"This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Zigg-sama's death."
Gotoh added that at the end.
Twenty years already… no wonder Netero was coming.
Roy speared a piece of bacon and tossed it into his mouth, then glanced out the window with little interest. "Gotoh."
"Yes, Master."
"Did you ever meet Grandpa Zigg?"
Roy hadn't even existed twenty years ago, but Gotoh had.
The young butler's thoughts drifted back. After searching his memory, he answered, "Once."
He pushed up his glasses and spoke plainly. "Back then, Hall and I were still trainee butlers. Madame Tsubone brought us along to tidy Zigg-sama's wardrobe. I remember…"
"He had a whole room of figurines. He was pretty skinny, didn't put on airs, always smiling. And he gave me and Hall each a piece of candy—said he'd cooked it himself. It was actually really good…"
Gotoh rambled through the entire encounter in detail. Roy ate in silence, listening, until he suddenly remembered the Courage Medal Netero had given him during the Hunter Exam in the Zaban City wetlands—an heirloom said to be Grandpa Zigg's "final gift."
Roy lifted a hand, summoned the medal stamped with an axe and a wheat sheaf, and turned it over and over, forgetting to eat for a moment.
"Master… Master…"
"Hm?"
"The soup's getting cold," Gotoh reminded him after he finished.
Roy came back to himself, flicked the medal into the drawer and shut it, then—before the soup fully cooled—ladled a spoonful and drank slowly.
Even while drinking, he didn't forget the important thing. "Did you prepare the medicine I asked for?"
He already had the method for reverse-manifestation. It was time to keep his promise to Tanjiro's father, Tanjuro.
"The doctor has finalized a plan. I'm heading out to pick it up," Gotoh said seriously. "At the latest, you'll have it tonight."
"And…" Gotoh looked at him carefully.
"Say it."
"Yes." The butler's expression tightened. "Hall called about something. He said… lately, a cult has suddenly been popping up across the continents, incubating followers everywhere. It's caught the attention of multiple countries—including the Hunter Association."
Roy's hand paused on the spoon. He looked up.
Gotoh organized the info in his head and continued in a low voice. "And one of the names involved is… the one you've met—Guzman."
"Oh?" Roy's face went cold. "Book the tickets. I'm going to kill him."
"No need." A gust of wind swept through, and someone appeared across the table without warning—a wiry old man, nearly bald except for two stubborn tufts. Maha.
"I already sent your grandpa," Maha said casually.
He picked up the soup bowl like it belonged to him and drank straight from it—glug, glug, glug—emptying the tomato-and-egg soup in one brutal gulp. Only then did he exhale, satisfied.
"Grandpa…" Roy remembered he'd just seen Zeno at the gate. For a moment, he fell silent.
Maha shot him a sideways look. "What—got a grudge you have to settle personally?"
Since his thoughts were exposed anyway, Roy admitted it. "Yeah. I didn't finish him with one strike back then. I've been planning to take that back someday."
"You'll get your chance." Maha didn't care. "It was just an external incarnation. Kill it, and there'll be another one."
Roy frowned. So great-grandpa knows something…
Sure enough—
"You think you're the only clever one?" Maha said flatly. "Someone… came down."
Came down… Roy's scalp prickled. From where else could "down" mean, if not the Dark Continent?
"Now you're scared?" Maha stabbed a chunk of bacon with his fork and tossed it into his mouth. He didn't mind eating Roy's leftovers; he just kept looting the table until it was clean. Then he clinked the fork into an empty plate.
Roy didn't answer.
He rubbed the Curse on the back of his hand and, after a moment, let out a quiet, complicated sigh. "Great-grandpa was joking… I'm scared, sure."
"But not enough to lose my head."
"I just didn't expect them to not even give me eight years. They're in such a hurry—like Grandpa Zigg did something to piss them off…"
"Mmph…" The moment Zigg came up, both of them stopped talking as if by mutual agreement.
Maha ate until he was half full, then slumped into his chair and looked out the window. The sun had climbed; the red dawn had turned pale and bright, warming the world. He rose, and in the next blink he was outside in the corridor.
"Walk with me."
"Creak—" The door opened. Roy followed in silence.
One walked with hands behind his back; the other with hands in his pockets. Warm sunlight on their shoulders, they strolled the castle's old stone corridor toward the training hall.
At one point, they passed the garden. Kikyo, belly high with pregnancy, was walking carefully with Tsubone supporting her. Silva wasn't with her; Kikyo looked visibly more tense than usual.
