Chapter 9:
Chapter 9: Two Masks Under One Sky
The Day I Reincarnated in Another World and Became The Darkness Lord
[Scene - Ironwood Forest Cabin - Morning Training Ground]
The morning sun over the Ironwood Forest was a pale, filtered thing, struggling to pierce the dense canopy of ancient oaks and whispering pines.
In a cleared meadow behind the Velgrith family cabin, the air didn't just carry the scent of pine needles and damp earth; it crackled with the sharp, ozone-heavy scent of mana.
Darkan and Lyra Velgrith—former A-Rank adventurers whose names once commanded respect in the guilds of the Ironwood Kingdom—stood at the edge of the clearing.
Their eyes, tempered by years of surviving the continent's most treacherous dungeons, were fixed on the young girl in the center of the field.
"Fire Burst!" Rei cried out.
A sphere of concentrated heat erupted from her outstretched palm, streaking across the distance with the speed of a falling star. It struck a massive granite target stone, shattering it into molten fragments.
Without a moment's pause, she spun, her feet light on the grass.
"Wind Slice!"
A blade of compressed air hissed through the sky, invisible to the untrained eye but leaving a shimmering wake. It bifurcated a second target stone with surgical precision.
The cut was so clean that the top half of the boulder slid off the base in a slow, rhythmic grind.
Lyra clapped her hands together, a genuine smile softening her battle-hardened features.
"Perfect control, Rei. It’s the best I’ve seen in decades. Even at the Academy, there are third-years who haven't mastered the stability you're showing at your age."
Darkan let out a boisterous laugh, his hand resting on the hilt of the greatsword sheathed at his back.
"With skills like that, Rei, you’ll do more than just graduate. You’ll shake the foundations of nations one day!"
Rei smiled softly, the expression touching her lips but not quite reaching the depths of her eyes.
Her gaze immediately shifted toward the edge of the clearing, where a young boy stood with his arms crossed over his chest.
Kuro Velgrith remained motionless, a silent observer in the shadows of the trees. To his parents, he appeared as a quiet, perhaps slightly unmotivated child who preferred books to blades.
But Rei knew better. She carried ten percent of his Shadow Core within her—a fragment of the Abyss that allowed her to sense the crushing, silent pressure he emanated even when he was perfectly still.
She walked over to him slowly, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead.
"Not training today, Kuro-kun?"
Kuro shook his head, his silver hair catching a stray beam of sunlight. "Already did. You just didn't see it."
Rei hesitated, her heart hammering against her ribs. She remembered the cold void of the Abyss, the weight of the Black Book psychology that had defined his previous life as Kiyoshi Ishida.
She knew that while she practiced elemental magic, Kuro was likely manipulating the very fabric of time and shadow in his mind, running simulations of a thousand different battles.
"Anyway, Kuro-kun..." she whispered, her voice dropping so his parents wouldn't hear.
"Please... let me follow you. Not just in training, but in everything."
Kuro looked at her with his usual unreadable calm. His purple eyes were voids that seemed to swallow the light around them.
"You're already following, Rei. You have been since the day I pulled you from the dark."
He turned to leave, but paused, his voice turning clinical and sharp.
"Don't show your full strength again next time. Blend in. Act like a student who struggles with her incantations. Forget the power I gave you when others are watching. You'll be more useful to me as a hidden asset than a shining star."
Rei blinked, a faint, submissive smile appearing on her face. "Understood, Master."
---
The Eye of the Storm
That evening, the Ironwood Forest was bathed in the cold, silver light of a full moon. Kuro sat alone on the roof of the Cabin, the wooden shingles creaking slightly under his weight. He raised his palm toward the stars, and for a moment, the natural world seemed to hold its breath.
A black orb, small and dense as a collapsed sun, began to hover inches above his skin. It didn't emit light; it consumed it.
The ambient mana of the forest—the life force of the trees and the spirits of the wind—was sucked into the sphere with a silent, hungry gravity.
He could feel them.
It was a sensation he had grown used to since his reincarnation: the feeling of Eyes.
They peered from the high sky, from the dark mirrors of the Demon Empire, and from the divine thrones of the God Realm. Gods, Demon Lords, and cosmic entities all sensed a ripple in the Book of Fate that shouldn't exist.
"Enough," Kuro muttered.
