Kitahara Akira slid the videocassette into the player. The monitor flashed a few times before a grainy, distorted image finally stabilized on the screen.
The footage was incredibly dark, as if the location lacked any stable power supply. Through the static, the silhouette of a man appeared, hurriedly leaning over a ruined stone well to peer at something hidden in the depths.
The screen suddenly froze into a still frame before a new sequence replaced it a moment later.
This time, the visual was much clearer. A woman stood in front of a mirror, quietly combing her long hair. It was a completely mundane task, yet the absolute silence smothering the room cast an incredibly ominous atmosphere over the scene.
The screen glitched violently once more. When the distortion settled, the woman at the mirror was gone, replaced by a bleak, rundown courtyard with a cracked stone well sitting dead center.
'Ah, so the classic scene is finally starting...'
Kitahara Akira kept his eyes glued to the monitor. His right hand remained loose at his side, ready to summon *Kula*—his heavy signature weapon—or draw his deck of playing cards at a moment’s notice.
The image shifted again.
A pale, bloodless hand thrust out from the well, clawing against the cracked stone rim. Next came a head, followed by the rest of a body crawling out in a slow, unnatural rhythm.
Within seconds, Sadako had fully emerged. She stood entirely still, staring straight through the glass screen at Kitahara Akira.
Two existences stood face-to-face, separated only by the thin barrier of a monitor. Though the eyes behind the long, cascading strands of black hair remained hidden, the sheer, suffocating malice bleeding through the screen proved she was locking her gaze entirely onto him.
Target locked.
[Curse of Sadako: You have watched Sadako's video recording and received her full curse. Survival is now your only objective.]
Kitahara Akira cast a brief glance at the floating system notification. Everything was still within his initial calculations.
Sadako’s curse relied strictly on the videotape as its medium. The next step was simply to subdue the entity. But a split second later, his focus shattered. Where did she go?!
The white-gowned figure that had just been standing on the screen vanished into thin air.
A sudden flare of pure danger hit his chest.
Kitahara Akira moved like lightning, whipping *Kula* out and instinctively swinging it backward to parry an invisible strike.
*SHRREED!*
Strands of pitch-black hair coiled around *Kula’s* heavy, solid frame.
'Attacking the exact second we meet? Do I actually make you feel threatened?'
The long black hair didn't stop at locking *Kula’s* movements. Part of the strands split apart, whipping toward Kitahara Akira with terrifying speed and a crushing grip. The hair wrapped around him like a black cocoon, tightening fiercely around his throat.
Kitahara Akira gasped, the air in his lungs thinning instantly.
In that exact heartbeat, a dense, dark-blue shadow erupted from within, enveloping his entire body.
*SCREECH!*
A horrific, glass-shattering shriek echoed through the room.
The moment the shadow energy touched the black strands, Sadako recoiled in agony. She violently lashed her hair outward, flinging Kitahara Akira across the room with immense kinetic force.
*CRASH!*
His spine slammed hard against the storage room door. The sheer impact completely pulverized the fragile wooden frame, bringing it crashing down to the floor.
Kitahara Akira gritted his teeth, fighting off the sudden wave of dizziness. While his physical durability was high enough to prevent fatal internal injuries, that hit still hurt like hell.
*CLANG! CLANG!*
The knives sitting on the kitchen counter behind Sadako began to vibrate violently. The blades floated into the air simultaneously before launching forward like a sudden rain of arrows straight at Kitahara Akira.
Kitahara Akira flicked his wrist in a rapid blur. Dozens of playing cards glowing with a sharp blue aura erupted from his fingertips.
*DING! DING! DING!*
The sound of clashing metal filled the air.
Several metal cards carrying immense kinetic weight sliced through the knives' flight paths, sending bright sparks flying across the room. Meanwhile, the remaining cards curved sharply through the air, blitzing straight toward Sadako behind the barrage.
Sadako’s black hair stood on end, whipping forward to form a dense defensive wall in front of her.
