Shimo patiently and subtly ripped off a chunk of meat off of a lump of flesh he was given to eat. Most people would’ve already went to sleep but he simply couldn’t. Despite the relatively strange degree of tolerance that the Justicars have shown him he still couldn’t bring himself up to trust them. Not after chasing him and his sensei loosely throughout his entire stay with the man. Living without bonds to any particular affiliation made life a constant leaping contest between the Justicars and the hunter ninja coming after their heads, granted the hunter-nin had no wish to take his head as technically he wasn’t really a rogue. Justicars simple did not care…
The young man tore another chunk of the already cold dead animal. He couldn’t sleep because he was afraid that he’d be killed faster than his mind could perceive that something was wrong, he couldn’t fight those people because he had no idea if they were even to be fought, they certainly didn’t give him any reasons to fight them beyond being just all around assholes. Despite this world punishing even those sorts of transgressions, Shimo didn’t fancy hurting people just because of that. The man he was now trying to become, this new identity he was molding himself after wouldn’t do it.
The Yuki swordsman stood up and left his smelly tent, the man looked around and didn’t see anyone outside their tents. He heard a bunch of sounds coming from some of the tents that he didn’t want to really look into so the young swordsman walked towards the woods to check if Mana and the others haven’t come back. If these Justicars by any means really did plan to kill him the return of the magician and the crew would’ve put a stop to that plan so in case of their malevolence these men and women would’ve been dangerous to the returning ninja.
“Halt…” a growly voice stopped Shimo in his tracks, the young man took a brief glance behind him only to notice a man in a chest plate armor but exposed meaty arms with a body covered with pelts of various animals malformed together into a sewing that reminded the pelt of a chimera itself.
“Where are you going? Silverton said you were not to leave the camp” the man threw orders around Shimo continued to walk forward as in his eyes the man didn’t say anything noteworthy. He cared very little about what these Justicars wanted him to do, he would only follow his end of the promise as far as he wanted to do it, for as long as he believes it to be needed.
“You’re killing them right?” Shimo asked the man without looking back, his voice began getting more and more feint as the young man was treading deeper and deeper into the forest.
“Huh? What do you mean?!” the man wearing an entire zoo on his back and shoulders growled out angrily rushing forward after Shimo.
“I mean those underground things, you’re killing them? Before you lie to me remember that I was running from you for the longest time, no one knows someone better than its prey, a living prey can tell about its hunter more than the hunter’s mother” Shimo stopped and turned back at the man facing him with a cold stare.
“The fuck are you on about!?” the Justicar slipped his pelt off leaving just a helmet decorated with a head of a decapitated wolf on top of the steel, the added chunk of flesh and bone may have helped protecting the dumb head hiding underneath against common scumbags but not a serious fighter who could’ve cut through the very mantle and core of the planet if given a long enough sword.
“One who is getting picked off at the night does not camp around their danger zone. This here is a siege. You’re not the ones getting picked out during the night “ those “tunnel monsters” are. I don’t know just what they are but in your eyes they’re criminals. Normally I wouldn’t care too much but I’ve seen in first person how broad your definition of criminal is” Shimo replied. “Now will you attack me so I can cut you down? I’ve had no stomach for you scumbags this whole time so I’m gonna do those monsters a favor and deal with their dirty work”
The Justicar shouted out angrily flicking his hands back, metallic noises shrieked around his arms protruding steel claws around contraptions on the man’s arms. The chimera wearing Justicar launched himself forward, he was quite fast, faster than most outsiders Shimo had seen, the swordsman leaned to both sides effortlessly avoiding the man’s swings before jumping back.
“I thought you told me you’d strike me down?” the Justicar noted.
“You’re no trash I mistook you for but you haven’t shown me anything worth drawing my blade for” Shimo said, “As long as my blade is sheathed I am defending myself”
The clawed brawler launched himself at Shimo again, dipping his blades into the water and letting it splash around as the man ran on forward, pure chakra emanated from the man’s body extending the length of his claws and shaking the body of water apart by splitting it open. Shimo took a couple of brave backflips finding himself a solid footing on the surface of the water, he didn’t take any time to admire the man splitting the water into four parts, he had no time to spare, the water then came back together the way it was before it was split momentarily.
The Justicar launched another attack, Shimo dived down with a roll, finding support with his right arm and pushing his body up to deliver an upside kick to the man’s neck. Despite hitting a vital the man just swiped with his claws opening a small gash on Shimo’s leg. Slowly the young man realized that his body augmented itself so that his whole leg didn’t get removed from his body “ the man’s claws may have only been that long but the chakra put into the chakra conductive tool let him elongate the reach and strengthen the cutting power to the point where there was no comparison.
