by DB King
“Yes,” he said. “I can grant you revenge.”
Arn Longhand looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded, refilled his glass, and began to tell the whole story from the beginning.
End of Book 1
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Kensei 1: Rebirth of the Sword Saint
PROLOGUE
There was a certain comfort in expecting things to happen. He, the greatest mage of his generation, was rather proud of his ability to predict people and their future deeds, their future goals, and whatever else they’d do that might affect him. He had done so with his enemies, predicted their every move so that his own attacks came in at just the perfect moment, bypassing any hope of defense they may have had. He despised the thought of being reflexive; it was always better to plan ahead and move before your enemies did.
He had seen his own rise to power. He had seen the exact moment that he would sit upon the highest throne, reserved only for the most powerful of mages—the Infinite One, upon whose hands the magical forces danced freely. He had seen the glory of his rule, of the mighty works and marvels built in his name. He saw cities rise and fall under his dominion—entire civilizations ground to dust at his heels as the people bowed their heads in reverence and praise.
He was the conqueror—the mightiest mage and the greatest warlord.
He saw all of that.
He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that all of that would happen.
And they did; he climbed the highest of steps and sat upon the highest of thrones, and reached where no mortal man has ever dared reach. He’d thought he’d seen every single possibility—every single strand of fate.
He did not expect this.
“Why do you stand against me, my beloved generals?” His heart cracked apart with each word. They, each one of his closest friends and allies, stood there with their weapons drawn and raised towards him, their eyes burning with murder and hatred.
There was no sense to any of this; they were the closest of friends. They fought and bled together in the fields of battle, journeyed together in depths of the foulest places, and stood side by side upon his coronation as Mage-Emperor.
“My friends, has someone corrupted your mind against me?” It was certainly possible; his generals, powerful they may be in their own right, were far from the most powerful mages, where he and he alone stood at the very top. Someone whose power neared his own could have very easily warped their minds. Yes, that was exactly what happened; there’s no possible way these men and women would possibly rise up against him.
And yet he had reached the pinnacle of power; there was no one else, whose level neared his own.
His eyes darkened. The Mage-Emperor raised a gauntleted arm, magical energies dancing at the tips of his fingers. “My friends, I will free you from whatever has clouded your minds.”
They all stepped forward, the Hollowed Knight, his first friend, leading them. “We are in control of ourselves, oh great and powerful Mage-Emperor.”
“Then why… why do you do this? Why do you raise your weapons against me?” None of this was making any sense; they were loyal to him, weren’t they? They’d sworn their absolute loyalty to him in blood and friendship. Were those bonds so easily shaken and destroyed? Were they... were they never truly allies to begin with?
“Our dream, if you’ve forgotten, was to save this world from tyranny and strife and war,” the Hollowed Knight declared. His armor was forged of Hellbound Steel, pulled from the darkest depths of Hell itself and quenched in the blood of demons. It glinted with a dark and powerful light. “And yet here you are, the world’s greatest tyrant, the destroyer of nations and cities. Have you any idea the lives you’ve ruined, Mage-Emperor? Have you any idea the pain that you’ve caused this world? I have looked back and saw that everything would’ve been far better without you. You, who have brought such suffering and torment in the name of your quest to become the greatest of all, do not deserve to sit upon that throne!”
The Hollowed Knight, the Burning Queen, the Crimson Paladin, the Wind Tamer, and the Dragon Prince; all of them stood against him, the greatest of his allies—now, the greatest of his enemies.
“I have united this world and brought peace and prosperity to all peoples!” He shouted back, pushing himself up off his throne. Rage bubbled within him, and fire and lightning danced around him, like withered bands of cloth stuck in a harsh and unforgiving gale. The floor cracked at his feet. The earth itself shook at the display of his unfathomable power. “There was carnage and bloodshed, but they were necessary! Look around you! The greatest empire this world has ever seen, built on progress and science—not superstition and cruelty. Children no longer fear sickness, famine, and poverty. I have built a utopia!”
Burning tears fell from his eyes. “That its foundations are soaked in blood and gore, I do not deny; I do not deny the cruelty that I have unleashed for the sake of peace. I do not deny the crimes of my soldiers and the needless deaths they have caused. I deny none of it, and yet you, my friends, call me a tyrant?”
“If that is what it takes to bring this world to heel, then so be it; I shall be a tyrant!” Hellfire and lightning burst out of the Mage-Emperor’s form, arcing and burning outwards in all directions. “I shall be the greatest tyrant this world will ever know! None shall overtake me! I will be a god!”
The Hollowed Knight released a heavy sigh, one of profound sadness and a deep longing for simpler times—when they had lived in peace and quiet in their lonely little village in that mountaintop. The Knight’s sword glinted in the faint light as he charged forth. The others followed after him, warriors of renown and legend, warriors whose names would be etched upon history forever.
Their clash shook the earth and shattered entire mountain ranges. Whole islands were sunk, whilst others were raised from the depths. Verdant plains and grassy fields became realms of fire, ash, and embers. Cities and towns disappeared almost instantly, and the map of the world was remade. Their battle lasted seven days and seven nights, never stopping, until—at last—only the Hollowed Knight remained; all the others had fallen, cut down or reduced to ashes by the Mage-Emperor’s godlike powers.
