Shien strutted through the gardens with his mother trailing behind him.
"Shien-chan… are you well, my dear? I…" Sayo hesitated, her worry obvious even as she tried to keep her voice steady.
"I am more than well, Mama!" Shien said, giving her a grin completely at odds with his usually reserved personality.
His cursed technique was Detonation. The explosive nature of his cursed energy had been visible to anyone with a keen eye since his birth, but now it felt like he had grown a new appendage, something he could move without thinking. Shien had an intuitive understanding of what he could do. He could unleash his cursed energy and make it detonate with a snap.
Shien walked toward the training grounds, with no doubt that his drunken lecher of a father would be waiting for him there.
They arrived at a massive stretch of packed earth, at least three acres wide, located near the edge of the Zenin estate, which sat on the outskirts of Kyoto. Shien and his mother seemed to be the first to arrive. The morning sun was still gentle, and faint sounds of training from other parts of the compound drifted on the wind.
Shien looked up at Sayo.
"Step far away from me, Mama. I am going to show you my technique," he said proudly. "I have named it Detonation."
Shien concentrated, letting cursed energy circulate through his body, then pointed toward the center of the barren ground. He snapped his fingers.
An explosion of purple flames erupted, rising ten feet into the air.
Sayo gasped, her eyes wide. "That is… very powerful… and dangerous," she said, voice trembling. "I am very proud of you, Shien-chan."
Shien preened at his mother's praise, his heart filling with pride.
"It is not the Ten Shadows," a mature, regal voice said.
Naobito Zenin stood behind them, six feet tall and well-built, with a calm smile that did not reach his eyes. Naoya Zenin stood beside him with a smirk on his face. Sayo bowed immediately, deferential as always, while Shien turned and gave his father a cold stare.
Then Shien raised his left hand toward the sky.
Snap.
A massive fireball exploded thirty feet in the air, and the very ground shook as the impact rolled through the training field. The blast knocked Sayo to the ground. Naobito's robes rippled violently. Naoya flinched. Both father and son raised their arms to shield their faces and chests from the heat and pressure of the blast.
Shien's expression remained calm as he lowered his hand.
"I suppose you are right, Papa," he said, voice flat. "It is a rather weak technique."
Naobito scowled. "Are you—"
He cut himself off, then exhaled sharply.
"Now I did not say it was weak, did I," Naobito replied, tone strained. "It is simply not the Ten Shadows."
Shien walked over and helped his frightened mother back to her feet, steadying her with ease. Naoya continued staring, stunned by the casual display of power from a toddler, his eyes wide and his lips parted as if he could not find words.
"You are going to train with me from now on," Naobito declared, and his grin promised pain.
"Thank you, Papa," Shien said smoothly. "I hope our training does not interfere with your drinking."
"Shien-chan!" Sayo gasped, aghast at his casual disrespect.
Naobito chuckled, though his eyes sharpened. "Brat."
He walked off. Naoya gave Shien a glance filled with loathing—and something close to fear—before the teen stalked away behind his father.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The bell was small, polished, and humiliating, which was exactly why Naobito Zenin liked it so much.
He tied it around Shien's neck on the first morning of real training, the thin cord snug against his throat, the metal resting at his collarbone like a parasite. The instant Shien's cursed energy stirred—only slightly, only as a reflex—the bell rang with a sickeningly sweet chime that cut through the air, sharp enough to make the attendants flinch.
"It rings every time your cursed energy fluctuates," Naobito said casually, as if explaining a household rule. "If it rings, you're leaking. If you're leaking, you're sloppy. You have a lot of cursed energy, but unless you learn to master it, you are nothing but a blunt sword."
Shien's eyes narrowed, irritation rising, because Naobito might as well have asked him to count every star in the sky while blindfolded. The bell chimed again, mocking him. The average sorcerer possessed a shot glass worth of cursed energy, and the average Grade One had a coffee mug's worth, yet Shien had been born with a barrel full, and worse—his output was so unnatural that it pressed against his skin constantly, always seeking escape.
It meant he was walking around with too much power stuffed into too small a body, and even when he tried to stay calm the excess seeped out in tiny fluctuations, like water pushing through cracks in a dam. Shien had to move as if balancing a full barrel above his head, not allowing a single drop to spill, and the smallest mistake rang out for everyone to hear.
