Book 2: Chapter 35: Red and White

Samurai, who were born in the Heian era, even if they were female samurai, had long ago become accustomed to the deadly life of the sword.

Although Genji Shimizu rarely went out and seldom took part in actual combat, this didn’t represent that she lacked the resolve to slaughter.

At the instant Shimizu held up her weapon, the undercurrents began shifting. The game of cat and mouse ended, and everything transformed into a deadly duel.

When Lily saw Shimizu hold her weapon from behind, she instantly gave up the pretense of the graceful geisha she had a.s.sumed. She rolled towards the wall beside her, grabbed her own weapon, and then crouched to quickly observe the situation.

Lily was a blade maiden who had slaughtered countless monsters. Perhaps she might forget about this path of slaughter ordinarily. But when the moment of bloodshed approached, she immediately switched to a realm of ma.s.sacre!

However, just when she began surveying the situation, she witnessed Shimizu’s terrifying might!

Swapping pointers with each other in peacetime could not genuinely embody the instantaneous resolve shown by a real expert during a deadly battle!

Shimizu didn’t draw her weapon and instead just sprinted towards the leftmost man.

That man still hadn’t prepared himself for the impending battle. He remained crouched there and had just begun getting up while drawing the straight sword in his hands.

Yet Shimizu had already unsheathed her weapon.

When facing such an expert, it was too late to attack after drawing the sword.

Shimizu had drawn out her weapon after him, but her action of unsheathing her weapon was a fatal attack itself!

“Clang——!”

Following a thin, fatal ray of light flashing by, the man had already died.

The two men beside him came to their senses at this moment and became fl.u.s.tered, merely raising their swords to prepare for battle.

Onigumo, who was the strongest among the six men, was the first to react. He drew his straight sword immediately and charged towards Shimizu from the side with the intent to kill.

However, Shimizu’s silhouette flickered like a phantom. The straight sword in her hands flashed by again before returning into the scabbard in the next moment. She rolled aside to dodge Onigumo’s attack and arrived in between the final two men on her side. She kicked the face of one with a bang, and before the other man could even react, Shimizu unsheathed her sword with lightning-quick movements.

The speed of her draw was too terrifying! It appeared like a flash of lightning within the room.

“Spurt——!” Her weapon had somehow circ.u.mvented the man’s defense and struck his chest directly.

After Onigumo had missed with his attack, he turned towards Shimizu and swung his weapon at her again.

But it was almost as if Shimizu had eyes on the back of her head; she dodged again.

“Hyaa——!!!” The geishas finally reacted and screamed as they gathered at the corner of the room to hide.

“Move it!” Onigumo angrily beheaded a geisha that had come between him and Shimizu while escaping.

The two men on the other side acted too. They were after all experts who had trained diligently, so they were lying in wait for the perfect timing to kill Shimizu.

However, the red phantom in the house’s corner also acted at this instant.

Lily silently mobilized all of her spirit power and rushed towards the two men from aside.

Lily had already reached them by the time they had turned. The thought of a geisha like Lily being a powerful samurai had never occurred to them. One of them swung his weapon towards Lily hastily. In response, Lily leaned sideways by borrowing the momentum from the sprint and slid forward with her knee on the ground. By the time the man had completed the swinging motion, she had unsheathed Crescent Moon and swung it at the man’s waist.

Because of its extraordinary sharpness, Crescent Moon had easily cut through two-thirds of the man’s waist!

The other man panicked now and screamed as he crazily swung towards Lily, but his colleague’s dead body blocked his attack. Lily showed no hesitation as she placed her hand on the floor to stop sliding and changed directions. She then stood up and stabbed forward!

Crescent Moon possessed an extraordinary length. It pierced through the dead man whose body hadn’t fallen to the ground yet and smoothly stabbed into the heart of the man behind him!

In a flash, four of the six men were dead.

When the man kicked down by Shimizu got up and saw that things didn’t look good, he looked for an escape route. Meanwhile, Lily grabbed onto the weapon dropped by the man she had just killed and flung it towards him.

