Chapter 3: Rebirth

He went out into the garden, looked around and saw her. Arima... He looked weaker than the last time he saw him. He wanted to talk to him for a moment before attacking him directly and sheathed his sword back in its sheath, only for Arima to take the opportunity to attack and Chaser to block the attack in cold blood and start the fight.

After Chaser dodged the attack, he immediately stepped back and gathered a big fire in his hand. He had in mind to throw it on the ground and create fog. As soon as he threw the fire on the ground, he stepped back a little further and asked Arima to talk to him.

"For once in your life, will you put aside your damn addiction to guns and talk to your son?"

"Huh, I'll give you three minutes to say what you have to say."

"I am cursed. Anyone who touches me with the intention of harming me becomes the main target for all the creatures around me and they continue to do so until they take his life or take their own, and I believe that you cast this curse during my birth. If you tell me the solution, I will not slaughter the other branches of the shigeki."

"Threatening me, huh? But unfortunately I'm not the one who put the curse on you. It is likely that Daichi has sealed special spells for the Kregerta lineages to advance through history, and you were cursed by Daichi for breaking the seal."

"Daichi? Who's that?"

"Your time is up."

Arima went on the offensive before the end of the speech and opened his hand backwards to deliver a punch towards Chaser's abdominal cavity. Chaser understood this and was planning to let Arima touch him. Just as Arima was about to punch, he did a side and back somersault and sharpened the ice he had accumulated in his other hand, which had been strained by his jump in the air, and stabbed Chaser in the back. 

Chaser was thrown about a meter away. Arima was dragged about 1 meter by the impact of his fall and recovered his balance. Chaser built up an energetic fire in both hands and ran straight at Arima. Arima was on guard, the distance between them was about 2 meters. Chaser used the energetic fire in his hands to accelerate himself and came to Arima much faster than he had calculated. 

But Arima reacted and turned back to Chaser and tried to hit him with his elbow, but what he didn't see was the fire gathering at Chaser's feet. Chaser accelerated again from the ground and got behind Arima, and since it was risky to pull out his sword and stab him, he swung it and cut deeply across the exposed back of Arima. 

By now their injuries were almost at the same level. Chaser did not take advantage of Arima's loss of balance after taking the damage and waited as if he despised Arima. And even stepped back to give him time. At least that was the case from Arima's point of view. 

Arima got angry and carelessly ran at Chaser. But Chaser had planned all this much earlier. He had thought about it when he was accelerating with the energetic fire he had gathered in his hands. 

He had left remnants of that fire on the ground. When Arima was right on top of them, he activated his fire so that it spiked upwards and stabbed Arima's feet from the bottom. Arima fell to his knees from the pain in his feet. In front of him was the son he had ostracized. Chaser said in a clear but low voice;

"Wake up... Akira!"

A portal-like fiery hole opened in the ground and an ear-splittingly loud hawk sounded. At least it looked like a hawk. Then, very quickly, out of the hole came a phoenix, a.k.a. Akira. He was listening to Chaser. Chaser put his hand on Arima but the phoenix did not attack because it knew that the person was going to die anyway and Chaser understood that. He put the phoenix back in the hole and walked away from the garden where Arima was kneeling, without looking back in contempt. 

Leaving the Shigeki building, Chaser first wants to visit Kenju's grave and sets off to the cemetery. At that moment, Chaser feels a different energy inside him. He wonders if it is black magic. So he distributes the energy gathered inside his body. At the same time, he tries not to lose his way to the cemetery. Chaser tries to show the energy in his hands, just like fire manipulation. But instead of his old red fire, he gets a purple fire.

Not thinking too much about it for the moment, Chaser realizes that the grave is only a short distance away. He checks his surroundings well and enters the tomb, trying to find his brother's grave. After about 5-6 mistakes, Chaser finds his brother's grave and his first sentence is to apologize.

He tells Chaser what he did to Shigeki's main building, what he did to their father and that he will slaughter the other Shikegi. He talks about his own curse and apologizes again. He says he will participate in a fighting duel. He says that he was there talking to a descendant of Samura. He talks about being a bit nervous and then there is the sound of a branch breaking.