⚔️ Divine Weapon Training Arc: Days 12–36
(Previous status: Day 11 — Shintarō completes all 7 stages, his weapon accepts him. He disappears from the training grounds. Akito at Stage 5, Sumiyoshi at Stage 4.)
🌕 Day 12 to Day 20
(Akito: Stage 5 – Spirit Awareness | Sumiyoshi: Stage 4 – Weapon Synergy)
Akito sits beneath a waterfall every day, trying to sense the "will" of the spirits around him. The surroundings feel empty at first, but slowly, he begins feeling faint echoes — whispers, visions, and heat flowing through his veins during meditation.
But every time he rises to act on it, he fails. The spirits vanish. His body collapses. His fangs don't respond.
Sumiyoshi struggles more — standing blindfolded, hands on the hilt of his sword, trying to feel the "heartbeat" of the blade. Each attempt to fight in sync ends in misalignment.
The blade cuts too slow, or too fast, or refuses to move entirely.
Both fail. Again and again.
🌓 "It's like... my weapon is looking through me." Sumiyoshi whispers one evening.
🌓 "And I feel like I'm looking into something far older than me..." Akito replies, frustrated.
🌕 Day 21 to Day 30
(Akito: Still Stage 5 | Sumiyoshi: Still Stage 4)
Akito starts fighting hallucinations of ancient warriors. Each strike drains him, but the spirits begin responding — one morning, the wind moves before he commands it. He smiles.
Yet, he fails again.
His fangs grow heavy in his hands.
On Day 28, a ghostly spirit wounds him in a vision, and he wakes up coughing blood.
Sumiyoshi finally manages a perfect series of 10 sword strikes in harmony with his blade's timing on Day 26.
On Day 29, he starts seeing a flicker of light around the blade's hilt. Still not enough.
On Day 30, he collapses after the sword pushes him back in resistance.
🌑 Day 31 to 35
(Akito: Approaching Stage 6 | Sumiyoshi: Still struggling at Stage 4)
Akito begins hearing echoes of emotions in his enemy's footsteps during combat. His combat instinct rises.
Stage 5 completed.
He enters Stage 6: Combat Tactics.
The spirit clones now mimic his own style, forcing him to adapt on the fly. Every mistake is punished.
He gets beaten down again and again.
On Day 35, Akito begins predicting their movements before they happen. The fangs glow faintly.
🌌 "It's not about hitting faster... it's about hitting at the right time. The weapon already knows that. I just need to catch up." — Akito
Sumiyoshi, meanwhile, on Day 33, has his first moment of synchrony — during a storm, the sword guides him to shelter.
On Day 35, the blade responds to his command with a silver arc of light.
Stage 4 complete.
Sumiyoshi enters Stage 5: Spirit Awareness.
But exhaustion is setting in.
🌟 Day 36
(Akito: Stage 7 — Final Acceptance | Sumiyoshi: Stage 5)
Akito wakes before dawn. Rain falls. A final opponent appears — an illusion of his younger self — the part of him that feared never being chosen.
The battle is brutal. His clone taunts him:
"You were always second. You think a cursed weapon will make you worthy?"
Akito strikes it down — not with rage, but with understanding.
His fangs emit a deep red glow.
A pulse of light surrounds him.
The chain on his arm breaks off — he is free.
As he falls to one knee, a crystal embedded in the fangs shines like a blood moon. The weapon accepts him.
Suddenly, like Shintarō, the landscape dissolves. He finds himself back in the mortal realm — trees, sky, wind.
💬 "I... did it?..."
💬 "Sumiyoshi... it's your turn now."
He looks up at the sky and whispers:
🗣️ "I'll wait for you both. Finish what we started.
Day 24, Late Evening — After Akito's Departure
The skies are quiet again. The air holds a strange stillness.
Akito is gone. Shintarō is long gone. Only Sumiyoshi remains.
He sits by the cliff's edge, arms resting on his knees, staring at the training ground below where he used to spar with both of them. The winds whisper softly, but they offer no comfort.
His sword rests beside him, still. Silent.
"So it was never me who was meant to be the fastest..."
His voice barely breaks the air. His eyes are hollow — not in jealousy, but in defeat.
The memories replay like echoes.
Shintarō finishing in 11 days.
Akito struggling, falling, rising... and now completing on Day 36.
And him? Day 24... still nowhere close.
He thinks back to his first day in the Divine Grounds — how he'd felt hopeful, proud even.
How he thought maybe, just maybe, his sword had chosen him for a reason.
"Maybe it made a mistake... Maybe I'm just... not enough."
A sudden breeze rushes past, and for a second, he thinks it's the spirits again.
But it isn't. There's only silence.
Even the sword feels cold to touch now — as if it, too, has distanced itself.
He picks up a rock and throws it down the cliff. It vanishes into the mist below.
"Akito always kept pushing himself. Shintarō... he never doubted himself. And me?..."
A lump builds in his throat.
"I'm tired."
He lies back against the rocky ground. The stars above seem painfully distant. He closes his eyes.
A single thought circles his mind again and again:
"Why am I the only one left behind?"
He doesn't cry. But something inside him breaks — quietly. Like a candle flickering for the last time.
His sword remains at his side. Unmoving.
It does not glow. It does not speak. It does not acknowledge him.
And for the first time, Sumiyoshi begins to fear that maybe he will never complete the training. That maybe the sword never intended to choose him at all.
That night, he doesn't train.
That night, he just lies under the stars. Alone.
Listening to the silence of the mountains and the unanswered question in his heart.
"What if I'm not worthy of the power to protect anyone?"