Afro fell to his knees, his hands on the bloodstained ground. His body pierced and intoxicated, his eyes fixed on the horizon, lost in a reverie that did not belong to that time.
At his side, the Master of Porcelain was in no hurry. He brought the bloody blade to his lips and licked Afro's blood. His eyes widened behind the mask.
"This blood... it's not just vital fluid. It's... It's... It's a biological treasure," thought the Master, feeling a heretical force run through his muscles.
He laughed, a dry, victorious sound. He took out a bottle of Divine Powder and poured it over the sword, preparing the coup de grâce.
"You will make a great mask," he hissed, raising the weapon for the decapitation.
In the silence of Afro's abyss, a voice thundered.
"AFRO! AFRO! AFRO!"
On the horizon of his mind, Afro saw his Master. White hair, tied in a tight knot, leaving his face fully exposed. There were no signs of fatigue, only the severe geometry of a life dedicated to restraint. He wore a black kimono, made of heavy fabric that seemed to absorb what little light there was in the environment. The right sleeve hung empty, proof that he had already paid his tribute to death and survived. His face was friendly, yet stern, like a father who loves you but will not hesitate to let you fall so that you learn to get up. He stared at Afro with a look of contempt and authority.
He didn't shout with his voice; he shouted with his spirit.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET UP!"
The moment the Porcelain Master's sword came down in a deadly arc to separate his head from his torso, the world regained its color. Afro's eyes returned to their incandescent gold. In a purely instinctive reflex, he raised his forearm, protecting his neck.
SHLACK!
The sword pierced the flesh and bone of his forearm halfway through, but there it remained, stuck, blocked by the sudden density of Afro's tissues. The Porcelain Master froze, his eyes filled with panic.
"How is this possible if I used the Divine Powder!?" he shouted, jumping back to get away from that anomaly.
Afro slowly got up. The hole in his chest, where his heart had been pierced, began to close in a tangle of black and red fibers. The flesh bubbled, regenerating at an astonishing speed.
With a sharp movement, Afro pulled the hilt of the sword, detaching it from his forearm. The forearm regenerated in seconds, sealing the wound as if the steel had never been there.
Now, Afro had not just one blade, but two. He crossed the weapons in front of his chest, forming a perfect X.
The Porcelain Master did not retreat any further. With a fluid gesture, he conjured a black jade sphere that floated beside him, pulsing with a cold light. Afro was not surprised; his Premonition had already mapped the energy signature: he was facing a high-level sorcerer.
"If you can survive five moves," said Afro, his tone of voice steady. "If you dodge or defend without dying... I'll end it right here. You have five moves."
The Masked Man let out a metallic laugh, the sphere spinning faster.
"I am ten times stronger than those worms you shredded, forbidden creature! Don't confuse instinct with invincibility!"
Afro smiled. It was a short smile, devoid of humor, merely confirmation of an imminent slaughter. He fired.
"ART OF THE SWORD: NE NO TACHI."
The Porcelain Master reacted instantly. He threw geometric shapes of porcelain that, upon touching the ground, turned into mirrors and sharp spikes, creating a maze of ceramic blades to impale Afro.
"First Move."
The moment his foot touched the ground, the Porcelain Master's eye betrayed him. Where there should have been one man, there were ten. They were ghostly figures, shadows of Afro moving in different directions, all real to the enemy's eye. The Masked Man hesitated, his brain unable to choose which of the ten figures to decapitate.
SHRIIIK!
In that split second, the real Afro almost broke through the guard.
The Masked Man had crossed his arms, reinforcing them with Dao. The swords stuck into his guard, and the Porcelain Master's body was brutally dragged backward. His feet plowed the road, kicking up dust and stones, until he almost crashed into the trunk of an ancient tree.
The impact stopped him. The Masked Man trembled. The porcelain of his mask had a small crack.
Afro remained in a lunging stance, both blades smoking with the lightning that Afro's body naturally released.
"One," said Afro.
"Where have I heard that name... Ne no Tachi?" The Porcelain Master's thoughts were interrupted by the urgency of survival. He didn't wait. He drove the jade sphere into the ground. The soil vibrated and porcelain spikes burst from the earth, snaking toward the carriages where the children were trapped.
Afro had to react quickly. He didn't dodge the attack; he ran into it. The spikes pierced the soles of his sandals and went through his feet. Afro didn't scream. He used the pain as leverage and jumped with brute force, throwing one of the swords while he was in the air. The blade whistled and dug into the buried sphere, shattering the jade and preventing the spikes in the ground from advancing further.
