Horns of Sorrow (Part 1)
The kid was born beneath a gray sky, in the backwaters of Edo-period Japan, where travelers trudged past the rice paddies and mountain roads without ever knowing his name. Yet they knew his horns. Small, jagged things—black like burnt wood, curling just barely from his head. They were enough. Enough to mark him as something not human. Something cursed.
His name was Rūpu Rīpā, though few ever called him by it. He was "oni-child," "horned freak," or simply a target for stones. Travelers on the road would spot him sitting by himself near the shrines or bridges, and some would hurl pebbles to drive him away as if he were an omen of bad harvest. Others spat prayers to ward off evil, as though his existence poisoned the air. By the time he was seven, sorrow had settled on him like a second skin.
He had no parents voices to sing him to sleep, only the cold nights, the mocking jeers, and his reflection in the river—his horns glinting back at him under moonlight. He often whispered to the water: Why was I born like this? Why not without these horns?
One day, when the rain was thick and the roads washed with mud, a wandering monk passed him by. His robes were travel-worn, his face gaunt, but his eyes were sharp, cutting through the mist. He did not offer warmth or comfort. He only stared at the kid, as if measuring him.
"You with the horns," the monk said flatly. "You are despised. You will die like a stray dog. Unless..."
Rūpu's stomach twisted. The monk's voice carried neither pity nor cruelty, only the gravity of someone who had seen too much of the world.
"Unless you carry forward what I will give you. My sword art. It is... legendary, if I say so myself. A style no other hands can wield properly. If you take it, you will earn coin. And in time, you will take my burden with it."
The kid did not trust him. He could feel the monk's disdain beneath his words—the same suspicion that everyone had when looking at his horns. But he was hungry. And more than that, he wanted a chance. A chance to carve his own life.
"I'll do it," Rūpu said, his voice trembling. "If you pay me."
The monk chuckled bitterly. "So you want coin. Very well. I'll pay you, horned brat. But mark this—I do not like you. I will never like you. You are a vessel, nothing more. Do your duty, and I'll pass on my art before the world forgets it."
And so began a bond forged not from affection, but from mutual need. The monk gave him food, shelter, and, above all, the teachings of the blade. Two steel swords forged of imported iron, gleaming brighter than anything the kid had touched before, became his companions. He was draped in a red kimono—not as a gift, but as uniform, a reminder of what he owed.
The training was merciless. Days bled into nights, and every strike left his hands raw. The monk mocked his form, struck him across the shoulders when he faltered, and hissed curses under his breath about "the damned oni-child." Yet, in the kids heart, the pain became fuel. His sorrow, his loneliness, every cruel word, and every stone hurled at him—all of it was hammered into his sword strokes.
And then something strange happened.
The technique the monk tried to force into him began to warp. It twisted with Rūpu's own rhythm, his grief giving shape to movements the monk had not intended. His swords carved the air with a resonance that felt like mourning, a style born of pain but sharpened into something lethal. He named it Makigatsu no Ken—the Technique of Horned Sorrow.
The monk, to his own surprise, was impressed. He scowled, spat, and sneered, yet inside, some part of him recognized brilliance. Rūpu was not just mimicking—he was becoming. And slowly, the bitterness between them softened. The kid began calling him "Father," half in jest, half in longing. The monk, who once swore he despised the child, began replying, "Then you are my son, stubborn as you are."
Years passed in the small mountain temple. They traveled together sometimes, not just for supplies, but to see the world outside the walls. They laughed, sparred, and grew into something neither had expected: a family stitched together from hatred, turned to love.
Until the morning it was all torn away.
Bandits came at dawn, torches and steel flashing in the mist. The monk fought with fury, his blade a storm of steel, but the numbers were too many. By the time Rūpu reached him, the old gramps was already bleeding, cut down in his own courtyard.
Rūpu's scream echoed through the mountains as he cut through the bandits with the raw, desperate rage of a child losing everything again. When the last of them fled, he collapsed beside his father's body.
He buried him beneath the cedar tree near the temple, marking the grave with stones and prayers. He did not cry. He had no tears left. He only placed the coins his father had once given him into a pouch, swearing never to spend them—not as currency, but as memory.
From that day forward, the kid was alone again. But this time, he carried a sword. This time, he carried a legacy.
And somewhere deep in his blood, something awakened.
The horns on his head pulsed with a strange heat. The first time he died in battle, the world itself recoiled—and time bent backward, looping him to life again. He rose, not as the helpless orphan, but as something else. A hunter who could not be slain. A wanderer who fought again and again until even the strongest foes crumbled before him.
The people whispered of him, never knowing his true name. They called him Yatzumira the Hunter—the horned slasher, the shadow in the mist, the one who carved enemies apart as though slicing through the atmosphere itself like he was time-looping. And in reality he was but no one knew that of course...
But to himself, he was still Rūpu Rīpā. The kid who had once been despised, who found a father in hate, and who carried a legacy forged in sorrow.
The tale of Loop Slasher had only just begun.
Horns of Sorrow (Part 2, Finale)
The snows came early that year.
