It’s been 3 years now since Uehara had taken up residence in the Hiroshi household. During that time, Sakura was officially labeled an orphan and they offered to send her to the orphanage. Uehara had told her to refuse the offer because he knew they would take her older brother’s house along with all the valuables she has for “safekeeping”. After all, Mangetsu was a commoner who through pure skill and determination, became one of the battalion’s most valuable warrior martial artist. But since he died, the nobles who weren’t able to bring him under their control would want to seize everything he owned in hopes of finding out how he got strong so quickly.
While Uehara wasn’t able to find a noteworthy swordmaster to study from, he did use the memories of his past life to mimic how certain swordsmen he used to work with moved. Also, using Mangetsu’s memories of how to use a sword, he began training in it. While the short stature of his body forced him to wield a short sword he had got from the market, he was seeing massive improvements on that front, taking a bit of inspiration from the anime in his past life as well as his former colleagues to create a new sword technique specifically tailored for himself.
He was also able to make further advancements on other subjects like alchemy and smithing. The only reason he studied those subjects was so that he could find better inspiration on how to manipulate the elements. Using that knowledge plus his imagination, he was able to create and completely control meteors of molten metal. Although he has his imagination trait, he knew he had to at least have a foundation for his imagination to run wild on or else he would severely limit himself. By burying himself in scrolls from the secret libraries and vaults of various families and institutions, he quickly gained a lot of knowledge.
Another development was that Uehara had taken it upon himself to teach Sakura how to harness chakra. To say it was hard would be an understatement. For humans, they were far less connected to nature by default and that connection becomes even less so the older they got. Fortunately, Sakura was still fairly young so it wasn’t impossible.
Surins are beings of nature and by extension, vampiric surins fall under that category. Because Uehara had made Sakura’s head his personal resting spot, he had indirectly made her more attuned to the chakra in nature, allowing her to pick up on it. This had all happened due to the chakra he emits, which had entered her body.
Teaching her was like teaching a person how to walk. Although it wasn’t enjoyable at all for Uehara, it had forced him to come to analyse and therefore understand the energy he had been using so much and had taken for granted. Upon having taken a closer look, he had noticed the quality of his chakra had increased compared to 8-years ago when he had stopped growing at 5. This little phenomenon had finally answered his questions as to why he had such a slow growth process. His body had forsaken growth as soon as all his bones were properly functional and chose to instead improve the quality of his chakra. He had had suspicions about that before but had put them to the back of his mind until recently with all his training.
He also hadn’t forgotten about the woman who had the blood that sung to him. After having drunk her blood a few times while she was asleep, he had gleaned some information about her. He had found out her name was Minamoto Chizuki, former sacrificial lamb for a political marriage to the Fujiwara clan. Ever since she was diagnosed with her lung disease, they had tried desperately to heal her but when it was clear that there was no hope, she was sent to Akaigawa village and was given a house and some necessities to live out the rest of her days. She had stayed there for a few months until she was diagnosed that she only had at most 2 weeks left to live. After having suffered a breakdown, she had ran out into the forest where she had met him.
Since then, she had abandoned her family and became a mercenary. She had dressed up as a man and began taking up bounty missions. Uehara always tracked her progress every week for the past 3 years, injecting her with his chakra everytime he had finished feeding on her so that he wouldn’t affect her normal functions. Chizuki knew it was Uehara who had occasionally feasted on her blood and was secretly glad he hadn’t found a replacement for her. Her waking up once a week to feel inhumanely energised while sporting a carefully hidden but still visible bite mark on her neck was a feeling she welcomed wholeheartedly. She still failed however to catch a glimpse of Uehara as he always came only when she was truly asleep.
Uehara on the other hand hadn’t had much change about him. He had found a tailor for the silk he had collected a few weeks after settling in with Sakura and the result was a beautiful white knee-length coat with black outlines along with black pants and new black shinobi sandals.
There wasn’t much he could do for his physical training since the gains made there would be incredibly slow due to how his body was allocating resources to the development of his chakra. He didn’t want to tamper with the process since he knew it was extremely vital for his future growth. All he could do was improve his skill and try to connect himself to nature more.
[I hope I won’t have to abstain to become a sage.]
Nara City, Japan
It was one of the days where Uehara had tracked down Chizuki. After having confirmed through the mark that she’s sleeping, he instantly appeared there in a swirl of black mist. He was in a room that had lanterns for lighting. Chizuki was sleeping on a one-person bed, curled up in a fetal position. He peeled open the blankets, exposing her nape.
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His eyes glowed red in anticipation. He gently bit down on her throat, sucking her blood and in exchange, flooding her body with his chakra to make her body produce more blood. Her body was adjusting more and more to his chakra, slowly reaching the peak of what humanity can achieve through normal means.
He soon withdrew himself from her neck, his eyes returning to their normal black colour.
“Until next time Minamoto.”
He vanished in a swirl of darkness.
Heiankyō Prefecture, Japan
It had been a few days after Uehara had visited Nara. It was a sunny morning and he and Sakura were going to the market to refill on some groceries. As always, Uehara had assumed his position on her head when they went out of the house.
