The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill
Chapter 136: A Blade Meant for War

Another clash. Another echo.

Jisoo slammed shoulder-first into the ground, breath ragged, sliding through dust and cracked tile. Her duplicate blurred past her, chasing that half-second of imbalance.

Yujin's clone struck in tandem, serpentine limbs flexing as it locked its jaws over her shifting wrist. She howled, morphing mid-grapple, slamming a clawed foot into its chest to break free.

They were being pushed harder. Again.

Each engagement was faster. Smarter. Their shadows weren't just mimicking anymore.

They were evolving.

And Jin saw it happen from across the plaza.

Every step he took was mirrored. Every twitch. His clone hadn't blinked since it reformed—eyes flat, hollow, still watching him like prey it hadn't decided how to kill yet.

Jin's pulse didn't rise.

But something behind his ribs began to twist.

His fingers gripped Muramasa's sheath as his voice cut across the battlefield:

"Change the way you fight!"

Both Jisoo and Yujin turned their heads slightly mid-motion, even as their shadows pressed forward.

"Try something different—anything!" he shouted. "They're not adapting to power! They're adapting to us! What we've already done!"

Jisoo landed on her feet and swore under her breath. "Define 'different,' Jin!"

But she got it.

She didn't wait for more instruction—just flipped off the nearest wall and dashed in an arc rather than straight. Not a burst-dash. Just speed. Off-rhythm.

Her shadow flinched—only slightly, but enough.

The clean read was gone.

Yujin bared her teeth. "My instincts are my style!"

But even she knew better than to ignore the warning.

She pivoted, shifted her form mid-dash into something she rarely used—low and quadrupedal, more feline than beast, not her usual jaguar bulk. A thinner hybrid with speed over force.

The clone followed.

But late.

Jin nodded once.

Then turned back to face his own reflection.

It still hadn't moved.

Still perfect.

Still waiting.

He drew a shallow breath and shifted his stance.

Not a sacred form.

Not even a stance, really. Just a mess of balance—left leg out, shoulders too open, hips dropped too low.

Everything about it screamed wrong.

But that was the point.

He struck anyway.

Muramasa hissed through the air. The cut was shallow, jagged. A diagonal meant to disrupt—not end.

It hit the clone square in the side.

The blow landed.

The clone staggered.

Jin landed the follow-through and skidded away. No flourish. No style.

But the cut stayed.

He blinked once. Narrowed his eyes. Stepped in again.

Another ugly attack—a wide sweep with a broken step built into it. The clone tried to mirror, but stumbled half a beat late.

Jin slashed low.

It hit again.

And the wound lingered.

He was doing it.

But it felt like breaking his own bones to get there.

Every instinct in his body screamed to fix his footing. To raise the guard. To recover into form.

He ignored it. Twice. Three times.

But then—

The shadow lunged.

And Jin, cornered, cornered into reflex—

Snapped back into it.

"Roku no Kata," he muttered.

Muramasa surged forward.

"Yomi no Kuzure."

Sixth Form.

Collapse of the Underworld.

The blade split the air like a falling verdict. Red light tore across the ground in a perfect arc—an echo of every time Jin had drilled the move in solitude, in pressure, in battle.

The cut struck the clone clean.

But this time?

It caught the blade mid-swing.

Mirrored it.

Reflected it.

Matched it.

The two blades clashed mid-motion, red energy locking between them like two gods meeting in the middle of their domains.

Jin's breath caught—not from shock.

But from disappointment.

He knew that moment the form left his lips that he'd lost control.

He'd gone back.

His edge retracted.

The blade hissed softly in protest. Muramasa pulsed against his grip—not encouragement. Not pride.

Just weight.

The shadow pushed against his blade—and Jin stepped back, just barely regaining his distance.

His jaw clenched.

Across the field, Jisoo landed a hit—scraped her clone with a rising elbow after baiting a false retreat. Yujin swiped down hard and forced her double to shift forms prematurely, staggering the balance of its stance.

They were adapting.

He wasn't.

Not really.

Jin stood at the edge of the fray. Muramasa hummed against his hand. The green light beneath his boots didn't flicker this time.

He didn't move.

Just breathed.

"I've mastered every piece of his style," he thought.

"Can I really unlearn a single one?"

