Island of Aokigahara, Uehara’s House

Uehara appeared inside his room with Sakura in his hands. It was quite a comical sight to see a five-year-old boy carry a seventeen-year-old girl in a princess carry.

Placing Sakura on the bed, he began feeling for where Chizuki was through the soul-connection and his mark.

[She’s flying back here. Good.]

As soon as he came out of his thoughts, Shikibu came into the room.

“Good to see you’re back, Aoki-sama.”

“Mm. Can you take care of Sakura for me?”

Directing her gaze towards the girl she viewed as her granddaughter, she smiled.

“Of course Aoki-sama. Just leave her to me.”

Uehara nodded.

“Thank you.”

Without waiting for Shikibu’s reply, he grabbed his scroll and vanished.

“Ara? Is Aoki-sama finally warming up to me?~”

She couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

[Even if I can’t fuse with him, I can at the very least bask in presence.]

As a surin, the chakra he emits is very pure and just by being close to him these last few days, Shikibu felt her strength increase by atleast twenty-percent. If she could reside within him, she wouldn’t be surprised if her rate of gaining strength increased by a few thousand times.

But before Shikibu could bask any further in her thoughts, she felt the familiar chakra signature of Chizuki approaching the island.

Putting a hand to her forehead, she sighed.

“There goes my peace.”

As if coinciding with her words, Chizuki instantly appeared in the room and glared at Shikibu. Taking a whiff, she noticed how Uehara’s scent was heavy on Shikibu’s body.

Her gaze instantly became cold.

“Murasaki.”

Shikibu coyly smiled.

“Hello, Chizuki-chan?~”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Ah? But didn’t you promise that you would do anything if I saved Aoki-sama?”

Chizuki clenched her fists at the memory.

“A debt that has already been paid.”

Shikibu waved her finger like a teacher educating a child.

“No no. Aoki-sama paid his debt to me by offering me refuge to the island. You still haven’t paid back the debt for destroying my house. Right now, you are paying it back by letting me call you-”

“Fine.”

Although Chizuki didn’t listen to half of what was being said, she just didn’t want to listen to the woman any longer.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“You can go back to where you came from. I’ll stay with Sakura.”

Sensing another opportunity to tease Chizuki, Shikibu smiled.

“Okay~”

She instantly appeared on the other side of Uehara’s bed and lied down next to Sakura. Immediately, the room temperature became cold as she felt killing intent press down on her.

Ignoring the pressure, she also brushed off the sudden chill in the room by warming her insides.

“You know, you’ll interrupt Sakura’s rest, and Aoki-sama won’t be pleased.”

Feeling the pressure and chill in the room vanish in an instant, Shikibu flashed a smile.

“Hihi~”

Meanwhile, Chizuki glared at Shikibu with a gaze that could kill.

[This bitch!]

…

A few hours had passed and Uehara was standing on the edge of the cliff overlooking the territory of the Blood Titans.

Wearing his typical high-collared black coat, the new addition to his attire was his newly finished scroll that was strapped to his back with maroon straps made from the tough hide of a bison-bear. The scroll itself was big, about one-metre in length and had a diameter of nearly fifteen-centimetres when rolled up.

For Uehara who looked like a five-year old, this scroll seemed to cover his entire back. Although his long hair did cause him some slight problems when he first put on the scroll, he did manage to overcome the issue in the end.

Uehara’s eyes were currently closed since he was fully focused on absorbing nature energy. With his skin twitching slightly due to the influx of nature energy, slight draconic features started appearing on his body. The first sign was the area around his eyes gaining a slightly dark shade. The next were two black tear-marks running from his eyes all the way to his jawline.

Increasing the rate of nature energy that was being absorbed in his body even further, two ribbed black horns emerged from his forehead while two canines threatened to poke through his lips.

Opening his eyes that were now crimson-red slits, he didn’t need a mirror to know that there were changes to his sage mode.

[Just these changes mean one thing. My handling of nature energy has gotten better, allowing me to bring out more of my strength.]

Uehara had long since had a theory that was just recently verified through training with his father. He had always wondered if, wouldn’t it theoretically be possible to continuously gain strength through sage mode? The reason is because sage mode relies on the body’s physical strength. The more powerful a person’s body is, the more they can get from sage mode.

Every demon is always in a sort of sage mode since they always constantly absorb nature energy, although at a much smaller rate. By increasing the rate of nature energy absorption, the more strength the demon can milk from their bodies.

Although there’s a limit to how much nature energy a demon can hold within their body, that limit increases the stronger their body is.

[But what I’m doing isn’t increasing the rate of absorption, but rather, the quality of absorption. Previously, I just absorbed the nature energy and forced it to adhere to my directions on how to flow. But now, I’m simply a spectator that’s letting the nature energy flow throughout my whole body while my instincts take the reign.]

Feeling the qualitive increase in strength compared to how he previously activated sage mode, he nodded to himself.

[Strength-wise, I’m at the very least, three-times as strong as my previous efforts in sage mode. I can feel how the nature energy is now coursing through my cells and empowering me. It’s completely different from before where I could only feel it flow through my tissues.]

Opening his palm, a ball of pure dark energy formed on his hand.

[Manipulating the dark element has become much easier than before.]

He gazed at the slowly spinning sphere of darkness in his palm with a contemplative gaze. Besides the light element, the dark element has always given him trouble when it comes to solely manipulating it for combat without combining it with other elements. Despite it being his highest elemental affinity, it’s the one he finds the hardest to wield.

When thinking about it clearly, it has more to do with how he can never consciously use it. The basic abilities he has using the element of darkness had all appeared during moments when he was in extreme danger or extreme hunger. In short, situations that required him to rely more on his instincts.

The ability to teleport in a swirl of darkness and appear in a location he knows was born out of the desire to move when he was out of chakra and was about to be stomped on by a blood-titan. This happened back when he was three-years-old.

The ability to read memories just happened to appear when he touched the head of a dying bison bear. Although his goal was to pierce its skull using a bone spear, the shock of the sudden influx of memories allowed him to gain much-needed knowledge about the hierarchy of the beasts of Aokigahara. That and a much-needed meal after starving for the past few days. This happened back when he was just a few months-old.

But now, being able to physically manifest an orb of chakra that only contained the element of darkness, was an achievement that warranted a proper test session. And what better way to test out this random dark sphere than to throw it at a mountain full of blood titans?