Two weeks had passed since the Smith's Village accident. The morning was calm again, morning light spilling over the Soul Slayers village.
Out on the open field, Noboru and Hakari were training again.
Hakari's movements were light but sharp, her punch slicing through the air. Noboru grunted as he blocked one of her strikes, the force sending him back a step.
Noboru smiles. "You've gotten faster with your punches again."
Hakari smirks lightly. "Or because you're not using your lightning."
Noboru dashes toward her. "I'd rather not break my body again."
The practice was playful, Noboru coated his sword with his stone majutsu, clashing against Hakari's precise movements. Each blow sent dust swirling around them. Despite the teasing, their teamwork had grown tighter, more natural.
A few meters away, Kaito sat cross-legged with his sword resting in front of him, eyes closed. The faint hum of his flame majutsu pulsed beneath his skin.
Kaito thinks. "Control it… I can do it…"
Kaito inhaled deeply, then whispered,
"Fire Majutsu… Spiral Flame!"
Flames burst from his sword, swirling upward like a crimson vortex. For a moment it held beautifully until his control slipped. The vortex exploded outward in a flash of heat.
Hakari and Noboru stumbled back as a wave of hot wind swept across the field. Kaito coughed, one hand clutching his throat, smoke rising from the ground where he knelt. Blood came out from his mouth.
"I burned my throat again…"
Hakari and Noboru came running to him.
Hakari speaks first. "Brother, you'll kill yourself at this rate!"
Noboru looks concerned. "Kaito-kun, are you alright?!"
Before any of them could continue, a familiar voice broke through the calm.
Kazuki said with a scary expression, "Are you trying to burn my training field again?"
Noboru shakes lightly. "He's gonna kill us for sure!"
He walked toward them, arms crossed, a towel hanging over his shoulder. The Captain's grin carried the usual irritation and pride.
"You've been working hard. Let's not turn the place to ash just yet. C'mon, hot springs. You both stink of sweat."
Hakari spoke up. "What about me?"
"Huh, I don't know… go do whatever."
Hakari walked away. "Of course I can't have a hot spring…"
Later, the three of them were together in a large hot spring with Renjuro also joining them.
"This feels good," Kazuki said.
"Yeah," replied Kaito.
Renjuro used his electric majutsu under the water on Noboru. "Ow! Stop that, you little sh*t, I will throw my lightning majutsu on you!"
"This makes me think about the past," Kazuki said.
"Huh?" All three of them looked confused because he had never really talked about his past before.
"Captain Kazuki?"
"Just shut up and listen," Kazuki said.
"This was when I first joined the Slayers. It's the Soul Slayers now. When this team of mine had another Captain named Rex, it used to be called Slayers only since we used to fight both corrupted slayers and demons."
"Yeah…" Kaito said, listening quietly.
"So back when I was in the team, I went on a journey to train myself," Kazuki said.
"He just launched the story time," Noboru said.
"One day I got pretty hungry, so I tried catching some fish."
Kazuki sits near a lake with a fishing rod. "Man, I'm hungry. Hurry up and give me a bite. One bite…"
"Take the bait, damnit." Suddenly, a fish seemed to take the bait. Kazuki pulls the rod up to see nothing. "Hm."
"Tsh… looks like a dine and dash." Kazuki's stomach growled loudly, then suddenly some guys seemed to lurk behind Kazuki from the trees.
"I can catch the real deal out on the shore, but I'm just not cut out for a small-time place like this. My guts are gonna touch my back soon," Kazuki said annoyingly.
The four guys walked closer behind Kazuki, holding some bats and weapons.
"You guys thieves? If you want a fight, I won't mind giving you one," Kazuki said while still holding the rod in the lake.
Kazuki stands up. "But I'm kinda pissy right now because I'm starving." Kazuki looks back at them. "So I might not be able to hold back."
An old man walked up in the front and opened a small box with some sandwiches to offer. "P-please have these… S-sir Slayer, you seem rather hungry."
Kazuki walks closer before taking the box. "These things better not be poisoned," Kazuki said.
"O-of course they aren't! Please, help yourself," the old man said, handing the small box to Kazuki.
"Alright, don't mind if I do," Kazuki said, taking the box and taking a bite of a sandwich.
"Sir Slayer, if you would be willing to hear our request, we could prepare more for you," the old man said.
Kazuki looked at him with a muffled voice. "Request?" Kazuki swallowed the sandwich before saying, "Okay, sure."
By the evening, they took Kazuki to their small village, now in their house.
