The Oath Upon the Bloodstains and the Unbending Sword
"Creeeak. SLAM."
The old wooden door swung shut, and a heavy silence settled over everything.
Blood-red dusk was drowning the training yard behind the Class E Annex in the color of gore.
Elena, left alone, stood frozen as a statue.
Fresh blood seeping through the white bandage wound around her wrist was already growing cold.
And in her ears, the languid voice the man had tossed over his shoulder as he passed still circled, cool as frost.
'Don't wrench your wrist to force a grip on it.'
'Cut as though you're simply tossing the blade along its path.'
A careless, bloodless remark. And yet that handful of words had shattered, in a single stroke, the great chains that had bound Elena's soul for three years.
The Arden family's sword had always been violence itself.
Bend the wrist and cram the mana in. That was the family's teaching, and the way of her older brothers. Elena, who could hold no mana within her, had ruined the ligaments of her wrist trying to imitate it.
A useless failure. For three years she had swung her sword as though carving her own flesh apart, all to tear away that cruel brand.
But the man just now had pointed her down the exact opposite road — the truth that the very act of wrenching her wrist to squeeze out mana was a poison choking the path her sword wished to travel.
"...As if throwing it."
Steadying her breath, Elena regripped the wooden sword. The moment she released the force squeezing her fingers, the weight of the hilt settled gently across her palm. She loosened her shoulders, gave her body over to the grain of the wind, and stepped toward the oak post standing tall at the center of the clearing. The torque of her foot driving into the earth flowed up through her hips, crossed her shoulder, and surged unchecked into the point of the blade. Riding that supple current, Elena tossed the wooden sword out into the empty air.
"SHWIIISH— KWAAM!"
Not a single grain of mana rode the strike. And yet the axis of her body, gravity, and the trajectory of the blade meshed together and tore the air apart. A condensed gust exploded like a whip.
"CRRRACK—!"
The parched dirt of the training yard burst open in a dead-straight line. A colossal slash-mark three full strides long split the earth, and the oak post beyond it rolled away, cloven in two.
The wind died. The dust settled.
Elena looked down at her trembling hands. There was no pain in her wrist at all. The joint that had always screamed was breathing free and clear. With nothing but the pure principle of the sword, she had split the ground and cut the post in half. This was the true realm of the Arden secret arts — a height even her brothers had never reached.
"Ah......"
A trembling gasp of awe slipped through the girl's parched lips. A single tear dropped onto the bloodstained bandage. The despair that had crushed her for three years had just shattered to pieces at one careless remark from a stranger.
As she calmed her surging heart, Elena's gaze drifted, almost despite herself, to the ground. Scattered along the dusty path the man had walked lay dark flecks of deep crimson — blood, raising its iron reek into the cool evening air.
"...Blood?"
An ominous premonition needled at her chest, and Elena moved as if in a trance. The bloodstains pooled thickest where the man had stopped short, wracked with coughing, and trailed in a long line all the way to the annex threshold. And there, right before the doorstep, lying on the cold stone floor, was the white cotton handkerchief he had dropped.
Elena crumpled to her knees on the spot. With hands shaking uncontrollably, she lifted the handkerchief with exquisite care. Fresh blood had soaked thick into the white cloth — enough to weigh it down heavily — and a faint warmth still lingered within. The reek of iron stabbed at the tip of her nose, and her mind swam.
'Teacher... he knew. He knew everything.'
He had seen through, at a single glance, the misery of a child cast aside for her inability to hold mana — and that was why he had opened the absolute principle of the sword to her. But the moment he imparted that great enlightenment, the man had coughed up blood. She could still see his desperate back as he hurried away, scrambling to hide the stains.
'To save a failure like me...'
It had been the price of a miracle — the man shaving away his own vitality, burning his very soul to open her path of the sword. Knowing his body was crumbling, he had staked his life to light her way.
"Ah... aah......"
An unbearable wail tore out of her. A guilt that wrung her heart crushed her whole body. Her miracle was a cruel harvest, bought with her teacher's life.
Elena pressed the blood-soaked handkerchief tight against her chest, leaving no gap between it and her heart. Her falling tears spread and bloomed across the stains. This was the only person who had reached out a hand when the entire world had abandoned her — the teacher who had given her a reason to live, even while coughing up his own blood.