"Roy." Near the corner, with the training hall door in sight, Maha stopped and asked abruptly, "How long has it been since you practiced your sword?"
A faint glow gathered. The staff-sword appeared in Roy's hand, and he steadied it. He ran his fingers along the blade, feeling Eclipse's excited mood, and answered honestly. "Last night."
"And I had a decent sparring partner."
"In a dream?"
"Yes. In a dream."
"So that's it…" Maha turned his head and said lightly, "You spar, you practice—so why are you still so trash?"
Roy blinked. Then his hand went empty.
He looked down—Eclipse was already in Maha's hand. The old man was turning it in the sunlight like it was nothing.
Roy finally understood: Maha didn't need to say a word. The message was obvious.
You treat your sword like your life… and I can take it from you whenever I feel like it.
Roy couldn't find a reply.
The old man seemed to do nothing, and yet everything was said.
That effortless, weightless control—made Roy's throat go dry.
"…I didn't see it," Roy admitted. "Can you do it again?"
To steal a blade that cleanly and silently—how?
Roy bowed his head with genuine respect.
A blink later—
A flash.
Eclipse let out a small, wronged wail in Roy's mind and fell back into his hands, furious and protesting.
Maha clapped like he'd brushed dust off his sleeve, then leaned against the window and went back to sunbathing.
"Whether you saw it or not—what difference does it make? Another ten thousand times and you still won't be able to hold it."
Roy fell quiet, gripping Eclipse so hard his knuckles whitened.
His forehead thunked—Maha poked him with a finger.
"Gratitude, you idiot."
"How did I end up with a grandkid as wooden as you?"
"Do you feel endless gratitude toward the sword path you're practicing?"
"BOOM."
The words hit Roy like a thunderclap.
He froze.
The haze and frustration clinging to his sword path—along with the shame of having his blade taken—vanished.
In a flash, an image rose in his mind: a wild-haired middle-aged man on a snowy peak, praying with his fists—grateful to martial arts with every breath.
Roy's eyes brightened.
Maha noticed the change and withdrew his finger, satisfied.
He snorted. "Netero's a pain in the ass, but he created Shingen-ryu and understood his own martial way. 'Strongest human'—he earned it."
"He has his invincible road. You need yours."
"You're obsessed with the road of faith, but you've neglected your true self—and the tool you eat with. Roy, that's putting the cart before the horse."
Thunder after thunder landed in Roy's chest.
It crushed the "confusion worm" crawling through his sword road and left his sword heart clear.
Roy knew Maha didn't understand blades—his Ren manifested a giant that wielded a hammer—but the Way was the same. Sword, fist, hammer—different paths, same destination.
It all came back to one word:
Gratitude.
Grateful that humanity forged swords.
Grateful the world created sword arts.
Grateful he learned the sword.
Grateful the sword chose him.
"I was wrong," Roy whispered. "Completely."
His eyes flared like twin suns.
He stroked the blade and spoke softly to Eclipse:
"I've been treating you like a tool."
Then he bowed—deeply—to the sword itself.
A heavy, ancient sword-hum rang out.
Eclipse leapt free of the sheath on its own, circling Roy in a playful spiral—no longer wronged, no longer sulking—alive with joy.
It couldn't speak.
But Roy heard it all the same.
It felt what he felt. Saw what he saw. Heard what he heard.
It was an extension of his will—and in that moment, it also felt like it had a life of its own.
Still… it wasn't enough.
Roy caught Eclipse cleanly, nodded once to Maha, and then—
He vaulted through the window.
Outside in the garden, he sat cross-legged beneath the sun, blade laid across his knees, and closed his eyes.
He began to meditate.
Footsteps approached—
Illumi appeared, long black hair hanging to his waist, strolling up. He stopped beside Maha and watched Roy's stillness with a faint ripple in his empty eyes.
"What's he doing?" Illumi asked quietly. "Why can't I understand it?"
Maha: "That's why he's the older brother and you're the younger."
Illumi nodded as if that settled it, then slowly shook his head. "No. He's my beloved older brother. I'm the younger brother who loves him. Great-grandpa… you forgot about love…"
Maha's eye twitched.
He kicked Illumi.
Hard.
Illumi became a literal shooting star.
He vanished into the distance.
"Piece of crap," Maha barked. "Say that kind of nonsense again and I'll beat you to death."
…
Back at the breakfast table, Roy's thoughts returned to the present.
Maha looked out at the sunlit garden, then asked, almost idly:
"Roy…"
"How long have you gone without practicing your blade?"
~~~
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