*SLASH!*
Yukio's blade moved before Sora's mind could even register any intentions, before the thought of danger could even surface.
The sword came through in a clean, diagonal, not fast in the way Sora usually understood speed, but it was inevitable, perfectly placed along the line his body had already committed to.
The blade met flesh and heat erupted in Sora's body, tearing his stomach to collarbone open, ripping air from his lungs as his body twisted far too late to avoid it.
The impact of pain was absolutely horrifying.
Sora staggered back, hand reflexively tightening around his sword hilt as his body tried to understand what had just happened, breath coming out in harsh bursts that made his throat burn. Blood spilled out as it dyed the floor red, Sora's feet shifting as his muscles locked, instinctively trying to protect what had been cut.
For the first time in Sora's life, he had actually been hit in a real battle.
Takeo's gaze sharpened immediately, something cold appearing in his eyes.
"It's just as I thought… he's… just like Shima." He said under his breath, not loud enough to interrupt, but enough to mark the moment. "To enter the flow state at will."
Yukio did not look like Yukio anymore.
"It is as if someone else is in control of his body." Takeo sighed.
The boy's expression had gone blank in a way that was unsettling to look at. His eyes were bloodshot and wide open, they weren't tracking Sora as a person, he wasn't reacting to the fact he had just sliced Sora open. His breathing was shallow and even, perfectly timed and his posture was relaxed.
He had slipped completely into a state of flow so deep that conscious thought didn't have any say in his movements.
Sora sucked in a breath and felt fire tear through his chest as the movement pulled at the wound, pain becoming sharper, hotter, more insistent. His speed dropped dramatically, he could feel the delay between thought and movement. He knew this mattered.
His instincts constantly screamed at him that he needed to get away and heal, he needed a rest, they screamed fear.
But he did not feel fear.
Something snapped.
Adrenaline suddenly flooded his system in a violent rage, drowning the pain of having his torso cut open under raw, chemical fury as his heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to break free.
The wound didn't disappear or heal, but it stopped being something Sora thought about, reduced to background noise. His chakra spiked violently, no longer flowing in controlled bursts of strength but crashing through his limbs in wild, unrestrained bursts that made the atmosphere almost dense.
He suddenly straightened, his teeth bared in something that wasn't quite a grin, stance unravelling as the elegance of the Mirror Flower style disappeared.
Yukio moved once more, sword cutting low and clean, efficient in the way only instinct could move, the blade wasn't aimed for dominance but to kill. Sora didn't block. He didn't retreat.
For the first time, Sora's sin wasn't pride.
It was wrath.
The idea that Yukio… the kid he had pretty much trained, the kid that he had saved, the kid he had actually deemed a friend… would go ahead and actually try to kill him?
Absolutely not.
Sora stepped forward, letting the flat of build blade scrape across his ribs as he closed the distance violently, shoulder crashing into Yukio's chest with enough force to power through a brick wall.
The impact sent them both skidding across the floor, the sound of bodies colliding echoed throughout the dojo as Yukio's breath burst out of him in a sharp gasp, body reacting a second too late to compensate.
Takeo didn't call it there.
Yukio hit the ground and rolled, the flow state helping him regain his rhythm before he fully landed, blade snapping back up toward Sora's leg in a counter that washes enough to punish Sora if he hesitated.
But he did not.
Sora leapt over it, landing hard, weight slamming into the floor as he pivoted and drove his heel down into Yukio's forearm.
The boy yelped in pain, but he wasn't conscious enough to let it disorient him.
The impact rang out.
Yukio's sword skittered out of his hand, sliding across the padded floor before coming to a rest against the wall.
Yukio did not react emotionally. He wasn't angry, he wasn't scared, nor was he about to hesitate. He immediately adapted to the situation and surged forward barehanded, fingers flying toward Sora's throat as if to strangle him, his body wove through Sora's attempted counterattack. His movements were getting scary now, stripped of restraint, Yukio was driven entirely by instinct due to the flow state.
Takeo's jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
"He's not thinking anymore," he said quietly, almost as if he was reminiscing. "He won't stop on his own, just like you didn't… little brother."
Sora roared, the sound tearing out of him raw and uncontrolled as he swung… his fist? Driving it forward with all the weight and momentum his body could gather. It slammed into Yukio's cheek hard enough to snap his head sideways, but Yukio turned with the blow, momentum bleeding off as he dropped low and countered by slamming his shoulder into Sora's abdomen where he had been cut.
The impact knocked the air out of Sora's lungs, pain flaring hot and sharp as they collided again, bodies tangling, sliding, striking in a way that didn't resemble anything even remotely similar to a swordsmanship technique. This was no longer the Kagamihana. This was a genuine fight between pure instinct and adrenaline.
The two separated only long enough to strike again.
Yukio came up fast, elbow snapping toward Sora's jaw, knee driving forward toward his ribs, every movement was efficient, moving on pure reflex. Sora took the elbow on his shoulder and responded with the most disgusting headbutt that Takeo had ever seen.
Yukio's nose flattened as blood exploded out of his face as he was sent reeling backwards, Sora also staggered back as his vision flashed white from the pain in his skull. But he ignored it.
Not even seeing clearly, he grabbed Yukio by his feet and hurled him across the dojo as if he were a ragdoll, muscles screaming as he overcommitted, blood pouring out of his chest he started to get dizzy from blood loss.
Yukio hit the floor hard, rolled once, then twice and was already back on his feet before Sora had recovered, standing loose, eyes empty and ready to reengage despite his injuries.
