The opening

(1) Prelude

Destroying a clan was no novice's reckless boast for me. It was a life I had lived firsthand, year after year, beyond the pages of books.

The Italian mafia, London's gangs, and the Demon Country of Sengoku Japan were all family-style organizations.

Whichever life Yuanyin and I were in, we inevitably had to wipe out or replace a family to gain a foothold in that era or region.

If we were replacing one, my usual method was to cut off its head, then force my way in while its leaderless successors fought among themselves. Using force, money, or personal ties as leverage, I would compel them to submit and accept that power had changed hands.

The original members were liable to turn on us afterward, but they were disposable tools who were never going to live that long anyway.

Wiping them out was even simpler. A few grenades, a few bursts of gunfire, or, failing that, Yuanyin herself stepping in. In less than a day, she and I could sit back and enjoy all the wealth of a family with no survivors.

Now I wanted to destroy the Zenin Clan, but my methods had hit an obstacle.

I had promised Megumi I wouldn't kill anyone. And my usual methods relied on killing.

Destroying a clan without bloodying my hands or taking a life sounded difficult just thinking about it.

I exchanged the stun baton in my hand for a fifty-thousand-volt stun gun. I aimed at Naoya Zenin's face, and a single shot sent him straight to the floor, convulsing.

Right, I forgot to mention: he was the one who had locked the door back then, and the last of that group to receive his punishment.

Before I switched to the stun gun, he had broken free of his ropes and demonstrated the abilities of a Semi-Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer.

When he revealed his Cursed Technique, he said he could control wind. Then he demonstrated wind blades and the power of a Category 5 typhoon.

How should I put it? My assessment was that it fell short of even an ordinary slash from Sesshomaru back then.

Out of respect for his performance, I deliberately swapped my harmless stun baton for a police stun gun.

Apparently, jujutsu sorcerers were still human at their core. Fifty thousand volts could knock them down and leave them twitching.

Grabbing his hair, I dragged him in front of Toji, where he slurred his way through a heartfelt little essay built around "I was wrong."

The current's stimulation of his brain really did work. At the most emotional part, the man in his thirties moved himself to tears and snot.

He told Toji, "I was wrong. Heavenly restriction is the best in the world. The Gojo Clan's Six Eyes aren't worth shit."

Toji seemed to remember something and sneered. "Hah. Six Eyes."

I silently frowned as the thought inexplicably popped into my head: Should I go shock... meet the Six Eyes?

I dragged Naoya Zenin back into the little room and gave him several injections of a mind-clouding drug to confuse him when he woke, then left him there to fend for himself.

Leaving the room, I immediately spotted Toji standing in the shadows at the end of the corridor.

His green eyes were half-lidded, without a trace of the joy of having his revenge.

I approached. He glanced at me and crouched down with practiced ease.

The great beast wasn't submitting. He was revealing his vulnerability.

This was my reward for helping the thirteen-year-old boy untangle his pain that night. It didn't mean the thirty-year-old father had healed.

Chains still held him back. He couldn't touch them or see them, and he even believed they were indestructible. He was helpless against them.

But I was different. I could see them, touch them, and destroy them.

After a phone call with Shiu Kong that evening, my tentative plan gained a new opening and direction.

On the other end, Shiu Kong grumbled that I had been too rough with a hired associate. He had only been discharged from the hospital that day.

I told him I had actually held back.

Before Shiu Kong could even sigh, I mercilessly hung up.

On paper, my relationship with this South Korean man was one of employment. In reality, I was merely providing poverty relief.

I hadn't intended to get involved with him, but Toji kept answering his calls. To prevent another situation where I couldn't keep track of Toji's whereabouts, I decided to bring Shiu Kong under my control first. I would treat it as keeping an information broker. It wasn't as though I hadn't kept one before.

As I leafed through the Zenin Clan's genealogy, my fingertip stopped on a name.

He'll do.

My opening.

(2) Undercurrents

Ryu Zenin woke from a dream at midnight, startled into a cold sweat.

He sat up in his bedding and went out into the courtyard. Winter was approaching, and the chill climbed from the soles of his feet up his spine.

He paid it no mind, simply staring at the wooden dummy in the courtyard used for practicing iaido.

The jujutsu sorcerer grading assessment would begin in two days.

This time, Ryu Zenin had to escape Grade 4 and enter the ranks of Grade 3. He no longer wanted to be treated as trash in Hei.

After spending a sleepless night practicing iaido, he forced his exhausted body into the uniform of Hei, the Zenin Clan's private armed force, and reached the main residence's north courtyard before eight.

He was the earliest. He had to arrive first, because in the Zenin Clan, there was no hierarchy of seniority, only strength.

Until they became strong, the weak were servants and human punching bags for the strong.

