‘Those were meant to kill me, he didn’t hold back even a little bit.’

The reflection of Kiramaru played off against the edge of the blades, wedged into the ground behind him.

“Hey are you crazy-”

“A beings mana takes the form of something that is personal to them, for me it is my swords. I have the power of blades not floating.” Moto stated calmly.

As he talked, more swords continued to rain down, leaving Kiramaru to dodge them as much as he could. Each sword seemed to be the same type of make, a mass collection of identical silver blades.

“You freak, come down here if you want to explain all that!” Kiramaru screamed.

“You’re not the one teaching here, so keep quiet already~ you seem a little edgy right now so I think it’s best if I stay up here for a little bit okay?” Moto snickered.

“Like hell, get down here so I can fight you!”

Kiramaru gritted his teeth and began releasing a small amount of flames around his body without control.

His flames scorched the dirt around him and grew to twice the size of his body.

“I don’t care how strong you are, I’ll burn you to a crisp! Fight me!!” He continued to scream.

(Snap)

Moto snapped his fingers and the scattered swords he had been firing for the last few minutes, raised up into the air to his command. Each sword shifted its aim to him and surrounded Kiramaru within less than a moment, covering every direction of his view.

‘He wasn’t just throwing them at random, he was setting up a trap- this guy is a monster…worse than the demon.’ He thought nervously.

“Don’t think that you became strong just because I humoured you for a minute. I could easily kill you without lifting a finger.”

Moto’s eyes peered down on Kiramaru like daggers, causing a crushing weight of fear to push him down to his knees.

Moto clapped his hands together once,

“Tell me everything you know about the being Ko.”

‘That’s right, he mentioned Ko when we first met as well.’ Kiramaru thought.

“How do you know Ko?” Kiramaru asked.

Moto pulled out his cold stare once more and scared Kiramaru.

“I met him after I had died…”

Kiramaru explained everything that had happened when meeting Ko and expected Moto to ridicule his actions. It surprised him that he was rather understanding and even sympathised with him.

“The situations far worse than I expected it to be at this stage, I suppose there wasn’t much we could have done though.” Moto sighed.

“What do you mean by far worse, did you have an idea that this would happen?”

“Ko has been around longer than any living creature, his one goal has always been to enter the living world but he needed a way out and a living body. It seems you and your sister was the first to have met those requirements so perfectly.” Moto explained.

‘Requirements, so we really were tools to him from the start? It feels like it just happened to me again…damn it! Makes my blood boil just sitting here.’

“With everything that had happened to you by Ko, what lead you to trust me? Was it that villager guy that saved you?” Moto asked with a coy expression.

“Your eyes.”

“My eyes? Aawww you’re going to make me blush~” Moto grinned.

“Stop being a child, aren’t you like twenty or something! Your eyes were telling the truth, I can see when people are lying normally. That’s why I’m to blame…”

Moto stared at Kiramaru’s enraged face and couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. He knew how fast Kiramaru had lost everything and couldn’t tell him why.

“Alright then Kira I did promise you some training, so don’t cry now about it alright?” Moto said jokingly.

“Kira?”

“Yeah, it’s your nickname. Your regular name is way too long~”

Kira stared at Moto with a heavy look of disapproval,

“How is it that someone so strong can act so childish?”

“You’re one to talk kid~ I’m over a thousand years old you know, learn to respect your elders!” Moto said as he stuck out his tongue.

“Over a thousand years…that’s probably the worst joke you have made.”

Moto held up his hand and created a plain wooden sword, no larger than a person’s arm.

“This will be your opponent from now on.” He said seriously.

‘My opponent, does he mean that he won’t attack me with a real sword-’

The sword swiftly smacked Kira over the head and returned back to its previous position.

The sword had no one controlling it manually but its movements seemed exactly like a person’s swings.

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable around it, it is always ready to take you on~” Moto laughed.

“What about me, I have nothing to fight it with?” Kira asked.

“I thought you could burn anything to a crisp?” Moto laughed.

“Tisk! Fine then, for how long?” Kira asked impatiently.

“When do you think, until it is unable to beat you of course!”

Moto held a large smile on his face as he walked away.

The sword flew over to Kira, moving erratically with its slashes. After five hours of constant attacks the sword had left countless bruises on Kira’s body.

“Damn it, what’s the point of all this?! HE left me with some stupid training sword that whacks me with no remorse.”

Kira laid back on the ground while the sword hovered over him, waiting for him to return to his feet. This was the only way the sword would stop attacking him. When he laid on the ground or conceded then the sword would allow him to rest.

‘I thought he was going to train me, I guess it was too good to be true. How does he expect me to fight this thing bare handed?’ Kira thought as he stared up to the stars.

The sky glistened with hundreds of stars that all varied in size but remained similar when stared at as a whole.

An endless litter of blazing sparkles hovering thousands of miles over his head, resting gently in-place.

“I thought that having this power would make me strong enough to beat Ko but am I using it the right way?” Kira wondered.

‘It’s difficult to summon those flames on command, every time that I have it has been from anger or when I was about to be hurt… Kind of like an instinct.’

Kira held his hand up and grinned angrily at it hoping to see a burst of flames but instead was disappointed by his failure.

“Screw it then, If I can’t use it then I don’t have any use for it!” Kira stated.

Moto sat high up in the gigantic trees that made up the forest, pretending to sleep. He had his eye closed while the other was faintly focused on Kira, never leaving him.

The next day Kira went through the exact same trials, he would end it off with a swollen face and more bruises than he had teeth.

This ritual continued for a week until in the middle of dodging attacks from the sword he felt a tingle of heat flare inside his leg.

‘What was that, I’ve felt that before somewhere though? It’s like when those black flames surround my body- did I…just use my mana?’ Kira wondered.

The sword closed in on him while he seemed distracted and nearly plunged itself into his chest but missed by a hairs length.

‘I definitely wasn’t wrong; I felt my mana surge through me like a pulse. The same way a muscle pulses when you use it; I’ve figured it out!’

“That seemed close, is that piece of wood too hard for you after all?” Moto laughed.

He would often watch Kira while eating apples or occasionally train by himself when he wasn’t eating.

Kira closed his eyes and pictured his mana flowing through his body, soon after he was able to feel it surging and continuously growing. He pictured it racing through his body and filling his muscles like water through a river.

“I’ve got it-” Kira celebrated.

The sword drove itself into his stomach and knocked all the wind from him, sending him flying onto his butt.

“Bwahahahahaha!!” Moto laughed.