The old man spoke, sitting next to Kazuki at the table. "It's almost harvest season. Thankfully, we foresee a good harvest this year."
Kazuki spoke. "Well, that's good."
The old man hesitated before saying, "But… despite our good harvest, they're going to come around."
Kazuki said curiously, "Who's 'they'?"
"Bandits," the old man said. "As soon as the harvest is done, they show up to steal the precious crop that we spent so much time maturing and harvesting."
Kazuki listened quietly.
"We sent a petition to the Slayers Village, but apparently the bandits are hitting the other towns, too, so they just can't afford to send help to our remote little village," the old man explained.
"You want me to deal with the bandits?" Kazuki confirmed.
"W-we'll be happy to feed you while you stay with us. Three meals a day," the old man said, trying to convince Kazuki.
Kazuki slammed his hands on the table, taking all the men by surprise. "To hell with that! You want to hire a Slayer and all you have to offer is food?" Kazuki said angrily.
"W-we don't have any money. Our harvest was stolen last year, too, so we barely made any money. The bread I gave you earlier had been hidden in one of the storerooms," the old man tried to convince Kazuki.
"Naps! I won't work for food alone. Add naps to it, my final and last offer. Do that, and I wouldn't mind fighting the bandits for you," Kazuki said with a smile.
All the villagers sighed with relief.
"Guess that seals the deal, and now that I'm full, I'm going to take a dump," Kazuki said, walking away from the room.
"S-sir Slayer, can you tell us your name?" the old man asked.
Kazuki turned his head back. "Kazuki. I'm Kazuki Tenma."
After the night, the bandits surrounded the small town. Their boss puffed on his cigarette before smirking. "What are we going to do?"
"About what, boss?" one of his underlings asked.
"Looks like they had a good harvest this year. I wonder if we're going to be able to steal all of it. It might be too heavy for us to carry," their boss said.
"Not to worry. Some of our guys can use spatial majutsu, we can send it back to our hideout," his underling said.
"Then I guess we don't have to worry." All of them laughed.
"Right. Now, I'm sure the guys in the village are on their guard. Take them down if they get in our way. Steal every last crop, you boys!" the boss yelled at them.
"Yeah!" All of them ran toward the village.
"Let's see where to start," one of the underlings said. "Guess I should hit up their storerooms first. Where is it?"
"It's the building to the left here," someone said to him.
"Thank you… Huh?" Just as he turned out, Kazuki threw a punch in his stomach, sending him flying. "If I scare you off, you people might come back again, so I'll have to make sure to give all of you a taste," Kazuki said.
"That's one," Kazuki counts, beating each one of them one by one. "Two." Smashes the other one halfway into the ground. "Three."
After some time of beating up many of them, laying on top of each other unconscious, "61…63…67. Damn, how many of you are there? There's no end to this mess."
Kazuki ran toward the others while they shot fire, ice, and wind majutsu toward him, and none of them landed even a scratch on him.
"Ahh!" Cuts one of the bandits with his katana coated in dark majutsu and jumps up to dodge fire majutsu.
He lands back to see a bunch of those bandits in front of him.
"Good grief. To think they had a small fry Slayer protecting their asses," the boss of the bandits said.
"Are you the boss of these bandits? I'm surprised to see you were able to pull all these damn losers," Kazuki said with a smirk, holding his katana.
"Get enough losers together and you can defeat a beast. Even a small leak will sink the ship, as they say. Get him, boys! The one who takes him down will get extra money this time!" the boss shouted.
"Yeah!" All of them walked toward Kazuki.
Kazuki held up his katana. "Tch. Individually, they're not that strong, but there are too many of them. What am I gonna do?"
All of them yelled together, surrounding Kazuki. "Guess all I can do is kick some asses!"
Kazuki jumps high in the air, slashing through one of the ice spears and lands on the ground, kicking one bandit. Another one flies toward Kazuki. "You're mine!" Kazuki knocks him down with one hit of his katana.
"Shut up!" Kazuki says as another bandit throws a barrage of ice spear majutsu at him, not even a single one hitting him as he moves his katana quickly to deflect all of them.
Suddenly, all of the bandits send a merged majutsu attack. "Tch." Before it could hit him, someone makes a wind wall behind Kazuki, shielding him from all the attacks. "Huh?"
Kazuki takes the chance and throws his own majutsu at the bandits. "Blade of Destruction… Cataclysm Edge!" Kazuki takes down all the bandits at once, making a small explosion.
Kazuki turns around to see a creepy smiling young guy (Captain Takuma). "Who the hell are you?" Kazuki asks.
