Miguel did not give him time to think.
The instant Oden's shadow shifted, Miguel was already moving.
His foot slammed into Oden's stomach.
The six-year-old flew backward, skidding violently across the clearing before tumbling through the dirt and grass in a pathetic roll.
Air exploded from his lungs.
Oden coughed hard, eyes wide, mouth open soundlessly as he tried to breathe.
Miguel did not follow immediately.
He stood where he was, hands loose at his sides, watching.
"…Too slow," he said.
Oden forced himself onto his elbows, wheezing.
"That—" he choked. "That hurts—"
Miguel's expression did not change.
"Good."
Oden looked up in disbelief.
Miguel took one step forward.
"If it hurts, then your body will remember it."
Then he vanished again.
Oden barely saw the blur before a fist crashed into his shoulder and sent him spinning sideways. The ground hit him hard. Pain burst through his arm so sharply that tears sprang into his eyes on reflex.
He scrambled away on all fours.
Miguel kept walking.
Oden's breath came in panicked bursts.
"What is wrong with you?!" he shouted, voice cracking.
Miguel tilted his head slightly.
"I told you already," he said. "We're fighting."
"That's not a fight!" Oden shouted. "You're just beating me up!"
Miguel's eyes narrowed.
"And if a curse tears your throat out, are you going to complain to it about fairness too?"
Oden froze.
Miguel was in front of him again.
A backhand sent him sprawling.
His cheek burned. His head rang. The world blurred for a second.
Oden rolled instinctively just as Miguel's heel smashed into the ground where his ribs had been.
The dirt exploded upward.
Oden stared at the crater left behind.
His face drained.
Miguel looked down at him coldly.
"That one would've broken half your body," he said. "You dodged it."
Oden's limbs trembled as he pushed himself up.
He couldn't win.
He couldn't even run.
Every direction felt blocked by the sheer weight of Miguel's presence.
The man wasn't smiling anymore.
And worse—
He meant it.
Oden could feel it now.
That pressure.
That horrible certainty in Miguel's movements.
Killing intent.
Real killing intent.
It poured off him in waves so dense Oden's instincts were screaming at him to flee, to hide, to survive somehow.
But there was nowhere to go.
Miguel stepped forward again.
Oden turned and ran.
It was pathetic. He knew that. His breathing was too loud, his legs too short, his body too battered already.
But he ran anyway.
Miguel let him.
For all of two seconds.
Then Oden felt fingers hook into the back of his jacket.
He was yanked off his feet and thrown.
He hit the ground shoulder-first, bounced once, and rolled.
Pain shot through his entire body.
Tears blurred his vision now, but he still forced himself up.
"M-Miguel—stop…"
"No."
The answer came without hesitation.
Oden's chest tightened.
Miguel approached slowly.
"If you cannot bring it out under pressure," he said, "then it doesn't matter whether you have talent or not."
Oden stumbled backward.
"I don't know how!" he cried. "I'm trying!"
"Then try harder."
Miguel lunged.
Oden flinched and threw both arms in front of his face.
A fist slammed into his guard and sent him flying again.
This time he crashed onto his back and didn't get up immediately.
The sky spun overhead.
His whole body ached.
His arms hurt.
His stomach hurt.
His chest hurt.
Even breathing hurt.
Miguel's footsteps drew closer.
Oden turned his head and saw the man's silhouette standing over him.
For one awful second, it looked like death itself had come to collect him.
Miguel looked down.
"Get up."
Oden's lips trembled.
"I can't…"
Miguel raised a leg.
"Then die."
Oden's pupils shrank.
The kick came down.
In that instant—
something inside him snapped.
His shadow burst outward.
Blackness spread across the ground in a violent surge, far wider than his tiny body should have allowed. It rippled like liquid, twisted like smoke, and from within it came a sound—
A hiss.
Miguel stopped.
The air in the clearing changed.
Oden lay there frozen, staring as something began to rise from the darkness beside him.
Scales.
Glossy and black.
Then more scales.
Then a massive serpentine body unfurling from the shadow as if it had always been waiting there.
Its eyes opened.
Cold. Slitted. Familiar.
The Snake Shikigami coiled around Oden protectively, its body long and powerful, its presence suffocating in a completely different way from Miguel's. Smaller snakes began slithering out after it, one after another, spilling from the shadow in twisting waves.
Oden stared up at it in shock.
"…What…"
Miguel stood still.
Then slowly—
he smiled.
"Well," he said softly.
The massive serpent lifted its head, fangs visible, body tense, ready to strike at the slightest movement toward its master.
Miguel looked from the snake to the battered child beneath it.
"…Good."
He straightened up and dusted off his clothes.
"Class dismissed."
The words barely registered.
The adrenaline vanished all at once.
The pain rushed back in.
Oden's vision blurred.
The last thing he saw was the giant snake lowering its head toward him, almost as if checking on him—
before his eyes rolled back and his body went limp.
And Oden collapsed.
A few days had passed since the fight in the clearing.
Oden was still wrapped in bandages.
His arms hurt. His ribs hurt. His legs hurt. Even turning over in bed had become an annoying process that made him grit his teeth in silence. Miguel had not gone easy on him in the slightest.
Not that Oden expected an apology.
At this point, he was starting to understand that Miguel's version of teaching was simply violence with a lesson hidden somewhere inside it.
Oden sat outside on the wooden steps of the house, staring at his hands.
