The Seryu Military Company Picnic
At first I was shocked that I had torn my master’s clothes, but once I regained my composure, the injuries covering Fujigasaki Rinka’s body drew my attention far more than the torn fabric itself.
A massive black palm print marked her stomach, surrounded by deep purple bruises. I had wondered why she was wearing a turtleneck in the middle of summer; now it was obvious she had chosen clothes that could hide the bruises spreading across her entire upper body.
“M-Master… what are these wounds?”
“I never expected you to rip your master’s clothes, Ryuta. You really have become a complete pervert, just like Kiyohira said.”
Fujigasaki Rinka deliberately dodged my question. I took another step closer and asked again. The fact that someone existed who could do this to my master signaled a serious situation, so I refused to let her evade me.
“Stop changing the subject. What happened?”
“Haa… Since this is a secret matter of our school, I suppose I must tell you. There’s a bench over there. Let’s sit and talk.”
Fujigasaki Rinka pointed to a spot as if she had already scouted the location of every bench in the area and led me there. The bench offered a pleasant view of the valley. We sat down together, gazing at the ravine.
“Do you remember what I told you when I first began teaching you Shinkaiyatsude?”
“Hmm, you went all the way back to your master’s master’s master, right?”
To be honest, I didn’t remember the details clearly—only the general outline. Fortunately, the status window’s explanation for Shinkaiyatsude contained a fairly detailed account, which was how I knew the names of all the previous inheritors.
Even now, the explanation window was floating before my eyes.
The fisherman Sato Gen of Tateyama boarded an ocean-going vessel and, while intoxicated by narcotics, dreamed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
In the unfathomable abyss that no ordinary person could reach, he saw an octopus god seated upon a throne in a city carved from stone. Startled, Sato Gen asked, “Who are you, great one?” The octopus god simply replied, “How astonishing,” and drove a tentacle through the center of his forehead. In that instant, Sato Gen comprehended several truths.
When he woke from the dream, Sato Gen began to rampage uncontrollably. He declared that he had learned martial arts from the deep-sea octopus god and was therefore no longer a fisherman and would not work.
Dozens of his fellow fishermen could not accept a man who suddenly refused to work in the middle of the ocean and tried to lynch him.
Instead, dozens of men were miserably defeated by one. Because his fighting style resembled that of a demon, Sato Gen came to be called “Oni.” Upon reaching land, he subjected himself to grueling, bone-carving training and fully established the martial art he had learned from the octopus god as Shinkaiyatsude.
Shinkaiyatsude has been passed down solely through one-to-one succession. Sato Gen transmitted it to Soda Haruto, Soda Haruto to Fujigasaki Rinka, and Fujigasaki Rinka to Ryuta Taira.
The name in the status window looked a little strange, but according to what Fujigasaki Rinka had told me, Sato Gen created Shinkaiyatsude, and it had been handed down through Soda Haruto to her and then to me as a one-to-one transmission. Was there some variable here?
“My master, Soda Haruto, had a close friend from another school—a martial artist from the ancient style Tetsue Shinto-ryu. That martial artist died during a spar, and my master took his orphaned son as an adopted child. At the time, I had only just become my master’s disciple and was learning Shinkaiyatsude.”
Hmm. It seemed this secret stretched across both the previous generation and Fujigasaki Rinka’s own era. I could already see where the story was heading…
“The name of that martial artist’s son was Takakusaki Gengo. He would be eleven years older than me. From the age of eighteen, Takakusaki Gengo was consumed by revenge. He begged my master to teach him Shinkaiyatsude, but Master absolutely refused. The founder, Sato Gen, had established the school’s rule that the art could only be passed to a single successor. I was only seven at the time, but I had already trained in Shinkaiyatsude for more than half a year, so even the adopted son Takakusaki Gengo could not be taught.”
Takakusaki Gengo… It was a name I had never heard before. The next part of the story would probably be about him secretly stealing the art. It was a rather classic tale, so I could already picture the rest.
“Perhaps…”
“That’s right. Takakusaki Gengo installed cameras and listening devices throughout our dojo and stole the essence of Shinkaiyatsude that Master was teaching me. Because he had been taken in as an adopted son, he handled all the cleaning and chores around the dojo. It didn’t take him many years to master Shinkaiyatsude, after which he fused it with his father’s school, Tetsue Shinto-ryu.”
Fusing Shinkaiyatsude with another martial art… That was extremely dangerous. The abyss was an incredibly hazardous source of energy. Simply learning it could drive a person insane, and in worse cases it could cause physical mutation. Only the precisely refined techniques of Shinkaiyatsude minimized the side effects enough for humans to practice it. Merging it with another style would disrupt that balance and intensify the backlash.
“That was an incredibly risky thing to do.”
“Indeed. After creating Mumatsu Anya by fusing Shinkaiyatsude with Tetsue Shinto-ryu, Takakusaki Gengo eventually went mad. The problem was that he didn’t go completely insane. He lost his humanity and became a monster who slaughtered people according to his whims. My master went to subjugate Takakusaki Gengo and subsequently went missing. They called it a disappearance, but he’s most likely dead.”
If even Fujigasaki Rinka’s master had fallen, the enemy was truly terrifying. Now I understood why she devoted herself so obsessively to training. She was preparing to take revenge on Takakusaki Gengo.
