Chapter 1
Character: Yagami Kenshin (19). After six years of Shōkyō hunting, he has become a shadow, slowly losing his own memories and emotions.
Kenshin stood over the spiritually drained corpse of a fourth swordsman. The swordsman had defeated the Shōkyō, yet could not bear the enemy's spiritual weight, leaving behind only an empty gaze.
Kenshin's sword is known as Mujō (Fickle/Ephemeral). When it cuts a Shōkyō, the sword absorbs the enemy's spiritual essence, adding it to the user's mind as an unbearable, foreign "burden." Kenshin was losing his own personality under the weight of these burdens.
His new target: the Shōkyō known as the "Lost Laughter." This Shōkyō fed by consuming the memories of innocent people's joy and happiness.
Kenshin reached an old waterfall on the edge of the village. The Shōkyō was disguised as an old geisha, but its face was constantly melting and reshaping.
Shōkyō (in the voice of Kenshin's childhood friend):
"Kenshin... why did you come? I only made people feel good. I took their happiness and gave them the peace of feeling nothing. Just like you. You don't feel anything anymore, do you?"
Kenshin's heart pounded violently, but his face remained expressionless. All the Shōkyō burdens he had accumulated over the years had filtered his emotional responses into a muted noise.
Kenshin (with difficulty, a choked voice):
"You... are an illusion. A delusion. And delusions... must be cut."
Kenshin focused all his apathy and loss onto the tip of his sword.
Kenshin:
"Mind-Cutting Mastery: First Reflection - Whisper of the Sigh."
The sword swept through the air like a silent, sharp wind, splitting the Shōkyō in two. The sword instantly absorbed the Shōkyō's essence.
But this time, the burden brought Kenshin not just fear or hatred. His mind was flooded with the pure, manic, baseless laughter of thousands of people. Kenshin sank to his knees and began to laugh uncontrollably. Tears streamed from his eyes, but they were neither of joy nor sorrow. They were the echo of a stolen hysteria.
Kenshin returned to the Spirit Therapy Temple, the main headquarters of the unit. This was a place where they tried to manage the warriors' descent into madness rather than heal them.
Leader: Kazama Retsu, Kenshin's Sensei. The oldest and most sorrowful master in the unit. His left eye constantly twitched, as he knew a defeated Shōkyō was controlling the nerve.
Retsu's weariness deepened when he saw Kenshin.
Retsu:
"You cut the Lost Laughter. What did it bring you?"
Kenshin:
"Laughter, Master... thousands of them. But all empty. They echo in my ears, but I can't find a reason for any of it. Am I... am I now carrying the weight of a mad joy that feels no joy?"
Retsu (chuckling softly, but his eyes were weeping):
"Joy that feels no joy. Just like us. These swords are cursed. We were given the task of collecting the existential chaos created by the Shōkyō. We take their final fragments into ourselves, like a cursed collector."
Retsu placed a trembling hand on Kenshin's shoulder.
Retsu:
"Kenshin, soon... you won't be able to distinguish between your 'own' memories and the memories of the thousands of Shōkyō you have devoured. You will no longer be just Kenshin. You will be a prison of memory."
And he whispered the cruellest secret:
"Those who commit suicide in our Unit did not die because they were weak. They died because they feared the Shōkyō memories within them would drown their own existence. The Shōkyō's goal is to turn us into a living Shōkyō."
Kenshin departed on his next mission. No longer laughter, but the whispers of his own past came to him. As he swung his sword, he heard his mother's voice:
"My son, we are proud of you."
But immediately after, the hateful voice of a Shōkyō he had cut:
"I am nothing, and so are you."
Kenshin no longer knew which memory belonged to him. Was he merely a body that thought it was a multitude of other people?
Finally, he faced one of the most powerful Shōkyō: "The Weaver of Nothingness."
The Weaver of Nothingness (echoing in Kenshin's mind):
"Swordsman. Who are you now? That young boy? The sum total of the thousands of souls you cut? Or merely a robot working for a false purpose, imposed by this sword?"
Kenshin raised his sword. His eyes were filled with tears, but they were not his own; they were the helplessness of his first victim, in the moment of accepting death. Gathering his desire to reject his entire being, he lunged his sword towards the enemy.
Kenshin:
"Mind-Cutting Mastery: Final Reflection - Stance of Existence's Denial."
Kenshin directed the sword not at the Shōkyō, but at his own throat.
In the final moment, a force stopped him. It was Retsu Sensei.
Retsu:
"No! Don't do it! If you kill yourself, those thousands of Shōkyō burdens will be set free, and they will resurrect your body as the strongest, most perverse Shōkyō!"
Kenshin lowered the sword in horror. Even if his purpose was not to cut the Shōkyō, but to get rid of them, the curse continued. They were trapped inside him.
Kenshin delivered the final blow to the Weaver of Nothingness. He cut it. The burden was heavier than ever. This burden was the 'Obsessive Will to Live.' The desire for life from a Shōkyō filled Kenshin with deep disgust and unbearable revulsion.
Kenshin (whispering to himself):
"I... I am cursed. I can neither live nor die. My sword... is a prison warden seeking salvation."
Kenshin continued his mission from that day, under the weight of joyless laughter, the guilt of others, and a will to live that no longer belonged to him.
Now, there was no such thing as silence in Kenshin's mind. The clarity that the Mind-Cutting Mastery had given him had turned into a chaotic noise, like hundreds of radios broadcasting on different frequencies simultaneously.
As he walked towards his next target, the "Forgotten Wrath" Shōkyō, every step was taken with a foreign sensation. As he lifted his left foot, the memory of a happy farmer tasting his last meal collided with the ceaseless hatred of a woman who had lived her life as a slave, as his right foot hit the ground.
This internal war had begun to manifest externally. Kenshin's body sometimes adopted the honourable posture of a samurai, and sometimes mimicked the hunched, trembling gait of a beggar he had consumed. At times, as he drew Mujō, the sword shook in the internal struggle of others wanting to wield it.
He stopped by a river. Looking at the water, he recalled Retsu Sensei's warning:
"Soon... you won't be able to distinguish."
Kenshin leaned his face close to the water. He hoped to see his reflection.
But what he saw in the water's reflection was not Kenshin's own face.
First, he saw the melting, masked geisha face of the Lost Laughter. Then the reflection quickly shifted, turning into the dark, shapeless silhouette of the Weaver of Nothingness. Then, the empty eyes of that fourth swordsman, who died leaving behind a spiritual husk, appeared. The reflection constantly shimmered, thousands of foreign faces melting and blending into one another in a current.
When Kenshin saw his reflection, he did not panic. He no longer had the emotional resources left even to feel panic. Only a sense of acceptance... but this acceptance was not his either. It was likely the acceptance of one of the last victims he had cut, who had lost all resistance.
Kenshin touched his face. He felt his hand. His own flesh, his own bone...
But who was the controller of this body?
Kenshin (amidst the thousands of voices whispering in his mind):
"What... am I?"
The answer came not as a single voice, but as a scream let out by thousands of voices at once:
"You are a sword."
"You are a mistake."
"You are a prison."
"You... are us."
Kenshin was no longer Yagami Kenshin. He was a collection of Shōkyō, the walking Putrefied Aspects of Humanity. His purpose was not to protect the unit. His purpose was simply to continue cutting until he had collected all the Shōkyō of Japan and become a single, ultimate, fragmented existence.
Kenshin walked away from the reflection. On his face was a frozen alienness, beyond even expressionlessness. He was a living husk; a graveyard within which was the noise of a maddened marketplace.