“Spurt!” The weapon stabbed into the escaping man’s back, and followed by a crashing sound, he fell towards the outside along with the door.

Only Onigumo remained alive now. Shimizu hadn’t killed him because she had questions for him.

Shimizu had used chopsticks to decimate half of Onigumo’s trump cards, the ninjutsu-controlled spiders, and the others had all escaped outside after getting frightened.

Onigumo regretted acting rashly now because he hadn’t truly recognized how terrifying the opponent was!

He wasn’t a samurai, so he took out a tiny ball and intended to throw it down to the floor to create an opening to escape, but Shimizu had already drawn her weapon. Before Onigumo could even register her movements in his cognition, his five fingers grabbing onto the ninjutsu device got sliced apart, and as that ball took a free fall, Shimizu swatted it away outside through the window with the back of her blade,

“ARGH——!!!” Onigumo screamed while holding onto his hand, the pain and the looming death caused him to go crazy. He grabbed onto his weapon with a single hand, summoned all of his spirit power, and swung it towards Shimizu recklessly.

“Swish——!” Shimizu spun forward and swung her weapon across.

It chopped Onigumo’s hand with remarkable accuracy, and simultaneously, Shimizu left behind white afterimages as she traversed back and forth beside Onigumo twice.

Shimizu then stopped sliding. Her back faced Onigumo as she sheathed her beautiful, icy straight sword with an arcing motion, a frosty glint reflecting off it in the process.

As for Onigumo, who was behind her, his waist, legs, feet, shoulders, and other joints spattered mists of blood. He hadn’t died, but he couldn’t move since Shimizu had cut the tendons, and thus, he fell to the ground wearing a dumbfounded expression.

Even Lily, who had finished the battle on her side already, looked at Shimizu with stupefaction. She hadn’t expected a girl who rarely went out to gain actual combat experience to display such cruelty, much crueler than her own.

As I predicted, the disparity between Sister Uesugi and Sister Shimizu is just too irrelevant. The outcome of a battle isn’t something that only relies on the difference in strength, it is decided in an instant.

After the battle began, Lily had sent a probe with her spirit power and detected that among the five men, three were mid-tier sword masters, while the other two were high-tier sword masters. As for that Onigumo, he was a mid-tier sword saint!

If Lily had battled with him, she couldn’t have dealt with him so calmly. But in front of Shimizu, it was only a question of how and when to die.

At this moment, the geishas and the owner were all frozen in fear at the corner in utter silence. It wasn’t as if those who lived on this street had never witnessed a slaughter, but it was too quick!

That powerful Onigumo who the owner felt was an unsurpa.s.sable demon had fallen in just a few seconds. Shimizu had even left him alive intentionally.

The entire ma.s.sacre, from the moment Shimizu had raised her weapon to the moment of Onigumo’s collapse, had taken less than ten seconds!

Her Ladyship Lynne isn’t an ordinary woman too and has such fantastic coordination. The two of them killed at a moment’s notice, showing no hesitation!

Shimizu glanced at the owner and said softly, “I am Genji Shimizu. You need not fear. Go report to the authorities and let the Ashikaga’s men arrive to clean up the scene.”

“Ah…” “Go,” A trace of coldness flashed through Shimizu’s gaze. “Y-Yes!” The owner ran out while staggering. “You too, leave here quickly,” Lily told those geishas in a somewhat gentle tone.

Besides the geisha that Onigumo had beheaded, the other geishas hadn’t suffered injuries and were just frightened. They escaped one after the other.

Shimizu advanced forward and pressed the tip of the blade at Onigumo’s throat, “Speak. Who are you, and which faction sent you?”

Onigumo was a tenacious expert in the level of a sword saint, so he had exceptional vitality. Although Shimizu had crippled his limbs, he hadn’t received a fatal wound, so he could still speak even though he felt out of breath, “Haha… Do you think I will tell you that? Falling into your hands in such a state is equivalent to a death sentence for me, so why would I do something that would please you?! You won’t be able to keep smiling for long since my spider will take this information back! The mirror girl, I really wasn’t expecting her to be…”

Onigumo glared at Shimizu with hatred, but it seemed like he was planning to turn his head at this moment.

