Seeing her husband in turmoil over her, Tori ignored the metallic taste on her tongue and forced herself to calm him down.

“There is nothing to be done, dear… I’m just glad we were able to drive the monster away…”

“Tori…?” Munisai felt the tears run down his cheeks as he muttered her name.

He didn’t want to believe it, he couldn’t believe it.

“It’s okay… Jun, you and the clan are now safe… I couldn’t ask for more.” She managed to let out, feeling him grab her hand tightly.

The deep slash in her shoulder and the gapping wounds in her stomach throbbed with every breath she exhaled…

Tori knew her end was near. And so did Munisai.

“Tori… I can’t… can’t go on without you… I…” Munisai stumbled through his words, his mind going to places he couldn’t afford to let it go, “I’m not sure I know how…”

image [https://i.imgur.com/qPRUvbs.jpeg]

“You can. You have to… For Jun, For the Clan, for yourself…” Once more, Tori ignored the striking pain in her body and raised her hand toward her husbands’ cheek, his tears trickling down through her fingers.

“You’ve come a long way since back then… She… Terumi would be proud to see the kind of man… her older brother has become…” A bittersweet smile formed on Tori’s face as she spoke of someone dear to them both, someone who they both couldn’t protect back then.

Munisai stayed silent, flashes of his past failure recurring in his mind.

“Munisai… dear… accept the past… and embrace the darkness…” Tori felt her body getting colder, and for a while now, she had lost all sensation in her lower body.

“Tori…please…” Munisai didn’t know what he could say, what he could do, it was the same as always.

“Tell Jun I love her… With you around…I’m sure she’ll grow to be a reliable and responsible woman…”

Just then, her hand descended from her husband’s face, falling against her control.

And yet, the smile on her lips didn’t waver.

“I will love you always.”

At that moment, Munisai felt his wife’s body grow colder and lighter in his hands. His tears overflowed from his eyes, and along with them, snot and saliva began to drop from his numb face.

I wasn’t able to do anything again…

“AGGHHH!”

His screams and wallows went on for a while after that.

Hours passed as Munisai held his wife’s lifeless body close to his chest.

He wasn’t ready to let it go. How could he be?

Even when his friends showed up and asked to help, he ignored them completely.

It didn’t matter if they were the Commander of the Royal Guard or the Shadow Queen herself standing next to him, he simply held his wife.

Hoping for a miracle to happen…

Even at his age, he wanted to believe it; believe that if there was a way to come back from the dead, that maybe his wife would be the one to do it.

Hadn’t he been through too much already? Couldn’t he get at least this one thing?

But no miracle came, no matter how long he waited, or how tightly he held her body.

And then someone forcibly invaded his raging thoughts again.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Jun is crying! She’s asking for her parents! Do you hear me?!”

Hearing the Shadow Queen’s stern voice mentioning his daughter finally snapped him out of his daze.

“Jun…” He subconsciously muttered to himself.

“Yes, Jun! I’m sorry about Tori, I truly am. But you still have people relying on you, Munisai! Get up!” The Queen, although showing more compassion than usual with her narrow eyes, told him off in her usual stern tone that he was used to.

“I can’t…”

“Yes, you can! Get up, dammit! The man I respect wouldn’t-”

“Shut up!!!”

His sudden outburst reverberated through the surroundings, sending shivers down the Shadow Queen’s body.

Her guards and the people watching swallowed their breaths.

They all could sense the intense pressure radiating off of the Sword Saint.

Even those who had witnessed Kerberos directly felt the suffocating air around them which even that giant wolf hadn’t exuded.

No one could blame him for lashing out after what he’d just been through, but there were limits to what a grown man could get away with.

Disrespecting the Shadow Queen in front of her subjects would not be one of them.

“The man you respect, the Sword Saint people rely on, the father I’m supposed to be…” He began, slowly getting up on one foot, ignoring his crutch.

“What makes you think I can be that person?! I’m nothing! A failure who keeps letting the people he cares about die!”

“Every time… Every single time… I…”

Munisai yelled, again and again, at the woman standing in front of him, waiting.

He yelled and questioned until his voice broke and the words stopped coming out.

“Say it. Don’t stop, say it!” The Queen’s voice ignored his transgression and urged him on again.

“I… I wasn’t able to do anything! Every time! I just watch as they get taken away from me… What good am I if I can’t keep them safe, If I can’t protect them?!” Munisai shouted again, wearing his heart out on his sleeve.

