Chapter 2
Kenshin walked. He walked, but he was no longer the one walking. Each step was the collective decision of thousands of souls. His body was filled with the clamor of a chaotic marketplace echoing in his mind. His own thought was a faint echo, lost amidst thousands of whispers, screams, and meaningless laughter.
When he put down his left foot, the sweet memory of a farmer's peaceful last breath flowed through his veins. As his right foot touched the earth, the cold, iron weight of a mother's obsessive hatred for her child tensed his muscles. Kenshin's face was a frozen mask; for within him, no single emotion had the luxury of existing alone. Every expression was the product of a conflict.
The Collection was no longer a passive burden. It was a living committee, ruling by consensus.
Today's target was the Shōkyō of Forgotten Wrath. This creature fed on pure anger, suppressed and accumulated over years. Kenshin found it in the courtyard of a decaying temple. The Shōkyō was a silent mass of energy, hardened enough to burn everything around it.
Kenshin drew his sword, Mujō. His body adopted the respectful, serene stance of a samurai but this stance instantly gave way to the angry, trembling, hunched posture of a beggar. Inside the Collection, thousands of different fighting styles and states of mind fought to seize Kenshin's limbs.
Shōkyō (With the painful voice of Kenshin's mother):
"What a disgrace! How can your grip on that sword, on that sacred purpose, become so worthless? You, you are a failure!"
Kenshin's heart was torn by his mother's voice, but his face was impassive. Two souls fought to use his mouth:
Kenshin (In the superimposed, hushed voice of thousands of whispers):
"The purpose... is just... to cut. We must cut. There is no other way."
Lost Laughter (The Spirit of Laughter within):
"Unnecessary! So unnecessary! Play a trick on it! Let's make it laugh! Let it meet its end with laughter!"
The arm holding the sword twitched. For a moment, he was about to drop Mujō in a moment of hysterical joy, rather than using it for defense. The last fragment of Kenshin's inner self squeezed the sword's hilt with deadly force. "Control yourselves!" he screamed into the void of his mind. But the answer was only the chaotic, jubilant noise of the Collection.
The voice of a possessed general:
"Flee! You do not belong here! This is our prison! If you cut it, its rage will burn you alive!"
The voice of a killer:
"Tear it apart! It's just a piece of flesh! Make it taste the pain! Steal its will to live!"
Kenshin realized with bitter clarity that he could no longer rely on his own technique. Mind-Cleaving Mastery required focus; Kenshin's mind was fragmented, a mosaic with thousands of focal points.
Kenshin (With a final moment of desperation):
"Then... use what was stolen from me. You... I created this curse. Now save me or destroy me!"
Kenshin, with a conscious choice, surrendered control of his body to the Collection.
Mujō was no longer a tool in the hands of a swordsman. It was a living weapon, guided by the collective will of thousands of souls.
The body lunged forward with strange, jerky movements. Mujō's strike was neither graceful nor masterful. It was, rather, a fusion of thousands of different hatreds and desires directed against the Forgotten Wrath Shōkyō. The blade briefly shone with the manic joy of Lost Laughter and was immediately darkened by the suppressed anger of all the victims in the Collection.
"Mind-Cleaving Mastery: Collection Reflection - Symphony of the Decayed!"
The sword cut the Shōkyō like a machine. As its body silently slumped to the ground, its final power, Obsessive Rage, transferred into Kenshin's mind.
This new burden did not merely fill Kenshin's mind; it expanded the Marketplace within the Collection even further. Now, on Kenshin's shoulders, lay the unavenged, moldering anger of lives he never knew.
Kenshin (His own self, a barely audible whisper):
"I won... but what did I win?"
The Collection (Ten thousand satisfied whispers):
"You didn't win. We won. And now, the noise is even more beautiful. Keep walking, our servant."
Kenshin slowly sheathed his sword. His eyes recalled Retsu Sensei's warning: The Shōkyō's goal is to turn us into a living Shōkyō.