“Spurt!” A red light flashed by as Lily sliced off Onigumo’s head in a single motion!

Crescent Moon stabbed into the floor with force as blood splashed onto the roof.

“What are you doing!?” Shimizu also hadn’t predicted Lily would attack so abruptly, so she questioned in shock.

“Sister Shimizu, he probably wouldn’t provide any useful information and only reveal something he shouldn’t!” Lily’s gaze contained an absolute conviction within it, “As long as we investigate his ident.i.ty and those spiders, we will surely find clues!”

“Good. Looks like I wasn’t wrong about you, Lil’ Lily. Actually, even if you hadn’t done it, I would have killed him before the Ashikaga’s men arrived,” Shimizu stated.

“Sister Shimizu…”

A few candles had fallen during the battle just now. They burned silently to the side, illuminating Shimizu’s pale face. Her gaze seemed calm, yet also appeared to contain obsession and ambition as she looked at Lily, “Actually, I feel a little guilty. But since it has come to this, it’s unnecessary to hide it from you, Lil’ Lily.”

“……”

“I am the mirror girl.”1

Shimizu showed no misgivings nor fear as she revealed her ident.i.ty. She instead appeared high-spirited, and her steadfast gaze seemed to contain some kind of foreordination within it, “I am the mirror girl from the legends. The person who the monsters and the Hundred Demon Nation’s p.a.w.ns in Kamakura are looking for and trying to murder! Are you still willing to consider us as sisters even if it’s this way?”

“I…” A plethora of emotions welled up in Lily’s heart momentarily. Although showing this kind of reaction was regular after learning such a thing, the turmoil in Lily’s heart was much more complicated than what Shimizu imagined it to be!

Shimizu’s eyes dimmed a little, and her voice also turned melancholic, invoking the pity in others, “I know this is an excessive request. Mirror girls are a group targeted by demons, hunted and persecuted by evil powers since ancient times. A normal and fit girl wouldn’t want to a.s.sociate with a mirror girl as it would only bring danger to her. Lily, I won’t force you to keep silent or make things difficult for you.”

Shimizu walked in front of Lily and looked at her with a limpid gaze, “The mirror girl brings misfortune to those around her and is a harbinger of tragedy and calamity. Lily, if you wish to end our relationship as training sisters now, I won’t blame you. If I were you, I fear I might do the same.”

No matter what, an unparalleled existence that might have surpa.s.sed the sword saint level appeared so lonely and helpless before Lily’s eyes at this moment.

Lily knew the lonely feeling of being unaccepted by the world too well.

“Sister Shimizu!” Lily hugged Genji Shimizu and rested her head on Shimizu’s shoulder, “How could Sister Shimizu think Lily would do that? Since we became training sisters, unless we reach the end of the journey in our training, no one can part us no matter what!”23

“Lily…” Cold as she was, even Shimizu felt her heart melt and become weaker at this moment. She hugged Lily back and caressed her slim back and waist gently, while her flat chest got squeezed by Lily’s soft, bountiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s. But she didn’t feel jealous right now and instead felt an indescribable warmth.

“Lil’ Lily… thank you. I feel so happy, so glad that I have someone capable of bearing this secret with me!”

“Sister Shimizu…” Lily felt moved, yet it also overwhelmed her.

Sister Shimizu has confided in me with utmost sincerity, and with no reservations, but what about me?

Can I bear to place senior sister’s sorrowful, dormant soul resting in that dim s.p.a.ce in even more danger?

I cannot!4

1. Silva: Woah… she revealed it herself~!!!
2. Silva: Yuriiiiiiii!! But wait, what about Rei? Rei be jealous~
3. Robinxen: “Plus I get can get you to tell me all about what Mirror Girls really are!” she’s probably not thinking.
4. Robinxen: So she keeps the secret.