Curses and Will Chapter 21: Chapter 5: He Who Forged the Legend

Read chapter 21 of Curses and Will by Simply No One on NovelPedia.

I knew one thing with absolute certainty. If that chained abomination ever broke through whatever was left of those bonds and I wasn't ready to stop it, the result would be a disaster none of us would walk away from. The thought sat in my chest like rust, slow and corrosive, refusing to be ignored. So I made up my mind. I would train. I would sharpen myself into something capable of standing between that monster and everyone I'd already decided was worth protecting. The next morning I rose before dawn. The world outside was hushed and gray, the faint smell of morning mist still clinging to the empty streets. I sat cross-legged and meditated until the first rays of sun reached the window, trying to settle the storm that had taken up permanent residence somewhere behind my ribs. After that, I trained. Each swing of the blade tore through the stillness of the yard, raw and unrefined. My arms ached. My chest heaved. Sweat ran down my skin in steady lines, but I didn't stop. Amilia woke a few hours later and found me still at it. She didn't interrupt. She simply watched from a distance, and her eyes caught something I couldn't quite hide from her even at that range. My swings had changed. No longer steady or calm the way Jonathan had once tried to teach me. Each strike now carried desperation, rage, grief, all of it tangled together into something rougher and less controlled than what I'd been before. She chose silence instead of comment. Rather than speaking, she settled further back, closed her eyes, and began her own meditation, focusing on keeping her own curse in check, giving me the space she'd apparently decided I needed. She understood, without my having to explain it, that I was already carrying more than I had room for. Later that day, once my body had finally given out from exhaustion, she came and sat beside me on the ground, her expression gentle but carrying real intent underneath it. "Let's go to Kibō no Mura," she said. "That's where Jonathan's master lives. The one they call the legendary master of the Sword Demon. He's still alive there." The words landed like a blade to the gut. Jonathan's master. The man who had trained the one I'd come to call my teacher. The man responsible, in some indirect way, for everything Jonathan had become before that night took him from me. How was I supposed to face him. How could I stand in front of someone who had built the Blade Demon out of raw material, knowing I'd failed to keep his student alive, knowing I'd watched Jonathan stand alone against everything while I ran, powerless to do anything but obey his last order. The grief clawed at me again, pulling me back down toward the dark space where despair tended to drown out everything else trying to surface. For a moment I wanted to refuse her outright. To say I wasn't worthy of standing in that man's presence. That I never could be. But then I thought of Annya. Of Amilia. Of Hikari. Of every life already scarred by curses and loss that I'd somehow ended up tangled into. If I genuinely wanted to be the shield standing between them and whatever darkness this world kept producing, then refusing wasn't actually a choice available to me. I had to fight. I had to stain my own hands so theirs could stay clean. I had to walk whatever path Jonathan had paved with what he'd given up to buy me the time to keep walking it. So I nodded. "Let's go." The journey to Kibō no Mura took less than a day. Amilia stayed behind to continue her training with Hikari, focused on strengthening what healing magic she'd already started to master. Hikari sent another apprentice along with us instead, a quiet, observant young man named Suga, who spoke rarely but seemed to notice everything regardless. The road itself stayed peaceful the entire way. No demons. No ambushes. No nightmares waiting in the shadows to test us further. Just the sound of footsteps against packed dirt, wind running steady across open grass, and the growing weight of whatever waited fo