With the first, faint sliver of dawn painting the horizon in hues of soft gold and pale rose, the pillar of fire raged, a brilliant, defiant crimson against the awakening sky. It was a raw, untamed thing, a second sunrise born from the depths of the ocean, its heat a palpable wave that washed over the desolate beach, turning the night’s lingering chill into a sweltering, humid haze. The seawater hissed and boiled at its base, sending thick plumes of steam into the air that mingled with the smoke and the impossible light.
Ao stood frozen, his jaw slack, his mind, which had known only the cold, hard certainties of a thousand battles, now a complete and utter blank. He had seen death. He had delivered it with his own hands more times than he could count. He understood its finality, its quiet, irreversible stillness. Dead men stayed dead. They did not erupt from the sea in a column of incandescent fury. This… this was an anomaly, a variable he had not calculated, a grotesque and beautiful impossibility that defied every law of the world he knew.
Slowly, as if being born from the very heart of the inferno, a figure began to rise. The flames parted around him like a reverent curtain, revealing a young man with unkempt black hair, his tattered farmer’s clothes steaming but miraculously unsinged. He floated effortlessly from the fire, the water cascading from his form turning to mist before it could even touch the sand. The deep, bloody gash across his torso was still there, a stark, crimson line against his pale skin, but he seemed not to notice it, his posture relaxed, his expression calm.
He looked… different. The fear, the desperation, the frantic, cornered energy of the boy who had been beaten and broken was gone. In its place was a quiet, unshakable confidence, a stillness that was more intimidating than any battle cry. His eyes, once a familiar, gentle brown, now glowed with the deep, burning crimson of a raging fire. He had been remade. Reborn.
Floating an inch from his outstretched palm was a single, perfect crystal, glowing with a pulsating, fiery red light. It was his new heart. His new will.
He looked at Ao, and a slow, easy smirk spread across his face, a silent, confident challenge that needed no words. He took a step forward, a purposeful, steady motion, as if he were simply stepping onto solid ground.
But there was no ground beneath him. Only air.
His confident smirk vanished, replaced by a look of pure, cartoonish panic. His arms pinwheeled, his legs kicking at the empty space beneath him.
“Whaaaaaaa!”
The scream was a high-pitched, undignified sound that shattered the awe-struck silence. He tumbled from the air, a chaotic mess of flailing limbs, and landed with a loud, hollow thud on the soft, forgiving sand.
From within her cage of wind, a sound, choked and sudden, escaped Yukari’s lips. It was not a sob of grief, but a single, beautiful, and utterly unrestrained giggle. Floating serenely in the sky, Sun Yoon’s weary, sorrowful expression finally broke, a deep, hearty laugh echoing in the quiet dawn.
The boy, no matter what impossible power he had just awakened, no matter what divine trial he had just endured, was still, at his very core, the same lovable idiot.
“Ow, ow, ow…” Raito groaned, pushing himself up from the crater his body had made. He patted himself down, a look of genuine annoyance on his face as he brushed the sand from his clothes. “Why is there never any solid ground when I need it?” he complained to the empty air. He stood, his movements still a little shaky, but the despair was gone. In his right hand, he still firmly grasped the splintered hilt of his broken wooden sword. With his left, he gently took the glowing red crystal, its warmth a comforting, living presence against his palm, and tucked it securely into his pocket.
He looked up, his crimson eyes locking onto the hulking, bewildered warrior standing a few paces away. The fear was a distant echo now, replaced by a new, unfamiliar fire. His smirk returned, wider and more confident than before.
“So,” Raito asked, his voice a calm, easy challenge that cut through the sound of the crackling flames behind him. “Ready for round two?”
Ao’s bewildered expression shattered, replaced by a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. “You should have been dead!” he roared, the words a raw, incredulous cry of a killer whose perfect work had just been undone.
“I was,” Raito replied with a shrug, his tone almost casual. “But a book saved me.” He glanced up at the silent, floating figure of Sun Yoon, a quiet, knowing look passing between them. The old hermit simply nodded, a silent confirmation of a secret Raito was only just beginning to understand.
“You are one slippery bastard, boy,” Ao snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He hefted his massive katana, its bloodstained edge glinting in the first rays of the rising sun. The brief flicker of confusion and doubt in his eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, renewed, and absolute purpose. “Then I shall personally witness your death this time around.”
He took a heavy step forward, his immense frame radiating a palpable, murderous intent as he began to march towards Raito.
“Raito! Kick his butt!”
The voice, a clear, fierce, and wonderfully familiar shout, came from the cage of wind. Yukari was on her feet, her hands pressed against the shimmering barrier, her silver eyes blazing with a faith that was as bright and as hot as the pillar of fire Raito had just been born from.
