Night, deep as ink.
The Busujima Dojo, wrapped in moonlight, looked all the more antique and silent.
In the back garden, an open-air hot spring bordered by mountain stones and green bamboo was rising with curling steam, staining the surrounding air with a warm and humid scent.
Seiji Fujiwara was alone, eyes closed, leaning back against the wall of the spring.
The warm water enveloped his body, soothing the muscles still slightly stirred from the "warm-up" of the day.
His breathing was steady and long, his whole being sunk into a state close to meditation.
His perception, though, was like an invisible web spreading across the entire back garden.
He could hear the rustle of the night wind passing through the bamboo leaves.
The tireless chirring of summer insects in the grass far off.
And...
A light footstep, almost blending into the surroundings, was slowly approaching the hot spring from the direction of the dojo.
The steps came to a stop on the wooden platform at the edge of the spring.
Seiji did not open his eyes.
He knew who had come.
...
Saeko Busujima stood at the edge of the hot spring, gazing quietly at the man soaking in the water.
She had just bathed and changed.
The cold well water had washed away the sweat from her body, but it could not put out the flame in her heart.
It was a flame mixed with reverence, gratitude, and fervor, one that had burned in the depths of her soul ever since the dojo, when a single glance from Seiji Fujiwara had "redeemed" her.
Now, Saeko had nothing wrapped around her but a single white bath towel.
Her damp purple hair had been carelessly twisted up behind her head, exposing the clean line of her neck and her delicate collarbone.
The moonlight fell over her wet skin, reflecting back a warm, ivory glow.
She watched Seiji silently.
His eyes were closed. His face, handsome enough to belong to an ancient Greek sculpture, looked a little dreamlike in the rising steam.
His bare upper body revealed smooth, explosive lines of muscle, half-visible in the moonlight, charged with masculine appeal.
Though he was only sitting still in the water, an aura that set the heart pounding still radiated from him.
Saeko knew what she was going to do next.
The decision had been made the moment her father had sent her from the dojo to "prepare."
No, perhaps even earlier.
In the instant her Inner Demon had been severed and purified, her heart had bowed of its own accord, beyond resisting.
This was not surrender.
It was a swordsman's devout reverence for the supreme "way of the sword" itself.
Saeko drew a deep breath. The astonishing fullness of her chest rose and fell faintly.
There was no longer a trace of hesitation in her.
But just as she was about to speak, Seiji, eyes still shut, seemed to have already read every thought in her mind, and spoke first.
"Come down. Scrub my back."
Seiji's tone was flat and casual.
Saeko's body gave a small start.
She had imagined any number of opening lines, but a sentence as simple and direct as this had not been among them.
Then she smiled, gracefully.
The smile was like a night-blooming flower opening quietly in the dark, cool, yet carrying a beauty that struck the heart.
"Yes, Lord Fujiwara."
Saeko reached out her slender fingers and lightly pinched the edge of the towel.
Then she loosened it.
The white towel slid like a butterfly from her flawless body and fell soundlessly onto the wooden platform.
Moonlight became her only garment.
She stepped down the stone stairs. The warm water gradually rose to her long calves, her flat abdomen, and finally reached the astonishing fullness of her chest.
Ripples spread out from her body in elegant rings.
She moved around to behind Seiji and silently knelt in the water.
Then, straightening her back, she pressed the soft, water-warmed fullness of her breasts gently against the broad expanse of his back, and began to slowly knead and rub them across his skin.
...
Seiji could clearly feel the touch of that astonishing softness pressed against his back.
Warm, full, and yielding.
Smoother than the finest silk.
Saeko's initiative did surprise him slightly, but he accepted it without protest.
After some time, he slowly turned around.
She was still kneeling in the water.
Her face carried a faint, flushed warmth. Her eyes, once sharp as blades, were now veiled in a sort of mist, dreamy and bewitching.
Seiji said nothing. He simply reached out and gently stroked her smooth cheek.
Under the girl's obedient, even expectant gaze, he took her completely.