This task was next to impossible.
Naobito watched him struggle and smiled, satisfied.
"Good," he said softly. "I want you to hate it."
At three years old, Shien already understood one important rule of the Zenin clan: affection was irrelevant, and value was measured in utility. His early awakening had not made the household kinder. If anything, it had made them colder, because his birth was kept quiet, hidden from the jujutsu world like a trump card sealed in a sleeve. Other clans would not hesitate to plot against the Zenin or assassinate their golden goose before it started laying eggs, and the Zenin elders were paranoid enough to treat every visitor as a potential knife.
Shien understood what Naobito was doing. Impossible tasks, constant pressure, no praise, no rest—Naobito was trying to break him, grind the softness out of him, then rebuild him into the perfect Zenin sorcerer. Shien refused to give him the satisfaction. He would not complain. He would not cry. He would crush them all.
And strength, Shien was learning, was the only currency that mattered in this world, and he had been born with an abundance of it.
"Reserves are how much cursed energy you can hold," Naobito said, tapping Shien's chest with two fingers. "Output is how much you can release at once. Efficiency is how much becomes useful work. Most sorcerers spend their lives improving efficiency. They have to."
Shien listened without blinking.
"You don't," Naobito continued, voice flat. "You were born with absurd reserves. That means if you're still inefficient, you'll be pathetic."
Shien's bell chimed faintly as his anger flared.
Naobito's eyes cut to him. "Quiet."
Three Years later
By the time Shien turned six, the bell had stopped feeling like a tool and started feeling like a curse around his neck.
The slightest fluctuations in his emotions caused his already volatile cursed energy to spike, making the bell chime. Shien had to mind his emotions constantly, withdrawing to his quarters at all times save for training. His problem was multiplied immensely by the fact that the very nature of his cursed energy was explosive and volatile.
Shien spent hours in solitude meditating and reading about jujutsu, and the memories from his previous life were becoming far more lucid and clear. Names and faces of the people he knew were always beyond his reach, but mundane details were getting clearer and clearer.
The only person Shien allowed close was his mother. Sayo understood the Zenin way too well to embarrass herself by begging for mercy that would never come, yet she could not stop being a mother, so she lamented quietly where only Shien could hear it. In the mornings she dressed him with careful hands, adjusting his yukata and smoothing his sleeves, lingering for half a second too long as if she could protect him with touch alone.
"Shien-chan…" she whispered one morning, eyes flicking to the bruise on his cheek from the training the day before. "Does it hurt?"
Shien looked up at her calmly. "It doesn't matter, Mama. It will heal soon. Don't worry, I am strong after all. They have been trying to make me quit all this time. I am never going to give those old bastards the satisfaction."
Sayo's lips tightened with helplessness, because she knew he was right and hated that he was right. "You don't have to be so stubborn," she murmured.
Shien smirked. "If I stop, they win."
Shien smothered any emotion he felt before the bell could sense it.
Sayo watched that with a tight chest, because she could see what the bell was shaping her son into, and she could do nothing except keep loving him inside the small spaces where love was allowed.
When they arrived at the training grounds, the Kukuru were waiting.
Rows of grown men stood on packed earth with sleeves rolled up and eyes sharp, their bodies thick with muscle and their movements controlled by years of discipline. None of them had cursed techniques; they were the foot soldiers of the Zenin and ranged from Grade Three to Grade Two. Shien's training with Chujuro was over; it was deemed that he was strong enough to spar. And Shien, once again, was thrown into the deep end to fight grown men.
Shien was as tall as a ten-year-old and twice as strong as a grown man, even without using cursed energy reinforcement. But just like cursed energy leakage triggered the bell, relying purely on his physical strength by suppressing his cursed energy would also cause the infernal device to chime. Shien had to maintain his curse energy at optimum threshold at all times.
Shien could burn these bums to a crisp with a snap of his fingers, but that would defeat the purpose of the exercise. Ogi, his uncle, gave him a cold, appraising look. "If the bell chimes, I will add another man to fight. Every time it chimes, I will keep adding more. Let us see what Chujuro has taught you."
Ogi raised one finger.
"One," he said.