They clashed once again.
Fists, elbows, knees, bodies slamming and twisting. Every single impact echoed throughout the room as the floor cried beneath them. Sora fought as if he were a lion, throwing attacks meant to shatter Yukio's frail body, to kill him. Yukio slipped and countered with more precision than Takeo had ever seen in his life, even more than he and Shima who had trained since birth, he would redirect the force and exploit openings.
Sora's eyes went bloodshot as his chakra poured into his eyes.
For a split second, the world stopped being padded floors and wooden walls, everything collapsed into lines of colourful energy, Sora looked at the chakra and golden energy flowing through the world around him.
The air rippled.
Multiple spectral forms ripped into existence around him, long and narrow, jagged spears shaped from condensed golden energy. They hovered for the briefest instant, aligned to kill Yukio, each one aimed for where Yukio would move next.
Not thinking straight, in a fit of pure rage, he hurled the spears forward and screamed.
"BANG!"
They crossed the dojo in a blur, splitting through the air, hammering toward Yukio from multiple angles at once, a killing net designed to overwhelm prediction and precision. Anyone else would've been skewered immediately.
But Yukio moved.
His eyes were still empty, consciousness still absent.
His body flowed through the storm of spears as if he had already anticipated and rehearsed this exact moment hundreds of thousands of times, feet sliding and his torso twisting.
He moved perfectly in a way that one spear would redirect into another and shatter each other, he managed to destroy one of them at the cost of shattering his wrist, chakra reinforcing him enough to not permanently damage him. Another one was dodged while two were ducked under as they tore past where his head just was.
When the last spear faded, Yukio was making his final move.
There was not any hesitation now, he was genuinely unconscious and moving purely without thinking, no restraint. His sword was back in his hand, Sora didn't even see when that happened.
His eyes widened as he realised… Yukio must've grabbed it when he was thrown across the room!
Yukio's body moved in a terrifying dance as he lunged forward toward one single, final outcome. The state he was in had sharpened and adapted to Sora's style and for the first time, Sora felt it clearly.
He was going to die.
Yukio closed the distance in silence, blade rising in a smooth, decisive, aimed cleanly for Sora's throat, the strike precise enough to end everything and leave Sora's head rolling on the floor.
At that moment…
Takeo suddenly appeared between them.
Steel met steel as Takeo's blade intercepted Yukio's cut mid swing, the force of it rattling the dojo and finally breaking the flow state.
Yukio stumbled back a step as awareness crashed into him all at once. Takeo didn't look at him. His eyes were locked on Sora, expression carved from stone.
"That's enough." He said, voice colder than anything Sora had heard before. "You violated the rules and are disqualified."
The words hit him hard.
"You lost the moment you used those eyes of yours." Takeo continued, lowering his sword when Yukio had fully stopped. "This is swordsmanship, this is restraint. You abandoned both."
Sora stood frozen, chest heaving, staring at the space where Yukio's blade had nearly ended him, the truth settling in heavy.
He hadn't been disqualified to save Yukio.
The battle had only been stopped because, if Takeo hadn't intervened, Yukio would've killed him.
Sora grit his teeth, wincing at the pain of his torso being shredded now that the adrenaline had worn off.
Instead of saying anything, he made eye contact with Yukio from behind Takeo and gave him a disgusting look before he suddenly vanished, turning invisible.
Yukio tried to protest, but the words wouldn't come out. He felt so guilty for what he had done.
…
…
"Finally leaving the village? None of that would've happened if you had just focused on getting stronger. If only you had just trained with those eyes of yours instead of playing with swords."
"You can leave the village now and become strong."
"If you leave the village I can heal you."
"If you leave the village I can make you strong so that you won't ever lose a fight again."
"You know you want it."
The voice of his ancestor, or the dead god as Takeo had called it… suddenly spewed multiple messages to Sora through his mind.
He did want it.
Sora wanted it so bad.
"Good…"
"Head 60 meters to your right and one of Shuen's feathers will be tucked away behind a potted plant, there will be two. Take both."
Sora immediately moved, using the teleportation technique with the last bit of chakra he had left as he flickered next to a potted plant, holding the Ninjato that the old man had gifted him as well as the weights that Fuko had gotten for him.
Without thinking, holding his wound so that he wouldn't lose any more blood, he smashed the plant and grabbed both of the white feathers with golden undertones and saw the chakra and golden energy inside.
Not hesitating, he forcefully pulled the energies from inside one of the feathers into his body and slowly felt the bleeding stop.
He looked down, the feather was just white now and his wound was still there. Just healed enough so that he wouldn't bleed out.
Sora's dizziness slowly vanished as he felt rejuvenated, like he hadn't lost any blood at all.
Placing the sword on his back and holding the weights and feather in one hand, he darted forward toward the edge of the village.
On the way, he looked back at the building he had just taken the feather from and noted that he had seen The Voice of The Lord leaving this area on multiple occasions.
Sprinting through alleys and past buildings, Sora finally ended up at the wall,separating the village from the outside world.
He wasn't afraid of being stopped, he was invisible with his chakra hidden. Even Lord Shuen wouldn't be able to see this coming.
As he leaped over the wall, he placed the weights on his ankles and wrists mid air before he landed.
Once he landed, a grin appeared on his face as his bare feet met the sandy floor of the desert.
Not concerned with his ragged pants, bare feet and shredded shirt, Sora sprinted out into the outside world, slowly rippling back into existence to conserve chakra.
- end of prologue -