The midday sun filtered through the thin paper panels of the Zen'in dojo. The light was soft, almost serene. But Naoya felt no peace. Sitting silently, his eyes half-closed, his thoughts burned like a sealed furnace. A servant had informed him that the elders had yet to assign him any new missions. It was an offense. He wasn't a child waiting for permission… he was a Zen'in.
"Do they think I need their blessing to prove myself?" he thought, his brow furrowing in disgust.
He calmly stood up and walked to one of the side rooms where records of cursed activity in the region were stored. There, he found what he was looking for: a report of spiritual activity near the edge of the Gifu Forest. An area they usually avoided because it was unstable… and dangerous.
"Perfect."
Without asking permission, without announcing his departure, he dressed in his mission uniform, took his cloth-wrapped katana, and silently left.
The Spirit of the Shadowed Valley
Three hours later, young Naoya stood before an ancient, abandoned structure. The beams were covered in moss, the doors had collapsed, and the air was still. But something unsettled him. The atmosphere wasn't simply cursed… it was hostile. Viscous. As if it were watching him.
"It knows I'm here."
He entered fearlessly, his celestial projection technique activated in his mind like second nature. Every step was controlled, calculated, contained. Until he saw it.
It was an amorphous creature, covered in eyes and mouths, with arms as long as dry twigs. It didn't look intelligent… but it didn't need to be. Its cursed energy was brutal. Unnatural.
"Are you the one causing the pollution here?" Naoya asked disdainfully.
The creature screeched, and the wave of energy it released shook the ground. Naoya smiled. "At least you give me some excitement."
He leaped toward it.
Cruelty in Motion
The battle erupted. Naoya moved with inhuman grace, his blows bursting through the air. His speed was a perfect dance, a lethal choreography. But something was wrong.
The spirit resisted. It laughed. It adapted. And worse: it began to anticipate Naoya's movements.
In a matter of seconds, the young man was pushed against a wall. He coughed blood. His vision trembled. He had underestimated the spirit.
"Tsk! Damn thing!" he roared, sitting up. A cut crossed his left shoulder and his arm trembled.
For the first time in a long time... he felt fear. He didn't accept it, but it was there, like a crack in his pride.
"Am I going to die here? Like this?"
And then... he remembered.
A phrase heard on a screen long ago, in his other life. A bloody anime that had marked him. A cold, sharp-eyed figure, who looked down on the weak protagonist with contempt and said,
"Weakness... is a sin."
In that instant, something snapped inside Naoya.
His eyes opened with renewed fury, and his cursed energy exploded like a dark vortex. The air trembled. His expression was no longer that of a young nobleman... but that of an unleashed predator.
"I am not weak."
"I will not be weak."
"And I will destroy everything that is!"
The True Self Awakens
The celestial projection technique accelerated. It was as if he had abandoned human logic. His body unfolded at impossible speeds, and each blow pierced the spirit with surgical precision and increasing sadism.
But Naoya didn't stop.
Although the spirit no longer moved, although he had already won...he continued to strike. Again and again. With each impact, he screamed,
"You are weak!"
"Useless!"
"Filthy!"
"You don't deserve to exist!"
Cursed blood splattered the walls, his breathing was labored, and his eyes... were unhinged.
Silent Return
Hours later, Naoya returned to the Zen'in compound. His face was clean, his uniform torn, and he had a small scar on his cheek. A servant saw him enter and rushed to notify the elders.
But Naoya just walked past, as if nothing had happened. He went up to his room, closed the door, and in front of the mirror, he muttered:
"Weakness is a sin..." with a barely visible, crooked smile, as if he had found the absolute truth in those words.
He looked at himself for a long moment.
And he liked what he saw.