THE ETERNAL SWORDSMAN
CHAPTER 09: MOON ART
The battlefield tasted of ash and iron. Smoke crawled low over broken asphalt; the moon hung pale and indifferent above a city shredded by claws and flame. Master Hatake, Hayate, Hiruko, and Juzou stood like knife edges in the ruin each a different temper of light against the dark. Around them the Hollowkind stuttered and fell, though every corpse seemed to birth ten ghosts more, and the cries of the wounded folded into the steady thunder of combat.
Juzou Sasesage's brown eyes glowed a faint, impossible purple. For a heartbeat they were merely pupils then something else slid in behind them, a color that did not belong to any human gaze. It made men flinch even as they fought.
Hiruko steadied his breath. Hatake's face was a slab of ice; Hayate's chest heaved with coiled lightning. The world narrowed to the sound of Juzou's ragged laugh, the creak of his coat, the way his blade drank shadow.
And then, like a tear through time, memory unrolled.
FEW YEARS AGO
The Sakogu forest on the hills had been a place for hikers and families, a green spine above a sleepy town. Now it smelled of rot and burned cloth. The path was a massacre human limbs, torn backpacks, shoe soles stuck to roots in dark, congealed blood.
Headmaster Hiyori had chosen the words without hesitation. He stood beneath an old cedar, straw hat tied with drifting white ribbons that hid part of his face; his voice was low and certain. "There are Hollowkind here because of the negative emotions of hikers. Go. Clear them. oh and take Juzou with you."
Kanyko's forehead creased. "With Juzou?"
"Yes." Headmaster Hiyori's tone left no room for argument. "I want to see what he can do on a real battlefield."
Kanyko bowed once, sharp and formal. He obeyed with no question, as the headmaster ordered.
When Kanyko found Juzou, the boy stood at the edge of the training yard, hands tucked into sleeves, face thin and wary. The walk to the forest was short but the silence between them was long. When Kanyko finally spoke, his voice was softer than his blade.
"Don't worry I got your back ok ill protect you."
He raised his fist like a simple promise. "Besides I believe in you, you got this."
Juzou stared at the offered fist. Something in the jaw unknotted; the worry on his face thinned, replaced by a quiet that felt like acceptance. He tapped knuckles against Kanyko's a rough, human ritual. The fist pump landed harder than a word. The lurch of hope was small and dangerous.
Then the forest swallowed them both.
They moved through undergrowth pricked with a wrongness that snagged at the skin. As soon as they reached a clearing the sight drove the breath from Kanyko's chest torn limbs, backpacks shredded open to reveal trampled thermoses, maps stained deep red. "They'll pay for this these hollow," Kanyko growled.
He summoned his Katana. Golden karma pooled like oil in the air around him and threaded into the blade until it sang with heat. Kanyko's golden presence was a claim to the world; it spread out in waves that made Juzou's skin crawl.
Juzou's mind registered it part in awe and part in a child's note-taking. "master Kanykos karma energy so wild and massive no wonder he became a master at such a young age," he thought, the observation as sharp and private as a blade.
He stepped forward to search, to find where the beasts hid. The forest seemed to breathe around him, and for a second he forgot to be afraid.
A Hollowkind struck.
It came from behind so fast Juzou did not see it until it hit him. He raised his Katana on reflex and the impact drove him back. The world lurched; leaves scattered like dark confetti. Another Hollowkind's limbs snaked around him with an unnatural, magnetic speed they were drawn to him as if something invisible shouted his name. Kanyko, seeing the danger, spun to protect.
Another Hollowkind rocketed a massive fist at Kanyko. The master smiled, not in pleasure but in the thin stress of battle, and avoided the blow. He breathed in and released a command of energy, activating his raiken "golden Aura art golden blast" and the world fractured with light. A great hole cleaved through the hollowkind; flesh and shadow evaporated in a rain.
Juzou tumbled down the slope and crashed against the huge root of an ancient cedar. Pain lanced through his side. He rolled, eyes blind for a moment, then found himself staring at five whole Hollowkind clustered before him. They were close, closer than they should have been, their mouths dripping whatever passed for hunger in those creatures.
"I can't die here I have trained for this I'll have to do it," Juzou said, a small, furious thing like a vow and a child's bravado at once.
He would charge a raiken. He concentrated, palms against the hilt, and felt green karma pulse up through his veins like warmth. He grunted "raiken!" and expected the familiar change: the Katana to warp, hum, to his will.
At first nothing happened. The blade lay obedient and ordinary. Juzou's chest tightened. "Did it work it feels like it did," he muttered, unsettled that there was motion in his bones without visible effect.
