Kunoichi

Shino

Humans aren't made to take on so many monsters. No matter how much I'd trained, the human limit in wielding the three curses was barely enough to take out a dozen of those creatures.

What I was facing against were hundreds of them, and more kept pouring in.

What was keeping me alive wasn't those three curses that were part of me, but the fourth one, the one Tyrant himself carried.

"How can it be so much stronger?" I asked myself after punching a semono, my fist going through it and transforming it into fine dust.

The more I thought about it, the better the dots connected. A new curse appeared right after I met this man, and it wasn't just any curse; it was the strongest of them all. If there was any doubt before, I was now convinced about it. He was Tyrant, no doubt about it.

This battle was shaping up to be the final one, and with Chigira helping me, I felt both at ease and all the more tense.

What kind of feelings did that man have for someone who was born merely months ago? It made no sense for him to be so obsessed with her. But then again, I also knew very little about Chigira.

"When did I become like this?" I asked myself.

"When did I become so indifferent to everything around me?"

Us of the Akira clan have spent all of our lives being punished if we ever dared to feel, and it was only after being cut off that I finally had the courage to be true to myself. Now that I wasn't bound anymore, my past self felt so far from me, so cold, and so sad.

Lost in thought, I barely noticed a fist flying my way. Even if my senses were amped, my reflexes had a limit. At least that was the case before, but now, with the power to do no evil, I quickly dodged the monster and cut it to pieces.

Another one came from behind, but with Mizaru I had no blind spots. They were usually silent, but with so many of them around, they also made enough noise for me to hear where their attacks were coming from.

The one thing I couldn't enhance was my focus. My number of limbs was also insufficient, and I soon found myself surrounded with no room to make any mistake.

Above me, a fight to the death was taking place at speeds I couldn't even track. Branches, water, fire, wind, and every element were now being flung around by Chigira, as if nature itself were at her fingertips. This was the primordial form of magic from which curses had evolved, and it was truly a thing of beauty.

Before her—no, all around her—the man going by the name of Tanaka kept appearing and disappearing. Sometimes I caught glimpses of parts of him, and whenever I saw his face, I saw a cheeky grin facing Chigira.

While Chigira used everything this world had to offer, Tanaka limited himself to only the curses we all knew. He traveled at the speed of sound, teleported, used sound waves to attack, and listened to everything that was going on around him. He had no blind spots, and there was no way to catch up to him. On top of that, he had the power of Sezaru to increase his strength, making every hit he landed shatter the trees, ice, or dirt Chigira used to defend herself with.

"Mizaru and Kikazaru for awareness and movement, Sezaru for strength, and Iwazaru for range."

From between small hills of white dust, I acknowledged his mastery over those abilities. He used them in perfect combination, and that was all the more clear when I noticed that he had only suffered a couple of minor scratches—way less than Chigira at least.

"Still, his breath has become uneven..."

From behind me, the punishment of looking at those two hit me like a truck.

A kick to the head that I barely blocked with my arm threw me through the hordes of white monsters and dust, stopping only when another couple of them caught me and smashed me into the ground.

I tried to get back up instantly, but when I put weight on my left arm, I collapsed. Pain ran through my body, having my brain scream for me to stop. My arm was broken, no doubt about it.

With so much time wasted trying to get up, I soon realized that I was done for, and that was when my smile finally faded.

That's right, it wasn't until then that I noticed that I had been smiling this whole time. A battle to the death it was, but I wasn't doing it as an order anymore. I was doing it for myself and for somebody else. So I smiled. 

With the little time I had left, I shouted, hoping that I could somehow break the curse and reach Chigira.

"Forget about him! Forget about the mission! Chigira, if you get away, then it won't have been for nothing!"

Having said what I wanted—encouraging the girl above me to live her life somewhere hidden—I closed my eyes, waiting for the strike that would end me.

"Yes... She should do that... That right... But I must say, it's way too sudden for me to..."

"If you know you could have done more, get up and do it then."

"That voice..."

The final blow was taking way too long, and that's when I also heard a voice that I had no business hearing. It was a bored yet stoic voice, one that I only now realized how much I'd missed.

I looked before me and saw a whole lot of dust instead of monsters. I looked behind, and I saw her.

"O—"

She throws a mask on my face, not letting me call to her.

"If you're this energetic, put it on. I can't fight with you looking so lame."

It was a mask I had seen before. She'd given it to me long ago in the orphanage, but I refused it, laughing at her for wearing one herself.

She was a woman with some weird quirks, but she was the one who'd been there for me the longest.

"Just for the record, I've never been here," she said, lending me her hand to help me out. I nodded and grabbed her by the forearm.

"Got it!" I said.

"And don't expect me to stay here if things get dangerous."

"You've done more than enough already, Shadow!"

I spoke the first codename I could think about. Codenames had never been my forte, and both of us knew that. Still, I couldn't help but think that I'd seen a smile under that mask.

"I'll take care of what I can, but don't expect too much. You go find a way to talk to your girlfriend."

"I'll take you up on that," I said as I picked up a long twig that had fallen from above us.

"Oh... and... I've always thought that you're so cool for keeping up this hobby. Please never give up on it!"

"Whatever you may be going on about..." the kunoichi answered and jumped into the fray of monsters. It was clear that she was also a great assassin, for she was wielding the power to do no evil casually.

I looked up, and I saw those two taking a break to have an argument. It was the perfect moment to try something out.

"How could you do this to so many innocent people?" Chigira shouted, and then she flinched slightly. That was the confirmation; it worked.

I put the twig under my shirt, near my chest, and thought thus:

"Chigira, forget about protecting one another for a second. It's holding us back. Let's finish this guy off together!"

Soon after, I heard some words directly in my head. Together with those words, I saw a smile on the face hidden by her green hair.

"Yes! Welcome back, Shino!"