"Sensei… do you have a sadistic fetish?"
Yamazaki frowned.
"Hm? You said something I don't understand."
Kazuma let out a long sigh.
"Haah… never mind. Don't think about it."
He gave up trying to explain and climbed out of the pool. Water dripped from his hair and clothes as he walked toward the small changing room beside the dojo.
A few minutes later, Kazuma returned in clean clothes.
But apparently, training wasn't over yet.
Yamazaki Kudo took him out of the city.
Their journey went quite far from Tokyo, passing through mountain roads that grew quieter the further they went. The city buildings gradually disappeared, replaced by dense forest and much cleaner air.
On the slope of a mountain stood an old shrine.
The shrine was simple, not very large, but it carried a calm atmosphere. A red torii gate stood at the entrance of moss-covered stone steps, while the sound of wind brushing through the trees created a quiet, soothing ambiance.
That was where Yamazaki brought Kazuma.
The shrine was a place of worship for a mountain god.
For Yamazaki, a place like this held special meaning. Far from the noise of the city, the air here was clean, and the atmosphere made the mind much calmer.
After climbing the long stone steps, they finally reached the main hall.
Yamazaki knelt in front of the simple altar. Kazuma followed beside him. Both of them bowed their heads briefly and prayed according to tradition.
The mountain wind blew softly, making the small bell hanging from the shrine's roof chime gently.
After finishing, Yamazaki didn't immediately stand.
He remained seated there, looking out toward the forest stretching below the mountain.
"I used to be part of the first infiltration special forces into Mato."
Kazuma, who was standing beside him, immediately turned.
"Yeah? Why bring that up all of a sudden?"
Yamazaki snorted.
"Heh. Kids these days."
He glanced at Kazuma with annoyance.
"Just listen to this old man!"
Dusk slowly descended over the mountain slope. The fading sunlight painted the shrine grounds in a golden hue, while the mountain wind carried the damp, clean scent of the forest. The small bell hanging from the roof chimed softly whenever the wind touched it.
Kazuma sat on the stone steps with Yamazaki Kudo. Below them, a vast expanse of trees stretched all the way to the base of the mountain.
The old man stared into the distance for quite some time before finally speaking.
His youth had never been ordinary.
Since childhood, Yamazaki had always felt a strange urge within himself—something difficult to put into words. While others sought peace, he felt most alive in the midst of battle.
For the young Yamazaki, combat was not merely conflict.
It was like breathing.
Because of that urge, he left Japan at a young age. He wandered the world without a clear destination, yet always ended up in the same places: armed conflict zones.
It was in places like those that the young Yamazaki stood, fought, and survived.
To normal people, such a life would sound like madness.
But for Yamazaki, it felt natural.
That urge wasn't just personal desire. It was something that had flowed through his family's blood for centuries.
The Yamazaki family was no ordinary family.
They were descendants of an ancient samurai lineage that could be traced back to the Heian period. In their oral history, their ancestors were known as warriors who had almost never lost on the battlefield.
Some were even called gods of war by their enemies.
But behind that reputation, there was something darker passed down through generations.
A condition the family referred to as War Syndrome.
Those who inherited it could never truly adapt to peaceful times. When the world was calm, their hearts would instead be filled with restlessness.
They felt empty.
But once they stood in the middle of conflict—where life and death were at stake—they became different.
They became alive.
That was the instinct flowing through the Yamazaki bloodline.
Kazuma listened without interrupting. The mountain wind brushed against his face as he looked at the old man beside him.
Yamazaki himself looked at his wrinkled hands.
He had once lived driven by that instinct.
But over time, he learned to restrain it.
He forged himself not only as a fighter, but as someone capable of controlling the urges passed down in his blood.
That realization didn't come easily.
In his youth, Yamazaki had once reached a point where he nearly lost control of himself. Every conflict felt like a call he couldn't ignore, every battle like a reason to keep living.
If he had continued following that instinct without limits, he would have eventually become something dangerous—not only to others, but to himself.
That was why Yamazaki began searching for another path.
He didn't stop fighting, but he began to learn how to control himself.
That journey led him to study various martial arts from different countries. From hard striking techniques to endurance-based fighting styles, he tried them all.
But in the end, he found something different.
Aikido.
That martial art wasn't built on brute strength or pure aggression. Its essence lay in self-control, emotional balance, and the ability to redirect an opponent's energy without being consumed by one's own anger.
That concept suited someone like Yamazaki perfectly.
Someone born with an overwhelming instinct for battle.
Through Aikido, Yamazaki learned something far more important than how to throw an opponent.
He learned to control himself.
The training he underwent for decades gradually formed a unique mental method. Not merely ordinary meditation, but a discipline that forced the mind to remain stable even in the most extreme situations.
From that long process, Yamazaki eventually developed something he called:
Mind Control.
Not in the sense of controlling others.
But the ability to completely control one's own emotions.
The ability to suppress anger, calm fear, or even generate specific emotions when needed.
A mental technique that allowed someone to remain calm even when their body was on the verge of collapse.
That was the technique he was now teaching Kazuma.
Kazuma listened calmly.
From the beginning, he had already suspected that Yamazaki Kudo was no ordinary man. The way the old man moved, the way he trained, even the way he viewed combat—everything felt different from a typical martial artist.
Even so, Kazuma hadn't expected his past to go this far.
Yamazaki wasn't just a wandering fighter.
In some parts of the world, he had once been known by a rather brutal title:
The Red Devil of the East.
That nickname came from stories circulating in conflict zones. During battles, Yamazaki often walked out covered in his enemies' blood—not because he was injured, but because he stood too close as he took them down one by one.
He fought without hesitation.
Without mercy.
And without showing any signs of fatigue.
To those who had witnessed him on the battlefield, he truly looked like something out of a dark legend.
Yamazaki himself recalled that time without much emotion.
"I thought no one could defeat me anymore," he said quietly.
He paused briefly before continuing.
"Until that beginning day."
Kazuma stiffened slightly at that term.
The beginning day was one of the darkest events in modern Japanese history. A tragedy often mentioned alongside two other deep scars in the nation's past—Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The day when the Mato dimension first manifested in the human world.
The gates that appeared suddenly brought foreign creatures out onto Earth. Cities were thrown into panic, and unprepared military forces were destroyed by something they didn't even understand yet.
That day, Japan changed forever.
Yamazaki closed his eyes for a moment, as if recalling a scene that had never truly left his memory.
After the initial chaos was brought under control, the affected cities had turned into ruins. Many lives were lost, and the world finally realized that a new threat had been born.
But the Japanese government did not stop at mere survival.
They wanted to know what lay beyond those gates.
Due to various circumstances—including Yamazaki Kudo's reputation as an extreme fighter—the state eventually called upon him.
They gave him a task that sounded insane.
To form a special infiltration unit.
Yamazaki accepted without hesitation.
He began gathering people he had fought alongside across different parts of the world. Former soldiers, mercenaries, and fighters who were used to surviving in the harshest environments.
People who would not break just because they were facing something humanity had never seen before.
That group was eventually formed.
A small team made up of the most dangerous individuals Yamazaki had ever known.
And together with them—
Yamazaki Kudo became the first human to set foot in Mato.