Stepping outside, Kiniro gazed up at the pitch-black curtain above him, centered around the unfinished building, "So this is what a barrier feels like…interesting."
Kiniro's musing was brought to a sudden end as he sensed multiple people entering the barrier's influence, carrying a strong intent that left nothing to the imagination about why they had trapped him.
'There are five of them…with at least one more waiting for me on the outside actively maintaining the barrier.' Kiniro's eyes shifted into their star form as cursed energy oozed out of his pores, 'I'm outnumbered, cut off from the outside world, with nowhere to run…I'm almost certainly going to die.'
A shiver passed through Kiniro's body as he reached up and gripped his chest, feeling the frantic pace of his heart. 'This really makes my day!'
Kiniro's eyes drifted shut for a split second as excitement and euphoria overwhelmed him. A window his assailants exploited to make their opening move, believing Kiniro was overwhelmed by the dire situation and frozen with indecision.
Feeling the spike of hostile intent, Kiniro's eyes snapped open, and he spun around just in time to watch a man fly out of the building's doorway.
With one fluid motion, the man unsheathed the sword at his waist, and cursed energy flowed down the blade like water. Dressed in nothing but baggy black pants and a plain white Gi, with a shaved head and half of his face covered by cloth, there was nothing special about the man, but despite that, Kiniro could tell that his skills weren't average.
With a burst of speed, the swordsman lunged forward, holding his sword with both hands as he executed a thrust aimed at Kiniro's chest.
Staring at the incoming attack, Kiniro hardly had time to think, yet his body moved, pushing off the ground with an explosive surge, catching the swordsman off guard. Not because of his speed or reaction time, but because instead of dodging, Kiniro did the opposite and literally threw himself onto the sword.
The swordsman's eyes widened as he watched his blade disappear into Kiniro's chest and exit out his back, with the familiar sensation of flesh giving way to sharpened metal. Moving on instinct, the swordman tried to twist his blade and worsen the already grievous injury, but found the sword stuck fast.
For a split second, the swordsman didn't know what to do, and that brief moment of indecision sealed his fate.
"Gottcha," Kiniro taunted with a manic light in his eyes as he held up his hand and aimed his palm at the man's face, "Thank you for being my first."
Before the man could react, there was a flash of steel as a dagger flew out of Kiniro's sleeve, moving faster than an arrow. There was nothing the swordsman could do as Kiniro's dagger pierced through his head like a melon, sending a spray of blood out the back of his skull. Unimpeded, the dagger continued its flight, revealing the slim metal chain trailing behind it.
Kiniro watched his dagger fly, and a burst of ecstatic laughter escaped his lips, 'Finally…I can use them in conjunction with my cursed energy!'
With a thought, Kiniro imbued his weapon, engulfing the dagger and chain in his pink-hued essence, making it come alive.
The dagger jerked as it came to a sudden halt mid-flight. But instead of dropping out of the air, the blade suddenly reversed its direction, snaking back and forth at blistering speed. The recoil was enough to bisect the swordsman's head in half, sending the top of his head flying off into the distance as the dagger arrived in Kiniro's palm.
Wrapping his fingers around the hilt and feeling the familiar weight in his hand, Kiniro couldn't help but reflect on his recent training with the weapon.
During physical conditioning, at least half of the session was dedicated to sparing and combat training, two things that Kiniro had been completely new to at the beginning of the week. However, it had been an eye-opening experience, teaching Kiniro many things. The most important being that without his advantage of cursed energy reinforcement, Kiniro would lose against anyone with the slightest bit of combat experience. The second lesson Kiniro learned was how to sense others' intent and emotions in combat, which he eventually refined into his danger sense.
With such an ability, Kiniro could have made significant progress in his hand-to-hand skills had he invested all his time and effort. But when Kiniro saw the twin chained daggers in the armory, it was love at first sight.
Masamichi heavily discouraged Kiniro after he announced his interest in learning the weapon, while Maki had outright insulted him, calling him a moron for trying to learn such a complex weapon as a complete beginner.
And for the most part, they were right. Kiniro only managed to grasp the basics of dual-wielding knives in combat, and he hadn't even come close to incorporating the chain aspect of the weapon.
But from the very beginning, Kiniro had a workaround to make up for his extraordinary lack of skill. Using the adhesive and elastic properties of his cursed energy alongside his perfect control, Kiniro suspected he could manipulate his daggers in ways that would otherwise be physically impossible.
With his free hand, Kiniro reached out and grabbed the corpse in front of him before it could fall to the ground. Ignoring the exposed grey matter and skull, Kiniro's eyes looked past the physical, honing in on what only his gaze could see.
The man's soul, now free of its physical vessel and with no will to control it, released a surge of cursed energy far more than the man could produce had he been alive. The excess of cursed energy was a direct result of the man's sins and vices, the negative emotions that gave birth to cursed energy itself. And along with the cursed energy came the mark of sin that the man had incurred after stabbing Kiniro with his sword.
Opening his mouth, Kiniro feasted on the bounty, inhaling the influx of cursed energy as dark pink smoke that poured off of the man's body before tossing it to the side less than a second later.
With a pleased smile on his face, Kiniro reached up with his free hand and grabbed the sword sticking through his chest, "A good try, but you should have aimed for the head."
A grim smile split Kiniro's face as he slowly pulled the sword from his flesh, his expression growing more and more deranged with each inch of steel exposed. Shockingly, despite the nearly two feet of razor-sharp metal Kiniro pulled out, there was hardly any blood accompanying the grievous injury.
'Guess I don't need to worry about bleeding out if I have enough cursed energy to plug up the cut,' Kiniro thought with a grin as he tossed the sword to the side.
"Asmodeus"
With a single use of his technique, Kiniro healed his fatal injury, closing up the hole in his chest and restoring the tiny amount of blood he had lost.
"You know I can sense the rest of you, right?" Kiniro called out into the silence as his other knife slid into his palm, "Your best shot at killing me is to attack all at once. Honestly, I can barely hold my own in a straight-up fight, it's kinda embarrassing to be real with y-"
Kiniro's taunting was interrupted as the remaining four assassins took his advice and charged him. They had moved to surround Kiniro as he healed, and now came at him from all directions.
Assessing the situation, Kiniro had a giddy smile on his face, 'None of them have cursed techniques, but their fundamentals are solid. Combined with their martial skills, that makes them dangerous.'
Unfortunately for the assassins, Kiniro had been put in a similar situation time and time again against his classmates, 'It's not a one-to-one, but at least I know what to do when I'm hopelessly outskilled against a more experienced opponent. Be chaos incarnate.'
Throwing out his left hand, Kiniro sent his dagger flying at the assassin charging him head-on.
Immediately, the assassin positioned his sword to intercept, and with a slight twist, deflected Kiniro's knife. However, instead of being knocked aside, the knife stuck fast to the assassin's sword as if it were welded on.
Seeing the confusion flash across the man's eyes, Kiniro grinned as his cursed energy snapped back on itself like a rubber band. The violent jerk ripped the sword right from the man's grasp, and at the same time, Kiniro threw out his other dagger with even greater speed.
Unarmed and defenseless, the assassin could do nothing but dodge, throwing himself to the side to avoid the second projectile.
'Not good enough,' Kiniro thought with malicious glee as he swiped his fingers to the side, causing his knife to arc in mid-air, correcting its trajectory. There was a final look of shock on the man's face before Kiniro's dagger pierced through the left side of his chest and out his back.
However, there was no time for Kiniro to celebrate his kill as the other three assassins managed to close the distance and swung their swords in perfect tandem.