As soon as the dam on his heart broke, he stumbled forward, falling down on his knees, his body losing all the tension it was holding onto for hours.

“I wasn’t able to do anything… What good am I?”

“Did they ever ask you to protect them?”

“Huh?!” He raised his head, glaring the Queen in the eyes for what she had asked him.

The air around her tensed up, the pressure suddenly dropped and shadows began to erupt uncontrollably from under her body.

“Would they want you to sulk around like a baby over them? No, they would not! You’ve got responsibilities, you have a daughter and a school of students who respect and look up to you, are you going to abandon them?”

His friend spoke, her tone becoming harsher and harsher with every sentence.

“Who’s going to protect them then? Surely not you if you’re giving up here!”

“...” Munisai bit his bottom lip to the point of drawing blood. His mind was in complete shambles, he didn’t know what to think anymore.

“So, get up, dammit! You can’t escape your own shadow, Munisai! Embrace it and get up! Carry it on your back and get up! Whatever you choose, get up!”

Munisai clenched his fists, he knew what he was doing was childish.

A grown man lashing out and always needing other people to pick him back up.

A Sword Saint? How pitiful. How pathetic.

Nevertheless, the Shadow Queen was right.

He couldn’t abandon his daughter, Jun was only 5 years old. She just lost her mother.

He still had a responsibility to raise her and make sure she can protect herself.

Having resolved his mind to it, he scoured for his crutch and quickly grabbed it with one hand, and his wife’s sword in the other.

“You’re right. I have to get to her… don’t try to stop me.”

Munisai slowly stood up again, using both the crutch and his wife’s sword as support.

“Idiot… like I would…” The queen muttered as she watched him struggle to walk, every step threatening to send him falling down.

He didn’t look back, not to see the Queen, not to swear vengeance on the two giant wolf heads that remained, not to see his wife’s body for one last time.

He walked, one step at a time, toward where his daughter, Jun, was waiting for her parents.

After the funeral and giving the family time to mourn properly, the Shadow Queen’s royal guard still came and took Munisai away.

As the Queen herself would take care of Jun, he was still going to be punished for disrespecting her in public.

While it wasn’t an easy decision for her to make, she couldn’t let something like that slide, not when her enemies in court would use it against her, and against Munisai.

The Sword Saint understood and complied, spending two weeks in absolute darkness.

During that time, he thought about his life every day.

What had happened to him, what he lost, and what he still had left.

He couldn’t achieve his dream, couldn’t protect his family or clan, didn’t live up to his potential and title, and he failed his wife and daughter.

But things were going to change, of that, Munisai was going to make absolutely sure.

Once he got out, he would dedicate his life to making sure Jun is safe and protected, and that his students are all strong enough that they wouldn’t go through what he had.

And so, when he did get out, that's what he did.

He began to carry his sword again and vowed to make sure whatever happened, he would definitely do something next time a crisis comes his way.

He wouldn’t stand idly by and do nothing anymore.

He would protect his daughter, his students, his clan.

And yet…

There he was again…

Barely alive after he protected that strange kid from the giant wolf’s claws.

He was able to protect that kid, but now that giant wolf, Kerberos, the very one who killed his wife, was going to kill him, his daughter and bring chaos to the clan.

Heh, maybe I have that scary Hyking curse myself…

He wanted so badly to just blame it on some curse, that the things that happened to him weren’t just some type of extreme misfortune.

He knew it wouldn’t fix any of it though.

What am I even thinking about…? I must’ve hit my head pretty badly too…That kid would probably say something like this…

He questioned his own calmness, for once, in such a desperate and tense situation where Kerberos could kill him and his daughter any second now, he wasn’t feeling any sense of danger anymore.

Why was that?

Then, as his eyes began to open, a slight purple glint shined within the darkness, grabbing his attention.

“Ugh… What is…that?” Munisai ignored the rusty smell invading his nose first thing and forced his eyelids open to see what was going on.

He finally noticed it as the blurry image became clearer and clearer with every second.

“!”

For some baffling reason, his blade, Masamune, was stabbed into Keberos’ inner jaw, right through its tongue, making it dart its head left and right uncontrollably.

What…?!

Munisai simply couldn’t believe the beloved blade of the Sword Saint had been reduced to such a state.

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image [https://i.imgur.com/KQmIY8F.png]