Raito groaned, his confident smirk faltering for a fraction of a second. “You’re expecting way too much from me,” he called back, though he couldn’t hide the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. He turned back to face the oncoming storm of a man, his body falling into the familiar, solid stance of the Ittou style.
Okay, he thought, his gaze fixed on his opponent, his mind surprisingly calm. I don’t really know how to use this yet… but please, help me.
He didn’t know who he was talking to—the crystal in his pocket, the forgotten swordsman, or the newfound strength in his own heart. But something answered.
A low hum, almost inaudible at first, began to emanate from the broken hilt in his hand. A single, brilliant spark of crimson light flickered at the splintered end of the wood. Then, with a sound like a forge igniting, a blade of pure, red energy erupted from the hilt. It grew in an instant, a three-foot length of incandescent, fiery light that pulsed with a raw, untamed power, casting a warm, crimson glow on his determined face.
Raito looked at the impossible weapon in his hand, at the way the light danced and shimmered, a living extension of the fire that now burned in his own soul.
“Nice,” he said.
The second round was about to begin.
Ao dashed forward, his massive body moving with a velocity that defied all logic, the sand exploding from under his feet with each powerful stride. He was a blur of motion, a living missile of steel and rage, the air itself seeming to scream and part before him. He brought his giant katana down in a devastating vertical arc, a strike meant not just to cut, but to shatter, to obliterate, to turn his opponent into a red smear on the sand.
But unlike before, Raito did not flinch. He did not cower. He met the attack.
He brought his new blade of light up to parry, and the world seemed to hold its breath. But this was not a clash of brute force. The moment Ao’s monstrous katana made contact with the blade of pure energy, Raito’s stance shifted. His knees didn’t buckle. His arms didn’t break. Instead, he pivoted, his feet gliding across the sand with an effortless grace, turning Ao’s overwhelming downward momentum into a sideways force. The massive katana, its power completely redirected, slammed into an empty patch of sand next to him, sending a geyser of grit and saltwater into the air.
In that single, stolen moment of Ao’s overextension, Raito counterattacked. His own blade was a blur of crimson light as he delivered a swift, horizontal slash to Ao’s side.
Just as before, Ao scoffed, his free hand moving with contemptuous speed to swat the attack away like a bothersome insect. But this time was different.
Slice.
The sound was quiet, almost lost in the roar of the dying fire behind them. It was not the dull thud of energy against flesh, but the sharp, clean sound of a blade finding its mark. A thin, red line appeared on the back of Ao’s gauntlet, and from it, a single, perfect drop of blood welled up, a crimson jewel against the dark steel. Raito had inflicted a wound.
“How?” The word was not a roar, but a low, guttural growl of pure, unadulterated disbelief.
“I don’t know,” Raito replied, his voice calm, his crimson eyes shining with a serene, focused light. “But my mind is clear.”
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“Don’t be so cocky, boy!” Ao roared, his disbelief instantly transmuting into a fresh, burning wave of fury. He stepped back and unleashed a storm of steel, his massive katana a whirlwind of slashes, thrusts, and cleaves that aimed to overwhelm, to suffocate, to simply erase the boy who had dared to defy him.
But Raito did not lie. His mind was clear. It was the same quiet, focused clarity he had found in the endless, repetitive rhythm of mopping the floors of the Jinlun warehouse. There was no past, no future, no fear. Just the present. Just the task at hand. His crimson eyes, no longer clouded by terror, tracked every single arc of the blade, every subtle shift in Ao’s massive shoulders. He didn’t try to match the warrior’s strength. He didn’t need to.
He moved.
It was not the frantic, desperate scramble of before, but a dance of pure, minimalistic efficiency. A slight sidestep to avoid a thrust. A gentle turn of his blade to deflect a slash, sending it skittering harmlessly into the sand. A quick duck under a horizontal swing. His footwork was solid, his movements economical, each action a perfect, practiced echo of the techniques he had absorbed from the tattered pages of the old book. They were no longer just learned motions; they were now a part of him, as natural and as effortless as breathing.
“Not bad,” a voice, ancient and full of a critical, almost amused pride, whispered on the wind, a sound only Sun Yoon could hear. “But he still has room for improvement.”
The old hermit, still floating serenely in the sky, nodded to himself. “That will come with time,” he murmured, his own voice a quiet, proud response. “But this… this will suffice.”
Yukari, her own fear now completely gone, replaced by a profound, unwavering faith, heard the old hermit’s quiet words. “Who are you talking to, Grandpa?” she asked, her gaze never leaving the impossible, beautiful dance below.
