredom, but his fingers still trembled faintly. He had seen something he could not forget.
---
Donyoku and Chisiki arrived at a run, without hesitation. This time, not in fear—but with resolve.
"Master…" Donyoku whispered, supporting his arm.
"We won't leave you alone. Not again…" Chisiki added, bending space around them in a faint barrier.
Reiji, his breath ragged, murmured:
"Didn't I tell you… this wasn't your fight?"
"It was, from the moment we chose to believe in you," Donyoku replied firmly.
But that brief moment was torn apart by two blinding flashes.
KRAK!
Two lightning bolts, sharp as blades, carved the air with lethal precision. Narikami had unleashed them without warning, like a god delivering judgment.
Chisiki barely managed to distort one in time. The other grazed Donyoku's shoulder, burning cloth and skin.
"You're still standing… but you're still ants," Narikami declared—his tone not angry, but heavy with judgment.
"It wasn't enough to crawl in the mud… now you want to challenge the lightning," Yodaku added with a sharp laugh.
Chisiki swallowed hard. His mind—normally precise—was drowning in data, possibilities, options… but no victory.
"They're… completely unlike anything we've faced," he thought.
"This isn't a fight. It's a slow execution."
But though logic screamed for retreat, his soul would not step back.
And that, in that moment… was the only thing keeping them alive.
---
A faint creak broke the silence.
Amid the wreckage of chaos, where shadows slithered like serpents along the cracked walls, a figure emerged from the ruins of the coliseum.
The announcer—shaking, his clothes torn, his eyes wide—raised his staff and cried out in a voice trembling yet ceremonial:
"Stand! Let there be silence in this pit of blood and pride!
For before you… comes the only being who has seen all, lived all… and been all!"
The coliseum froze.
"The Omnipresent… Enma!"
But this time, his voice did not name a common figure, nor anything human.
"It is neither man nor woman. Neither warrior nor sage.
It is… a fracture in time.
An entity that no longer belongs to our logic, nor to our souls.
It is that which the world fears to name… and yet all seek."
Hearts tightened.
Yodaku merely yawned.
"Bah. Another lunatic who thinks they're a god?"
Narikami, however, narrowed his eyes. He had heard that name—not in books, not in reports.
In the whispers of the dying.
Donyoku, Chisiki, and Reiji paled.
That old woman they had seen earlier—that small figure, with dim eyes that seemed to watch them with tenderness… was Enma.
—
From between the pillars, the figure walked forward, wrapped in a mantle of golden threads and pure darkness.
Her feet did not touch the ground.
Her voice carried no echo… because she spoke directly to the soul.
"And all this?" Enma said, her tone one of reproach. "So much blood spilled for nobles who… are already dead?"
All eyes turned toward the stands.
And they saw it.
The nobles were there… but unmoving.
Eyes hollow. Skin gray. Mouths open in a scream that never came.
All of them. Dead.
A murmur of horror swept through the coliseum.
"When…?" Chisiki whispered, her voice caught in her throat.
"What the hell did you do?" Reiji growled, barely able to stay standing.
But Enma smiled—not with cynicism, but with unnatural calm.
"It hasn't happened. Not yet.
It is only… a truth. A destiny you are all building with each decision you make.
I merely… reflect it in your souls."
"What nonsense are you spouting?!" Narikami roared. "An illusion, then?!"
"Illusion…?" Enma repeated. "Do you think death is an illusion? That suffering isn't real just because it hasn't happened yet?
I do not invent what you see… you carry it within you.
I only… project it."
For the first time, Yodaku wasn't laughing. His brow furrowed.
"Tsk… this is getting out of hand," he muttered.
Reiji gasped for breath. His soul quivered with fear, rage, and exhaustion.
Donyoku and Chisiki exchanged a look. Enma wasn't fighting with strength. She was fighting with truth. And it was suffocating them.
But then…
Narikami raised his hand.
"Calm yourselves," he said flatly. "Only the nobles will die. Not us."
Enma turned her expressionless face toward him.
"Do you truly believe… you are not part of the problem?
That it wasn't you who allowed this night to happen?
Who killed in the name of order… and then wept in the name of justice?"
The words pierced like invisible thorns.
And then…
A dark aura ripped through the air.
BOOM!
An attack—without warning, without words—fell upon Enma like a storm from the abyss.
It was Kagenami.
Emerging from the shadows, his murderous presence dripping from his body like liquid night, wielding the Judgment of Shadows.
"Shut your mouth, spawn of chaos!" he roared, his voice trembling with both rage and fear.
"This… is not your world!"
And Enma… smiled for the first time.
Not with kindness.
But like one who sees… the end of the game approaching.
—
And when blood was no longer enough, when neither blade nor truth could halt the abyss, that was when they understood…
the true enemy was not chaos, but what each of them hid in the deepest corners of their soul.
---
Thank you for reading this chapter of Chi no Yakusoku.
If you enjoyed it, stay tuned for the next step in this dark oath of blood.