God of Knight

Dark clouds pressed over the Tsukigawa Kingdom. Rain overflowed the ditches and hammered the forest canopy.

Lightning split the sky; thunder rolled through the trees.

Deep in the forest, steel rang beneath the downpour.

Three men hemmed in a fourth. A woman hovered at the edge of their fight, reaching toward them and drawing back whenever a weapon flashed.

“Brothers! I beg you, stop this fight—let him go!” The woman looked barely forty, though she was much older. Her plea vanished beneath another clash of steel.

“Little sister! If you won’t help us, keep quiet and stop taking his side!” snapped an elderly man in his nineties, rain flattening his few remaining strands of white hair.

“Little sister, let them come!” said the seventy-year-old man they had cornered. He tightened his grip on his sword. “There’s no way out of this without killing each other.”

“You’re right! But we’ll let you live as long as you’re willing to hand over the Book of the Demons of Hell to us,” said another man.

“Do you think I’m stupid? Even if I hand the book over, you won’t let me go,” he replied.

“Enough talk—let’s finish him!” shouted a knight.

The eldest raised his machete. Beside him, a sickle swept low while the third man leveled his sword, cutting off the last gap between them.

Their opponent braced his sword across his body. The woman had no weapon.

They had once trained under the same master in the now-defunct Demon Forest Sect, a heretical sect. Known as the Five Demons of Death, they still called one another brothers and sister.

The first was known as “The Bloodthirsty Demon.”

The second was “The Death Reaper Demon.”

The third was “The Demon Fang.”

The fourth, whom they were attacking, was “The Demon Mask,” named for his disfigured face.

The woman was “The Mad Demon,” known for her wild experiments concocting strange potions.

The Bloodthirsty Demon lunged. His machete tore through the rain toward the masked man’s ribs, but the man pivoted, letting the edge skim past his clothes.

Beneath the mask was Shinra Kazan. His alcoholic father had thrown him out at seven, calling him a burden.

Kazan was not the strongest knight in the kingdom. He kept his sword close, watching all three weapons rather than giving any one brother his full attention.

Their eyes kept returning to Kazan. They wanted his master’s legacy: the Book of the Demons of Hell.

None of his fellow disciples had ever seen that secret manual, let alone studied it.

Its trials could cripple or kill the student; surviving them only made him a target for knights who coveted its power.

Before dying, his master had warned that the book could turn friends into enemies. Now three men who had grown up beside Kazan had turned their weapons on him.

He had mastered only three of its techniques. He could no longer give them the years of training he might have had as a young man.

He had been forty when he began studying the manual.

For years, his fellow disciples had searched for it, never suspecting that their fourth brother already had it.

Only now, thirty years later, had they discovered the truth.

Aira alone refused to join their attack.

Kazan had once rivaled the handsome figures painted as gods. Aira could still see that face whenever she looked at his mask.

At fifteen, he had fallen into a fire pit during training. Afterward, he had hidden the burns behind a mask.

Yuzuki Aira, the Mad Demon, had grown up without a father. Her mother had conceived her after being raped.

Once celebrated as the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, Aira had loved Kazan long before this night.

He had refused her love. She had stayed determined to win him over, working until she had created a cure for his scars.

Another blade swept in. Kazan retreated a step, his heel sinking into the mud.

“Die, fourth brother!” The Death Reaper Demon swung his sickle. Ki glimmered along its edge.

CLANG!

Kazan caught the sickle on his sword. The blade snapped against the force of the strike; he dropped the useless hilt as his arms jolted apart.

“Soul-Sucking Blood Machete!”

The Bloodthirsty Demon drove into the opening, his machete sweeping toward Kazan’s unguarded body.

Aira stepped between them. The machete sank into her abdomen, and her blood struck Kazan’s hands.

“Aira…!” Kazan caught her as her knees buckled. Half the machete’s blade was buried in her body.

“Ka… Kazan…!” Blood spilled over her lips. The Bloodthirsty Demon wrenched his weapon free.

“You idiot! Why would you use yourself as a shield just to protect him?” grumbled The Bloodthirsty Demon.

The three men watched her sag into Kazan’s arms. None moved to help. The Bloodthirsty Demon waited with his bloody machete, watching Kazan rather than his dying sister.

“Aira… hang on!” Kazan pressed his palm to her body and channeled Ki into her, trying to ease her pain.

“N-no, Kazan! Don’t waste your Ki on me!” Aira said, struggling for breath.

Aira pulled a small bottle from beneath her clothes and handed it to him.

“Kazan! Don’t you dare… die! I-if you can hold on… as long as you’re still breathing, drink this…” She gasped, unable to finish.

Kazan closed his fingers around the bottle, then clasped her hand. He still did not know what was inside.

Aira slipped her fingers beneath the loosened edge of his mask and touched his burned cheek.

“I… I w-want to hear you s-say ‘I… love you’ to me!” she said, her eyes beginning to close.

He leaned closer. There was hardly any breath left between her words.

“Yes… I love you. I just didn’t have the courage to accept your love because of my disfigured face—” Aira cut him off.

“Th-thank you! I-I’m so h-happy to h-hear…”

The hand against his cheek fell. Kazan waited for another breath, but none came. A faint smile remained on her lips.

He held her while the rain cooled her skin and carried her blood down toward the Abyss of Darkness.