Sun Yoon smiled, his gaze still fixed on the battle. “Nothing, young Yukari,” he said, his voice a warm, gentle thing. “Just an old friend who won’t go away.” He looked at the boy on the beach, at the blade of pure fire in his hand, and a genuine, radiant pride filled his ancient eyes.
“This is young Raito’s potential,” he declared, his voice a quiet, final affirmation against the rising sun. “It is time for him to finally rise.”
Yukari looked from the old hermit to the boy she loved, and she smiled, her own heart full of a quiet, unshakeable certainty. She didn’t understand how this had happened. She didn’t know where this power had come from. But she didn’t need to. She simply believed.
Raito struck again. He swung, a horizontal arc blazing upwards. A wave of pure, incandescent fire, shaped like a crescent moon, roared from the blade of light. It shot across the sand towards Ao, its heat so intense it turned the damp ground to glass in its wake.
Ao met the attack not with fear, but with a roar of his own. He brought his massive katana around in a powerful swing, the sheer force of it creating a wall of displaced air, a blast of wind pressure that slammed into the fiery wave. The two forces collided with a deafening hiss, the flames dispersing into a shower of harmless, glittering embers that died before they even touched the ground.
“So, you became a Core user, boy,” Ao commented, his voice a low, dangerous rumble, though his eyes held a flicker of genuine surprise.
But the expression that crossed Raito’s face wasn’t one of triumph or confidence. It was one of pure, unadulterated shock. His mouth was slightly agape, his crimson eyes wide as he stared at his own hand, then back at the spot where the fire had been. “Wait,” he muttered, his voice a quiet, incredulous thing. “I can do that?”
“Are you mocking me, boy?!” Ao’s voice was a thunderous roar. The casual, almost accidental display of such power was a deeper insult than any wound.
“No, no, I’m not!” Raito yelped, snapping back to the present and quickly bowing his head in a gesture of pure, instinctual apology. “I’m just as shocked as you are! I swear!”
The apology only seemed to make Ao angrier. “Then be enamored with your new power, boy,” he snarled, his voice a low, venomous thing. “But you will soon learn that a Core is not the end-all, be-all.”
He lunged. His goal was clear. Just like every other Core user he had ever felled, all he needed to do was push Raito hard enough, to force him to overuse his newfound power until the inevitable backlash—the dizziness, the headache, the crippling exhaustion—left him a helpless, broken thing on the sand.
The dance of swords continued, not for minutes, but for what felt like an eternity as the sun climbed higher into the morning sky. The duel was a blur of silver and crimson, a storm of steel against a blade of pure fire, and neither gave an inch. But their goals, the very wills that fueled their blades, were worlds apart. Ao, a creature of pure, violent ego, fought for the exhilarating thrill of it, to add another head to a collection that would prove his status as the strongest. But Raito’s goal was simpler. More mundane. He fought for a future. For a small farmhouse, for shared meals, for the quiet, easy laughter of the girl he loved. He fought for a wedding.
Soon, the tide began to turn, slowly, imperceptibly at first, then all at once. A new, shallow cut appeared on Ao’s arm. Another on his leg. His tactics, the relentless pressure designed to exploit the weakness of a Core user, were not working. He was pushing, and pushing, but the boy in front of him wasn’t breaking. He wasn’t even slowing down.
How? Ao’s own breathing was starting to grow heavy, his powerful swings losing a fraction of their impossible speed. It wasn’t Raito who was getting tired. It was him.
Ao’s strikes grew duller, the sharp, clean lines of his attacks becoming heavy and predictable. His defenses, once an impenetrable wall of steel, now showed tiny, fleeting gaps. His complacency, the arrogant pride of a man who had never met an equal, was being systematically dismantled by a boy who fought not with pride, but with purpose.
Meanwhile, with each strike, each parry, each seamless pivot on the sand, Raito’s own movements became more fluid, more disciplined, as if the battle itself were the final lesson he had been missing. Why hadn’t he understood it before?
The memory was a sharp, frustrating thing. Back on that quiet, sun-drenched island, a few days after Grandpa Sun Yoon had given him the tattered book, he had been lost. He had stared at the faded ink, at the elegant, flowing diagrams of stances and strikes, but the words, the philosophy behind them, had been a foreign language. He had racked his brain, trying to force himself into the grand, glorious mindset of a swordsman, a warrior, a hero. But the more he tried to become something he wasn’t, the more the essence of the style had slipped through his fingers.
So he had just copied it. He had spent weeks mimicking the forms, his movements a hollow, clumsy echo of a technique whose soul he could not grasp.
Not until now.
