Self (2)

The scene before Rinko's eyes suddenly warped.

The dojo, the setting sun, her father's gentle smile-everything shattered in an instant, as though an invisible hand had savagely torn it apart. Before Rinko could even scream, the scene before her had changed completely.

She was back in those woods.

Cold moonlight shone down, and a faint smell of blood hung in the air. Kashimo stood a few steps away with the Jade Staff over his shoulder, his back to her.

And before him-

Was a broken tree stump.

Someone was slumped against it.

He wore an old robe washed pale with age, his head bowed, a massive bloody hole in his chest. He had long since stopped breathing. Moonlight fell on his face, revealing features Rinko knew all too well.

Kujū Jūrō.

Rinko's father.

"..."

Rinko's eyes widened.

She wanted to scream, but no sound came out. She wanted to run, but her legs would not move. Something surged violently in her stomach, sour and sickeningly sweet, rushing straight up her throat. She covered her mouth and sank into a crouch against her will, dry-heaving.

But nothing came up.

Whispers reached her ears.

The voice was soft, so very soft, as though it had grown from deep within her own heart, yet also as though countless people were speaking right against her ears.

"Why should you be the only one to live?"

Rinko froze.

"Without cursed energy, do you deserve to be my daughter?"

She wanted to shake her head, wanted to say something, but something seemed to have seized her throat. She could not utter a word.

"I have no daughter like you."

The voice said at last.

Rinko jerked her head up.

At some point, the man slumped against the stump had turned his head. His lifeless eyes stared straight at her.

A voice came from behind.

Rinko spun around.

It was Haruta.

He stood a few steps away, the moonlight revealing his twisted face. It was not the flippant, joking face he had worn in life, but a pale, rigid face-the face of a dead man. His mouth hung half open. There were no pupils in his eyes, only two pitch-black holes staring straight at her.

"You are a traitor."

His voice was stiff too, like an echo rising from a deep well.

Rinko wanted to say something, but her lips trembled, and she could not force out a single word.

"You went with your father's killer-"

Another voice came from the side. It was another of her senior fellow students from the dojo, the quiet one who always kept his head down and practiced his swordsmanship. Now he stood there too, his face as pale as Haruta's, his eyes just as devoid of pupils.

"Are you even human?"

"You don't deserve to stand here!"

More voices surged in from every direction. Familiar faces appeared one after another: her senior fellow students at the dojo, the companions she practiced with every day, and those whose names she did not know but who often came to help.

They surrounded Rinko, forming a circle that grew smaller and smaller.

Every face was deathly pale. Every pair of eyes was pitch-black. Those empty sockets all faced her, those rigid lips all opened, and the same words rang out.

"Go die!"

"Go die!"

"Go die!"

Just then, thunder exploded.

Boom-

The sound seemed to come from somewhere far away, yet also seemed to explode right beside her ears. In her daze, Rinko shuddered. For an instant, those distorted faces and venomous voices blurred.

Rinko's closed eyes opened again.

She raised her head and looked at the pale faces before her, at those pitch-black eye sockets.

"My father."

Her voice was quiet, but steady.

"My senior fellow students."

She slowly tightened her grip on her sword.

"My companions."

The "people" around her were still saying something. The voices continued, but she could no longer hear them.

"Would never!"

She swung her sword straight at the most familiar face before her-Haruta's.

"Say anything like that!"

The instant her blade swept through that pale face, everything around her shattered.

The twisted figures, the illusion of the dojo, her father slumped against the stump-everything burst apart like glass struck by a boulder, shattering into countless fragments that scattered through the moonlight.

"What?!"

An astonished howl came from the darkness.

"Why doesn't my domain's sure-hit effect work on her?!"

Moonlight shone into the woods again, revealing the twisted black shape beside the window: Nightmare, a cursed spirit born from humanity's fear of nightmares. Its body shook violently, its pale eyes wide with disbelief.

A wound inflicted by a Cursed Tool had appeared across its abdomen.

"Damn it-"

Black mist churned around Nightmare, its amorphous tentacles thrashing wildly. Its pale eyes remained fixed on Rinko, but it had already begun retreating toward the window.

"It's fine. I can still get away unscathed."

The black mist thickened, its outline beginning to blur like a blot of ink about to disperse.

Just then, a sudden rush of air swept toward it.

Shhk-!

Nightmare's retreat came to an abrupt halt.

It lowered its head and stared at its chest in disbelief. A sword had pierced its body.

The blade's wielder was Rinko.

Moonlight streamed through the window and fell across her face. There was no fear on her still somewhat childish features now, no confusion, only a strange calm.

"Ever since I was little," she began, each word falling into the night breeze, "I've wondered whether I could really shoulder those responsibilities without cursed energy."

Nightmare's body began shaking violently. Its black mist spilled from the wound, as though something were tearing it apart.

"My father said I was his heir, but I didn't have any power. Whenever I asked him, he said it wasn't time yet."

Rinko's eyes shone brightly, as though something were burning within them.

"And now-"

She drew a deep breath, veins bulging on her hands.

"I've found it. My strength."

"Not cursed energy or a Cursed Technique."

She enunciated every word.

"But the strength of muscle and bone."

She turned her blade and hacked at Nightmare's body again and again.

Nightmare's body was cut apart, its amorphous black mist scattering like fog torn by a hurricane. Purple blood streaked the walls. Moonlight poured down over the fourteen-year-old girl, over her slightly flushed cheeks, over eyes that were finally free of uncertainty.

Out in the wilderness.

Kashimo stood in a devastated forest clearing, his staff over his shoulder. The moonlight stretched his shadow long. Several sorcerers he had taken down lay sprawled around him, some still groaning, others already motionless.

He was about to move elsewhere and keep searching when his steps suddenly stopped.

At some point, someone had appeared among the shadows of the trees ahead.

White clothes.

White hair.

And a pair of azure eyes that stood out sharply in the darkness, as though someone had torn away a piece of the sky and set it in their sockets.

The current bearer of the Six Eyes.

Gojo Arashi.

Kashimo's grip on the Ruyi Staff tightened slightly, then loosened again. He looked at the man standing in the shadows, and a smile slowly spread across his face.

"Well, this is..."

He paused and rested the staff on his shoulder.

"Bad timing."