The village was quiet at this hour. Warm sunlight spilled over the ground, and somewhere nearby he could hear people talking in the distance. Children laughing. Pots shifting. Life going on as usual.
Meanwhile, he was stuck trying to make sense of things that shouldn't even exist.
Cursed energy.
Cursed techniques.
Shikigami.
It all still felt unreal.
But the bandages around his body were very real.
The memory of that giant snake emerging from his shadow was real too.
And so—
like it or not—
he had no choice but to accept it.
Footsteps approached.
Oden didn't need to look up to know who it was.
Miguel stopped beside him.
"You're not dead," he said.
Oden replied flatly, "Disappointing, I know."
Miguel raised a brow.
"…So you do have a sense of humor."
Oden looked up at him.
"I learned from the best."
Miguel snorted and sat down beside him.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Miguel glanced at the boy's bandages.
"How's the pain?"
Oden was quiet for a second.
"…Bad."
Miguel nodded.
"Good."
Oden immediately frowned.
Miguel ignored the look and folded his arms.
"You summoned it," he said. "That's what matters."
Oden looked away.
"The snake," he said quietly.
"Yes."
Miguel's voice remained casual.
"Your shikigami."
Oden stared at the ground.
"It just… came out."
"That tends to happen when you're about to die."
Oden didn't answer.
Miguel leaned back slightly.
"The problem now," he said, "is that bringing out power in desperation and actually controlling it are two very different things."
That got Oden's attention.
He looked at Miguel again.
"What do you mean?"
Miguel pointed at him.
"You have a ridiculous amount of cursed energy," he said. "That much was obvious the second I found you. But having a lot of it means nothing if you can't control it."
Oden blinked.
Miguel continued.
"Think of cursed energy like water. If you pour it everywhere carelessly, it spills, leaks, and goes to waste."
He paused.
"But if you direct it properly, control where it flows, how much you use, and when you use it, then it becomes useful."
Oden frowned slightly.
"So… I've just been spilling it?"
Miguel nodded.
"Constantly."
Miguel rested his elbows on his knees.
"Cursed energy control," he said, "is the foundation for everything else. Reinforcement. Technique use. Efficiency. Precision. All of it starts there."
Oden lowered his eyes to his hands again.
"…How do I learn that?"
Miguel smiled faintly.
"By doing something very boring."
Oden immediately looked suspicious.
Miguel reached into his pocket and pulled something out.
A leaf.
Just a single ordinary leaf.
Oden stared at it blankly.
"…What am I supposed to do with that?"
Miguel placed it carefully on top of Oden's head.
Oden went cross-eyed trying to look at it.
Miguel said, "Keep it there."
There was a pause.
Oden slowly looked up.
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Oden's expression flattened.
"You beat me half to death," he said, "and now your next lesson is balancing a leaf on my head?"
Miguel nodded.
"Yes."
Oden stared at him.
Miguel stared back.
Then he added, "You're going to use cursed energy to keep it in place."
Oden blinked.
"…What?"
Miguel pointed at the leaf.
"Most people leak cursed energy from their bodies unconsciously. Especially from the feet, hands, and head. If you keep leaking carelessly, the leaf falls."
He tapped Oden lightly on the forehead.
"But if you learn to regulate the output just enough, not too much, not too little, you can keep it steady."
Oden was trying to follow.
Miguel continued.
"It's not about brute force. If you push too much cursed energy into it, the leaf gets blown away. If you use too little, it slips off."
He stood up.
"The point is balance."
Oden stayed still, careful not to dislodge the leaf.
"…And I just sit here and do that?"
Miguel nodded.
"For hours."
Oden's face twitched.
"For hours?"
Miguel ignored the complaint.
"You'll sit. You'll focus. You'll feel the cursed energy in your body. You'll pay attention to how it moves."
He pointed toward Oden's chest.
"When your emotions spike, your output changes. When your concentration breaks, it changes. You need to notice that."
Oden swallowed.
This sounded harder than Miguel was making it sound.
Miguel seemed to notice.
"It's supposed to be difficult," he said. "That's the point."
He began walking away.
Oden's eyes widened slightly.
"Wait," he said. "You're leaving?"
Miguel glanced back over his shoulder.
"Yes."
"You're just going to leave me here with a leaf on my head?"
Miguel nodded once.
"Yes."
Oden stared.
Miguel smirked.
"Then prove me wrong and master it."
And with that, he kept walking.
Oden sat there in silence, bandaged, confused, and mildly offended.
The leaf trembled.
Then slipped off his head.
Oden looked down at it.
"…Seriously?"
He picked it up and put it back on his head.
He tried to sit still.
Tried to focus.
Tried to feel this so-called cursed energy flowing through him.
At first, he felt nothing.
Then irritation.
Then impatience.
The leaf fell again.
Oden frowned.
Picked it up.
Put it back.
A minute later, it fell again.
Then again.
And again.
By the tenth time, his eye was twitching.
"This is stupid," he muttered.
A breeze passed.
The leaf slipped off immediately.
Oden stared at it on the ground for a long moment.
Then, with the grim seriousness of someone accepting war—
he bent down, picked it up, and placed it back on his head once more.
"…Fine," he muttered.
If this was how cursed energy control started—
then he would do it.
Even if it was stupid.
Even if it was boring.
Even if Miguel was absolutely insufferable.
Oden closed his eyes.
And tried again.
---
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