And something was breaking inside his technique.

Not from failure.

But from holding on too tightly.

Jin sood in the silence between movements. Around him, the chaos didn't stop—blades clashing, feet scraping stone, snarls and breath and noise.

But all of it faded.

His shadow didn't attack.

It just stood again. Poised. Waiting. Its head tilted—not in confusion, but in patience. Like it knew. Like it understood Jin would return to his comfort zone eventually.

That he had to.

Because he was still chained to the very thing he thought gave him freedom.

Muramasa pulsed again in his grip. The pressure in its hum wasn't urging him forward. It was asking—

Why?

And Jin didn't have an answer.

He lowered the sword. Just an inch. Just enough.

The shadow mirrored him.

He stared at it—not at the weapon, not at its stance, but into the eyes that weren't really eyes. The reflection that wasn't alive but somehow still saw.

Saw too much.

That's when the echo hit him.

A voice. Not in the air. Not in his ears.

Just inside.

The weight of a memory returned.

It had been quiet then too.

The forest at night was silent in its own way—no threat, no system presence, just the hush of leaves and moonlight pressing down over the Lifebound Grove.

Jin had knelt in the clearing behind the school, far from the others, his knees brushing against soft moss. Muramasa lay across his lap. Unsheathed. Sleeping.

He bowed forward—slowly, deliberately—until his head touched the earth and activated weapon bonding.

The area around him shifted with a dark smoke, like the last time he used this skill, but unlike before, he didn't go falling into a pit of darkness.

"I'm asking as a student," he said quietly. "Not as your wielder."

No answer.

He stayed bowed.

Then the voice came.

"You speak with less arrogance."

Jin flinched at the tone—but didn't lift his head.

"Please," he said again. "Teach me. I'm ready to listen."

A pause.

Then, behind him—a shape formed.

Not solid. Not human. A silhouette of red-glowing ash and folded smoke, standing with its back turned to him, arms at its sides, kimono flickering like it was made from dying flame.

Muramasa.

"Do you know why I was angry?" the spirit said, "when you used one of my sacred forms to block my attack?"

Jin's fingers dug lightly into the soil. He didn't rise.

"Because… I didn't execute it properly?"

"No."

The voice cracked—not loud, but sharp enough to split a moment in two.

"I was furious because you used it at all or better yet attempted to use it"

Jin finally looked up—slowly. The spirit didn't turn. It remained facing the woods, posture still, but voice brittle.

"That technique was meant for a battlefield," Muramasa continued. "Every stroke carved from an age where we had no time to learn, only to kill. My sword was not meant to be carried now. In a time like this."

Jin's voice came low. "There's danger now too."

"There's violence," Muramasa replied. "But not war. Not like what birthed me, to fight demons I had to throw away my humanity and I wouldn't wish that upon even my worst enemy."

He took one step forward.

Jin almost reached out—but stopped.

"My forms are not universal. They are relics. If you wield them as scripture, then you are nothing but a priest to a god that already died."

"I've used them to survive," Jin said.

"You've survived despite them. Not because of them."

Jin's mouth opened. Closed.

The spirit turned his head—not fully, just a tilt. Barely a flicker of attention.

"And what's worse," he said, "is that you've seemed to learn the basics without asking one question. There is a chance you may fall even deeper into depravity than I had."

Another pause.

Muramasa began walking again, slow steps, fading into the trees, his shape dissolving into cinders.

"You learned my movements," he said, "but not my pain. So they aren't yours. They're just tools you stole without knowing what they were built to kill."

And then he was nearly gone.

Until Jin shouted after him:

"There is a war! One far greater than the one you had faced before!"

The air in the clearing tightened.

Muramasa stopped.

His outline no longer wavered. The smoke solidified—if only slightly.

Muramasa turned.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

The smoke trailing his form twisted like coiled blades, and when his eyes found Jin's, they weren't ember-lit anymore—they were flame. Steady. Piercing.

His voice cut through the clearing like drawn steel.

"…What did you just say?"

The ground beneath Jin cracked in a slow, deliberate radius. Not from force, but presence. A weight older than memory. The aura of a weapon that had once ended dynasties.

Jin didn't flinch.

He met that fire with calm.

"I said—this war is greater."

Muramasa's mouth curled—not into a smile.

Into interest.

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