The air was tense with distrust. Unlike the cohesive, idealistic bands of heroes sung about in bardic tales, these new summoned champions were fractured from the start. Forced from their world against their will by desperate gods, they arrived not with camaraderie—but with suspicion in their eyes and blades half-drawn.
Ryoma, one of the swordsmen, was a veteran of countless battles. His hand never strayed far from the hilt of his massive, chipped blade. Hardened by a lifetime of betrayal and war, he had no intention of dying for anyone else's cause. Especially not for gods he'd never worshipped. His gaze was sharp, calculating, always on edge. Trust was a luxury he had long abandoned.
Kuro, the assassin, was even colder. A shadow of a man, dressed in layered black that seemed to drink in light, he had no allegiance to anyone but himself. Silent as a whisper, he followed orders only when they aligned with his own survival. Though summoned alongside Ryoma and the healer, Sera, he had not exchanged more than a handful of words with them. A killer with no empathy, his presence reeked of danger.
And then there was Sera—the anomaly.
Unlike the others, she was not forged in violence. A healer in every sense of the word, she had dedicated her life to saving others, not destroying them. The gods had chosen her for her divine potential, but she had been the only one to protest her summoning. She hadn't asked for this war. She wasn't meant for this battlefield. And yet, here she was—thrown into a crumbling world where gods were desperate, and monsters wore human masks.
Ever since they were summoned, something had been gnawing at the edges of Sera's sanity. Shadows danced where there should be none. Voices whispered in tongues that defied comprehension. Worst of all were the hallucinations—fragments of another mind pressing into hers. And then she saw her.
Ayane.
The sealed witch—now dead—had found a way to linger. Whether it was magic or the residue of an unfinished fate, her presence echoed within Sera's soul. At first it was glimpses: a silhouette in reflections, the smell of scorched roses, the sound of forgotten lullabies. Then came the memories—Kagetsu's memories. Sera began to see pieces of the man he once was.
He hadn't always been a monster. He had been human. Ordinary, even. Rejected by the world, abandoned by fate, until cruelty molded him into something unnatural. Sera saw flashes of his past—his sorrow, his rage, his betrayal. It was like standing at the edge of a void and understanding that it didn't begin empty. It had been carved that way.
And then he came.
Kagetsu appeared like a nightmare slipping into reality. One moment the clearing was still, and in the next, the air itself recoiled. Cloaked in that ever-grinning, soulless mask and eyes that pierced through the fabric of hope, Kagetsu stood before them.
"The gods summoned you," he said, voice calm like a blade resting against a throat, "just to die today."
Ryoma wasted no time. With a war cry that cracked the tension like thunder, he charged forward, sword raised high. Kuro flanked silently, his form nearly invisible in motion, seeking to strike at Kagetsu's blind spots.
But there were none.
Kagetsu didn't move at first. He only watched—amused, perhaps, or simply curious. Then, faster than the eye could follow, he struck. Ryoma's charge ended in a blink—his body twisted unnaturally before crashing to the ground, unmoving. Kuro managed a single step more before his head separated cleanly from his shoulders, vanishing into mist.
The forest fell into a deathly silence.
Sera collapsed to her knees. Her legs refused to move. Her hands trembled violently as her staff clattered to the earth beside her. Her scream wouldn't leave her throat. All she could do was stare at the being that now stood before her, death incarnate, the breaker of fates.
Kagetsu knelt beside her.
"You were summoned as a weapon," he said, gently, almost mockingly. "Not a person."
His masked face tilted, his voice dropping into something colder.
"But even broken swords…" He reached out and traced a gloved finger under her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his hidden one. "…still cut."
And then, as if he had never been there, he vanished. No dramatic flares, no screams—just silence.
Sera remained on the ground, breath shallow, heart frayed. In that moment, she wasn't just terrified. She was fractured. She had seen him not just as a god-killer, but as something worse—someone who understood the world better than the gods who had built it.
And now, she wasn't sure which side she feared more.
To Be Continued...