But Afro was vulnerable, suspended in the air. The Porcelain Master took advantage of the opening and fired a rain of ceramic needles at him.
"Ne no Tachi: Second Movement."
In the vacuum of the jump, Afro executed an energy shot that propelled him forward. His body became a whirlwind; he spun violently in the air, cutting and deflecting each needle with his remaining blade. His speed increased with every second of his fall. He descended like a meteor upon his enemy. The blade of his sword came down in a vertical arc that nearly split the Porcelain Master's skull, stopping only because the sorcerer jumped back at the last millisecond.
The Masked Man did not stop. In that instant when he dodged the attack, he had clapped his palms together and fired a concentrated jet of fire at Afro, who was still regaining his balance for landing.
"Third Movement."
Afro did not flee from the flames. He spun his sword and his own torso in a helical motion, creating a vacuum that captured the fire. He didn't just block it; he redirected it. Afro landed already completing the spin, throwing the whirlwind of flames back at the Porcelain Master before he could steady his feet.
The impact was sharp and violent. The sorcerer was thrown backward, flying through the mist and breaking two tree trunks before his body slammed into the splintered wood.
"Three," said Afro, hot breath escaping his mouth as the blood from his pierced foot stopped flowing.
The blade Afro wielded shattered. The metal couldn't withstand the pressure of the third movement; few swords could bear the weight of the Ne no Tachi, and his true weapon had been left behind at the inn. Afro looked at the empty hilt and smiled.
"It seems you're out of time," he said, his voice cold.
The Porcelain Master rose from the wreckage, his clothes torn and his chest rising and falling with difficulty. He tried to laugh, wiping the blood that ran down from under his mask.
"There are still two moves left..." he began, but the sentence died in a gurgle. He spat out a thick, dark clot. Suddenly, his insides seemed to burn. "What... what's going on?"
"You drank what you shouldn't have," Afro replied.
The Masked Man instantly remembered the moment he had licked the blood from the blade. What had seemed like a source of power was, in fact, a death sentence. Afro's blood was heretical, a biological poison to any ordinary organism. All who had tasted it before him had met the same end.
The Porcelain Master refused to accept it. "You... son of a bitch..." he growled, staggering.
He tried to advance, his fingers stretched like claws to reach Afro's neck, but his legs gave way. His body began to bubble beneath his robes. The skin, where Afro's blood had entered the bloodstream, boiled and broke into black bubbles. He fell at Afro's feet, convulsing violently as his organs collapsed. He tried to press his porcelain mask against his face, hoping that the artifact would fuse with his flesh and regenerate his body.
But the mask remained inert. These were normal masks; they only bonded with living beings. Afro's blood had already corrupted the Master's biology to such an extent that, to the mask's logic, the sorcerer was already a corpse. There was no spark of life for the bond to occur. The artifact slipped from his fingers and fell into the mud, as dead as its owner.
Afro silently watched the futile effort until the man's last spasm ceased. Despite everything, that man had forced him to awaken. "It's over," he murmured. "You were formidable."
He turned his back on the dead man and walked to the carriages. He ignored the locks; he grabbed the iron bars with his bare hands and, in an effort of pure brute force, bent the metal sideways. The sound of grinding iron echoed through the forest as he pushed his way through the bars as if they were made of wicker.
Inside, Himari was cowering. Her hands were tied behind her back and a dirty cloth gagged her mouth. Her eyes, though they could see little in the dim light, recognized her father's silhouette.
Afro broke the ropes and gag with a quick movement.
As soon as she was free, Himari jumped into his arms, clinging tightly to his neck. Due to her poor vision, her sense of smell had become her guide; she recognized the smell of leather, sweat, and the iron of blood that emanated from him.
"It's okay," she said to the other children, her voice hoarse from the gag. "I told you he would come."
The other children, seeing the bent bars and the monster who had saved them, hesitated. Some preferred to stay in the back of the cell, crying. But one by one, they came out, avoiding looking at what remained of the looters on the road. The horses, restless, began to move slowly, making the wood of the carriages creak.
The golden glow in Afro's eyes began to fade, returning to a human and exhausted tone. But the calm was short-lived.
Something was causing him unease. Afro looked away from Himari and fixed his gaze on the covered wagon at the end of the line. Himari, noticing her father's silence, began to calm the other children, telling them that Afro was their protection.
Suddenly, the paper seals holding down the canvas of the last wagon began to burn spontaneously. The Master of Porcelain was no longer there to keep them active. The fire consumed the inscriptions in seconds.
"A presence," murmured Afro.