Across the boundless field of reeds, a delicate-looking, young boy lay weakly among the grass.
Accompanied by a roll of thunder, a few crisp clashes of steel rang out in quick succession.
The sound of blood gushing from a human body drifted away on the wind, followed immediately by the dull thud of a heavy object hitting the ground.
"Hah—Gah!!!"
A blood-colored blade struck the neck with pinpoint precision, severing the obsession of the one who had returned from the Yellow Springs.
"Well done... Wolf."
With these words, the man who had been kneeling upright on the reed-covered ground, his back held ramrod straight, suddenly seemed to have all his life force drained away, and he collapsed heavily into the reeds.
"Farewell."
Huo Yuhao used his Right Hand to shetch the Mortal Blade, then raised his left hand in a Buddhist salutation to pay his respects to the Sword Saint who had imparted to him the supreme way of the sword.
Even though a shinobi's destiny is bound to killing, one must never abandon the tiny shred of compassion within; Huo Yuhao had carried out this teaching to the letter.
"Wolf, where are you?"
A weak voice drifted into Huo Yuhao's ears on the wind rustling through the reeds. As a shinobi, Huo Yuhao could perceive the faintest of sounds.
Huo Yuhao strode quickly to the boy's side, dropped to one knee, and said, "Divine Heir, I am right beside you."
Huo Yuhao looked with a trace of reluctance at the child before him, who had endured so many twists and turns of fate. He would never forget that moonlight over the Moon-View Tower, nor the lonely figure upon it—that small figure that had pinned all its hopes entirely upon him.
Retrieving the Tears of the Divine Dragon and the Everblossom, both wrapped in cloth strips, from his bosom, Huo Yuhao gently supported the Divine Heir's head with his other hand, as if having made a certain resolute decision.
"Divine Heir, please partake of the dragon's tears."
The glowing Tears of the Divine Dragon made the pink Everblossom appear even more ethereal, and the rosy light even illuminated Huo Yuhao's face, along with his grayish-brown shinobi attire, made primarily of linen and canvas.
The Divine Heir opened his eyes with great difficulty, managing only a narrow slit—just enough to see his shinobi gazing at him with lingering reluctance.
"Wolf..."
The Divine Heir tried to raise his jade-like hand to stroke his shinobi's weather-beaten cheek, but the power of the Tears of the Divine Dragon and the Everblossom quickly dissolved within his body. The next moment, the Divine Heir's head slumped to the side, and he lost consciousness once more.
Huo Yuhao slowly lowered the arm that had been supporting the Divine Heir's head, shifted his arm behind his back, and grasped the odachi strapped there.
"Whoosh—"
With a soft sound, the long sword was drawn, revealing an odachi stained with blood along its body and riddled with notches along its edge.
"The final immortality—I shall bring it to an end."
Huo Yuhao gazed at the blood-red odachi in his hand, which radiated an aura that devoured life, and slowly pointed the tip of the blade at his own neck.
"Divine Heir, please live on well, as an ordinary person."
Huo Yuhao lowered his gaze onto the Divine Heir, wanting to reach out and touch the boy's tender face, but ultimately he did not loosen his grip on the Mortal Blade.
"Swish—"
The moment the Mortal Blade fell, Huo Yuhao's corpse dissolved into petals of cherry blossoms, scattering away against the wind across the field of reeds.
———————————————————
"Hah! Hah!"
His neck severed cleanly by the odachi, the extreme pain erupting through his central nervous system in a single instant made Huo Yuhao snap his eyes wide open. He gasped heavily for air. The sounds in his ears were no longer the howling gales sweeping across the endless field of reeds, nor the endless, unceasing thunder; all that remained was the intermittent coughing of a woman.
"Cough, cough... cough, cough."
Opening his eyes, the reed leaves swaying in the wind were gone. He raised his hands: his right hand, once covered in knife scars and calluses, had been made brand-new, transformed into the small, slender right hand of a young child.
The left arm that had been severed by Genichiro, later replaced by the Shinobi Prosthetic of the Sculptor, complete with its various lethal weapons, was gone. In its place was a left hand entirely symmetrical to the right.
His thick finger joints had become delicate, yet they were still covered in various minor injuries—some left from doing rough chores, others from chilblains contracted while helping his mother wash clothes in the winter.
He dazedly raised his head to look at the dust-covered roof beam overhead, a thought flashing through Huo Yuhao's mind—one he longed for immensely, yet dared not hope for.
"Did I... come back?"
Stumbling and sliding down from the wooden bed frame, Huo Yuhao rushed out the door and beheld a scene he had yearned for day and night.
A woman in simple attire with long brown hair had already tied up her long hair early in the day. Sitting ungracefully with her legs spread apart in front of the front door, she was scrubbing something vigorously. Before her stood a wooden tub filled with river water, inside which a dozen potatoes tumbled merrily, scrubbed back and forth by the woman's vigorous hands until all their mud was washed away, leaving them golden-yellow and slippery.
"Yuhao, you're awake? Today I'm making your favorite potato-strip flatbreads. The old steward dropped off half a catjin of well salt when he sent the food delivery today. Later, I'll use the well salt to make flatbreads for you to eat, and I'll take the rest to the market to sell, so I can trade it for a couple of eggs to build up your strength—"
Before the woman could finish speaking, Huo Yuhao froze in place, as if his soul had been sucked right out of him. He wanted to say something, but in the end, he simply stared at her, unable to utter a single word. His eye sockets grew burning hot at that moment, and a large teardrop suddenly slipped down. Huo Yuhao instinctively shook his head, trying to block the other's gaze to keep his pathetic state from being observed.
He had thought he might weep rivers, with tears gushing from the corners of his eyes like a breached dam, crying with a snotty and tear-stained face. But clearly, after a full year of campaigns through blood and fire, his habits no longer permitted him to indulge in such a show of weakness.
Huo Yuhao desperately wanted to cover the distance in two or three strides, rush right up to the simply dressed woman, drop heavily to his knees, wrap his arms around her, and wail aloud. Yet in the end, he merely lowered his head with a feigned casualness and murmured a soft acknowledgment.
Having danced on the edge of a blade for a year, Huo Yuhao's temperament had undergone a heaven-shaking transformation. He had even given up the possibility of ever returning here one day; he had thought he would never again see the mother he longed for day and night, nor the woman who had given him all her love and tenderness.
The scene he had imagined countless times was now truly playing out before his eyes. Huo Yuhao's shoulders trembled continuously, the corners of his mouth spasmed slightly, and he quivered as if trying to speak, but the simple act of opening his mouth had become incomparably difficult now.
A fierce emotion—both illusory and exhilarating—surged from the bottom of Huo Yuhao's heart up to his throat, spilling out through the gaps of his clenched teeth.
Huo Yuhao slowly clenched his right fist, raised it, and pressed the third knuckle of his index finger hard against the center of his upper lip to curb the agitation in his heart.
At that moment, his brain was so intensely fried by the sudden wave of excitement that smoke might as well have billowed from it; if left unchecked, this malnourished little body of his might well have been overwhelmed by the sheer, roaring joy welling up from deep within his soul.
"Yuhao..."
The woman froze, stood up to look at the somewhat unnatural Huo Yuhao, and gently pulled him into an embrace. Within that tender embrace, Huo Yuhao felt all the strength drain from his body; the suppressed emotions broke through in an instant, instantly battering his own delicate Spirit Sea and plunging him into unconsciousness.