Kenshin was no longer a swordsman. He was a part of the Collection; its foremost, most useful limb.
The body was directed. The next target: The Burden of Guilt Shōkyō.
Kenshin walked. The Marketplace within him was no longer just noisy; it had become an unending and never-ceasing existential torment.
The energy brought by the newly added soul, "Forgotten Wrath," instantly infected Kenshin's walk. The previously jerky steps now transformed into a resentful rhythm, striking the ground with hatred. The trees around him looked more distorted, more menacing, as if viewed through a filter that reflected Kenshin's suppressed fury.
The Voice of a General (In a new, louder tone):
"What is this haste for? Get in order! A commander walking so haphazardly is a betrayal to his soldiers! Lure that Burden of Guilt into a trap! A direct attack is a disaster!"
Lost Laughter (A series of hysterical giggles):
"No! We must hurry! The sooner it's over, the sooner we can dance! Perhaps we can convince that Burden of Guilt to wear a clown hat! How funny that would be!"
Kenshin's hand reached for the hilt of his sword but it was no longer him doing it. The newly acquired rage started a rebellion against the old General's logic. The sword was half-drawn from the scabbard, then senselessly pushed back in. This was a duel within the Collection itself, and Kenshin's body reacted like a puppet's twitching strings.
Kenshin (A faint protest from the depths of his mind):
"Stop... Slow down... I need to know what I'm doing..."
The Collection (The symphony was now a cacophony):
"You don't need to know. Just move. Carry us. We are your consciousness. We are your purpose. Guilt... That is a tasty irony. Whose guilt will feed us? Yours, or the victim's? Walk!"
Kenshin felt that the weight on his shoulders was not just the burden of souls. He understood that his own life, his own choices, and the promises he made to Retsu Sensei were now also being consumed and corrupted by the Collection. Every step was less Kenshin.
Finally, in a low, misty valley, they reached the remains of a once-glorious monastery. The valley was filled with a heavy, suffocating air; the concrete smell of regret, of irreparable mistakes.
The Burden of Guilt Shōkyō sat upon the ruined altar of the monastery. It was not a mass of energy; rather, it resembled a hunched human silhouette, crushed under its own weight. Every limb was wrapped in the shadows of chains, emitting a grating whisper: "You made a mistake… You disappointed everyone…"
Kenshin's body stopped right in front of it. Every muscle in his body was frozen by a momentary surge of will.
The Voice of Kenshin's Mother (Now merging with the Shōkyō's whisper):
"Look at him! How weak and pathetic! You are the living proof of all the mistakes you've made by carrying that sword! You should never have drawn that blade!"
A single tear rolled down Kenshin's eye; the last, insignificant signal sent by his own self from the Collection's locked cage. But before the tear hit the ground, the Collection instantly flicked it away.
The Voice of a Killer (Mocking and with disgust):
"Tears? What a useless emotion! Guilt slows us down. Lift that burden and join us! Just cut!"
Kenshin's arm twitched again. But this time, there was an agreement among the different elements of the Collection. Cutting the guilt, seizing it, would strengthen the spirits of 'Mistake' and 'Regret' within the Collection. This was a perfect prey for the Collection's own growth.
Kenshin's body, this time, adopted neither the serene posture of the samurai nor the hunched pose of the beggar. The stance he took was one of a tired, broken-spined, seemingly about-to-collapse individual with no hope of forgiveness.
Kenshin (In the single, muffled tone of the Collection's ten thousand voices):
"You cannot... judge us. We... have already... been judged."
Mujō slipped from the scabbard. It was neither the preparation for a 'Mind-Cleaving Mastery' technique nor the beginning of an honorable sword duel. This was the final step a condemned man takes toward his execution. The Collection commanded the sword to creep toward its target. The blade was guided not by a swordsman's decision, but by the collective despair of ten thousand souls.
The target was the Burden of Guilt Shōkyō. With the last fragment of his conscious mind, Kenshin realized that what was walking him was no longer just the souls, but his own cursed destiny.