Rebirth of the Sword Saint: A Reincarnation Epic Fantasy Saga

by DB King

  Or so Jin thought.

  The edge of Agito never touched the metal of Gamishiki’s sword; it had, instead, stopped at some kind of magical barrier. Jin’s eyes narrowed at the Turtle tattoo on his enemy’s forearm. It’s definitely a defensive ability, he noted.

  Thinking quickly, Jin’s right foot surged forward for a kick to the man’s lower jaw. Gamishiki blocked his foot, however, and forced Jin back into the ground.

  Undeterred, the heir of the Murasaki Clan whirled mid-air and slashed open his enemy’s right thigh, but then a powerful kick met Jin’s exposed stomach and sent him flying back to the stairs.

  Before he could even recover, Gamashiki was on him instantly.

  Gone was the rabid look on the man’s face—in its place was the stone cold mask of a hardened killer. Gamishiki wrapped his left hand around Jin’s throat, lifted him off the ground, and squeezed. “You really are the one, aren’t you? No child should have this much power and here you are. I cannot allow you to live, demon.”

  Shit shit shit! Jin’s mind raced as kicked at the man’s exposed torso. At this rate, he wouldn’t die from asphyxiation, but from a broken neck. Time slowed down as his heartbeats rumbled in his ears, like drums in the deep. Think! What can I do to get out of this?

  His eyes scanned all around but found nothing. Agito was on the floor, just waiting for him to pick it up. Moving his Fire Salamander tattoo onto his forearm to unleash a blast of flames at Gamashiki’s face would mean the sudden removal of his increased durability, which would mean his neck was going to snap before he could even release so much as a spark.

  The skin of his face was getting colder by the second.

  What could I do—what… wait a minute…

  Gamashiki’s mistake was in choosing to choke the life out of him, instead of just stabbing him outright. Then again, what adult wouldn’t underestimate a talented five-year-old?

  Jin gathered all his strength into his right arm and grasped onto Gamashiki’s wrist. Just have to find the joint and—

  Though his fingers were tiny, each one of them had the same durability as a steel nail. So when Jin plunged his “tiny” fingers into Gamashiki’s wrist joint, specifically into his wrist’s articular disk, the effects were far more dramatic.

  Gamashiki’s eyes widened as Jin twisted and pulled, shattering his wrist instantly. Gamashiki pulled his left hand back and raised his katana with his right, intent on cutting Jin in half while he was still in mid-air.

  Jin, however, was quicker.

  Before Gamashiki could even gather strength on his right shoulder, Jin held out his left hand and unleashed a cone of concentrated magical flames at the man’s face. The older man screamed and dropped his weapon as he reached up to clutch his face. Whatever Gamashiki’s Phoenix tattoo did, it certainly didn’t protect him from fire damage.

  Jin fell to the ground and coughed wildly, clutching at his throat as Gamashiki screamed. Braving through the pain, however, Jin grabbed Agito and surged forward.

  Gamashiki’s screams died in his throat as Jin’s wakizashi pierced through his kidney. Shocked, the older warrior couldn’t muster a proper defense as Jin pulled his sword back and thrust again. This time, the tip of Agito ran right into Gamashiki’s rib cage and into his heart. Jin wasn’t finished, however, as he reared back for the final time and swept his blade low, slicing off both Gamishiki’s legs in one fell swoop.

  “You… damn… demon…”

  His enemy fell to the floor, bleeding and rapidly dying. Curious, Jin looked on as the mage’s tattoos seemed to fade from his skin, dissipating into the air as pure magical energy. Spectral shapes hovered in the air and Jin felt a familiar pull of power from his left hand. Almost on instinct, Jin raised forward his left forearm and sent out a sliver of magic. The remains of the dissipating energies coalesced into his palms and new features appeared on his Fire Salamander—three feathers on its head, alongside a shell-like pattern on both its forearms.

  Jin eyed his forearm and raised an eyebrow. Okay, I’ll have to test that later.