And yet that very same emperor now lay wounded, limping, his seemingly divine powers finally spent. His blood pooled around him, seeping into the desolate soil that had once been an emerald grassland, teeming with life and color, dotted with tiny villages and little rivers that ran through its center. The Mage-Emperor fell to his knees, eyes wide, his body covered in wounds that refused to heal.
The Hollowed Knight took a single, shaky step forward. He too sported wounds and injuries that would soon take his life; unlike the Mage-Emperor, however, the Knight had enough strength to do what he needed to do for the last time. And so he took another step forward, gradually making his way towards an old friend, who’d lost his way.
The Mage-Emperor huffed and allowed himself to fall backwards, having lost all strength in his limbs. The Hollowed Knight loomed over him. “Do you remember when we were children? We used to play by the stream that ran under the mountain. We caught fish and let them go right after….”
The Mage-Emperor huffed and forced out a smile, blood pouring out of his lips and onto the soil. “I remember you could never catch anything, no matter how hard you tried; didn’t your grandmother used to chase us all around the village whenever we used loose clothes as towels?”
The Hollowed Knight chuckled and groaned as he fell to his knees right beside the Mage-Emperor. “Those were simpler times, weren’t they?”
“They truly were… do you regret it? Do you regret our dream?”
“I… I regret only the means we used to achieve it.”
“I understand—the fate of the Hollowed Knight should’ve been mine, not yours. You would’ve been a better
leader of men….”
“I suppose none of that matters now, eh?”
“If you could, would you do things differently?” The Mage-Emperor asked, his eyes looking upwards to the clearing skies. “If you could go back… if you were given a second chance; would you change your fate?”
“I’d probably just stay home if I could….”
The Mage-Emperor smiled. “I do regret the slaughter… I regret all the lives I’ve taken and all the lives that were lost in my name. If I had a second chance, I would….”
His voice trailed off, the light leaving his eyes.
For what seemed like an eternity, there was only darkness—an endless darkness. In that time, he dreamed of a second chance, of a life that he could live, of choices he’d make differently. But, second chances were for good people; with all the things he’d done, there was no doubt that this endless void was to be his afterlife. Time had lost its meaning and he occupied himself with dreams and hopeless longing.
And then—a light sprang forth.
There were voices.
He didn’t recognize any of them.
With every last ounce of his will, the Mage-Emperor reached for the light….
CHAPTER 1
“Do not rely solely on the strength of your arms, Jin,” his father instructed. The middle-aged man raised his wooden tachi and laid its edge over the surface of Jin’s left thigh, then over his stomach, then his back, and, finally, over his chest. “Use the strength of all your muscles—your whole body. All must move as one when you strike; do you understand, Jin?”
The training sword’s glossy surface felt cold against his bare skin. He grimaced at the fact that the wooden tachi was thicker than his arms and that his own wakizashi could barely qualify as anything more than a long knife. Then again, he was only three years old; he couldn’t hold up a weapon that was true to scale no matter how hard he tried. Thus, the tiny, curved thing that he now held with both hands, raised over his head. “Yes, father; I understand.”
“Show me your strike.” For now, Jin had three choices before him: a simple downward slice that would swerve to his right, a downward slice that transitioned into a thrust towards his imaginary opponent’s face, or a full-body vertical slash that would use up every muscle he had to slice open an enemy from his head to groin. There were, of course, hundreds of other possible choices in his clan’s Murasaki Style Kenjutsu, but all of them required him to either switch his stance or move more than once. His father, Hamada, wanted him to kill with but a single stroke.
Jin breathed out a cold wisp of air. Around him, blades of tall grasses danced in the wind and shimmered with the midnight dew, still clinging onto their slick surfaces. They stood at the center of a clearing, where silence was their only witness amidst the tall, looming trees, whose red and brown leaves fluttered with the throes of the howling gales that came down from the mountains in the distance.
Breathing in, Jin closed his eyes. His father, Hamada, stood in silence, watching and waiting patiently. His grip over his training sword’s hilt loosened by just a tiny bit—that had been a pointless use of his strength, after all. His shoulders relaxed and so did every other muscle in his body. Elasticity of mind and body were the core tenets of the Murasaki Style Kenjutsu. Mastery over the power gained from extreme relaxation to extreme tension within the blink of an eye was what had carved their clan’s name into legend.
Jin brought his blade down. His muscles felt almost liquefied, like slick tar; it was far from what he needed it to be. Hamada often spoke of how one’s muscles must be akin to water when performing their clan’s fabled Kenjutsu. He was far from this point, but no other three year old child could do what he could do. Jin’s eyes snapped open and every muscle in his body tensed and hardened as he swung his sword down, before swerving it to the right. A forceful gust blew outwards from his form and flattened the grasses around him.
That… was almost perfect.