“He didn’t even budge…” Shimo thought to himself admiring the man’s endurance or his chakra level. He had some training, it would’ve been ironic if it turned out that these Justicars were once actually ninja themselves, a ninja that served no village was a rogue and rogues were criminals. The Yuki had no doubts that these men were Justicars, they certainly spouted the same amount of bullshit.
“You can’t take all of us on. Eighty trained fighters just as strong as me” the Justicar grinned. Shimo realized that the man was right “ not even their combined group could take all of those men on. Still, to take out as many of them in an all out fight would’ve been a better fate than to hide inside a cave and get picked off one by one every night.
“I won’t need to… I’ll beat you, I’ll beat whoever remains in the camp. I’ll trust those that descended into the caves for tonight’s hunt to my friends” Shimo replied checking on his bleeding leg, he may have put too much chakra into that wall “ the wound was just a shallow cut similar to how he’d have gotten cut with broken glass but he had no control over that. His body must’ve panicked…
“Beat? You mean you don’t plan to kill me, criminal scum!?” the Justicar shouted out rushing at Shimo, his body blinked out and flashed around the boy faster than the human eye could track. The Yuki moved his head when necessary, moved himself to the side when necessary, jumped to the side when necessary. Small scratches tore his dirty green top up and annoyed him to no end. The man was faster than Shimo could play around with.
It was a problem, an inner one that didn’t let Shimo concentrate on beating this man. Was it something that his newly discovered identity would do? Before the boy lived his life merely for showing off to women, before he even realized why men usually acted that way. At some point he saw the relationship between men and women when his sensei fooled around in the small pleasure towns all over the places they’ve been in. Soon Shimo realized that there was little to no justification for acting that way, being an overly courteous person but only to women, it made no sense, he gave the ladies more respect than that… That left him with a hole.
A hole to be filled with his survivalist lifestyle, soon after reuniting with Mana the young swordsman saw the disappointment and sadness in his friend’s eyes but he gave no fucks about it. Then he realized how stupid he was, that Mana has been looking for people to inspire and he himself was looking for an identity to adopt, one more fitting of a young swordsman looking to discover himself and so Shimo decided to wield his sword to protect people like Mana wanted him to. Would that kind of noble warrior fight such a battle?
The Justicar blinked out of perception again. His body flashed over Shimo’s and the wolf wearing man appeared behind the young swordsman. Shimo just stood there, the mountains, trees and even water around them where the level rose above their current level split in two further than Shimo could see. Even the tents so far away that they were just barely seen by the boy all split in two where the man cut him. Blood burst through in a wild arcing splash from Shimo’s exposed chest forcing the boy to cover it and stroke it with his hand while using his other hand to make a hand seal. Shimo froze the wound despite it not being too deep. It was still making him lose too much blood.
“Heh, what’s the matter? Your chakra has taken a huge dip, you’ve just stood there and took the hit augmenting your body to just stonewall it. Are you that suicidal?” the man snickered revealing himself to be a sensor who could sense chakra levels and its nature in people. It was a rare ability present in some ninja, ten to twenty percent maybe if it was natural, ten to twenty more discovered techniques that helped them achieve similar effects unnaturally.
“Was I that fast for you, kid!? Couldn’t even react!?” the Justicar continued to make fun of Shimo who just stood there with his head nodded down before fixing his glasses and turning around to face his opponent with an angry and cold stare. This wasn’t the look of a man worried about his identity, this was a look of a survivalist in his head.
Shimo removed his sheathed blade by untying it off of the cloth belt and showed it to his opponent by raising his hand while still holding it sheathed. “No. I saw you making the first steps so I wondered what kind of attack it’d be. It was faster than the neuron signals themselves so I had to accelerate mine using Lightning Release chakra. Then I saw you take your left leg forward and lean on it with all of your weight so I instantly identified a spinning slash, I wondered if you were some sort of an idiot, revealing your back to me for an entire microsecond. I decided to finally draw my blade and block your attack so I did just that, then I noticed the unnatural concentration of chakra in your blade so I realized it was a weapon breaking technique, if I blocked it with my Audra blade it’d have caused a shockwave powerful enough to destroy this entire country because you’re idiotic enough to not control your chakra and guide it through the body of your opponent because you like to show off. For that reason I sheathed my sword back and took the hit…”
The man stood there in awe listening to Shimo’s explanation. “You… You did all that in the span of my attack!?” the man shouted out refusing to believe Shimo’s explanation.
