章節 23: Burn everything down
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He didn't know how much time had passed, maybe days, months, years, or just seconds. He didn't think of anything so time just passed while he was drifting away in an empty void where there was absolutely nothing, no sound, light or gravity, nothing.
He was floating in an endless black sea of nothingness, sinking further and further each second, being swallowed deeper and deeper.
He got a second chance to live his life outside the confines of a white room, a chance to meet people, make friends and discover new things, and it all amounted to nothing. He thought he was free, he thought he was strong, and then he met him. A wall that seemed to have no end. In very little time everything that he had thought crumbled away by the presence of that man.
He wasn't strong, he was beaten down time and time again. He wasn't free, he just changed from one cage to another, from a white room to a country where no one could leave. And he was scared, scared of losing everything, of losing the people close to him, his father, who raised a child despite being blind, Kiyomi, who taught him and cared for him like her son along with the other geishas and everyone at the Kozuki household, who accepted him and trained him even if it was for a short time.
He was scared...no...he was terrified.
Since holding Ame no Habakiri, the images of the streets filled with the corpses of everyone close to him haunted his mind since then he trained and trained to no end, he needed to- no, he had to get stronger. He couldn't let that happen, he had to be strong enough.
And then it happened. Because he trained nonstop Toki made him go to the city because she wanted him to relax, because of his useless Haki not working the kids got taken, and because of his lack of strength, he couldn't save them.
It was all his fault, if he hadn't been training like a madman none of this would have happened.
Even when the chance came for him to change things and be useful he failed, he failed miserably he was miserable.
"Yes, you are pathetic~"
The voice of a woman whispered in his ear deep inside the sea, shivers went down his spine hearing her voice. The voice felt so familiar to him, had he heard it before? He would remember such a voice.
"Here you are, wallowing in self-pity and sadness like a little boy, pathetic~"
It was the most beautiful and soft voice he had ever heard, a melodic voice he could hear for hours on end and never get tired of it. It sounded sweet but had an edge to it, an edge that pulled in his soul and attracted him to it.
It was like a red rose covered in thorns, gorgeous and tempting but dangerous.
No. That wasn't right.
She was not a rose covered in thorns, she was the thorn itself with a sharpness in her that made her even more beautiful than the rose itself. Did it make sense?... Probably not. He didn't care, it made sense to him. He couldn't explain that unnatural attraction to that edge in her voice, it was just too enthralling to him.
"Get up and finish what you started~"
Get up? No, he couldn't, he couldn't feel his body and probably even if he could he wouldn't be able to move with all his broken bones and destroyed muscles.
"You're just putting up excuses~"
Two hands gently caressed his shoulders from behind with a lover's care, very slowly trailing down to his naked chest, he felt her long nails gracing his skin, wrong, they were too long and sharp to be human nails.
"You still have all your limbs right? Then you can still fight~"
Now her whispers changed to his other ear
"You're a natural born predator, you'll fight until your very existence fades away. Break their necks with your hands, if they cut your arms then you'll beat them to death with your legs, if they cut your legs then you'll rip off their throats with your teeth and if they kill you then you'll come back as a demon from hell and hunt them for eternity, you have no excuse to not get up~"
Bloodlust leaked from her beautiful voice mixed with strong desire and craving, Yasu's heart started to beat faster and his breath quickened with every word spoken.
"You can hear it, can't you? You've been hearing it since holding that sword~?
Slowly, the hands on his chest began trailing toward his head and cupping his cheeks.
"The sound of fire burning everything, it never left your ears, right?~"
She was right, since that vision, the sound of the fire burning his hometown and the bodies of everyone never left his head, it was there, always present, clawing at the back of his mind every passing second not letting him relax or forget that sight, since then, he was slowly losing his sanity to that sound.
Even now he still was hearing it.
The hands cupping his cheeks gently made their way back to his ears, there, the hands very carefully covered Yasu's ears. The instant the hands covered his ears, the sound of fire burning disappeared.
"Now listen only to my voice~"
Even though he had his ears covered, her voice now sounded clearer than ever, her voice was now full of care, care directed only and exclusively to him.
"You were training because you were afraid, that's why you didn't get anywhere, but know that there's silence you need to focus~.
You have to fight. Fight, fight, fight, the moment you stop fighting is the moment you die. Take that fire that has been hunting you all this time and use it yourself, as long as the fire burns that means you're still alive~.
Use that fire to burn anything that gets in your way. Burn everything down if you need to~"
With every word spoken something resonated inside Yasu, calling, demanding for him to get back up and fight.
