"Are you even listening to me?! What kind of nonsense are you spouting again, these utterly nonsensical ramblings?! I'm talking to you about serious business!"
"Oh...."
It seemed that the roar had just pulled him back from his reverie. He blinked and looked apologetically, as if enlightened: "Sorry, president, I was just expressing my feelings."
"You're right, I'll behave myself from now on."
Upon hearing this, the meeting room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Soichiro Yagyu's angry expression froze. He wondered if he was hallucinating from anger.
Has this kid changed his ways? Has the sun risen in the west? Or is he plotting something even worse?
Various thoughts flashed through Soichiro Yagyu's mind, and in the end, he decided to temporarily believe this rare act of submission, even if it was just a facade.
He snorted heavily, his expression softening slightly, but his tone remained stern: "Remember what you said, kid! That's all for today, the meeting adjourned!"
The instructors looked at each other, filled with suspicion and unfinished discussions, and then got up and left.
Soichiro Yagyu rubbed his temples and walked wearily toward the back hall.
As the crowd dispersed, Tadayoshi Yagyu darted to Isshin's side like a nimble monkey and asked in a quiet voice: "Master, are you really planning to behave yourself for the next year? This isn't like you!"
Yes, Tadayoshi Yagyu has now officially become a disciple of Isshin, becoming the second disciple in the Ashina Style.
His reason for dreaming of becoming a ninja was quite rebellious.
In his view, the rules and regulations of bushido were too numerous and restrictive, making him feel frustrated and uncomfortable.
After all, everyone used chakra now, didn't they?
Compared to that, ninjas, unbound by tradition, able to freely use all kinds of strange ninjutsu and methods in a life and death battle, matched his romantic vision of freedom and power far better.
Unfortunately, the Land of Iron is a land of samurai, without a proper lineage of ninjas. His old-fashioned father strictly forbade him from leaving the Land of Iron to pursue any ninja path, which made Tadayoshi Yagyu extremely depressed.
Until one year ago.
A swordsman named Isshin appeared, whose conduct was completely different from every other swordsman in the Land of Iron and who believed in victory by any means necessary.
It was like a sharp beam of light piercing into his dim aspirations.
Without much hesitation, Tadayoshi Yagyu found an opportunity to become his disciple.
Soichiro Yagyu found out later, he was furious, but it was too late, and he could only accept it reluctantly.
"We'll talk about that later. Tadayoshi, let's go back to the dojo first."
Tadayoshi Yagyu's expression turned serious: "Master, please call me Owl in private!"
...…
The courtyard was quiet, without the sound of swords whistling through the air, only the soft rustling of wood chips falling.
Genya Yamagami sat in the shadows under the eaves, his head bowed.
He firmly held the sword he usually used for sword practice in his hand.
At this moment, the tip of the sword was pressed against a piece of rough wood, and it was being slowly cut and outlined with breathtaking caution.
His movements were slow, and he was extremely careful with each stroke of his sword, as if the carving wood was not made of wood, but of fragile glass.
As the sawdust fell away with a barely audible cutting sound, it gradually revealed a blurry outline of a seated figure, rounded and gentle, with a hint of quietude in its gaze.
Genya's expression was unusually calm, completely different from his usual fierce and hate-filled demeanor when he wielded his sword.
Sweat still streamed down his forehead, but his hand holding the sword was remarkably steady.
The habit of carving Buddha statues started about six months ago.
Hate! Resentment! Anger! Injustice!
Since becoming Isshin's disciple, he has made rapid progress, but his swordsmanship has no defensive intent whatsoever; it is all about offense and killing.
It is as if every moment his sword is aimed at that behemoth called the Holy Church, and at the hypocritical face of Prime Minister Abe.
Overwhelming negative emotions, like a tangible miasma, swirled around his sword and enveloped his entire being.
It was a potent poison called revenge that was brewed from the sedimentation, fermentation, and eventual distillation of all the despair and pain after the destruction of homes, the deaths of loved ones, and the collapse of faith.
The poison burned through his lungs and internal organs, and also transformed into the most violent fuel that drove every muscle and every strand of chakra in him.
It transformed into a heart-wrenching, bone-corroding flame of lamentation; it endowed him with an obsession and explosive power far beyond that of ordinary people, allowing him to squeeze out every bit of potential from his body and absorb swordsmanship at an astonishing speed, turning pain into brute force for advancement.
This may be the root of his rapid progress; his swordsmanship, from the very beginning, was paved with hatred and blood.
But on that day six months ago, his master said this to him: "Hatred is a powerful medicine that can give you a burst of power in a short time and break through ordinary bottlenecks, just like you are now."
"But Genya, the flame of resentment burning in your heart is pushing you forward, but it is also burning away your humanity little by little. You see power, you see the hope of revenge, but do you see where it is pushing you?"
His master stared into his eyes and spoke slowly and deliberately: "You are falling into the path of Asura."
"Asura?"
Genya Yamagami's body trembled.
"Fighting for the sake of fighting, killing for the sake of killing, with nothing left in their hearts but destruction, they eventually lose themselves in bloodshed and power, becoming demons who only know destruction and slaughter."
His master's words were like a dull knife, slowly scraping into his heart: "Your sword is full of killing intent, that's true, but if one day, that killing intent turns around and devours you, making you unable to distinguish why you wield the sword, leaving only emptiness and a greater desire for destruction after revenge, then you will no longer be yourself! You might even turn into another kind of monster, an Asura, no different from the thing you hate."
"Your anger and resentment are your current driving force, but if you don't want to be completely burned to ashes by them, you must learn to find an unburnt pillar within your heart, even in the midst of flames. As for what that pillar is..."
"You'll have to find it yourself."
An unburnt pillar within my heart?
Upon hearing this, Genya Yamagami instinctively reached into his robes and tightly gripped a hard object close to his body.
It was a small wooden Buddha amulet, its edges worn smooth and warm from being rubbed together. The carving was simple, even somewhat rough.
This is a Buddha amulet that his sister specially went to the only temple in town to get when she learned that he was going to join the police force.
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