"I'm no one suspicious," Takuma says.
"Weird boots, weird clothes, weird hair, and a creepy smile. Everything about you is suspicious!" Kazuki confirms.
Takuma laughs before forming another wind wall behind Kazuki, shielding him from another fireball. "Kazuki, was it? I'm counting on you to watch my back," Takuma says.
"Huh, how do you know who I am? Tch." Kazuki says before turning away and taking a stance, then running toward the bandits, swinging his swords and taking down about four of them before running to another one.
He sends three of them flying with a kick. Other bandits rush at him, but Takuma forms multiple wind walls around Kazuki to deflect many of the bandits' majutsu attacks.
"This kid moves like he knows all my moves… talk about creepy," Kazuki thinks.
Their boss's mouth drops open from shock to see all of his bandits taken down by just two Slayers. "T-that's impossible… the two of you defeated all my men?"
Kazuki lands down standing beside Takuma. "The only ones left… are you bastards!" Kazuki says, cutting toward Takuma halfway while running toward the two remaining.
The boss yells to the remaining bandits. "Hurry… we're retreating!" The bandits open a portal, letting the boss escape but leaving him behind.
Takuma and Kazuki capture the last remaining bandit, holding him up against a tree.
Kazuki stares at the bandits. "Hey! Who do you think you are, letting your boss escape like this?!"
After a few minutes, Kazuki had beaten the bandits to a pulp.
"Looks like the bandits' boss got away, but we managed to round up the rest of them. Now this village and the ones nearby won't be attacked for a while, probably," Takuma says, looking at the beaten bandits.
"Yeah, probably. By the way, you still haven't answered me," Takuma looks over at Kazuki and asks. "I asked you earlier… how the hell do you know who I am?" Kazuki asks.
"Oh, that. You're quite famous. The wild guy himself, a demon running around killing every demon in sight, got chosen by the Slayers," Takuma says.
"Oh? And who the hell are you?" Kazuki asks.
"I'm also a member of the Slayers, too," Takuma says.
"Huh?"
"Though most of my missions are through cities, so this is the first time we've met. I happened to be on another mission nearby," Takuma explains.
"Oh, yeah. I guess I did hear about some kid with a creepy smile, who joined the Slayers recently… I guess that's you," Kazuki says.
"Calling it weird is quite mean. A special person gave me these clothes and boots," Takuma says.
"Special or not, it's definitely weird. Who gave you those?" Kazuki said.
"Who, indeed?" Takuma said. Kazuki thinks for a moment, realizing it must be the old man, the head of the Slayers.
Next morning in the village, the villagers are gathered around as the old man speaks.
"Thank you for everything, Sir Kazuki."
"Thank you very much." All the villagers bow to thank Kazuki.
"Now our village is safe," the old man says.
"It's no big deal, old fart. You guys fed me plenty. Well, see ya!" Kazuki says, waving back as he walks away.
Kazuki sits near the lake eating the food the villagers had given him as payment.
Kazuki holds up a piece of bread. "You want one?"
Takuma, standing behind him, speaks. "I'll pass, you're the one villagers hired, not me."
"Alright, then."
"What are you going to do now?" Takuma asks.
"Continue my training. Wanna tag along?" Kazuki asks.
"I'm sure a lot of interesting things would happen if I went with you, but as much as it hurts to say no, I have more missions. I will follow my own path. Farewells," Takuma says before walking.
"Mhm."
"You and I… Though our paths are different now, I'm sure we'll eventually end up on the same path," Takuma says.
"Same path?"
Takuma looks back at him with his creepy smile.
"In that case, that makes you my rival," Kazuki says with a smile.
"First, I'm going to become captain of one of the Slayers' teams, and don't you dare underestimate me because of my age," Takuma says.
"Please, like I'd lose to you," Kazuki says with a smile.
"Then the challenge is on. Let's see who becomes a captain first and slays the strongest demons!" Takuma says.
Takuma turns to walk away before Kazuki says, "Hey, creepy smile. You never told me your name."
"Takuma… Takuma Raiden," Takuma says before walking away.
"Raiden? The hell, even your name is weird," Kazuki says quietly with a smile.
Takuma waves back at him. "Let's meet again, Kazuki."
"Yeah!" Kazuki says before eating bread as he turns away. "Well, guess I should get going too."
Back at the current time, hot springs.
"That was the first time that creepy smile and I fought together last year before becoming captains," Kazuki said with a smile as Kaito, Noboru, and Renjuro listened with interest.
"And then…"