"This land is completely dead."
A young man dressed in a kimono crouched down and casually grabbed a handful of soil. It was cold and dry. With a gentle squeeze, it crumbled like sand and slipped through his fingers.
A breeze swept past, carrying the grains into the air and blurring his vision.
He slowly raised his head. As far as the eye could see, the earth was nothing but desolation and deathly stillness.
"This is the very heart of the forest…"
He let out a soft sigh, his eyes brimming with grief and pain as tears streamed uncontrollably from their corners.
Rising to his feet, he gripped the katana at his waist with his left hand while his right clenched into a fist.
"I will find the culprit who killed this land!"
With that, he stepped forward, moving from the edge of the wasteland toward its center.
About an hour later—
He arrived at the very core of this blighted patch, like a festering lesion clinging to the heart of the forest.
There, he saw a child of four or five sitting cross-legged on the ground. The boy was plump and fair, with nothing but a ragged piece of cloth draped over his body.
Yet in his eyes, there was none of the innocence or naivety one would expect from a child.
They were cold, vicious, bloodthirsty—like someone staring at the murderer of his own father.
"Another idiot looking to die?"
A childish voice came from the boy's mouth as he slowly rose from his seated position.
Though the child was only four years old and barely over a meter tall when standing straight, at the very instant he stood up, the kimono-clad youth felt as if an ancient beast from the wild had opened its eyes.
The young man's pupils contracted sharply. With a metallic clang, his katana slid half an inch out of its sheath. His right hand instinctively grasped the hilt, his left foot stepping back half a pace as he assumed a defensive iaijutsu stance.
But in the blink of an eye, the illusion vanished.
The kimono-clad youth blinked suspiciously and refocused his gaze.
There was no ancient beast—only a rag-clad child staring at him with hatred-filled eyes.
Of course, he did not relax his guard.
Finding an unknown child at the very center of this Land of Deathly Silence was wrong no matter how he looked at it.
Especially that moment just now—was it truly only an illusion?
The young man swallowed hard, forcing himself to remain calm as he asked in a low voice, "Who are you?"
The child did not answer. His jet-black pupils were fixed solely on the hand gripping the sword.
"Aren't you going to draw your blade and cut me down?"
The young man's heart sank. A fear born of the unknown surged up, and his voice grew irritable.
"Answer me! I'm asking you—who are you?!"
The child's gaze shifted from the katana to his face.
"You're afraid? You can feel fear too?"
Another non-answer. The young man was reaching the limits of his patience with the child's bizarre words and behavior.
Clang!
He fully drew his katana.
Gripping the hilt with both hands, he pointed the blade diagonally toward the child.
At some point, the child's figure seemed to have grown taller than his own.
The young man took a deep breath, steadying his mind, and shifted his focus to the blade now freed from its sheath.
Sunlight shimmered across its surface. The sword's name was Qinglan—"Azure Gale"—a fine blade forged by a renowned master of Wano Country. It had aided him in defeating countless foes and had once been his greatest partner in rising to the ranks of the Shogun's Oniwabanshu.
But three years ago, Kouzuki Sukiyaki died of illness. The one who took the throne was not the widely supported Kouzuki Oden, but Kurozumi Orochi.
fHe, Ninsuke, had refused to become Orochi's lackey. Thus, he defected from the renamed Orochi Oniwabanshu.
Now, having heard rumors of the Aragami, he had come to investigate the truth behind this Land of Deathly Silence—only to encounter such a terrifying child at its very center.
No… perhaps he was not a child at all, but a monster in disguise.
Or perhaps—
A flash of horror passed through Ninsuke's eyes.
He was the legendary Aragami himself!!
Ninsuke's heart began pounding wildly. He stared fixedly at the child before him, his knuckles turning white from gripping Qinglan too tightly.
"You've already drawn your sword. Aren't you going to attack?"
The child remained where he stood, but the act of drawing the blade seemed to excite him.
His dark pupils widened slightly, exuding the sensation of a predator about to devour its prey.
Tormented beyond endurance, Ninsuke could bear it no longer. Though barely more than a minute had passed, it felt as if he had suffered for years.
"Die! Aragami!!"
With a furious roar, he unleashed his signature technique.
"One-Sword Style: Wind Cleave!!"
Blade-light tore through the air, carrying an unstoppable killing intent straight toward the child's neck.
This strike had been honed through countless life-and-death battles during his time in the Oniwabanshu. In chaotic melees, he had once slain three assassins in a single breath with this very move.
Now, he poured everything he had learned in his life into this one slash, praying it would shatter the disguise of the eerie child before him.
Even if the opponent truly was the legendary Aragami, he would carve at least a wound into it!
But in the next instant, the blade-light reflected in Ninsuke's pupils froze.
In front of the long, resilient, razor-sharp blade, a small azure claw lightly blocked its path.
Azure—or perhaps pale—scales covered the surface of the child's right hand. A deep blue glow emanated from within his palm. Aside from the jet-black, solid claws at the tips, the rest of the hand had a faintly translucent quality.
And it was this seemingly fragile claw, like glass that might shatter at a touch, that effortlessly stopped the slash he had poured his life into.
The blade did not break through. No blood splattered. Not even the slightest crack appeared on the scales.
"You haven't even reached the Realm of Cutting Steel, yet you dare challenge me?"
The child's voice was still childish, but the mockery in his tone pierced Ninsuke's heart like an icicle.
Before he could retort, the counterattack arrived.
The child's other hand, also transformed into a beast's claw, shot forward like lightning. In the instant Ninsuke faltered from the taunt, it seized his wrist.
The next second—
Ninsuke felt as though his wrist had become a shattered dam. All the strength in his body began pouring out through the captured pulse—not a trickle, but a roaring torrent, forcibly drained away with unstoppable force.
"You… what are you… I…"
In just a few seconds, before he could even finish speaking his doubts, Ninsuke's robust body rapidly aged and withered.
By the time he realized what was happening and attempted to resist, he had already become a frail old man on the brink of death.
And by then, resistance was no longer possible.
A few more seconds passed. When the child released his wrist, Ninsuke had completely lost consciousness.
His shriveled corpse, no longer supported, collapsed to the ground with a dull thud—then crumbled into a pile of loose sand. A gust of wind swept through, scattering the dust.
"Hoo…"
The child let out a slow breath and once more sat down cross-legged, returning to the posture he had before Ninsuke arrived.
Unseen to the naked eye, as he settled into meditation, streams of ley line energy from deep within the earth flowed continuously into his body through every point where he touched the ground.
Correspondingly, the Land of Deathly Silence at the heart of the forest expanded its territory little by little.