“It’s true, no one would have enough time to react to an attack like that because it moves millions of times faster than the signals between neurons and the brain. No human or whoever that functions like one would respond to such an attack, that being said… That’s why chakra is there, to enhance our shortcomings. A friend of mine believes it is a gift to us from some supernatural being, that we are to use that gift to benefit those without it. It’s really kind of silly when you think about it but I chose to wield my sword in the name of that fairytale because basically I had nothing better to swear my sword to at the time” Shimo shrugged.
The Justicar screamed out into the air, he prepared to attack again but this time the boy was ready. Shimo sheathed his blade and flashed through a couple of hand seals before his opponent could even move his foot, those brief lessons from Mana when they were training came in handy at last, Tanshu was no fool…
As the two warriors dashed to one another a storm of howling cold winds surrounded them both. Covering both ninja in cold white veil that reminded of the coldest winters on a faraway planet, far beyond the reaches of light in its star, beyond the regions where humans could still calculate its distance from its star. Shimo’s body instantly began to compensate for the cold, he was used to it, trained himself inside of such storms but his opponent was less likely to have done so.
“Wolf Bite Barrage!” the Justicar yelled out snapping his claws together and forcing them apart a couple of times in a barrage of attacks that would’ve grinded any flesh inside his reach into countless pieces but his steel froze solid, cracking and crumbling into snowflakes that covered the ground beneath his feet. Only then did the man realize in what immense storm of sheer cold he was standing.
“You call yourself a wolf and yet…” Shimo’s voice reached the Justicar from outside the storm, despite being inside the storm the young man disappeared from it at the last moment.
“You don’t know what the path of a wolf is, just because you can kill a helpless beast does not make you a master of its path” the voice once again intimated the man who began to slowly freeze solid in a chunk of crystal clear ice, the very humidity of the air around them began to freeze the man into a chunk of ice.
“You don’t bother to guide your destructive force through the opponent causing damage to your own home, you show off trying to look stronger than you actually are by refusing to transfer your chakra only into your opponent like the code of a warrior compels you to. You’re no wolf, you’re the worst kind of scum there is. That chimera getup fit you better”
The man grunted and gurgled in pain as his body became completely numb, it took impossible to calculate cold to freeze someone who was so engaged in coating their body in chakra but Shimo did it easily.
“The path of a wolf is a path of loneliness, trusting only those you accept into your pack, the path of a wolf is a path of justice, ravaging anyone you feel being unjust and fighting for always doing what you think needs to be done. The path of wolf is a path of kinship, ultimately, not strength. I was always afraid of going to sleep when I was outside the village because I was afraid to hear the words of the Justicar code: “A wolf that does not gnaw its prey is no wolf”, you know what it means “ the Justicar must always kill who they consider to be a criminal without exceptions or excuses”
The man didn’t shout or grunt or say anything, Shimo could only assume that he was already frozen solid. He didn’t really wish to kill this man but he was dangerous, there were plenty of ninja that were able to destroy large chunks of all that exists if they were to unleash their power but the code of all kinds of warriors compelled them to guide that power only through the opponent. Anyone strong enough to destroy the world they were in had an obligation to only guide that force through the opponent, not only ninja followed this code: mercenaries, criminals, samurai, martial artists and even pirates. Everyone knelt to that code. A person like this had no right to remain alive, no right to become strong enough to destroy his own world.
“A wolf that does not gnaw its prey is no wolf” Shimo uttered under his own nose before his body blinked out and forced into the storm before appearing outside it. The Yuki swordsman sheathed his blade as the storm split.
“Ice Style: Ten Thousand Blizzard Cuts” Shimo chanted out the name of his technique as the blizzard exploded in sheer pressure dissolving immediately and the ice chunk which the man was encased in dissolved into countless smallest pieces to the point where no one could’ve even realized that there was once a body inside it.
“Not bad, kid” a voice alerted Shimo to a man standing right behind him. At the very same moment when Shimo turned around and drew his blade the two clashed their swords against one another. The awesome force of the man wielding the gigantic ancient blade sent Shimo sliding back and sheathing his sword again, preparing to use his drawing techniques.
The man standing against him was covered up with large clunky armor, one that come from lost pages of history that no one dared or wished to remember, it only could’ve fit a man the size of the Justicar leader who stood in front of him, the man with the silver glowing hair and a rough fatherly face wielding the decorated sword just an inch smaller than his own self, the Justicar leader “ Silverton.
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