A Kukuru stepped forward with a wooden katana held in both hands, stance loose but ready, and Shien faced him empty-handed on the packed earth with the bell resting at his collarbone. The man advanced and cut downward. Shien slipped inside the arc, ducking under the swing so close the bokken passed above his head, then drove a clean palm into the man's ribs and stepped away before the blade could circle back.
The Kukuru's grin faded. He swung again, faster this time, using the weapon's reach to keep Shien out. Shien weaved around the strikes, light on his feet, but a spark of irritation flared when the wooden edge brushed his shoulder.
The bell chimed.
Ogi's voice stayed calm. "Two."
Another Kukuru joined immediately, taking Shien's flank so the two swords could overlap and cut off angles. Shien's cursed energy surged instinctively at the pressure, begging to lash out, begging for a snap that would end the exercise in an instant, yet he forced it down with slow breathing until the bell quieted again.
The two men pressed in, one cutting high to force Shien's guard up while the other swept low to catch his legs, and Shien slid between them, using his smaller frame to move through space their footwork couldn't fully seal.
A cut came too close. Shien leaned back hard, feeling the air move past his face, and fear flickered for a fraction of a second.
The bell chimed.
Ogi didn't blink. "Three."
A third man stepped in, and now Shien was dealing with three wooden blades moving in rhythm, a cage built out of reach and timing. The Zenin loved impossible tasks, loved stacking pressure until people broke and calling the break humility, and Shien understood the point without needing it explained. If not for the super human stamina and strength gifted by the serum or his own stubborn pride he would have quit years ago.
Shien stopped trying to counter and focused on position, sliding under cuts, pivoting on the balls of his feet, forcing the swords into each other's lanes. A strike whistled toward his skull. He dropped low. Another swept for his legs. He hopped over it. The third came from the side. He turned his body sideways so it passed by a finger's width.
A flicker of relief passed through him unimpeded.
The bell chimed.
Ogi's mouth curved slightly. "Four."
Four armed men advanced, all Kukuru, all disciplined enough now to stop underestimating him. Their semi-circle tightened, blades moving like teeth, and Shien gave ground smoothly, guiding them where he wanted. His back foot hit a shallow uneven patch of earth and his balance shifted for half a heartbeat.
The bell chimed instantly reacting to subtlest spikes in his cursed energy.
Ogi's voice remained indifferent. "Five."
Five.
At that point it stopped feeling like sparring and became just plain attempted murder. The threshold for child abuse was crossed years ago at this point. Wooden katanas came down like rain, strikes meant to bruise and batter, and Shien refused to panic. He reinforced his body just enough to accept glancing hits while keeping his eye out for openings. As soon as he sensed a gap in their ranks Shein slipped through the formation like cat, turning their reach against them.
They weren't used to his size and when they constantly overextended.
They clipped each other trying to get at Shien who was weaving past them attacking their calves and their feet with kicks and stomps reinforced by cursed energy.
Shien punished every mistake without ever taking a sword.
He stepped inside a downward strike and slammed his shoulder into the attacker's stomach, stealing breath, then used the man's body as a shield as two blades struck their own ally's back instead of Shien. He pivoted out as the man folded, then swept another Kukuru's ankle and sent him down hard.
A third swung wide. Shien ducked under it and drove the side of his hand into the man's elbow joint, sharp enough to numb the arm and loosen the grip. The bokken fell. Shien kicked it away without looking.
The last two tried to press him together, but Shien ran straight at them, forcing early swings, then slipped between the cuts and shoved one man into the other with hip movement. They collided, balance broken, and Shien ended it quickly, striking one in the throat with controlled precision and sweeping the other's legs.
The field went still except for groans, scattered wooden swords, and dust hanging in the morning air.
Shien stood alone in the center, empty-handed, breathing even, cursed energy steady.
The bell was silent. Ogi stared at him for a long moment, then nodded once, as if confirming an answer. As Shien left the training ground with his mother behind him, he noticed movement at the edge of the yard: two small figures watching from a distance near the veranda, identical faces half-hidden behind a pillar. They were his cousins, older than him by a few months, yet small compared to him, their eyes wide as saucers as they gawked at him.
Shien gave them a small smile and a wave before continuing on toward the showers.