“Then these injuries…?”
I glanced at Fujigasaki Rinka’s torn front and spoke. She blushed slightly at my gaze and covered herself with her arms.
“Where are you looking~! Since when did you become the type to stare at your master’s body? These wounds are from fighting one of Takakusaki Gengo’s four disciples.”
“Four disciples… Are they like the Four Heavenly Kings or something?”
“Oh? You knew? Takakusaki Gengo created an organization called Anya-ji that operates in the shadows across East Asia. He calls his four disciples the Four Heavenly Kings.”
I had only said it as a joke, but they really were called the Four Heavenly Kings… It seemed that when Takakusaki Gengo lost his mind and his humanity, he also lost his naming sense.
“What happened to your opponent?”
“Kahahahat! If I ended up like this, what do you think happened to him? I beat him to the brink of death, but right before I could finish him, the monks of Anya-ji rescued him and fled. This is why one-to-one transmission is so inconvenient. When the enemy comes at you with numbers, it gets annoying.”
Although Fujigasaki Rinka had been injured, it seemed she had still won the fight. That was a relief. Suddenly I remembered why she had come to Japan—rest and confirmation of the Japanese fighting world. It looked like those words hadn’t been a lie after all.
“Then what about confirming the Japanese fighting world?”
“Exactly. I came to check whether any schools in the fighting world had fallen victim to Takakusaki Gengo’s schemes or been absorbed as his subordinates. And I also came to give my disciple Ryuta a warning, along with an order as your master.”
A warning and an order. If it was something she had to deliver in person rather than over the phone, it was obviously related to the story about Takakusaki Gengo she had just told me.
“So what are the warning and the order?”
“To be wary of Takakusaki Gengo and Anya-ji, and to kill every last member of Anya-ji—including Takakusaki Gengo, who stole our school’s secret techniques.”
Be careful, but kill them all? It was a contradictory statement, but it only proved how dangerous they were.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to help you properly for the next six months. I have my own mission.”
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t know whether it will take six months or a year just to catch their tail.”
That was fortunate. I had to enter St. Francisco Academy, so I wouldn’t have been able to help much anyway. The fact that locating them would take time was a relief.
It had been a very informative conversation that let me learn about a new enemy. It also resolved a question I had felt when I first became aware of Fujigasaki Rinka’s existence. When playing Megacorp’s Youngest Son, a breaking news report appeared saying the UMC champion had gone missing. That champion must have been Fujigasaki Rinka.
I had wondered how someone as strong as her could disappear after realizing the power of Shinkaiyatsude. Now I finally knew who was responsible. It had been the work of Takakusaki Gengo and the organization he founded, Anya-ji.
Since Anya-ji never appeared as a force in the game, it seemed Fujigasaki Rinka and Anya-ji had mutually destroyed each other. But with me here, I would make sure she survived and help her cleanly eliminate both Takakusaki Gengo and Anya-ji.
“It seems the story is over. Shall we head back to the others?”
“But if I show up in torn clothes, won’t the kids think something strange?”
She had a point. Still, with those purple bruises covering her entire upper body, they would probably think something even stranger… The palm print on her stomach might even make them suspect she had been having extremely intense sex.
“You’re right. Changing clothes would look suspicious too.”
“Then let’s do this. Just say I got bored and went in for a hot spring bath.”
“Sounds good. Though it’s a shame.”
When I said it was a shame, Fujigasaki Rinka looked at me with curious eyes.
“What’s a shame?”
“If it weren’t for those injuries, I could have seen Master’s bare skin clearly.”
The moment the joke left my mouth, a flash exploded in front of my eyes. Fujigasaki Rinka’s fist had struck my nose. From the warm liquid flowing down, it seemed my nose was bleeding. Just how hard had she hit me?
“Y-You have no shame when speaking to your master!”
“It was just a joke.”
“I am a woman who only allows her naked body to be seen by the man who defeats her. A weak disciple like you…!”
Leaving behind those strange words about only permitting it to the man who could defeat her, my master dashed into the pension at tremendous speed.
“Wait… As far as I know, Master has never lost to anyone… If that’s the case, then…”
For the sake of Fujigasaki Rinka’s dignity, I decided not to think any further. She was still my master. I had to protect her honor. If her disciple didn’t look after her, who would?
Fujigasaki Rinka entered the hot spring completely naked. Although her injuries looked severe at a glance, they were at a level that could be quickly healed by Fujigasaki Rinka’s healing techniques now that she had reached a high level of mastery in Shinkaiyatsude.
As if to prove it, the bruises on Fujigasaki Rinka’s body had already disappeared after she entered the hot spring. She had already healed all the internal damage earlier; what remained on her skin had been nothing but traces, so the treatment was even easier.
The reason she had maintained the bruises was to give Ryuta Taira a sense of caution, but thanks to her perverted disciple’s strange comments, Fujigasaki Rinka was now simply irritated. To think he would spout such obscene nonsense about wanting to see his master’s bare skin… Just as Kiyohira had said, the once good-natured boy had become completely twisted. Talking like a total pervert.
“Stupid disciple…!”
Fujigasaki Rinka’s face was extremely red as she cursed Ryuta Taira. Whether that flush came from the hot spring water or from embarrassment was a fact that only Fujigasaki Rinka herself knew.