In the heat of the battle, in the clarity of a mind stripped bare of all fear and doubt, he finally understood. He had been trying too hard. He had thought he needed a special mindset to comprehend the Ittou style, the mindset of a warrior. But he didn't. The correct mindset was one he had possessed his entire life. It was the quiet, focused calm of a janitor mopping a floor. It was the simple, honest effort of a farmer tending his crops. It was the gentle patience of the first time Miss Yinzi had taught him how to do the laundry.
Ao was wrong. The Ittou were not a clan of warriors. He was sure of it now. This style, this philosophy… it was not made to flaunt one’s strength, but to give everyone an equal opportunity. It was a sword meant for anyone. A sword for a nobody.
And the ‘Ultimate Sword’…
He remembered the last line of the book, the final, cryptic verse that had eluded him for so long. And in the heart of the raging battle, Raito smiled.
He knew what he had to do.
A quiet, confident smirk touched Raito’s lips, a silent declaration that the tide of the battle was about to turn for good.
“What’s so funny, boy?” Ao panted, his voice a ragged, frustrated thing. He took a heavy step back, putting a precious few feet of distance between them, his chest heaving, his own confusion a deeper wound than any of the shallow cuts that now littered his body.
“Nothing,” Raito replied, his voice calm, his crimson eyes shining with a serene, focused light. “Just… I think it’s time we end this little dance we have.” He raised his blade of pure fire, its light a steady, unwavering thing. “Come. I’ll show you the Ittou style’s ‘Ultimate Sword’.”
“I was thinking the same thing, boy!” Ao roared, his frustration and exhaustion momentarily forgotten, replaced by a fresh wave of arrogant fury. “And don’t forget, I was the one who broke Ittou Mitsurugi’s ‘Ultimate Sword’! The same technique won’t work on me!” He took a few more steps back, planting his feet in the sand, his entire body coiling like a spring as he prepared for a final, decisive charge.
“I know,” Raito said simply.
“Suit yourself!” Ao bellowed. He lowered his stance, the tip of his massive katana aimed directly at Raito’s heart, a single, perfect point of murderous intent. And then he charged. He was a rhino, a living battering ram of steel and rage, his feet churning the sand, his single horn a prelude to the death that was to follow.
Raito exhaled, a long, slow breath that seemed to still the very air around him. He didn’t raise his sword to meet the charge. He didn’t brace for impact. Instead, he reversed his grip on the hilt, the blade of fire pointing downwards.
Giving up? Ao’s mind, even in its battle-crazed state, registered the movement. Pathetic, as always.
With a single, fluid motion, Raito plunged the tip of the energy blade into the soft, damp sand at his feet. The sand hissed and sizzled, turning to glass around the point of impact, anchoring the blade firmly in the earth.
Ao was closing in, his roar a deafening, triumphant thing. Raito exhaled again, his focus absolute, his mind a quiet, empty space. He murmured, his voice a soft, almost inaudible whisper that was swallowed by the roar of the charge, the words a simple, familiar mantra.
“Just like removing a stubborn stain.”
Ao was upon him, a mountain of unstoppable momentum, his blade a silver streak aimed to impale. Just as the tip was centimeters from Raito’s chest, Raito moved. It was not a dodge. It was a shift. A subtle, almost imperceptible sidestep, no more than a few centimeters, his feet gliding across the sand with an impossible grace.
Ao’s blade screamed past him, missing by a hair’s breadth. But Raito’s grip on his own sword, still anchored in the earth, never wavered.
Now.
With a raw, guttural cry that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul, Raito pulled. He used the friction of the sand as a brace, the ground itself as his leverage, and with all his strength, he ripped his sword upwards in a devastating, rising arc.
The blade of pure, incandescent fire met Ao’s descending katana not with a clash, but with a shriek of tortured metal. The force of the blow, amplified by the unyielding anchor of the earth, was a thing of impossible power. The heat, a focused, white-hot line of pure energy, met the cold, hard steel of Ao’s sword.
It did not just break it. It melted it.
Ao’s legendary katana, a weapon that had tasted the blood of a thousand warriors, shattered into a shower of molten, glittering slag. But the arc of fire did not stop. It continued its upward path, carving a massive, diagonal gash across Ao’s torso, from his hip to his shoulder, searing through armor and flesh with a sound like a lightning strike.
“That… was not the…” Ao’s voice was a choked, incredulous whisper. The rage, the obsession, the sheer, overwhelming force of his will… it all vanished in an instant, replaced by a single, final, and absolute understanding. He had been defeated.
His eyes, wide with a shock that would never fade, rolled back in his head. And like a great, ancient tree finally succumbing to the axe, he fell, his massive body crashing to the sand, unconscious before he even hit the ground.
The winner of the duel was the nobody who rose.