He was curled up on her head, his tail hanging on her side, forming a bang that contrasted well with her red hair. There was also another reason they were going to the market besides groceries.
“Um, are you sure I need to go to school Black-kun?”
Uehara didn’t open his eyes at all, his tail swinging freely.
{Yes. Like I told you before, although the education will be useless, you’ll need to socialise with other humans as well. Learn how to identify lies, deception and more. Now less talking, more walking. The sooner we get back home, the sooner we can get you started on meditation and the sooner I don’t have to bear the stench of these humans.}
“Okay.”
She replied cheerfully and walked down the street. There were much less people in the morning. There were your occasional merchants putting in their last minute touches on their stalls and carts full of products moving in for delivery. There were also people cleaning out the horse dung on the street.
They soon got to the market square. It was one huge block that had hundreds of stalls in the centre. Surrounding them were administrative buildings and guilds. There were a few mercenaries going in and out of the guild buildings as well as administrative employees.
{Time for your surprise test. The man in black carrying a broadsword on his back. What can you glean from him. Ten seconds to observe.}
Sakura didn’t change expressions nor turn her head to observe the man. She just slightly slowed down her pace while sending very thin strands of chakra to subtly coil around the man.
When the 10 seconds were up, she suddenly felt herself cut off from the world. She appeared in Uehara’s mindscape, a field full of greenery and blue skies with a gentle sun along with a slow-running river. In front of her was Uehara who was levitating. He still looked like a 5-year old and his hair looked spiky and feral. It reached his knees with two thin bangs framing his face in an arc.
He charged at her, his custom-made sword in hand. Sakura began dodging the attacks while conjuring her own sword. Uehara went in for a leg sweep which she quickly dodged.
“Tell me about the man you observed. Don’t miss any details.”
Sakura kept parrying his blows while dodging some.
“Male, 34 years old. Judging by the injuries sustained after observing the odd angles he was struck at and the amount of wear-ARGH, and tension on the m-muscles and bones, target is-IGH, assumed to h-have come from a crowd-extermination mission. Suspected to have c-combated fairly decent bandits armed with swords and bows.”
She kept dodging but Uehara managed to sneak some blows in, causing deep gashes on her torso and shoulders.
“Continue your explanation.”
“Gleaning from the amount of dust on his person and the amount of fresh wear on his clothing and lack of hair being-UWAA, w-washed, the target is suspected to have been gone for roughly 3 days at normal pace. Analysing the amount of moisture in their skin, target is suspected to have come from a dry region of high altitude. This increases the-OUCH, likely-hood of the target having come from the mountainous regions 80km north-east of here.”
Uehara knocked the sword out of her hand and aimed the tip of his sword at her throat.
“You slipped at the end of your explanation. You were relieved for the briefest of seconds. You need to manage that. You can’t afford to have slip-ups in combat.”
“Yes sensei.”
The sword vanished into thin air as he lied down on the grass, a tree forming in the process to provide some shade for him.
“There’s also another thing I want to address. Why do you insist on imitating the way I speak?”
At that moment, all seriousness vanished from Sakura’s face, a cute giggle replacing the silence.
“It’s because it’s fun~”
Uehara stared intently at her before deciding to switch the topic.
“Right. On another note. Your training is coming along well. Another 3-5 years and it’ll be enough for you to survive.”
Sakura’s mood became somber.
“Does that mean you’ll leave me?
Uehara, without missing a beat…
“Yes. I only have a few decades left to peek around the human world before I go back home for a few years. I won’t waste those valuable years waiting for you to die of old age.”
Her head hung low. There was silence for a while before he mustered the courage to speak.
“C-can I come with you?”
“No.”
She protested in indignation.
“B-BUT YOU SAID I’D BE STRONG ENOU-”
A crushing pressure sent her to the floor, her ribs slowly breaking under the gravity.
“Make no mistake. Although I do possess a good enough impression of you to let some minor misconceptions…slide, it does not warrant that you are allowed to yell in my presence, much less at me.
He alleviated the pressure from her.
“I have no need for followers and the current you is still too weak for my liking. Understood?”
The girl weakly nodded.
“Yes.”
After that, they exited the mindscape, time seemingly not to have progressed since their entry. Sakura continued her shopping in silence while Uehara continued to sleep on her head. They soon ended their day in town and returned back to the house. As soon as they were inside, Uehara hopped off her head and reformed back into his humanoid form. He levitated at face height with her, looking deep into her eyes.
“You are ten years old. Since you’re a child, I can foresee you trying methods to ‘extend’ the length of time that I’m around however I assure you that once you reach your latter ages of 13 or 14, you’ll wish my presence wasn’t here.”
“THA-that’s not true…”
“Really? I’ve seen how teenage humans act. That is why it is best for the both of us if I leave, lest I regretfully kill you in one of your future outbursts.”
Uehara didn’t lie when he said he would kill her. Even back in his past life, he had killed many for petty reasons like insulting him. Now that he is a being of chakra, an existence far above humans, his mentality has also changed drastically. To him, humans are no more than animals and that mindset will only progress further as he evolves even further and unlocks more and more Gates.
Edited by: Mr X