The Corrupted Kenta's boot pressed down on his chest, a crushing weight of solidified malice. Kenta gasped, the world reduced to the agony in his ribs and the hellish crimson glow of his own eyes staring back at him. The dark blade, Yami no Hikari, hovered inches from his throat, humming with a hunger that felt deeply, personally familiar.
This is your truth, the double sneered. This helplessness. This is what you are without me. A boy, weeping in the ashes.
The words were a key, twisting in a lock he had sealed long ago. The pressure, the despair, the smell of ozone from the dark blade—it all collapsed the walls around his memories. The world of the river dissolved, replaced by the searing heat of a different day.
---
He was five years old. The world was the small, sunny village nestled in a valley of cherry blossoms. His world was his mother's laughter, his father's strong hands lifting him onto his shoulders, his older sister teasing him, his baby brother's gurgling smile. It was a world of warmth and light.
Then the world became fire.
It happened so fast. Men clad in armor emblazoned with a flaming sigil—the mark of Emperor Hiragi's legion—descended. It wasn't a battle; it was culling. A subordinate lord, on a whim, had decided their village was in the way of a new hunting ground. The screams were not of soldiers, but of farmers, of mothers, of children.
He hid, as his father had shoved him into a root cellar, his face a mask of terror and love. "No matter what, Kenta, be quiet. Be still."
He was quiet. He was still. He listened to the world end. He heard his sister's final, choked cry. He heard his brother's wailing cut short. He smelled the smoke, and beneath it, the sweet, sickening scent of cooked meat.
When the silence fell, he pushed the cellar door open. The cherry blossoms were gone, the trees skeletal black claws against an orange, smoke-choked sky. His home was a pyre. His family… were still shapes in the ashes.
He didn't scream. He didn't cry. He stood there, a tiny, soot-stained statue in the heart of the annihilation, his small mind simply… breaking. The world had ceased to make sense.
A shadow fell over him. He looked up, expecting another soldier, another monster.
It was a woman. She was the most beautiful person he had ever seen, with hair like moonlight and eyes the color of a calm summer sky. She wore simple white robes, unstained by the soot and blood around them. She knelt before him, her expression not of pity, but of a deep, profound sorrow.
"The fire has passed, little one," she said, her voice a balm on his shattered soul. "You are safe now."
Her name was Hikari. She did not ask what happened. She simply saw. She gathered his small, trembling form into her arms and carried him away from the ashes. He buried his face in her robes, and for the first time, the tears came—a silent, endless river of grief.
---
For years, she was his world. They traveled the continents, and she became his teacher, his protector, his family. She was gentle but firm, teaching him not just the way of the sword, but the way of the heart. She taught him that true strength was not for destruction, but for preservation. She was his light in the long darkness that had followed the fire.
On the eve of his thirteenth birthday, under a canopy of unfamiliar stars, her demeanor changed. The usual softness in her eyes was replaced by a weary resolve.
"Kenta," she began, her voice soft. "My time… grows short."
Panic, cold and sharp, seized his young heart. "What do you mean? Are you sick?"
"Not in the way you think," she said, offering a sad smile. "There is a… corrosion within me. A dissonance. But that is not what I wish to speak of." She looked up at the stars, as if searching for one in particular. "There is a man. They call him the Demon of Battle. Kanji Naein."
Even at thirteen, Kenta knew the name. It was a name from terrifying bedtime stories, a monster used to scare disobedient children.
"I do not wish to fight him to prove my strength," Hikari clarified, her gaze distant. "I wish to stand before him for acknowledgement. You see, ever since I was a girl, I have felt… chained. A prisoner of my clan's expectations, of my own bloodline. It was a gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless."
Her voice dropped to a whisper, filled with a yearning Kenta couldn't fully understand. "And then I learned of him. A man born into a clan even more ruthless than mine. A man who faced a similar cage. But he… he had a will I could never muster. He did not just escape his cage. He shattered it. He killed the head of his own family, his own father, and walked away, disowned and free."
Kenta listened, horrified and fascinated. She spoke of this monster not with fear, but with reverence.
"I never had that will. I was too… good. Too bound by duty and compassion. I could never have taken such a bloody path to freedom. But he did. And in a twisted way, I have always admired him for it. He is the embodiment of a freedom I could never allow myself." She turned her summer-sky eyes to him, and they were filled with a desperate, final hope. "I want to die by his hands. To be ended by the one being whose existence I acknowledge, even if I am nothing but a fleeting moment, a side worm, in his long, violent story. It would be a more meaningful end than fading away from this… this slow decay inside me."
The next morning, she was gone. She had left behind her life's work, her soul—the legendary katana, Hikari no Ha, the Blade of Light. All she took with her was a simple, unadorned practice katana. She had gone to find her demon, to seek her final, tragic freedom.
---
The memory faded, leaving Kenta back on the shore of the river, the cold kiss of the dark blade still at his throat. The pain was no longer just physical. It was the agony of that thirteen-year-old boy, abandoned by the only light he had left.
See? the Corrupted Kenta whispered, its voice now dripping with a twisted, understanding sympathy. She left you. Just like your family. Everyone leaves. Or they are taken. The light always abandons you to the dark. It is the only constant.
Tears, hot and shameful, finally streamed down Kenta's face, mixing with the river spray. He had never spoken of this to anyone. He had buried Hikari's confession, her abandonment, as deeply as he had buried the ashes of his first family.
"She was in pain," Kenta choked out, defending her even now.
And she chose to leave you to face yours alone, the corruption countered, its voice a venomous caress. She chose a monster's acknowledgement over her own student's love. That is the truth of your precious light, Kenta. It is selfish. It is weak. It always, always dies. But I… I will never leave you. We are the same. We are the survivors of the fire. We are the ones left behind. Embrace me, and you will never be abandoned again.
The dark blade pressed closer. The offer was a seductive poison, promising an end to the loneliness that had been his true, constant master. The light had failed him. His family, his master—all gone. All that remained was the dark, faithful reflection in the water, promising a terrible, permanent union.