"Now, raise again, my little bird~"
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Juzo couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing, it didn't make any sense. Meters away from him, behind the broken trees was Yasu, standing there, blood covering his whole body, his clothes were just destroyed rags, and some of his broken ribs were piercing his skin, coming out of his body for the world to see.
He looked like a walking corpse, his head was tilted to the side, unable to lift his head straight, strands of hair covered his upper face only leaving his slightly opened mouth visible.
White fumes were coming out from all around his body. As quickly as the fumes disappeared into the air, more came out, even the place where his eyes were supposed to be was exuding this strange smoke.
Looking at the white trail his eyes were supposed to be on, Juzo felt his heartbeat rapidly increase and sweat uncontrollably coming out of his body, his hands were trembling and his breathing was erratic.
Yasu's mouth opened a bit more making a handful of blood come out, unbothered by this, his lips started moving, trying to say something but only unintelligible sounds came out, too low for any human to hear.
Despite that, for Juzo it felt as if he had just heard the loudest voice in all his life almost making him go deaf, he understood every word that came out of Yasu's mouth.
"Why didn't my sword cut you?"
It was a simple question Juzo wouldn't answer.
"I-I'm a s-sorcerer, my b-body can turn into sakura flowers m-making me intangible"
And yet he did, words came out of his mouth very easily, compelled to answer before what his primal instincts were telling him to run away from.
"A beautiful power yet carried by someone so miserable"
Again Yasu's words almost deafened Juzo despite being barely whispered.
Stepping forward, when Yasu's feet touched the ground, the smoke around him ignited in a violent explosion of white and black flames, and with every step, more and more flames started igniting on his body.
With his body ignited on fire, Yasu only felt a great amount of pain coming from every cell, normally with his injuries the amount of pain reaching his brain would make him go insane, but for some reason, with flames surrounding his body he felt better, his wounds were still there but at least it didn't hurt as much.
With his legs shivering, every time Yasu took a step forward, Juzo would take two backward trying to get away from the monster coming his way.
Trying to wipe off all the sweat on his face, Juzo looked again at Yasu only to see the monster a few centimeters from him, poking his sword inside him and passing right through him.
'When did he!?'
Consumed by an almost primordial fear, before Juzo could fully process what had just happened his legs made him jump back, creating distance between the two.
'Why did I jump?'
Looking down at his legs, Juzo couldn't understand it, how did a mere kid make him jump away? Why couldn't he move his legs? Looking up at the source of his questions, Juzo saw Yasu looking at his sword, lost in his thoughts, not caring a bit about what Juzo had just done.
'Intangible huh? Oden-san said something about it didn't he? What was it? Armament Haki? How could one use it again?"
Veins were starting to bulge in Juzo's neck looking at the oblivious Yasu. He started grinding his teeth together and his breath got even quicker.
"You shitty brat!!! What have you done!? Do you think you're any better because you got some stupid flames in your body!!!? I'm still better than you!! Do you hear me!!? White haired freak!!"
When confidence shatters so quickly, only rage remains, enough rage in Juzo to forget that dreadful feeling of his legs shaking under fear.
Throwing his kanabo away, Juzo pushed forward both hands aiming at Yasu.
"You'll see!! You'll fucking see you brat!!! DIE!!! SAKURA RIVER!!"
Like cannons, hundreds of pinkish petals came shooting out of Juzo's hands going straight to Yasu.
Deep in his thoughts, Yasu didn't move, letting all the petals pass by him. It seemed that Yasu didn't even register in his mind what had just happened. With a slight breeze of air, the trees behind Yasu all crumbled into countless tiny pieces of wood, same thing happened with the sword Yasu was holding in his hand. Against a gentle breeze, the blade turned into hundreds of pieces of metal carried away by the wind.
'He's done, he shouldn't have ignored me! He got what he deserved!" Juzo wildly smiled seeing that Yasu didn't move to dodge his attack and took it head on.
His smile quickly faded away seeing Yasu throwing away the hilt of the sword he was holding and walking to pick up another sword from the floor.
"W-What? What did you just do!? You should have been torn to shreds!!"
Not answering, in the blink of an eye Yasu was again before Juzo, throwing a horizontal slash, separating his body by the waist, with the force of the slash only, some trees and rocks behind Juzo got cut perfectly in half, but unlike those, Juzo just gritted his teeth tighter not minding that his body was separated and in just a second, petals came out of both halves uniting them as if nothing had ever happened.
Before Juzo could do anything, again Yasu started slashing constantly at Juzo's body creating a blur of attacks. Not caring about his body being cut, Juzo also responded by throwing punches of his own.