  Without casting his downed foe another glance, Jin rushed into the treasury, grabbed the family heirloom, and ran back out. All the other treasures were of no consequence. The living weapons were unique and irreplaceable, but Jin didn’t care much for them with Agito already at his side. He ascended the stairs as quickly as he could, legs screaming from exhaustion.

  When he finally reached the top, Jin was met by Hamada, who stood panting and bloodied, grasping his massive tachi with one hand. His father’s eyes widened for a moment as they fell on the object in Jin’s left hand. Hamada let out a mirthless chuckle. His father was bleeding from a wound on his stomach. Blood and sweat trailed down the side of his face.

  He spoke with a ragged, exhausted voice. “You’ve passed the test, my son.”

  Jin nodded. Hamada’s wound was deep and who knew what other wounds he’d sustained in that melee. He’s going to die no matter what I do…

  Hamada fell to his knees and laid a hand on Jin’s left shoulder. “My son, take the heirloom and escape. The enemy will breach the inner walls soon… we have very little time.”

  His father spat blood and coughed violently. Jin stood still and waited for the man to continue speaking. “We have been betrayed. These soldiers are men of the Muramasa Clan. I never would have figured it out if I hadn’t fought one of their champions.”

  Hamada’s eyes steeled. “Avenge me, my son—avenge our family. Gain strength and power, and grow to become the legend you were meant to be – the Kensei.”

  Jin looked on as Hamada forced himself back on his feet. “I do not know how you entered the castle, but now you must find a way out. Go south, my brother will welcome you into his household with open arms. Just… show him the heirloom. He will understand.”

  Jin nodded. He took a step forward and paused. There was a strange and unwelcome sensation in his heart – a phantom pain that’d come about in the absence of swords. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. Jin looked up to see his father looking down at him with a smile on his bloodied face. “I am proud of you, my son.”

  His father turned and drew a heavy breath. “Now go! I will hold back the enemy for as long as I can.”

  Jin failed to find his voice. There were… so many things he wanted to say to the man. So many things he wanted to thank him for. He’d never had a father before and… it felt nice to have one – even if he was about to lose him forever. Jin turned toward the open window and sighed. Moonlight shined in from outside, where the noises of battle raged on. Jin could tell, however, that their warriors were losing. What was happening now was a last stand—a fight to the death.

  Jin huffed, “Don’t die too quickly, old man.”

  Hamada chuckled. “I won’t.”

  Chapter 12

  Jin smiled as he stepped forward, bent down, and grabbed a hare by its ears. The tiny woodland creature struggled in his grasp, but Jin simply held on. He reached forward with a free hand and wrapped his fingers around the animal’s neck. With only the smallest of movements, he snapped the creature’s neck, killing it instantly.

  Jin raised the still-warm corpse to his eye. He was never fond of the animal’s taste. Hamada particularly enjoyed them, but he never really found the difference between them and old chicken. Yes, that was it—hare tasted like old chicken. But given the circumstances, this would be a substantial meal.

  “This will do nicely,” he muttered to himself.

  Jin turned and carried the hare’s corpse back to his makeshift campsite. In the middle of the flat clearing was a still-burning campfire, amber flames crackling within a circle of white stones. Built over it was a spit, fashioned from bamboo and hardwood. A bowl-shaped helmet, taken from a fallen soldier, hung from the spit, fresh water boiling in it. A few inches away from the fire, wild mushrooms and carrots, already cleaned and chopped, waited for him on a disc-shaped stone.

  Sighing, Jin laid the hare upon the flat surface of a wide rock and took
out Agito. He opened its stomach first and pulled out its organs. He threw away most of the innards, save for the heart and the liver. Next, he skinned the creature and sliced off its head, its forehands, and hind feet. That was a lot harder than I remembered, he thought.

  Even in his previous life, Jin had stopped skinning and preparing his own meals at about thirty years old, and it only became easier when he assumed the title of Mage-Emperor and sat upon the highest throne. Sparring with Hamada seemed far easier than making sure he didn’t remove too much of the meat each time he moved Agito’s blade between muscle and skin. Thankfully, Jin remembered enough of his previous childhood not to mess it up entirely.

