Crafting cursed tools was considered a formidable ability in Jujutsu Society.
If it was a hereditary craft, the family that possessed it would either flourish spectacularly or meet its end in flames.
The Amabuki were a family of swordsmiths dating back to the Warring States period. Most of their members had little talent as jujutsu sorcerers, but they all inherited a reasonably useful innate cursed technique.
They called their family technique [Demon-Repelling Edge].
Weapons they forged had a chance of acquiring a "demon-repelling" effect. Any enemy wounded by such a weapon would experience disruptions in their cursed energy circulation, briefly reducing their cursed energy manipulation to a downright amateurish level.
Thanks to the secret protection of a certain noble, the Amabuki lineage had survived. But as time passed, with marriages and alliances outside the family, their bloodline grew too diluted to reliably pass down their family technique.
Once the Amabuki lost their usefulness, the noble expelled them from his domain and left them to fend for themselves. The good news was that their utter uselessness meant no one with ulterior motives bothered to slaughter them after their expulsion. They simply faded into obscurity.
Scattered and adrift, their bloodline dwindled further.
By Amabuki Xia Xia's generation, the once-vast Amabuki family had been reduced to a few households of elderly people in a desolate village who could still lift a forging hammer, along with a handful of ordinary children with no talent whatsoever as jujutsu sorcerers.
They made their living repairing weapons for ronin, occasionally taking commissions for simple weapons. But cursed tools and demon blades existed only in the elders' memories.
Amabuki Xia Xia's father had, against all expectations, awakened an innate cursed technique. It wasn't the Amabuki technique, but some speed-enhancing technique of unknown origin... He went to challenge Hajime Kashimo.
The man was a lunatic. He wasn't even a Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerer, and the mere fallout from Hajime Kashimo's battle vaporized him.
He left his wife all alone. Not long after giving birth to his posthumous son, she died of grief. Poor Xia Xia had been an orphan from infancy, growing up in a muddle under the care of a distant relative, a great-uncle separated from him by who knew how many generations.
But that elder soon died too.
The inheritance was quickly divided up, leaving only Xia Xia behind.
No one knew how he survived. Xia Xia was the least gifted child in this village of swordsmiths.
He was naturally frail, still unable to lift a heavy forging hammer even as an adolescent. He had also been sickly, sweating profusely and struggling to breathe beside the furnace, let alone formally learning to forge.
Fortunately, the boy was sensible. He learned how to survive at a young age and was willing to do any odd job.
Mind you, anything.
Until one day, Amabuki Xia Xia forged a blade.
A demon blade belonging to the Amabuki.
Wounds inflicted by this blade would not heal easily.
Anyone wounded by it would suffer extremely severe blockages in their cursed energy circulation for a time. If they forced themselves to use cursed energy while the effect persisted, they might even die-just like the victims of the Amabuki family's work a thousand years earlier.
Amabuki Xia Xia never forged another blade. He handed it to the person who had commissioned it, then gazed dazedly at the nearly cooled furnace in the still evening breeze.
It turned out that all a person needed to do in life was forge one blade and kill one person who had to be killed.
It turned out that a person's life could be that simple.
The person who took that blade had no name.
He was a ronin who had lost his family, lost everything, and could only roam the wilderness, robbing and killing.
The way Xia Xia met him was bizarre.
When Xia Xia found him, the man looked like a corpse. His armor was shattered, his wounds leaked copious amounts of foul blood, and an infection had given him a fever.
"You're badly hurt. You're going to die."
"Yeah. Rotten luck."
"Your arm looks broken?"
"It is."
"How pitiful... Now hand over all your money, right now. This is a robbery."
"???"
Xia Xia pressed a blade against the ronin's neck.
He had no morals. An orphan whose parents were both dead could live however he pleased. The man was gravely wounded and dying, and Xia Xia didn't know how to treat him, so all he could do was squeeze the greatest possible value out of him before he died.
He was kindly offering the man a quick death. Surely the man ought to give him a little silver in thanks.
"Cough, cough... You really are..."