Slowly, line by line, the green sheen on the blade began to deepen and shift, bleeding outward into a darker purple. Juzou's throat worked. The color confused him. It smelled of other things iron and rot and hunger.
And then the Hollowkind stopped.
They cocked their heads as if listening to a voice only they could hear. "What do you need master?" their voices rasped, thin and expectant, as if they were asking a question to someone who had called them home. The swarm that had been attacking Kanyko ceased mid-surge and turned; they ran to Juzou like sheep to a shepherd.
Kanyko rushed to his side, breath whipped and worried, seeing the impossible sight: Hollowkind waiting in neat, obedient rows before the boy as though he led them. For the first time a sliver of something confusion, pride, fear crossed Kanyko's face. The two of them said the same words at the same time, small and helpless and raw. "What is going to happen now?"
The forest held its breath; the answer was not yet in any tongue.
PRESENT SETAGAYA WARD
The overlay of memory snapped back to the present with a physical jolt. Hiruko's Katana glowed with Royal blue karma energy so hot it painted the smoke in a cold light. He threw his head back and poured himself into the single word his master had drilled into him since he first felt the blade respond.
"RAIKEN!!"
The blade answered. Massive karma energy exploded from his Katana like a storm ripped in half. Shockwaves slammed across the battlefield and even Hayate staggered back, blinking against the light. In his head Hayate felt it and thought, "hiruko how strong have you become."
Across the ruined street Master Kanyko and Master Heburai finished their sweep. Around them the last Hollowkind collapsed into ash or melted stone; a beat of silence fell like gutters closing. Kanyko's chest heaved; his golden aura sputtered like a lantern. He rubbed grit from his eyes and gave a single bark to his men. "We are done with all these hollowkind now let's go finish Juzou."
The command was sharpened, ready.
Back at Hiruko's side his raiken-sword had changed: a broad silver blade, its metal drinking moonlight as if the moon itself had melted into edge. The surface shimmered with silver veins and the center of the blade bore a jagged circular hole an odd, serrated aperture that bit into the air as though the sword had devoured a piece of night. Moon energy stitched along its spine and thrummed like a trapped comet.
Juzou's voice threaded through the din, small and incredulous. "his karma energy why is it so sharp like that of a Senju," he said, tasting the knife-edge of surprise with something that might have been greed.
Around Juzou, horror clung to his skin. He wove together torn Hollowkind limbs and dark cartilage into a crude glove, a hollow hand that clacked against bone and unformed sinew. It was a brace and a joke at the same time makeshift armor from his enemies and it fit him like a second cold soul.
Hiruko's eyes narrowed. He felt something bloom under his ribs and answered it with breath and will. He widened his stance, the moonlight pooling like a mirror in the jagged hole of his blade, and his voice carried out across ruins and blood.
"MOON ART."
The moon answered. It thickened, a pale bowl of light drawing toward the earth as if the heavens leaned in to listen. Hiruko filled his body with that light, and it poured into the sword until the hole in the metal seemed to breathe.
"MOON SLASH!"
The swing cleaved the air and the arc of the blade carried with it a blade of moonlight, bright and cold, moving faster than any ordinary wind. The crescent that rode before the real edge spirited away the dark, and the attack drove forward like a comet slicing the night.
Juzou slammed his hollow hand up to block. It met the moon-slash and vaporized where flesh touched light the explosion threw choking dust in every direction. The force beat him backward, and when the swirling smoke cleared his arm hung in ribbons. Blood pooled from where the hollow hand had taken the brunt.
"Fortunately I used a hollow hand if not my arm would've fallen off," he said in a flat voice, the humor of it brittle as glass.
He looked at the wound, then studied Hiruko as if second-guessing a map. His face tightened with a calculation that went beyond battle a measurement of possibilities. He hissed between clenched teeth. "How can a no name swordsman possess such karma that rivals the senju he can't be a regular swordsman he should be at least PA by now."
Hiruko stayed where he was, blade steady, the moonlight licking the jagged hole and making the air sing. He didn't smile. He didn't taunt. He only said, quiet and hungry as a bell-strike before war, "I want all of the smoke, old man. "
Around them men and women who had been fighting watched. Hatake's eyebrow lifted; Hayate's jaw tightened. The night held all its children in a single breath. The two forces the moon and the hollow met and the city shivered where their edges crossed.
For a moment everything was that silence: blood, moon, breath. Then the rooftop answered in the only language left: karma.
TO BE CONTINUED…