Deep within her reddening eyes, a cold flame caught and roared. It was blind worship of the one who had saved her — and a desperate obsession that swore it would cut down the world itself for his sake.
"...This sword was honed from my teacher's life."
Elena's murmur, the handkerchief cradled to her breast, was calm to the point of being chilling.
What had taken root in the girl's red eyes was a maddened oath that nothing in this world could ever bend.
"FWUMP."
Ethan hurled himself without ceremony onto the old leather sofa, sending up a puff of dust. The springs groaned in protest, but to a man who had slept curled in battlefield mud, it was a bed beyond reproach.
"Oof... my back."
Kneading his stiff neck, Ethan let out a yawn. The place was practically a ruin, cobwebs and mold and all, but to Ethan it was a perfect sanctuary. He rummaged in his pocket and popped a cheap peppermint candy into his mouth.
"Crunch."
His molars cracked the candy, and a sharp tang of peppermint bloomed across his tongue — washing away the lingering taste of blood at the back of his throat.
'Coughing blood on day one. This body of mine really is a demanding old lord.'
Soul Necrosis — the parting gift of the blade he had driven through the heart of the Demon King's Four Great Generals, the Monarch of the Abyss. With his mana circuits burnt to ash, the smallest use of mana, even a gust of cold wind, was enough to bring the blood up. The old army medic's pronouncement — a year of life left, give or take — had been no exaggeration.
'Even lasting the year will be a stretch.'
And yet not a trace of grim resolve sat on Ethan's face. He had survived five years of rolling through war zones. Titles like hero and master had long since curdled into a bad joke. His one and only wish was to while away his days napping somewhere no one would bother him, and then quietly slip away.
In that sense, the abandoned Class E Annex was a workplace sent from heaven. Buried deep in the forest, far from the main building, it drew no visitors, and its student body numbered all of three or four — counting the little brat he'd just watched practicing her cuts.
'Draw my pension every month, keep quiet and keep breathing for a year, then leave. Perfect.'
That was when it happened. From the training yard outside the annex, a thunderous roar rolled across the ground.
"RUUUMBLE—"
The windowpanes rattled. Ethan peeled his eyelids halfway open and shot a groggy glance outside.
'Looks like she found the feel of it on her own.'
It had been advice tossed out half-heartedly, because he couldn't stand watching a promising kid wreck her wrist out of sheer stubbornness — and somehow she'd taken it to heart and split the ground open.
'Well. No danger of her being carried off with a snapped wrist, then.'
When a student got hurt, the instructor was the one stuck writing tedious incident reports. He'd dodged a pointless pile of paperwork, and that was that. Any further meddling was politely declined.
"Yaaawn... sleepy."
Ethan hauled the old blanket up to his chin and sank into deep sleep in an instant.
The next morning, soft sunlight slanted through the window lattice. The forest's cool mist was lifting, and the fresh green scent of grass drifted in. Ethan rose at a glacial pace, thumping his stiff lower back.
Black hair sticking out in every direction, lips drained of color — he let loose a cavernous yawn and shrugged on his rumpled navy coat.
"Mmmh... slept well."
Meaning to have his morning stretch, he shuffled to the front door in his slippers and pulled it open.
"CREEEAK—"
The unoiled hinges shrieked, the door swung wide — and the instant he moved to step out, Ethan's feet rooted to the floor.
On the cold stone ground, a girl knelt, composed and utterly motionless. Her white uniform was immaculately arranged, both wrists wrapped in bandages, and Elena's red eyes gleamed clear as morning dew. Before her knees sat the handkerchief — washed clean and pressed into a perfect square — and a porcelain bowl with steam curling gently from its surface. The bitter-green smell of herbs wafted up thickly.
Elena bowed slowly at the waist, deep and formal.
"Master. Were you coughing?"
A clear, cool voice. She must have kept vigil all night, and yet the girl's face shone with a sublime, almost holy devotion.
"...Huh?"
A profoundly unintelligent sound fell out of Ethan's mouth. His brain stalled at the sight of her kneeling before his doorstep at the crack of dawn like a memorial statue, offering up medicinal broth.
"The grace you bestowed upon me last night, Master... I will not forget it until the day this life runs out."