The ronin probably hadn't expected to escape one danger only to fall into another, encountering someone this utterly unscrupulous here.
Wasn't everyone in the swordsmith village supposed to have high moral standards? The place had a good reputation precisely because they treated practically every unfortunate soul who wandered here...
"Looks like you don't have any money."
Xia Xia lost patience and gave the samurai a quick once-over.
"Would you mind if I put you out of your misery right now, so I can have some meat for dinner tonight?"
Xia Xia had never eaten anyone, but that didn't stop him from saying it. Out in this desolate village in the wilderness, who cared... Human flesh might taste sour, but it could be fed to animals or used as bait for beasts. Human bones could be made into ornaments to sell, or even used to forge blades. Those were accepted practices in this era.
You were what you ate. By that logic, you couldn't rise above other people without eating them.
He clamped one hand firmly around the samurai's neck while preparing to neatly sever the tendons in his wrists and ankles with the other, stripping him of any means of resistance. Everyone in the wilderness knew that if you wanted to survive, you had to make sure your enemy was finished.
"Wait, I have something to say..."
"I have money. In my pants pocket. Take it."
Xia Xia froze for a second.
"You're not trying to give me money. You're about to die."
Merit -1
"Idiot. If I kill you, it's all mine anyway."
Merit -1
Why risk letting go of the samurai and waste time talking? Better to get it done and search the corpse as quickly as possible.
Damn it, nothing gets through to this brat. The ronin's heart trembled. He was truly doomed this time.
"Stop! I'm a jujutsu sorcerer!"
"If you kill me with that kind of blade, I'll turn into a cursed spirit! You don't want to find out what happens next!"
The ronin screamed in despair like a pig awaiting slaughter, squirming desperately on the ground.
As everyone knew, jujutsu sorcerers killed by ordinary people using ordinary means had a chance of turning into cursed spirits. He wasn't lying.
"Ah, what a shame."
Xia Xia abandoned the killing because streams of silvery-white energy began flowing around the ronin's body. Damn it, this man really was a jujutsu sorcerer. The blade in Xia Xia's hand wasn't a cursed tool, and Xia Xia himself wasn't a jujutsu sorcerer yet.
What exactly are you disappointed about? What do you think other people's lives are worth?
"I need to figure out a way to kill you first."
Xia Xia remembered that someone in the village had forged a blade that increased its wielder's strength. That thing was a cursed tool, so it could definitely kill a jujutsu sorcerer.
He would just steal it, then. Why go out of his way when swiping it was quicker?
"Stay right here. I'll find you a sharp blade to send you on your way."
Xia Xia released his grip and walked away, leaving the badly wounded man staring at his staggering retreat.
Unbelievable. The ronin's mind was a tangled mess.
Do you really want to kill me that badly? Take the money, just take it.
Does this child have no heart? How can he do something like this so easily?
Then he saw the little living devil turn back around.
"No, wait. You almost fooled me. What if you run away? You're badly hurt, but what if?"
Xia Xia pulled a length of hemp rope down from a tree at the village entrance, trussed the wounded man up like a crab, and started dragging him across the ground.
"If you don't want to get dragged to death, protect yourself with cursed energy. It'll lighten my load too."
This move was even more vicious. The ronin was badly wounded and would certainly die if Xia Xia dragged him home like this. But if he protected himself with cursed energy, then once it ran out, his severe injuries would leave him with no way to resist.
A double safeguard. Who are you? How are you this cautious?
The ronin stopped speaking. He merely curled into a miserable ball and wrapped his body in cursed energy, keeping himself from leaving a red trail of shredded flesh and blood across the ground.
A fallen phoenix fared worse than a chicken; a tiger on the plains was bullied by dogs.
Once upon a time, he had been a master swordsman hailed as the "Demon Warrior" and the "Rain Blade Wanderer." Once upon a time, he had been a pure warrior pursuing the pinnacle of martial skill...
If not for rotten luck, how could he have ended up here? If not for rotten luck, how could he die at the hands of such a vicious child?
A thousand words dissolved into one long sigh.
Before you continue