Thinking of this, Heimer stepped forward.
A crushing pressure surged toward them.
Facing Heimer’s gaze, Onigawara Rin felt as if the man before her had instantly become impossibly tall.
He was like a mountain on the verge of collapsing, its shadow completely swallowing her.
Fear.
That was the most instinctive reaction of living creatures when facing an incomprehensibly powerful existence.
But in the end, creatures often used anger to cover fear.
Just like a cat driven into a corner, puffing up its fur and hissing to bluff.
“Damn it!”
Onigawara let out a low shout, using it to drive away the trembling in her heart.
“Clang—”
Her long blade left its sheath.
There was no fancy probing.
Facing an opponent who made her heart tremble, she opened with a full-power killing move from the very beginning.
Such decisiveness meant her battle instincts were still quite good.
Heimer thought to himself.
The style Onigawara used was Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryu.
Secret Technique: Dragon Tail Reversal.
It focused on wide-range slashes.
The blade drew an arc through the air.
Fast, accurate, and ruthless.
It was powerful enough to cut through steel.
However, in Heimer’s divine eyes, which had already seen through the essence of all techniques, the trajectory of this slash, the point where force was generated, and even the possible follow-up variations were all incomparably clear.
“Your heart is still too chaotic.”
Heimer gave a simple evaluation.
Then, he lightly hooked his finger.
“Whoosh—”
A sharp sound of air being torn suddenly rang out.
Beside Onigawara, Mozunono Nono, who had been trembling all this time, suddenly felt her hand go light.
The white telescopic baton she had been gripping tightly seemed to come alive on its own and flew out of her hand.
“Eh?!”
Nono cried out in surprise.
Before she could react, the baton had already crossed several meters and landed steadily in Heimer’s hand.
Immediately after…
“Clang!”
A crisp clash of metal echoed through the corridor.
The baton, which was not particularly sturdy, struck the side of Onigawara’s long blade with extreme precision.
It landed exactly on the weakest point of the blade’s force.
This was the principle of using four ounces to move a thousand pounds.
The massive recoil instantly traveled along the hilt and through Onigawara’s entire arm.
Her hand went numb.
The long blade in her grip nearly flew out.
That killing strike was dissolved so lightly and effortlessly.
The blade deviated from its original path, brushing past the corner of Heimer’s clothes before chopping heavily into the wall beside him and sending stone chips flying.
And then…
“Tap!”
The front end of the baton in Heimer’s hand stopped with perfect accuracy in front of Onigawara’s mask.
It was less than one centimeter away from the Hannya mask.
But it was only a light tap.
Even so, Onigawara froze in place as if she had been hit by a binding spell.
She stared blankly at the baton tip before her eyes.
Cold sweat instantly soaked her back.
Because she knew very clearly that if this strike had carried any real force, her head would have burst open like an overripe watermelon.
Heimer looked at the stiff Onigawara and slowly spoke.
“Your sword is bound by your heart.”
“Or rather, it is bound by that mask.”
The pupils beneath Onigawara’s mask contracted slightly.
“The essence of swordsmanship is purity.”
“Yet when you swing your sword, you are filled with self-loathing and fear of being seen.”
“There are too many distractions.”
Tap.
Tap.
As Heimer spoke, he lightly tapped the ferocious Hannya mask with the baton in his hand, producing a soft knocking sound.
“What do you know…?”
Onigawara’s voice trembled slightly, yet she was still stubbornly holding on to her last bit of pride.
“This is for…”
“To hide your weakness?”
Heimer interrupted her without mercy.
Just like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, believing that if it could not see the predator, the danger no longer existed.
But in truth, that self-deceiving sense of security was precisely the poison that killed growth.
Under the shelter of darkness, the soul shriveled and courage wore away.
Until finally, the mask was no longer a protective color.
It became a prison that confined the soul.
It even reversed the roles and became part of that person’s true self.
“Take it off.”