Elena raised the porcelain bowl reverently in both hands.
"I understand now that you carved away at your own precious body to save a failure such as me. You opened my path even as you coughed blood for it..."
The rims of the girl's eyes reddened and welled. The desperate guilt soaking through her voice sent a chill crawling up Ethan's nape.
"I combed the cliffs all night for the herbs most prized for restoring the blood, and brewed them myself. A fresh pot has been waiting, newly boiled every hour, so that yours would never go cold."
Elena's eyes blazed with a blind, burning light.
"From this day forth, for the sake of your comfort, I will pour out even the blood in my own veins without reserve. I shall be your shield — and the blade that cuts down your enemies."
She meant every word of it. She looked ready to open a vein on the spot.
Ethan swallowed a baffled cough.
'...Why is she like this first thing in the morning?'
He'd coughed up a little blood because the night wind was cold, that was all — and now she was carrying on about his sacrificed body and donating her own blood. The weight of it was crushing.
Ethan dug through his pocket, produced the cheap peppermint candy left over from yesterday, and thrust it out right under Elena's nose.
"Uh... kid. You saying crazy things because you're hungry? Want this?"
Elena's gaze fixed on the candy. Immense gratitude and awe came flooding across her red eyes like a tide.
"A restorative tonic, bestowed by my master's own hand... I shall carry it next to my heart for all eternity."
Watching the girl cup her hands with ceremonial care and receive the candy as though it were a holy relic, Ethan screamed internally.
The conversation was going absolutely nowhere.
Ethan was scratching his head in helplessness, just turning to close the door, when it happened. Rough military boot-heels shattered the silence of the forest path.
"CLACK, CLACK—!"
A group of five or six stormed into the front yard with insolent strides, and at their head stood the head supervising professor of Class A — Hermann von Berg. Pinching his nose shut with a handkerchief, Hermann swept his gaze over the crumbling annex.
"A garbage heap that wouldn't pass for a pigsty. The stench of rot is simply overwhelming."
Hermann's contemptuous eyes found Ethan standing in the doorway — the rumpled coat, the hair like a magpie's nest — and a vicious sneer curled across his mouth.
"So you're the parasite instructor squatting in the dean's office? Dressed like some back-alley hustler — the dean really has gone senile, hasn't he."
Hermann drew a document from his coat and flicked it onto the ground.
"This is official notice from the board of directors. Class E, having produced no results, is permanently abolished at the end of this semester. Not a single coin of funding will go to that failure of an Arden girl who cannot even use mana."
Hermann jerked his chin at Elena, still kneeling, and sneered.
"One week from now, at the semester-opening mock tournament, I'll pit you against one of our own Class A flunkers. You won't last even a second, so pack your things and crawl away while you can. A trash instructor and a trash disciple — why, it nearly brings a tear to my eye."
Under the arrogant provocation, Ethan picked at his ear and yawned.
"Don't come raising a ruckus in front of someone's home first thing in the morning. Abolished or not, I couldn't care less, so long as the pension keeps coming."
Ethan waved a hand as though brushing away a fly and took hold of the door handle. He intended to coast for a year and leave regardless; getting back to his nap on the sofa took priority.
"Go play at the main building. We're closed."
Hermann's face flushed scarlet. He spat behind Ethan's back and let the venom fly.
"The gall of a third-rate hustler who's never once held a sword! Squatting here playing house with that crippled girl who can't even use mana — you vermin...!"
That was the instant the insult sliced through the forest air.
The wind stopped dead. The birdsong vanished; so did the whisper of leaves. A savage killing intent, sharp enough to flay skin from bone, pressed down upon the entire atmosphere — and in the red eyes of the girl who had been kneeling on the ground, the last flicker of reason was erased.
"SHING—"
The girl's hand closed around the hilt at her waist. It happened in the blink of an eye. A dark afterimage tore through the air, and Elena planted herself in front of Ethan like a bolt of lightning. A waterfall of killing intent came crashing down upon the napes of Hermann and his assistant instructors. They recoiled in horror, and the blood drained from Hermann's face until it was paper-white.
From between the girl's parched lips slipped a murmur, cold as the grave.
With the cold point of her wooden sword leveled as though to skewer Hermann's throat, the taut killing intent swallowed the forest whole.