  My previous childhood… He paused, blood dripping off Agito’s edge as his eyes stared off into the distance, unseeing and uncaring for the briefest of moments. At the back of his mind, Jin heard the childish laughter, the scant moments in the afternoon when he and his friends would bathe in the nearby river, the cold nights when his mother would sing him songs that lulled him to sleep. My mother…

  It was her death that had spurned him on to the path of power, to the path to the highest throne.

  So why couldn’t he remember what she looked like? Her voice, still singing in his memories, was clear and concise and he knew it to be her without a doubt, but his memories carried nothing of her face.

  That I should live in one life without a father and in another without a mother is rather ironic. Jin chuckled as he chopped the rabbit into eight equal pieces and tossed them into the pot of boiling water, before grabbing the vegetables and shoving them in too. His thoughts hadn’t lingered on his mother for a very long time – quite a strange happenstance, considering she was the reason for everything, the spark that started the roaring inferno that was his eventual conquest.

  Huh, looking back, I did lose my mother when I was only five years old… and now I have just lost my father and am still five-years old. That’s another bout of cosmic irony, if there ever was one. Actually, the thought might not have been as ludicrous as it sounded. After all, instances of complete coincidence were few and far between, and he wasn’t about to believe that the forces that planted him in this world would do something as banal as coincidence. No, it had been a cosmic design.

  Or something like that… Jin was too tired to ponder on the nature of fate and existence. He could do that later, when he reached his uncle’s little village. Come to think of it, Jin had never visited his uncle’s lands before. Then again, he never really knew much about his deceased mother’s family. All he knew of the man was that he was beloved by the peasant folk he ruled over, and that he was a kind and just lord, who ensured the safety and wellbeing of his people. Well, those are the rumors, but I’ll have to see for myself when I get there.

  At the very least, his uncle seemed like a decent lord who didn’t abuse his power – not like all the other degenerate lords, who literally stepped on the peasants who they were supposed to be protecting. Hamada was… complicated. On one hand, he didn’t really abuse their peasants or tread on their rights in any way. On the other hand, he really didn’t involve himself on their affairs, not even a little bit, which was detrimental

  Jin stood up. The stew would likely take an hour of constant boiling to finish cooking. It wouldn’t taste particularly good, but it wouldn’t be particularly bad either, despite the clear lack of salt or anything that would add any flavor to the dish. It would be hearty and filling, and both of those qualities were good enough for a meal in the forest. Besides, hare stew with mushrooms and carrots seemed far healthier than rice and fish.

  He glanced down at his bloodied hands and clothes, and sighed. I’m gonna have to clean up a bit.

  Luckily, Jin had built his campsite right next to a stream, where cold fresh water flowed in from the snowy mountains in the north. He walked off eastward, where the soft, but constant rushing of the stream echoed out into the clearing. It was only a few feet away, by his not-so-inaccurate estimation.

  There were fishes there as well, but they were of the smaller variety and he didn’t exactly have a net to catch them with; alas, fish stew was off the menu for now. The larger water systems, however, would likely hold quite a bit of salmon and trout. Unfortunately, he wasn’t anywhere near any of the major rivers and going out of his way to catch fish would waste way too much of his valuable time.

  Jin made his way into the stream and knelt down at its rocky banks. Grabbing Agito, he placed the whole of the blade into the cold water and looked on in silence as the currents washed away the blood that’d clung onto the deep crimson metal. Agito felt agitated and restless, like a wild animal just waiting to lash out at the nearest victim. He couldn’t blame his companion, however, as their nights in the woods had not been restful or quiet. Dark shadows lingered below Jin’s eyes as he pulled Agito out of the water and quietly noted how the blade seemed… much darker somehow. It used to be closer to the color of blood, but now it seemed far more intense – deeper in shade.

  Next, Jin removed his kimono and dipped it into the water. Thankfully, the blood hadn’t dried up yet and most of it simply dissipated into the water, though quite a bit did stick to his clothes and remained as dark brown blotches at the edges of his sleeves. That’ll do.