However, due to the sheer volume of cards, a few managed to slip through the gaps. The razor-sharp edges sliced across Sadako's pale skin. The blue shadow energy infused into the cards instantly seeped into the wounds, staining her pristine white gown with patches of dark blue.
*Kage no Ken: Zan!*
*SWOOSH!*
The heavy *Kula* in Kitahara Akira's grip vanished, replaced by a massive woodcutting machete cloaked in a thick aura of shadows.
His right hand tightened around the hilt. With a single fluid twist of his wrist, he drove the blade down with absolute force, aiming dead center for the top of Sadako's head.
Sensing an immediate mortal threat, Sadako pulled her hair back to intercept.
*SLASH!*
The shadow-infused machete cleaved through the wall of black hair with effortless ease, burying itself deep into Sadako’s skull.
"A targeted strike straight to the head. How do you like that?"
The corner of Kitahara Akira’s mouth tugged upward into a faint smirk. He never expected the machete he had stored away earlier would end up being the perfect weapon for this exact moment.
Sadako let out an even more piercing, agonized shriek, her voice completely saturated with boiling rage.
Driven mad by the pain, the entity lost what little rationality she had left. Sadako began unleashing blind, chaotic strikes, whipping her black hair wildly to shred absolutely everything in front of her.
Bombarded by the relentless onslaught of hair from every direction, Kitahara Akira found himself struggling to maintain his footing.
Sadako caught a split-second opening as his guard slipped. Her pale hand thrust straight forward, aiming right for Kitahara Akira's heart.
Kitahara Akira twisted his torso with everything he had at the very last second. As a result, Sadako’s freezing palm strike slammed heavily into the center of his chest.
A bone-chilling cold instantly surged through his veins, numbing his nervous system and slowing his movements to a crawl.
Sadako’s tempo only grew more frantic, carving more and more lacerations across Kitahara Akira’s body by the second.
The physical pain wasn't the real problem. The true nightmare was the raw, cursed malice seeping into every open wound, aggressively trying to invade and overwrite his consciousness from the inside out.
If left unchecked, his soul would shatter. But if he forced his shadow energy to suppress the curse, his focus in the fight would completely collapse.
Kitahara Akira gasped heavily, his chest heaving as his breathing turned ragged.
The exhausting close-quarters combat paired with drawing shadow energy past his limits had pushed both his body and mind to absolute zero.
Another wall of hair slammed forward. Kitahara Akira barely managed to cross his weapon in time to block, the sheer kinetic force driving him backward several paces.
Moving purely on instinct, he reached into his shadow pocket, pulled out a bright green bean, and swallowed it in a single gulp.
Instantly, the wounds tearing across his skin sealed shut. The lingering curse invading his body vanished without a trace, while his physical strength and shadow reserves flooded back to maximum capacity in a heartbeat.
Fully restored to his prime condition, Kitahara Akira twirled the machete in his grip and locked his eyes onto Sadako.
"Round Two."
***
Sadako was gone, leaving behind a rather pathetic trace of her defeat.
To see just how thoroughly beaten the entity was, one only had to look at the dozens of metal playing cards buried deep along the walls of the room.
[Mission Accomplished]
Rank: B+
Reward: 1x Lottery Ticket, Healing Spell (Rank-E)
[Healing Spell (Rank-E)]
The ability to mend wounds using mental strength. Possesses a specific upper threshold for recovery.
[Energy conflict detected. Integration process in progress...]
The cold, mechanical voice of the system rang clearly in his mind.
"A healing spell? Not bad. At least I won't have to struggle as much every time I get hurt, even if the rank is a bit low right now."
Kitahara Akira activated the new ability, feeling the strange energy ripple through his veins. The Rank-E healing spell was only capable of closing minor superficial wounds. It was completely useless against severe trauma like broken bones or internal organ damage.
*Kage no Iyashi!*
*GLOW!*
A faint blue aura cloaked his hands as his shadow energy began to perfectly fuse with the spell.