Rūpu Rīpā trudged through them with bare hands and a red kimono that had grown ragged with time. His swords clinked softly at his sides, wrapped against the cold, though no steel could stop the bite of winter. Each breath rose like smoke, dissolving into the white air, leaving him alone with the crunch of his footsteps.
The world seemed endless in its silence. Mountains crowned with snow loomed in the distance, and the path before him wound like a white ribbon through forests of skeletal trees. For all his strength, for all his sorrow, he was still only seven—small in a world too vast, too cruel. He thought of his father beneath the cedar tree, the grave covered now in snow. The kid pressed his hand to the pouch of coins at his side, whispering a vow: I'm still walking, Father. Even if it's just me.
Then, as he rounded a frozen stream, he saw him.
Another child. Small, ragged, no older than himself. His hair was dark, and though his face was sharp with hunger, his eyes burned with defiance. The kid sat shivering against a tree, one hand clutched to a bleeding arm.
Rūpu stopped. Slowly, he walked closer, leaving prints in the snow. "You're hurt," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "I can help you."
The kid snapped his head up. His gaze narrowed instantly onto Rūpu's horns.
"Stay away, monster!" he spat, his words breaking like ice. He tried to stand, but the pain in his arm forced him back to the tree.
Rūpu's stomach tightened. The word "monster" should not have hurt anymore—he had heard it a thousand times—but from this kid, it did. Perhaps because he had hoped, just for a moment, that another child might see him as a friend.
"I'm not here to hurt you," Rūpu said, kneeling in the snow. "I know what it's like to be alone. Let me help."
The childs jaw clenched. "I don't need you. I don't need anyone." He stood unsteadily, pushing past the pain, and started limping away. Before he vanished into the trees, he turned back, his voice bitter but strong.
"My name is Isshun Shinda. Remember it, horned freak. Because I'll never need your pity."
And then he was gone, swallowed by the forest.
Rūpu stayed kneeling in the snow for a long time, the silence pressing heavy around him. He whispered the name to himself—Isshun Shinda—and felt something stir in his heart. It was not anger. It was not sorrow. It was... recognition. Another like him. Another child trying to claw his way through the cruelty of the world. Yet one who had chosen hatred instead of trust.
The snow thickened as he continued on his path. By nightfall, the road opened to the glow of lanterns—a city. Its gates loomed high, and people bustled inside, their laughter and voices spilling into the cold air. For the first time in months, warmth brushed against his skin.
As he stepped through the gates, heads turned. Conversations faltered. And though the guards allowed him to pass, the crowd's reaction was all too familiar: eyes flickering to the horns, whispers sliding like knives behind their hands.
But something was different.
Unlike the travelers on the road who hurled stones, the townsfolk did not jeer. They bowed slightly, forced polite smiles, even welcomed him with hollow words. Yet their kindness was laced with distance. He felt their warmth like heat behind glass—close, but untouchable.
Children peeked from doorways, then pulled back when they saw him. Merchants offered goods, but their eyes never left the horns. To them, he was a curiosity, a shadow at the edge of the firelight.
And then he heard it.
The whispers.
"...that kid again, the one called Isshun Shinda..."
"They say he's cursed, brings death wherever he goes..."
"...a child who survived more than he should have..."
Rūpu froze. The name struck him like a bell. Isshun Shinda.
He turned toward the voices, his breath caught in his heart. The townsfolk's words blurred together, but one thing was clear: the kid he had met in the snow was known here, not as an ordinary child, but as something else. A rumor. A legend being born in hushed tones.
And so, for the first time since burying his father, Rūpu felt a spark of purpose.
He would find Isshun. Not to fight him. Not to pity him. But to understand him. Because in that kids eyes, he had seen the same loneliness, the same scars of rejection. If Rūpu was to carry on in this world—this world that hated him, yet whispered of his strength—then perhaps he needed to know the truth of this other child.
The streets blurred as he walked deeper into the city, the lanterns flickering like stars swallowed by night. Snow drifted down, gathering on his horns, melting against the heat of his breath. The whispers followed him like shadows: Isshun Shinda... cursed child... survivor...
And beneath it all, the sorrow inside him deepened. Not just for himself, but for the child who had run into the trees, clutching his wound like a shield. A kid who had refused his hand, but whose name now lingered on the lips of strangers.
Rūpu stopped at the edge of the marketplace, lifting his gaze to the night sky. For a moment, he thought of his father again, of the warmth they had shared against all odds. He thought of what it meant to carry on a legacy, not of steel, but of love.
"Isshun Shinda," he whispered. "If the world has cursed us both... then maybe we're meant to find each other."
The snow fell heavier, blanketing the city in white silence. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled, and the sound carried through the streets like a promise.
The kid with the horns, the kid of sorrow, kept walking. His journey was no longer just his own.
And thus began the tale of two children—one who carried sorrow like steel, the other who bore defiance like fire. Their fates were threads already crossing in the endless loop of time.
The Loop Slasher's story was only just beginning.
TO BE CONTINUED...