  For a moment, Jin’s mind drifted back to that horrible night when most of his clan was slaughtered. He’d tried to save as many as he could, but he would’ve died if he’d stayed any longer than was necessary and it seemed fate hadn’t thought of his kinsmen as necessary. Jin was certain there were a few who escaped the slaughter—not every single Murasaki lived in the castle and there were plenty more who traveled around Moyatani as adventurers. They were members of the branch families; still technically of his blood, but not quite close enough to inherit anything—and, truth be told, he didn’t care much about them. The branch families were too far away to really matter to him or affect his life in any way, save for those who remained in Murasaki Castle as a part of Hamada’s personal retinue. Of the main family, Hamada and Jin were all that was left.

  And now, he was the sole member of the main family.

  I’ll avenge all of you… every single one—even our servants. Jin thought bitterly, eyes staring out into nothingness. He had lost almost everything that mattered to him. The library, where he studied alone for hours and hours, without end; he wouldn’t be accessing that place anytime soon—at least, not without an army at his back. It did comfort him, somewhat, knowing the enemy wouldn’t be able to enter his clan’s repository of knowledge.

  The treasury, however, would likely have been ransacked. Everything of value would’ve been looted and distributed amongst the troops. The living weapons were an odd sort. They were extraordinary things with unnatural properties that set them a magnitude above most other weapons, but they also chose their own wielder and, thus, couldn’t be taken alongside the other treasures.

  Now, the only thing he had left was the heirloom, Agito, the clothes on his back, and his life.

  After cleaning the rest of his clothes, Jin used his newfound abilities to dry them instantly. One of the few things he figured out after absorbing the tiny bits of essence from the corpse of Yamamoto Gamashiki was that his Fire Salamander now boasted additional powers. In addition to the usual flame blast, Jin could now unleash and control an incredibly hot gust of wind from his left forearm, which he used to dry his clothes. The ability had likely come from the Gamashiki’s Phoenix, which – in its full potential – could create lethal firestorms from its wings and create powerful gales that shattered entire houses and toppled entire castles, one of the few legendary beasts that were impossibly difficult to acquire. Its weakness, when used by mages, however, was that it wasn’t powerful when used in tight spaces as its potential for wanton destruction posed a threat to everything—including its user. Hence why Jin hadn’t seen Gamashiki use this particular Beast’s abilities. Unlike Jin’s Fire Salamander, the Phoenix did not grant any flame resistance.

  Hanging his clothes on some
branches, Jin merely waved his hand and willed forth a hot gust of wind that quickly dried them out. His ability wasn’t nearly as powerful as the real thing, but it was useful enough and could grow to be even stronger with the right Beast Cores. The Turtle tattoo, which had been incorporated into his Fire Salamander in the form of shell-like patterns on its forearms, allowed him to summon a wall of flames from the ground that he could not control. It would flicker away after about a minute. The wall itself was much taller than him – about ten feet high and six feet wide. It also burned far hotter than his usual flames and couldn’t be extinguished.

  The ability was strange, but actually quite helpful.

  None of those compared, however, to the physical bonuses Jin received once he moved the tattoo to his chest. The Fire Salamander, by itself, granted him an insane body heat that would kill most people, but allowed him to survive in the dead of winter, shirtless. After Jin absorbed the Earth-Shaker Boar’s core, the Fire Salamander mutated and granted him increased strength, speed, and durability.

  The Turtle’s addition was the appearance of shell-like plates on both his forearms, almost resembling a Turtle’s shell, but not quite. They covered his left forearm all the way to the knuckles, but stopped at the wrist on the right. The plates were rock-hard, but almost weightless and they didn’t hinder his movements. Jutting outward a few inches, the shell-like plate closely resembled a buckler in function, though not in form. Essentially, he’d received a shield on his left forearm and a gauntlet on his right.

  The Phoenix, tiny though its addition was, vastly increased his natural regeneration. His magic alone was capable of repairing deep wounds and broken bones within hours or minutes. Torn muscles and ligaments would be fine after two or three hours. With the Phoenix, or its feathers, his regeneration pumped up to insane degrees. Now, he could heal a broken bone in seconds and some wounds simply healed so fast Jin hardly noticed they were ever there to begin with.