His face crumpled into a grimace; where had he gone wrong? Were his shoulders too relaxed? Were his thigh muscles too lax? Were his muscles, overall, simply underdeveloped? He was only three years old, after all. And yet Jin couldn’t force away the feeling of disappointment that welled in his chest. Almost perfect wasn’t nearly good enough; it needed to be perfect—it needed to be more than perfect.
His musings crumbled at the sound of his father’s clapping—there was no one else here, anyway. The man stepped forward and knelt beside him, laying his calloused hands over Jin’s left shoulder. “That was amazing, my son; I have never seen anyone grasp the basics of the Murasaki Style as quickly as you have. What you did today would’ve taken lesser men years to even come close to—and yet here you are, my son, three years of age and already at one with the sword.”
No, Jin could be better—he will be better. But… compliments and praise were both well and good, he supposed. “Thank you, father; I will endeavor to master our clan’s blade.”
Hamada, as he’d observed, was a man who hated wasting his words on nonsense; in fact, he hardly said anything at all. Whatever came out of his mouth was both honest and important; both of those mostly came in the form of commands, which the servants followed to the letter. The Murasaki Clan, after all, was known to all of Moyatani as a clan of great scholars, philosophers, and honorable warriors, who valued honesty above all. Hamada had given him praise, which meant the man had truly meant his words.
Jin wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to feel about that. He only wore a Keikogi and Hakama that hardly fit him.
Hamada straightened up and walked forwards seven steps from Jin. He was tall, far taller than most people—and Jin wasn’t just saying that because he was three. Hamada wore a kuromontsuki, where the family crest hung proudly over his heart—a demonic face with fire and lightning in its eyes. His long, black hair was tied to a ponytail, and his face was shaved clean. A single scar ran down his forehead and through his right eyebrow. Though much of his body was covered in cloth, Jin saw the layers upon layers of iron-clad muscles, rippling beneath all of it; his father, after all, was a great warrior, even among great warriors, besting numerous champions and masters in duels to the death—and he did all that without the aid of magic, only his skill and the strength of his body.
The older man then raised his wooden blade in front of him in the Turtle Guard Stance, with the hilt hovering just above his left foot and the blade itself pointed towards the heavens; it was the Murasaki Style’s defensive stance. Jin raised an eyebrow; was Hamada thinking about sparring—with a bloody three-year-old?
“Attack me with everything you know, my son; I will only defend—I will not fight back.” Hamada declared. “If you manage to hit me even once, I will elevate your training to include the styles of other clans.”
Jin’s eyes widened. Hamada had never been one for following tradition, especially if said tradition was a waste of resources and plainly illogical. One of the strongest traditions in all the clans of Moyatani was that learning the Kenjutsu of other clans was a taboo; it was an act akin to shunning one’s family heritage, since most clans were sure that their sword style was the best and that all the others were inferior. Hamada, it seemed, didn’t care about that tradition either; huh, he could actually respect the man for doing that.
After all, in his past life, he didn’t give a damn about tradition, either.
Jin grinned. “Very well, father… I’ll make sure to go easy on you.”
Hamada smiled and met his gaze. “Oh, I’m so scared.”
Jin’s eyes steeled. He considered his options. Obviously, the aggressive stances were out, since he couldn’t hope to overpower someone who had more muscles in one forearm than Jin had in his whole body, which immediately ruled out both the Black Moon Stance and the Crimson Petal Stance as both of those relied on using an excessive amount of force to crumble an enemy’s defenses. There was also the fact that his father’s training sword was much taller than him, though Hamada did say he wouldn’t be attacking—only guar
ding. Jin knew the basics of every stance, and only one of those seemed to be useful for this particular duel.
Jin lowered himself, almost to a crouching position with his torso leaning forward and his thighs bent down. He stood on his toes. He held his sword at his waist, its “sharp” end sticking outwards all the way behind him, like a tail—sort of. This was the Leaping Tail Stance; its purpose was simple: killing one’s enemy in one strike from long distances, using the entirety of one’s body to generate absurd amounts of momentum. He wasn’t very good at it, and the stance had so many nuances and movements that he could train for a whole year and not know half of them. Still, he knew enough.
But, could he truly break through Hamada’s defenses?
The Guard Breaker Stance was ill suited to someone of his… stature.
Oh well, there’s no point in overthinking this. The Turtle Guard Stance was meant to be the foil to every other stance, save for the Guard Breaker; it was meant to be unshakable, unassailable—at the cost, of course, of mobility and offensive capacity. But then, what was the point of attacking if your enemy was running straight into your blade? What truly made the Turtle Guard Stance deadly was its inherent synergy with his clan’s secret technique—Force Redirection.
Hopefully, Hamada wouldn’t go that far in a duel against him, a three-year-old… right?
Every muscle in his body relaxed as he breathed in and breathed out, each time forcing his limbs to seemingly liquefy—and yet it was still more akin to thickened tar more than it was to water. Jin pushed the thoughts away and cleared his head. The only things his mind ever conjured were his sword, his body, and his enemy. The wind blew harshly, howling as it came and forced the grasses and the trees to dance to its tune. Jin’s eyes snapped open, and he dashed forward, unseen forces billowing outwards from his form. His movement carried with it so much momentum that stopping him outright would be simply impossible.