Kneeling on the ground, he polished every squad leader's shoes until they were spotless. Sleep deprivation and the blood rushing to his head from that posture briefly made him dizzy, his vision darkening.

If nobody noticed, it would have been harmless. But coincidences always seemed to happen in those brief moments.

A foot suddenly landed on his head just as it was about to touch the ground, then stamped down hard, smashing Ryu Zenin's forehead against the earth.

Sharp stones pierced his flesh. As he blinked, dust flooded his eyes, stinging them until tears streamed down his face.

Even then, Ryu Zenin didn't dare make a sound. He could only hold his breath and endure it.

But when he glimpsed his tormentor out of the corner of his eye and saw that they were of the same rank, he suddenly lunged at him, and they grappled.

Grade 4. Only Grade 4. I'm Grade 4, and so is he. What gives him the right to trample on me?

Ryu Zenin wasn't from the main family. He belonged to a collateral branch.

So he was punished, while the man from the main family wasn't.

Ryu Zenin refused to accept it. He recognized only one principle: strength. He didn't think he was weak, so he wouldn't submit.

He went to argue with his squad leader, who kicked him while sneering that even without the main-family factor, the other man had a better chance of passing the exam. Ryu would be Grade 4 trash for the rest of his life.

At that moment, he was sentenced to death.

Beaten until his flesh split open, Ryu Zenin lost all ability to sleep.

One moment, he felt his life was meaningless and he might as well die. The next, he felt he still had hope. After all, the assessment hadn't begun yet. What if he managed to turn things around against all odds?

Midnight really was a peculiar hour.

At that time, every human emotion and desire was magnified without limit.

Lovers' affection deepened at midnight, and blunt words like "I love you" came easily. Enemies' hatred intensified at midnight, and declarations like "I'll kill you" became action. Those who resented the world were driven by impulse to rise in revolt.

Ryu Zenin was a coward nursing a grievance.

During the day, he could laugh off unfair treatment. At night, he wanted justice so badly he would gladly see the world destroyed.

As he stared at the dusty ceiling, fantasizing about destroying the world, his phone rang. It seemed to be a text sent to the wrong number.

"Come to the west courtyard. I found it."

His curiosity, intensified by midnight, compelled Ryu Zenin to wait and see instead of deleting the message.

Another text soon arrived.

"It really was hidden in the Forbidden Vault. No worries about tomorrow's grading exam now. Didn't take it all. Left you a bottle in the wooden box. Delete after reading. Keep it secret."

Ryu Zenin read the message over and over. Part of him waited for a follow-up that was never going to come, while another part kept chewing over the information it contained.

Night makes people bold. The Forbidden Vault isn't far. I'll only take a look. Maybe it's fake?

Ryu Zenin went out and crept to the entrance of the Forbidden Vault.

Tonight was unusually quiet, and no one passed by. Everything seemed perfectly aligned.

He undid the spell and entered the Forbidden Vault. Amid the many weapons and scrolls, he spotted the incongruous wooden box at once.

His instincts were accurate. Or perhaps it had belonged to him from the start.

The wooden box held just one bottle of pale green medicine. Without thinking further, he pocketed it and left.

Having stayed awake all night, Ryu Zenin took leave and hid in his room, waiting for something that would prompt him to drink the medicine.

He waited until afternoon, and it came.

Of those who took the grading exam that day, only one passed. Everyone else failed and was seriously injured.

At dinnertime, Ryu Zenin slipped into that man's room. Beneath his pillow, he found a bottle with a trace of green medicine left inside.

All his suspicions and caution no longer mattered.

At midnight before his assessment, Ryu Zenin drained the potion in one gulp.

At eight the next morning, he put on his Zenin Clan uniform and followed the others in his cohort to the assessment building.

From the moment they set out, Ryu Zenin felt light, like a bird, or a feather on a bird.

The world before his eyes had become simple, too.

The scenery went from colorful to black and white, then became countless lines.

The monsters in the assessment became lines as well.

He drew his sword and severed those lines with effortless ease.

He even wondered whether the world looked just as simple to the Six Eyes, that child of the gods.

Once he had slashed all the lines apart, he floated through the air, soaring, and was about to fly back to the Zenin Clan.

A tremendous bang brought him abruptly back to the ground.

The world before his eyes was no longer made of lines. Its colors had returned.

It wasn't the sky or the Zenin Clan residence. It was an office.

Ryu Zenin rubbed his eyes. Everything before him seemed blood-red, while buzzing in his ears mingled with a clamor of voices.

Someone tackled him and pinned his hands behind his back. He turned his head to try to shout, but as he did, he saw a man nearby who had been dismembered with a katana.

He knew it was a katana because his own was still embedded in the man's chest.

The indistinct clamor suddenly became clear.

Ryu Zenin faintly heard the person pinning him down shout,

"The suspect has been caught!"

"The mayor's murderer has been restrained!"