“If you still acknowledge yourself as a swordsman…”
“Then face the thing you fear most in your heart.”
The moment those words fell, Onigawara’s hand gripping the sword began to tremble violently.
Take it off?
In front of this man, and even in front of Amou Kirukiru?
Let him see her cursed face?
That face her mother hated and regarded as ominous?
“No…”
She instinctively wanted to step back.
That fear even overwhelmed her fear of death.
However, Heimer did not give her the chance to retreat.
“Too slow.”
With a soft sigh, Heimer exerted a slight amount of force through the baton in his hand.
“Crack—”
A sharp cracking sound rang out.
The hard Hannya mask that had accompanied Onigawara for years was instantly covered in spiderweb-like cracks.
Then, with a crisp shatter, the mask completely broke apart.
Countless white fragments scattered through the air like withered petals.
Beneath the mask, the face that had always been hidden behind that ferocious oni visage was finally exposed to the open air.
There was nothing ominous about it.
Nor was there anything ugly.
It was a delicate and pretty face.
Moreover, because the fair skin beneath the mask had not seen sunlight for years, it carried a sickly pallor.
At this moment, those eyes that had once been hidden beneath the mask were filled with panic and helplessness.
There was also a trace of shame and anger, as though she had been stripped naked and thrown into a crowd.
Tears even gathered at the corners of her eyes from the humiliation caused by the mask’s sudden shattering.
“Uwah…”
Onigawara let out a short cry and instinctively tried to draw her sword again.
Since the side of herself she least wanted others to see had already been exposed, then—
Kill him!
Kill everyone who saw this!
Even as reason screamed frantic warnings, and even as her body trembled in fear, the emotion called humiliation had already overwhelmed everything.
However, Heimer directly reached out and grabbed both her hands, forcing her to raise her head and look straight at him.
No matter how hard Onigawara struggled, she could not move him in the slightest.
“The so-called way of the sword begins with courtesy and ends with the heart.”
“Right now, your sword heart is filled with noise.”
“Shame, anger, fear… these emotions are like dust clinging to the surface of a mirror, preventing you from seeing yourself and the sword in your hand clearly.”
“Such a sword heart is impure.”
“However…”
“I did not remove your mask to humiliate you, nor to judge your past.”
“I simply wanted you to understand one thing.”
“Humans are creatures accustomed to disguise.”
“To protect themselves, they put on all kinds of masks.”
“Sometimes, it is to avoid harm. Sometimes, it is to blend into a group. Sometimes, it is to gain recognition.”
“There is nothing inherently wrong with that.”
“After all, in this thorn-filled world, exposing your true heart often means willingly placing the blade that can hurt you into someone else’s hand.”
“But…”
“When someone wears a mask that others forced onto them for too long, they eventually forget what the face beneath that mask originally looked like.”
“Therefore, only by facing your true heart can you stay true to the end.”
“So think carefully.”
“When you first swung your sword, was it to cut down your enemies, or to cut down the cowardly self you once were?”
“If you understand the answer, and no longer wish to be a pitiful creature bound by the past, but instead a swordsman who desires strength…”
“Then come find me.”
“I can take you to another world.”
“In that world, there is a vast sky and earth beyond your imagination.”
“There are also opportunities that can temper your dust-covered sword heart.”
After saying this, Heimer loosened his fingers.
Without any support, Onigawara fell onto the floor covered in mask fragments like a soft-bodied creature whose bones had been removed.
She gasped for breath, her delicate face now stripped of its mask and filled with shame, anger, and confusion.
After that, Heimer no longer looked at her.
He merely turned the back of his hand downward and his palm upward, then lightly tapped his slender fingertip against empty space.
Buzz—
The white Hannya mask that had already shattered into countless fragments across the floor seemed as if someone had pressed the reverse button on time itself.
Countless white pieces flew up under the guidance of divine power and began to dance and reassemble.
In the blink of an eye, the perfectly intact Hannya mask, with its ferocious expression, once again floated above Heimer’s palm.