Go, Fenghua

With Kashimo's victory, Fenghua's battle also came to an end.

She had killed every sorcerer sent by the Zenin Clan.

She had never used her cursed technique. From beginning to end, she had defeated them all with pure hand-to-hand combat. Now blood ran in rivers along the mountain road, and mangled corpses lay strewn across the ground. The air reeked of rust. Fenghua leaned against a tree, drenched in blood from head to toe, unable to tell her enemies' blood from her own.

Her damp hair clung to her cheeks as she gasped for breath, her chest heaving. Once the tension that had held her taut through the battle eased, exhaustion washed over her like a tide. Even her fingertips trembled.

Suddenly, she sensed something.

Not far away, a suffocatingly vast surge of cursed energy was slowly dissipating. She knew that presence all too well-so well that her heart clenched in an instant.

Her feet began moving before she knew it.

"Master... Master..."

The murmur slipped from her lips, so soft it was as though she feared disturbing something. She stumbled toward that presence, paying no attention to the loose stones and blood beneath her feet. Only one thought remained in her mind.

She had understood everything Kashimo had told her that day.

She had understood what he yearned for, what he wanted. But she was not strong enough. Nowhere near strong enough.

She could not give Kashimo the love he craved, that fierce emotion kindled only by staking their lives against each other on the edge of death, something only a person standing at his level could offer.

She ran, something burning in her eyes.

But still she ran.

When she reached the outskirts of the battlefield and braced herself against a broken tree trunk, the sight before her froze her in place.

An enormous crater, roughly four hundred and twenty meters in radius, gaped in the earth as though a meteor had struck. The rocks along its rim had melted in the heat, then cooled into a strange, glassy layer that gleamed faintly beneath the dim daylight. The crater floor was uneven, covered in scorch marks and fissures left by lightning, as though that hand of thunder had gouged a chunk out of the earth itself.

And at the very center of the crater stood Hajime Kashimo, stark naked.

His figure looked small within the enormous hollow, yet stood out unmistakably. Charred marks still lingered on his limbs and at the corners of his mouth as reverse cursed technique slowly repaired his burned flesh. Naked as he was, he stood ramrod straight, like a freshly quenched blade.

Not far away, Zenin Sawa's corpse lay motionless among the rubble, his half-carbonized body blending into the blackened stones.

Fenghua clutched the tree trunk, her fingertips nearly digging into the bark.

Suddenly, applause came from the edge of the crater, steady and unhurried, each clap strikingly clear on the deathly silent battlefield.

"It seems you really did it, my friend."

Kenjaku had appeared there at some point, no more than twenty meters from Kashimo. His black monk's robes stirred gently in the wind, and his face wore that perpetually inscrutable, composed smile. He clapped leisurely, each sound echoing through the empty crater.

"As part of our binding vow," Kenjaku said calmly, lowering his hands, "I will teach you all my barrier techniques."

Kashimo nodded at that. His expression barely changed. This was what they had agreed upon.

Then, as though sensing something, he slowly turned his head. His gaze passed over the devastated mountain woods beyond the crater's rim, over the scattered rubble and lingering smoke, and settled on Fenghua, who stood in the distance supporting herself against a tree trunk.

He said nothing.

He simply looked at her quietly for a moment, then started walking toward her.

His steps were unhurried, as though telling her that it was over, that it was time to leave.

Fenghua stood watching him. Her lips moved slightly, but in the end, not a single word came out. She merely released the tree trunk, lowered her bloodstained hands, and waited quietly.

Kashimo stopped when he reached her side.

Wind swept over the rim of the enormous crater, carrying fine grit that struck his charred, not yet fully healed skin. He did not look at her. His gaze rested somewhere in the distance, his voice so calm that no emotion could be heard in it.

"I have nothing left to teach you."

He paused for a moment.

"Go, Fenghua."

Only then did he turn his head slightly. Scorch marks still lingered on his lightning-burned face, but his eyes were exceptionally clear. It was neither coldness nor irritation, but a calm that bordered on utter clarity, as though he had prepared himself to say those words long ago.

"Go to Edo. Return to the Shogunate. Wherever you go, get as far away as you can."

He paused.

"There is nothing between us... anymore."

With that, he looked away and continued walking. His steps were as unhurried as when he had approached. His bare feet crossed the rubble and scorched earth. He never looked back.

Fenghua stood rooted to the spot.

She opened her mouth, but something seemed to have lodged in her throat, and not a single word would come. Her hair still clung to her cheeks. The blood had dried into hard, dark-red crusts. She simply stood there, watching his back recede step by step, farther and farther, until the shattered mountain rocks and swirling smoke swallowed his figure.

She did not even realize that Kashimo was already far away.

Even the wind had stopped.

As Kenjaku passed her, he gave her a couple of searching looks.

There was a measure of scrutiny in his gaze, a measure of amusement, as though he were looking at an object its owner had abandoned by the roadside and finding it rather a pity. He stopped and tilted his head slightly, that eternally inscrutable smile on his lips.

"If I were you," he said unhurriedly, as though offering the most sincere advice imaginable, "I would return to the Shogunate now and seize control of it through sheer strength. Then all of Edo, all of the Japanese Island, would be yours."

He paused, his smile deepening a little.

"Why insist on following him?"

With that, he turned and left, his black monk's robes stirring in the wind, his steps composed, as though those words had been nothing more than a casual remark.

Only Fenghua remained standing there alone.

The wind rose again along the crater's rim, whipping the bloodstained hem of her clothes. She stared in the direction Kashimo had vanished, and for a long, long time, she did not move.