He closed his hand, and the orb shattered with a silent pop. A wave of Soul Veil magic rippled outward, a passive psychological defense that made his presence appear transparent to any divine or demonic scrying.
He wasn't just hiding his power; he was erasing the very idea of himself from their minds.
---
[Scene - Demon Territory - The Lords Convene]
The Crimson Palace
Deep within the Demon Territory, under the oppressive heat of a black sun that never set, a convene was held. The four Demon Lords stood in a circle within a crimson palace carved from the bones of dead gods. At the center, the Great Demon Lord sat upon a high throne of obsidian.
A lower minion, shrouded in a tattered black cloak, knelt on the floor, his body trembling with terror.
"We've lost all visual links watching the boy, my lords. Even the mirrors of the Void just show black, cursed static. It's as if he no longer exists in the world of Velgrith."
The Eastern Demon Lord roared, his voice shaking the pillars of the hall. "He can block even our godly sight? A mere human child? What is he?"
The Great Demon Lord opened his blood-red eyes, his expression one of cold calculation.
"He is more than a human. He carries the aura of something dead and ancient—perhaps the reincarnation of the Dark Magic God Umbryas himself.Send spies into the Ironwood Kingdom. Into their schools, their markets, their shadows. We must find him before he finds us."
---
[Scene - The Gods' Realm – Elmyria's Throne]
The Cocoon of Light
In the Gods' Realm, a world of endless white clouds and golden pillars, the World Goddess Elmyria stood over her light pool. Her face was etched with a rare concern as she watched the ripples in the water turn to ink and then vanish.
"He severed the link," she whispered. "No god can see him now... the balance is tipping toward the Abyss."
The Fire God, standing behind her, trembled with a rage that manifested as flickers of solar flares around his crown.
"The summoning must be completed faster. We cannot let a Miscreant of Darkness walk the world of Velgrith unchecked."
Elmyria nodded, reaching toward a glowing cocoon floating in the air. Inside, the soul of a boy from modern Tokyo—Ryuto—lay sleeping. He was the Hero of Light, the designated counter-weight to the Darkness Lord.
She spread her divine hand, pouring the essence of the stars into the cocoon.
"Hero... take this. The Flame of Judgment, the Sky Blade. You were his friend once, and now you must be his judge. You will wake soon, and when you do... you will destroy that shadow."
---[Scene - Kuro's House - Secret Room]
The Birth of Shujin
Back at the Velgrith house, Kuro sat in a secret basement room he had reinforced with layers of illusion magic. He sat before a black mirror—a relic he had crafted that even the gods could not peer into.
He held a dark dye stone, an artifact that enhanced his ability to manipulate appearances.
With a thought, his mana surged. His silver hair, the mark of his lineage in this world, bled into a deep, obsidian black. In this form, he was no longer Kuro, the quiet son of adventurers.
"This world is like a chessboard," his voice echoed in the small room, sounding older and more cynical than his ten-year-old body should allow. "And if the First Hero and the Gods are the ones playing, then I must become the shadow behind the board."
He stood up, his black hair falling over his cold, purple eyes. "Shujin, Master of Shadows... the Darkness Lord. It begins now."
---
[Scene - Year 216 of the Velgrith Federation - Royal Magic Academy of Ironwood - A Few Years Later]
The Royal Magic Academy
The capital city of Valerion was a masterpiece of golden stone and white marble, its roads bustling with merchants and knights.
At the gates of the Ironwood Royal Magic Academy, two transfer students stood among the crowd.
Kuro had reverted to his silver hair, his demeanor quiet and almost timid. Beside him, Rei wore the black uniform of the academy, her eyes gentle and her smile kind. They looked like two ordinary childhood friends from the countryside, unremarkable in every way.
"We're childhood friends now, right, Kuro-sama?" Rei whispered as their luggage rolled in silently behind them. "Remember... you have to act like a gentle, average boy."
Kuro nodded calmly, his eyes scanning the courtyard and identifying the power levels of the students around them with clinical efficiency.
"And the follower must act like she doesn't hold the power to shatter continents."
Behind them, Darkan and Lyra waved goodbye with tears in their eyes, proud of their normal children. Kuro and Rei waved back, the perfect picture of filial piety.