He drew her around and into the water against him, and she came the way she did everything, without waste and without flinching, her body folding to his with the trained economy of a swordswoman closing distance. When he pushed into her she did not cry out. Her breath went deep and even, the way it went in the moment before a strike, and she held his gaze the whole time with those misted, blade-sharp eyes, because to look away would have been a discourtesy, and Saeko Busujima did not offer discourtesy to a master.
This was not what had been done to the others, and some clear part of her knew it and was not ashamed of knowing it. She had not been broken down to this. She had walked down the stone steps to it on her own feet. The man moving in her now was the same force that had reached into her soul and cut the Inner Demon away clean, the thing that had ridden her for years, the thing all her own discipline had never been enough to sever, and a swordsman who has seen a stroke like that does not argue with the hand that made it. She gave him her body the way she would have presented her sword across both open palms, hilt first, edge bared, a complete and deliberate offering with nothing kept back behind it. That it was her cunt he used and not her blade changed the form of the thing and not its nature. She had found something worth following all the way down, and so she followed it all the way down, the warm water breaking around their joined bodies, the steam folding shut over them, the moon on the spring like a single struck bell, her hips meeting his on the same cadence she would have held through a duel, until even her disciplined breath came apart and a low sound left her that was not surrender and was not quite pleasure but something nearer to a vow.
She held his eyes through every part of it. She wanted him to see that she had chosen it.
...
When everything had returned to calm.
The system's chime, as promised, sounded inside his mind.
[Ding! Conquest Target 'Saeko Busujima' detected.]
[Conquest Stage 1 has been achieved!]
[Stage-1 reward now distributed... Permanent Passive Skill: Hypersonic Reaction!]
[Skill description: Your neural reflex speed will be permanently increased by 300%. Whether dynamic vision, crisis prediction, or instantaneous physical response, all will reach a superhuman level!]
An invisible energy flowed into his limbs and every fiber of his body.
Seiji felt his mind grow clearer than ever before.
Everything in the world around him seemed, in his perception, to have been set to slow motion.
The trajectory of the wind passing through the bamboo, the tiny vibrations of the insects' calls, even the faint heartbeat of the girl beside him...
All of it was received and processed by his brain with ease, as if streaming in at ultra-high precision.
He even felt as if he could now easily dodge a bullet flying straight at him.
A perfect reward.
A satisfied smile curved Seiji's lips.
[Swordsmanship: Divine Mastery] had given him the skill and the realm of a "god."
And [Hypersonic Reaction] had given him a body extraordinary enough to perfectly bear that "divine technique."
The two complemented each other beautifully.
...
The next morning.
When the first rays of sunlight slipped through the windows and fell into the Busujima Dojo.
Ryumu Busujima was pacing restlessly back and forth across the floor.
In his mind, he was replaying again and again the miraculous scene from yesterday afternoon.
He was both moved at having witnessed with his own eyes the birth of a "Sword God," and deeply powerless at the chasm between himself and that man.
At the same time, his heart was full of expectation and unease for his daughter's future.
Right then, the sliding door was pushed open.
Saeko walked in from outside.
She had already changed into clean everyday clothes and carried a travel bag, packed and ready, in one hand.
Her face held a faint flush like a touch of lingering intoxication, but her eyes were brighter and more resolute than they had ever been.
Ryumu's heart skipped at the sight.
He had already guessed what was about to happen.
"Father."
Saeko walked up to him and bowed deeply.
"I'm leaving."
Her voice was calm, but it allowed no argument.
"Leaving? To where?" Ryumu asked, though he already knew.
"To follow Mr. Fujiwara." Saeko raised her head and looked her father in the eyes. "My sword, my person, everything I have, from now on, belongs to Mr. Fujiwara alone."
Though Ryumu had expected this in his heart, hearing his daughter say it with his own ears still struck him with great shock.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something.
Should he tell her that a young woman ought to know how to hold herself back?
Or warn her that life in a great house was not as simple as she might imagine?
But every word dissolved the moment he met her unwavering eyes.
What he saw in those eyes was not an ignorant girl whose head had been turned by love.
