Lightning tore across the sky, a brilliant white scar against the bruised clouds.
In its fleeting illumination, he stood as a solitary figure before the grand gates of the Vermillion palace.
The heavens opened, and rain fell in thick sheets, plastering his hair to his face and soaking his clothes. He did not seem to notice. His gaze was fixed ahead, unwavering.
"So the dead returns… hmp," a voice sneered from the battlements, barely audible over the downpour.
A guard, emboldened by his comrades, stepped forward, his sword already clearing its scabbard.
"You are not fit to be here! Death shall come!" he shouted, lunging to cuf off Saturu's head from his shoulders in one decisive blow.
The movement was a blur. There was no grand swing, no shouted technique.
One moment the guard was charging, the next he was on his knees, a look of profound shock on his face as a crimson line opened across his torso. He crumpled, his blood immediately diluting in the rain.
A collective roar of anger went up, and the rest of the royal guard surged forward as one, a wave of steel and righteous fury.
What followed was not a battle; it was a storm meeting a field of wheat. Saturu moved through them, his new Divine Blade an extension of his will.
It did not so much cut through armor as pass through it, the metal offering no more resistance than water. The air filled with the shriek of tearing steel, the wet thud of falling bodies, and short, choked screams swiftly silenced.
One by one, they fell, until the cobblestones were slick with a pinkish film, the rain working to cleanse the stone of the hundred lives spent there in a handful of minutes.
"So it is true," Saturu observed, his voice calm and carrying easily through the rain. He stepped over a fallen knight. "Old men cling to life because they can feel their end approaching. I wonder what your end will feel like."
He moved from the shadows of the gate into the light pouring from the palace's grand entrance. A slight, unnerving grin touched his lips.
Only his eyes were clearly visible, glowing with a malevolent crimson light. He didn't walk up the steps. He simply stepped off the ground and landed silently on the polished palace floor within.
He carried himself not like a disgraced knight returning in shame, but with the calm, lethal grace of a predator finally entering its rightful domain. The very air in the hall grew thick and heavy, charged with an overwhelming aura that made the remaining courtiers gasp and shrink back.
High on his dais, Lord Kaito watched, his face a mask of cold control, but his mind raced.
So the rumors are true, he thought, his knuckles white where they gripped the arms of his throne. Not only did he survive the execution and the poison, but his power has multiplied. What monster have I unleashed?
"You have returned for what, exactly?" Kaito's voice echoed in the suddenly quiet hall. "To say your farewells? If you came here seeking your sister, know that her life was extinguished long ago. The burden of your cursed birth was too great for her to bear."
Saturu gave no answer. He simply began to walk forward, his footsteps silent on the ornate rug.
"No answer? I see," Kaito said, the splintering of wood barely audible as his grip tightened. "Then I will make you pay for the audacity of entering my domain."
Lord Kaito said nothing more, but the mask shattered. A violent, visible aura erupted from him, a miasma of dark red energy that pressed down on everyone in the room. Courtiers and servants fled screaming for the side exits. He rose from his throne, and with a final crack, the carved wooden armrests shattered in his hands.
Saturu ignored the display. He took three measured steps toward a heavy oaken table laden with refreshments. He picked up a crystal goblet of wine. He took a sip, swirled the liquid in his mouth, and swallowed.
He lowered the glass, his eyes narrowing as if he had just tasted something profoundly disappointing.
"This is terrible," he stated, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, yet laden with a final, judgmental weight.
He paused, as if recalling a minor errand. "Oh, I nearly forgot." He reached into his coat and took out the broken pieces of the Vermillion Clan Sword—the very blade that had once been meant for him. He tossed the fragments onto the polished floor before the dais.
The clatter of the shards was deafening in the tense silence. "Here. You may have this back."
He turned his full attention back to Kaito, his red eyes burning. "What I came here for… is vengeance."
As he spoke, he slowly drew his Divine Blade from its sheath. The sound it made was not a simple ring of steel, but a low hum that vibrated in the bones of everyone present. The atmosphere in the room grew dense, thick with ozone and power.
Lord Kaito laughed, a harsh, desperate sound. "You're a fool to seek a revenge you can't win!"
In a flash of movement, he grabbed his own ornate sword from beside the throne.
There was no further warning. Both men moved in the same instant, becoming blurs of motion. The air itself seemed to tear as their swords met in the center of the hall for the first time.
KABOOM!
The impact sent a shockwave that shattered the remaining glass in the windows. The final confrontation had begun.