"I can feel the shadow energy taking on a healing property now. So this is what it meant by integration?" Kitahara Akira let out a short breath, murmuring quietly. "By the way, does this system constantly update itself? It feels like it's getting smarter by the day."
Before this, the missions he cleared never included rank evaluations or item tiers with the rewards.
Kitahara Akira’s current appearance was an absolute mess. His clothes were shredded in multiple places, and deep purple bruises mottled his face. But far more crucially, a massive, swirling pool of Sadako's residual malice was still rampaging inside his chest.
"That was almost a complete disaster. Thank god I kept that Senzu Bean... Sadako's final counterattack was completely out of nowhere."
Kitahara Akira quietly let out a sigh of relief. During the final stretch of the second round, Sadako had detonated the absolute last of her energy to inject a pure curse into his body, pushing his mental state to an extreme psychological breaking point.
For now, he could only rely on his remaining shadow energy to slowly erode the cursed aura. As a result, he likely wouldn't be able to manifest his shadow abilities for the next few days.
After gathering his scattered metal playing cards, Kitahara Akira rubbed his temples.
To play it safe, he scoured the corners of the room until he found a black duffel bag. He tossed the now-useless cursed videotape inside, zipping it shut before making his exit with the bag slung over his shoulder.
***
"Hey! What do you think you're doing? Let go of me! I need to go home!"
The sharp, melodic voice of a girl shattered the silence of a narrow alleyway on his trek back.
Kitahara Akira abruptly halted his steps. The voice struck a familiar chord in his memory.
"Come on, Miss! Don't be a party pooper. Why don't you join us for a round of karaoke?"
Two men reeking heavily of cheap alcohol were aggressively tugging at a blonde girl with her hair tied in twin-tails.
Eriri Spencer Sawamura clutched her black handbag tightly against her chest, her petite frame trembling slightly as she tried to back away.
Without missing a beat, Kitahara Akira strode directly into the dim alleyway. His right hand blurred forward, locking around Eriri's slender, pale wrist before turning to lead her away.
"Ki... Kitahara?!"
Eriri’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. She never expected to run into her former junior high classmate in a sketchy place like this.
"Hey, brat. You think you're her boyfriend or something?" The drunkard in the front shifted his weight, completely cutting off their path to the main street.
Kitahara Akira didn't yield a single inch, pinning his gaze dead into the man's bloodshot eyes. "No. But I'm taking her with me. Got a problem?"
The drunkard suddenly swallowed hard. His entire body locked up, instantly feeling suffocated by the cold, piercing glare of a high school student.
"You bastard! Who do you think you're talking to!" The other drunk snapped, thrusting his right index finger inches away from Kitahara Akira's face as the veins on his neck bulged with synthetic courage.
*SHRING!*
A sharp flash of blue light sliced through the darkness of the narrow passage.
In the next heartbeat, a severed index finger hit the pavement with a dull thud, followed by a violent spray of fresh blood erupting from the clean wound.
"Aaakh... Gaaahhh!" The agonizing trauma instantly vaporized the alcohol in his system, forcing a bloodcurdling shriek from his lungs as he clutched his bleeding hand.
His companion stumbled back two steps, his face turning an ash-gray as he stared at Kitahara Akira like he was looking at an executioner.
"Leave."
A single word dropped from Kitahara Akira’s lips, freezing the air.
Without needing to be told twice, the two men scrambled backward and fled into the night, abandoning whatever pride they had left.
"Um... Kitahara... thank you so—"
Eriri’s sentence cut short as she watched Kitahara Akira’s posture suddenly give out, his body collapsing heavily onto the stone ground.
The blonde-haired girl stood frozen for a few seconds. Gritting her teeth, she frantically reached into her handbag to pull out a sketchbook and a stylus pen.
Her slender fingers danced in a frantic blur over the white canvas. Within seconds, the simple outline of a bird took shape.