It was a follower who had found the faith of her life.
Ryumu remembered the unfathomable swordsmanship Seiji had shown the day before.
He remembered that aura, like a god come down to the mortal world.
In the end, every attempt at persuasion dissolved into a long sigh.
"...I understand."
A complicated smile rose on Ryumu's face, holding gratification, reluctance, and a thread of relief at having successfully "invested" his daughter.
"Go. Since it is your own choice, do not come to regret it."
"Yes, Father."
Saeko bowed deeply once again.
...
At the gate of the dojo.
A car door opened, and a bodyguard in a black suit pulled open the rear door for her.
Saeko did not look back.
Carrying her luggage, step by step, she walked out of the place she had lived in for more than a dozen years.
At the gateway, she turned and looked back one last time.
There was no trace of attachment in her eyes.
Without hesitation she turned away and climbed into the luxury sedan that would carry her into an entirely new world.
The door swung slowly shut, sealing off the two worlds.
The car set off smoothly and slid out of that quiet street.
...
...
Night, like melted obsidian, wrapped around Seiji Fujiwara's study.
Only a single floor lamp had been turned on in the room.
The dim, yellow light traced the outlines of the rows of leather-bound books on the shelves and cast long shadows across the floor, making the already spacious room feel even more empty and deep.
The air held the rich aroma of aged whiskey, along with a faint, elegant fragrance that belonged to a woman.
Seiji leaned back into the sofa.
His legs were crossed, his posture indolent.
That handsome face, capable of driving any woman to madness, was half lit and half in shadow in the dim light, making him look mysterious and dangerous.
Behind him, Saeko knelt on the floor.
The girl was wearing a traditional miko outfit that looked entirely out of place in this modern study.
White above and red below, holy and refined, it set her off like a divine messenger stepped out of a myth, untouched by any speck of the mortal world.
But what she was doing at that moment had nothing at all to do with the word "holy."
She was massaging Seiji's shoulders.
Her motions were professional and meticulous. The pressure in her fingers was exactly right.
She seemed to know every line of human musculature by heart, always finding the most fatigued spot precisely, then easing it open with a soft yet firm strength.
"Not bad," Seiji said suddenly, eyes still closed.
His voice held a touch of post-drink hoarseness, unusually clear in the silence of the study. "It seems you not only know how to kill, you also know how to serve."
Saeko's hands didn't pause for an instant.
Her voice was cool as moonlight, free of any emotion. "As long as it is your command, sir."
"Oh?" Seiji laughed softly and turned his head, his gaze settling on her placid, exquisite face. "And if I told you to serve me in another way?"
His gaze was thoroughly predatory.
It slid down her pale neck and finally rested on the breathtaking curves that even the holy miko outfit could not entirely conceal.
Saeko's breathing stilled for a single instant.
But her expression remained calm.
She only lowered her eyelids and said in a tone that was almost like an oath, "Everything Saeko is belongs to you, sir."
That extreme contrast, the calm with which a top-tier beauty "willingly debased herself," left Seiji deeply satisfied.
He greatly enjoyed this feeling of taking a work of art that had once shown its full edge and taming it completely into a piece of his own private collection.
For that reason, the past week had been a pleasant one.
For the moment, he had no thoughts of "hunting" any other prey.
But while Seiji could wait patiently.
Some other people could no longer wait.
...
At the same moment.
In the heart of Tokyo, inside the heavily guarded Japanese-style residence of the Shinomiya Main Family.
A secret family meeting was being held in a solemn atmosphere.
Around the room sat more than a dozen grim-faced middle-aged and elderly figures.
They were the core of power within the Shinomiya conglomerate.
Each of them, in the outside world, was a great man whose single stamped foot could send the economy of the Eastern Isles trembling three times over.
But now, every face carried a trace of anxiety.
In the seat of honor sat the current head of the Shinomiya Family, Gan'an Shinomiya.
His eyes were dark and severe, his bearing commanding without need for anger.
He was tapping a finger lightly against the surface of the table.
"It has been a week," Gan'an said in a low voice.