Then, they stepped inside the gates.And so, two monsters entered the hall of humans, hidden behind a Perfectly Average Mask that the world was not yet ready to see.
---
✦ To be continued...
The morning sun over the Ironwood Forest was a pale, filtered thing, struggling to pierce the dense canopy of ancient oaks and whispering pines.
In a cleared meadow behind the Velgrith family cabin, the air didn't just carry the scent of pine needles and damp earth; it crackled with the sharp, ozone-heavy scent of mana.
Darkan and Lyra Velgrith—former A-Rank adventurers whose names once commanded respect in the guilds of the Ironwood Kingdom—stood at the edge of the clearing.
Their eyes, tempered by years of surviving the continent's most treacherous dungeons, were fixed on the young girl in the center of the field.
"Fire Burst!" Rei cried out.
A sphere of concentrated heat erupted from her outstretched palm, streaking across the distance with the speed of a falling star. It struck a massive granite target stone, shattering it into molten fragments.
Without a moment's pause, she spun, her feet light on the grass.
"Wind Slice!"
A blade of compressed air hissed through the sky, invisible to the untrained eye but leaving a shimmering wake. It bifurcated a second target stone with surgical precision.
The cut was so clean that the top half of the boulder slid off the base in a slow, rhythmic grind.
Lyra clapped her hands together, a genuine smile softening her battle-hardened features.
"Perfect control, Rei. It’s the best I’ve seen in decades. Even at the Academy, there are third-years who haven't mastered the stability you're showing at your age."
Darkan let out a boisterous laugh, his hand resting on the hilt of the greatsword sheathed at his back.
"With skills like that, Rei, you’ll do more than just graduate. You’ll shake the foundations of nations one day!"
Rei smiled softly, the expression touching her lips but not quite reaching the depths of her eyes.
Her gaze immediately shifted toward the edge of the clearing, where a young boy stood with his arms crossed over his chest.
Kuro Velgrith remained motionless, a silent observer in the shadows of the trees. To his parents, he appeared as a quiet, perhaps slightly unmotivated child who preferred books to blades.
But Rei knew better. She carried ten percent of his Shadow Core within her—a fragment of the Abyss that allowed her to sense the crushing, silent pressure he emanated even when he was perfectly still.
She walked over to him slowly, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead.
"Not training today, Kuro-kun?"
Kuro shook his head, his silver hair catching a stray beam of sunlight. "Already did. You just didn't see it."
Rei hesitated, her heart hammering against her ribs. She remembered the cold void of the Abyss, the weight of the Black Book psychology that had defined his previous life as Kiyoshi Ishida.
She knew that while she practiced elemental magic, Kuro was likely manipulating the very fabric of time and shadow in his mind, running simulations of a thousand different battles.
"Anyway, Kuro-kun..." she whispered, her voice dropping so his parents wouldn't hear.
"Please... let me follow you. Not just in training, but in everything."
Kuro looked at her with his usual unreadable calm. His purple eyes were voids that seemed to swallow the light around them.
"You're already following, Rei. You have been since the day I pulled you from the dark."
He turned to leave, but paused, his voice turning clinical and sharp.
"Don't show your full strength again next time. Blend in. Act like a student who struggles with her incantations. Forget the power I gave you when others are watching. You'll be more useful to me as a hidden asset than a shining star."
Rei blinked, a faint, submissive smile appearing on her face. "Understood, Master."
---
The Eye of the Storm
That evening, the Ironwood Forest was bathed in the cold, silver light of a full moon. Kuro sat alone on the roof of the Cabin, the wooden shingles creaking slightly under his weight. He raised his palm toward the stars, and for a moment, the natural world seemed to hold its breath.
A black orb, small and dense as a collapsed sun, began to hover inches above his skin. It didn't emit light; it consumed it.
The ambient mana of the forest—the life force of the trees and the spirits of the wind—was sucked into the sphere with a silent, hungry gravity.
He could feel them.
It was a sensation he had grown used to since his reincarnation: the feeling of Eyes.
They peered from the high sky, from the dark mirrors of the Demon Empire, and from the divine thrones of the God Realm. Gods, Demon Lords, and cosmic entities all sensed a ripple in the Book of Fate that shouldn't exist.
"Enough," Kuro muttered.
He closed his hand, and the orb shattered with a silent pop. A wave of Soul Veil magic rippled outward, a passive psychological defense that made his presence appear transparent to any divine or demonic scrying.