10...20...50...100...200 'That's not it' 300...500 'Not this either' Yasu's flurry of attacks got faster every second but he still wasn't close to getting what he wanted, he was trying to imbue his sword in the same energy he saw with Oden-san, but it simply wasn't working, with every cut he felt he got closer, but he was missing something.
Juzo was attacking back but Yasu just flowed around the attacks with ease. The burning sound in his head was still there, but now that he had a moment of silence in his mind minutes before it didn't cloud his mind anymore.
Before, he trained because he was afraid of losing those he cared about, but now he knew what he had to do, and with that came clarity of mind. Now his Observation Haki wasn't putting impediments anymore and he could see everything clear as day, so dodging the attacks of an oversized toddler was nothing to him.
But still, Armament Haki was getting complicated for him. He was trying to remember every detail of what Oden-san did back when, how the energy flowed from his heart to his blade and coated everything with it, how he- wait...flow, Oden-san just let the energy flow across his body, he didn't command it, he just let it happen naturally.
He was trying to force the Haki into his sword with every attack, he just had to let it happen by itself.
"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Juzo at this point had lost his mind with all the frustration and rage inside of him, wanting nothing more than for Yasu to die. Suddenly, the barrage of attack from Yasu stopped, seeing this Juzo didn't waste a single second.
"SAKURA SKIN!!" Dozens of petals appeared on Juzo's forearm, each one extremely sharp forming a kind of saw on his arm.
Juzo descended rapidly his arm on Yasu, wanting to rip him apart. Yasu again didn't move, instead, he released strength from his grip on the sword and took a deep breath of air.
'Just let it flow'
Before the attack reached him, he again gripped his sword and quickly slashed at the arm coming down on him.
Both attacks passed each other lifting all the fallen leaves around them, Yasu and Juzo didn't move for some seconds before a slight cut appeared in Juzo's arm.
Yasu still had his sword raised in the air from the attack, now with the edge of the all jet black and the back in a dark purple.
"Tell me, when was the last time you were cut?" Yasu taunted Juzo still in the same position.
"You! YOU!!!!!" From Juzo's mouth, foam started bubbling uncontrollably with bloodshot eyes.
"YOU FUCKING MAGGOT! I'LL RIP EVERY LIMB FROM YOUR BODY ONE BY ONE!!!" With a shout of rage, a giant storm of sakura petals started circling Juzo cutting everything around him indiscriminately making Yasu jump back to not lose his sword.
"DON'T THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME BECAUSE YOU KNOW HOW TO USE RYUO!! YOU'RE NOT SPECIAL! I AM FAR STRONGER THAN YOU!!!"
"SAKURA FLOOD!!"
Again pushing his hands forward, all the thousands of flying little blades were thrown to him like a tsunami but now they were all covered in a barely noticeable grey layer of Haki.
"You are too loud..." With no hurries, Yasu pointed his sword still covered in haki to the ground, and as if he had done hundreds of times his next words came naturally out of his mouth.
"First Song...Silence"
For a second, Yasu's sword turned into a blur before stopping. Not moving, Yasu lets the petals get to him, the moment they reached him, they all were instantly shredded into pieces before being taken away by the wind.
'What... just happened? He... No! NO! I got to kill him! I'M THE STRONGEST'
Steel cut through flesh as if it was not there. Behind Juzo, Yasu's sword was dripping blood from its edge.
'Is that my body?' It didn't make sense, how could he see his body upside down? 'Oh, I see so I'm d-'
Juzo's head fell to the floor with a thud, followed by the rest of his body a second later.
Cleaning the sword from blood with a simple move, Yasu slowly sheathed the katana on his waist. It wasn't the same sword that he came in with but it had to do.
'The kids!' Turning around, Yasu ran to where Momo and Hiyori were bound with their eyes out from crying.
Wasting no time he untied the bindings of the siblings and took away their gags.
Like two bolts of lightnings, the two kids threw themselves at Yasu hugging him tightly while sobbing all over him.
Yasu just wrapped his arms around both of them, his flames not hurting them in the slightest.
"I'm here now, everything will be alright" He slowly caressed their back to calm them down but still they continued sobbing on him.
"Come on let's go" Preparing to lift the kids, Yasu placed his arms so he could grab them more eas- the flames on his body extinguished all at once.
All the pain in his body came crashing down on him making him spit ou blood, staining the kid's clothes.
With all his energy leaving him in a second, his consciousness started fading away into the void with the screams of the kids being the last thing he heard before blacking out.
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My god was this chapter long. Damn
Well, hope that the battle was entertaining!
Leave your thought in the comments!
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