Wistful Loss

Huo Yuhao slept deeply, from morning until dusk. During that time, his mother, Huo Yun'er, tried to wake him, but the boy who had once been sharp enough to deflect every bullet from a rapid-fire matchlock with his blade showed no response at all. It was not until Huo Yun'er went out to buy groceries that Huo Yuhao slowly woke up.

Over the past year, he had never slept so comfortably for so long. Whether in duration, quality, or the sense of security he felt while sleeping, this had been the most peaceful sleep Huo Yuhao had ever known.

His Right Hand instinctively reached toward the left side of his waist, but the familiar cold touch was absent. First came instinctive panic, followed by relief and a wistful sense of loss.

Huo Yuhao slowly rose from the bed. Beneath an empty bowl on the table was a note.

"Yuhao, when you wake up, go get some meat pies from the pot by the stove. They should still be warm."

He carefully folded the note and tucked it into his pocket. Then Huo Yuhao plopped down onto the bed. Though he was only six years old, his eyes carried the weathered air of someone who had lived through many years.

During that dreamlike year, he had possessed neither Soul Power nor Soul Tools. All he had were incomplete combat techniques from his time as a Ninja and scattered, hazy fragments of memory.

Huo Yuhao could never forget the day he cautiously crept through the grass like a stray dog whose tail had been broken, eventually avoiding the patrols of the Ashina Samurai and reaching Moon-Gazing Tower.

He had crawled through a hole in the cliff behind Moon-Gazing Tower in a miserable state, entering the tower and meeting the Divine Heir who would change his life—a child just as weak and frail as he had once been.

At the time, the child was holding a poetry collection beneath the dim candlelight. Written within it was a work left behind by Li Bai, the Poet Immortal of the Eastern lands: Five Poems on a Journey to Dongting, Part Two.

"Ah, my Ninja, you're here."

Divine Heir Kuro hurriedly jumped down from atop a pile of books. With a pained expression, he stroked Huo Yuhao's weathered face, then laboriously handed him a katana more than half his own height and took out a Healing Gourd capable of restoring injuries.

Perhaps the sudden warmth left Huo Yuhao at a loss. As he watched Kuro carefully use the medicine from the Healing Gourd to wipe his wounds, an inexplicable thought arose within him.

Is helping someone clean their wounds something only friends do?

As he watched Lord Kuro work hard to bandage his wounds by the faint candlelight, the softest part of Huo Yuhao's heart was touched.

Back at the Duke's mansion, Huo Yuhao had never had friends his own age. All he had known were the Duchess's cold stares and increasingly undisguised unequal treatment.

Although Huo Yuhao did not understand the long string of words the Divine Heir spoke while bandaging him, there was one thing Yuhao understood: they would make plans after leaving Ashina. In other words, they had to escape, right?

Looking at his bandaged body and the black katana in his hand, a thought inevitably arose in Huo Yuhao's heart. It was the combined result of the lingering memories in his mind and Huo Yuhao's own instincts.

This is my friend. I must protect him at all costs, just as the precepts in my mind say.

For those second only to one's parents, one must always keep them in one's heart, Betting on Life to protect them. If they were taken away, one had to rescue them at all costs. That was the creed of a Ninja.

At that time, Huo Yuhao did not yet understand how heavy this promise in his heart truly was. It was a vow that could only be fulfilled with countless lives, dances amid blood and fire, repeated grievous wounds, shattered bones and torn tendons, and climbing out of hell again and again.

Huo Yuhao had tried negotiating with those Ashina soldiers. He had tried kneeling and begging for mercy. Yet the outcome was always the same: someone would slash open his belly, spilling out more than ten meters of intestines, before beheading him with a chipped katana.

The undying power brought by the Dragon Heritage caused him to revive again and again—falling, rising, falling once more. Even when he was thrown off a cliff and smashed to pieces, he would awaken again before a Sculptor's Idol.

After being cut down more than a dozen times by the same samurai, Huo Yuhao, only six years old and about the same age as the Divine Heir, suddenly understood something: weakness and pleading were completely useless.

As the saying went, poor children grew up early. In truth, it meant that children from poor families encountered the world's harshest reality sooner and had no choice but to accept it. Huo Yuhao was exactly like that.

Just like the old saying from the land of bitter winters: failure was cold, but Moscow did not believe in tears.

From that day onward, Huo Yuhao cast aside the weakness in his heart. Or perhaps he had not cast it aside, but merely hidden it away. Yet there was no denying that from then on, all he showed his enemies was the sharp edge of his blade.

When Genichiro severed his left arm, Huo Yuhao learned to tear at his opponents with a Ninja's fangs. When he was struck by lightning from the sky, he learned to keep his feet from touching the ground and perform Lightning Reversal. When the Guardian Ape chopped him into fine mince with its twin blades, Huo Yuhao shamelessly scattered two handfuls of Firecrackers, then beheaded it in one stroke while it was thrown into disarray.

So long as he could save Kuro, Huo Yuhao did not care whether his methods were noble or vile. So long as he could improve his martial skill, he had never begrudged learning the subtleties of combat from enemies who had killed him dozens or hundreds of times—using the enemy's strengths against them.

After enduring countless hardships, he fought his way into Ashina Castle and rescued Kuro. He shattered the gates of Senpou Temple with the Senpou Leaping Kicks the monks excelled at, took the Immortal Severance Blade that killed whoever drew it, brought two pounds of explosives to blast the Lion Ape guarding the Fragrant Water Lily senseless, and shamelessly threw an entire bag of lime into the Corrupted Monk's face before taking the Sheltering Stone offered with Source Water.

Not only that, he fought all the way to the Divine Realm where the Divine Dragon dwelled, stunned it with heavenly lightning, cut open its eyeball to take a tear, then used Father's Protective Bell to obtain the blooming Everblossom. To fulfill that promise, Huo Yuhao had truly wagered everything he possessed.

To allow his friend, Kuro, to live on as an ordinary person, Huo Yuhao had even ended his own life, because only then could the power of the Dragon Heritage cease flowing completely.

"Divine Heir... Lady Emma, Anayama the Peddler, and Kotaro..."

Huo Yuhao felt a little wistful. Aside from his memories, everything about Ashina seemed like nothing more than a great dream. He was no longer the One-Armed Wolf who could soar through the skies and vanish into the earth, capable of anything. He was merely a six-year-old runt barely surviving in the Duke's mansion.

Was it really all gone?

Huo Yuhao subconsciously held out his hand and stared blankly at it. Then, without a sound, a sky-blue Buddha Candy appeared in his palm.

Huo Yuhao's heart jolted violently.