He wasn't just hiding his power; he was erasing the very idea of himself from their minds.
---
[Scene - Demon Territory - The Lords Convene]
The Crimson Palace
Deep within the Demon Territory, under the oppressive heat of a black sun that never set, a convene was held. The four Demon Lords stood in a circle within a crimson palace carved from the bones of dead gods. At the center, the Great Demon Lord sat upon a high throne of obsidian.
A lower minion, shrouded in a tattered black cloak, knelt on the floor, his body trembling with terror.
"We've lost all visual links watching the boy, my lords. Even the mirrors of the Void just show black, cursed static. It's as if he no longer exists in the world of Velgrith."
The Eastern Demon Lord roared, his voice shaking the pillars of the hall. "He can block even our godly sight? A mere human child? What is he?"
The Great Demon Lord opened his blood-red eyes, his expression one of cold calculation.
"He is more than a human. He carries the aura of something dead and ancient—perhaps the reincarnation of the Dark Magic God Umbryas himself.Send spies into the Ironwood Kingdom. Into their schools, their markets, their shadows. We must find him before he finds us."
---
[Scene - The Gods' Realm – Elmyria's Throne]
The Cocoon of Light
In the Gods' Realm, a world of endless white clouds and golden pillars, the World Goddess Elmyria stood over her light pool. Her face was etched with a rare concern as she watched the ripples in the water turn to ink and then vanish.
"He severed the link," she whispered. "No god can see him now... the balance is tipping toward the Abyss."
The Fire God, standing behind her, trembled with a rage that manifested as flickers of solar flares around his crown.
"The summoning must be completed faster. We cannot let a Miscreant of Darkness walk the world of Velgrith unchecked."
Elmyria nodded, reaching toward a glowing cocoon floating in the air. Inside, the soul of a boy from modern Tokyo—Ryuto—lay sleeping. He was the Hero of Light, the designated counter-weight to the Darkness Lord.
She spread her divine hand, pouring the essence of the stars into the cocoon.
"Hero... take this. The Flame of Judgment, the Sky Blade. You were his friend once, and now you must be his judge. You will wake soon, and when you do... you will destroy that shadow."
---[Scene - Kuro's House - Secret Room]
The Birth of Shujin
Back at the Velgrith house, Kuro sat in a secret basement room he had reinforced with layers of illusion magic. He sat before a black mirror—a relic he had crafted that even the gods could not peer into.
He held a dark dye stone, an artifact that enhanced his ability to manipulate appearances.
With a thought, his mana surged. His silver hair, the mark of his lineage in this world, bled into a deep, obsidian black. In this form, he was no longer Kuro, the quiet son of adventurers.
"This world is like a chessboard," his voice echoed in the small room, sounding older and more cynical than his ten-year-old body should allow. "And if the First Hero and the Gods are the ones playing, then I must become the shadow behind the board."
He stood up, his black hair falling over his cold, purple eyes. "Shujin, Master of Shadows... the Darkness Lord. It begins now."
---
[Scene - Year 216 of the Velgrith Federation - Royal Magic Academy of Ironwood - A Few Years Later]
The Royal Magic Academy
The capital city of Valerion was a masterpiece of golden stone and white marble, its roads bustling with merchants and knights.
At the gates of the Ironwood Royal Magic Academy, two transfer students stood among the crowd.
Kuro had reverted to his silver hair, his demeanor quiet and almost timid. Beside him, Rei wore the black uniform of the academy, her eyes gentle and her smile kind. They looked like two ordinary childhood friends from the countryside, unremarkable in every way.
"We're childhood friends now, right, Kuro-sama?" Rei whispered as their luggage rolled in silently behind them. "Remember... you have to act like a gentle, average boy."
Kuro nodded calmly, his eyes scanning the courtyard and identifying the power levels of the students around them with clinical efficiency.
"And the follower must act like she doesn't hold the power to shatter continents."
Behind them, Darkan and Lyra waved goodbye with tears in their eyes, proud of their normal children. Kuro and Rei waved back, the perfect picture of filial piety.
Then, they stepped inside the gates.And so, two monsters entered the hall of humans, hidden behind a Perfectly Average Mask that the world was not yet ready to see.
---
✦ To be continued...
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