The moment the tip of her pen left the paper, the ink lines ignited with a faint glow. The sketch leapt off the page, landing onto the asphalt as its proportions swelled drastically until it matched the size of a compact car.
*POOF!*
Eriri barely batted an eye, looking somewhat adjusted to the bizarre phenomenon. She dashed her pen across the page again, sketching two simple wooden stick figures to help hoist Kitahara Akira’s unconscious body onto the giant bird’s back.
Under the cover of the midnight sky, the ink bird unfurled its massive wings, cutting through the wind as it soared toward the nearest hospital.
Eriri sat on her knees, staring down at Kitahara Akira’s sleeping face in absolute silence.
She had sneaked out late at night specifically to snag a limited-edition light novel, only to get cornered by two drunk creeps. And even more absurdly, Kitahara Akira suddenly materialized out of nowhere and handled the situation in a way that was...
Eriri’s stomach churned with a sudden wave of nausea as the mental image of that severed finger rolling on the ground flashed behind her eyelids.
"Ah..."
Kitahara Akira let out a low groan, lifting his hand to cradle his aching head. The moment his vision cleared and he realized he was coasting high through the clouds, he cast a highly surprised look at Eriri.
"Sawamura, this is..."
"I made it. Don't ask me how, I just suddenly figured out how to use this ability." Eriri crossed her arms and looked away, admitting her power without any intention of playing dumb. Since she had witnessed his stunt back in the alley, she already assumed her classmate belonged to the same supernatural world.
Kitahara Akira shifted into a sitting position. "By the way, where are we heading?"
"The hospital, obviously. You blacked out right in front of me, so I have to get you checked out."
"No need for a hospital," Kitahara Akira rejected flatly, shaking his head.
He knew his own limits. Forcing his shadow energy into action while his soul was still fighting off Sadako's residual malice had short-circuited his brain's consciousness.
"Hmph! Fine, suit yourself. It’s not like I wanted to waste my precious time anyway." Eriri huffed, flashing her trademark small fang with a visibly irritated pout.
She had gone out of her way to act as his savior, yet this guy wouldn't even show a shred of appreciation.
"Your drawing ability is incredibly practical. Mind giving me a lift all the way home?" Kitahara Akira patted the back of the ink bird beneath him, thoroughly intrigued.
While his shadow abilities allowed him to move around, they drained an immense amount of his own stamina. Eriri’s ink creation, however, required zero maintenance from his side and offered flawless aerial mobility.
"Hey! You expect a fragile girl to drop you off at your doorstep at this hour? Are you insane?" Eriri voiced a loud protest, though she ultimately asked for his address anyway, dropping him off safely in a deserted alleyway just a short walk from his apartment.
Kitahara Akira grabbed his black duffel bag and hopped down with a faint smirk.
***
Inside his warm bathroom, Kitahara Akira sank deep into the bathtub after thoroughly washing off the grime from the night's battle.
"Ah... no wonder the locals here are obsessed with baths. This feels absolutely heavenly."
With nothing else left to do, Kitahara Akira manifested his system window into the air to review his updated status.
[ Name: Kitahara Akira ]
[ Gender: Male ]
[ Abilities: Kenjutsu (Rank-B), Shadow (Rank-C+), Master of Information (Rank-S) ]
[ Items: Igris (Dormant), 3D Smartphone, Senzu Bean x1, Bloodstained Machete, Kula ]
[ Remaining Lottery Draws: 1 ]
'As expected, this system can even push its own version updates,' Kitahara Akira mused, scanning the newly organized interface while completely ignoring the high-tier information skill sitting on the third line.
A massive wave of exhaustion suddenly weighed down on every nerve in his body as the tonight's chaotic sequence of events replayed in his mind. His eyelids felt heavy, trembling under the sheer weight of sleep.
"A short nap in the water... shouldn't hurt."
Assuring himself, Kitahara Akira slowly allowed his eyes to close, letting his consciousness slip away beneath the warm, comforting embrace of the bathwater.
Author’s Note:
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— Author