The Price of Izanami – Chapter 72
Ren woke up.
No fanfare. No dramatic gasp. Just the dry scrape of breath in his throat and the sterile smell of antiseptic.
His eyes blinked open slowly to pale white ceiling tiles, half-lit by morning sun and blinking equipment. He didn't move. His body felt like lead, but at least he could breathe.
"…Ah," he muttered, voice cracked. "I'm still alive, huh?"
He let the silence linger, trying to process that fact. Still alive. Still here.
Then his face twisted into something between a grimace and a bitter grin.
"That was the stupidest thing I've done so far in this world."
Every inch of his body ached, a dull throbbing hum like someone had replaced his bones with metal poles and beat them hollow. Ren let out a long exhale through his nose, staring up at nothing.
"I should've just run away…" he mumbled. "Fucking hell…"
The thought lingered. He could have. He should have. And yet…
"But it was kind of worth it…"
A low, pained chuckle escaped his lips.
"Maximum technique: Binding of Izanami," he whispered with a grin.
He remembered it. The scream. The chant. The threads that burst from his cursed circuit like veins snapping open. The battlefield tied together by red.
It had worked.
Mostly.
"It was right out of my ass, pretty much," Ren thought, eyes half-lidded. "Incomplete. Barely a maximum technique…"
He let the words linger, tasting the bitter truth.
"I mean, I had to make up a chant, a hand sign and make a binding vow to make it all work on the spot for that shit…"
His eyes narrowed.
"And all I was able to do… is just link red stitches to everything around me for thirty meters or so…"
He paused, then snorted.
"…But still. It's kind of useless, huh?"
His tone wasn't even self-deprecating. Just matter-of-fact.
"It connects everything. That's all. I guess it kind of makes people blind too? Since the red threads are so thick in the air… but other than that…"
He tilted his head weakly to the side.
"This technique was something I made for that moment itself…"
No grand plan. No long training arc. It was instinct, desperation, and a stitched-together understanding of cursed energy. That's all.
His fingers twitched.
"Ugh, my body hurts like I've been hit by a truck or something…"
He tried to move.
Stiff.
"Fuck. Stab wounds hurt…"
He gritted his teeth.
"Fucking hell—wait, huh?"
He slowly pulled the bedsheet down and looked at his torso. His skin was clean—bandaged in places, yes, but there were no massive scars, no sign of the deep punctures he knew had been there.
"…Ah?"
He blinked.
"Reverse cursed technique…?"
His mouth opened.
"Shit! I should've stayed up…!"
A spike of frustration jabbed through his haze.
"I should've stayed awake so I could feel what reverse cursed energy feels like!! Shit!!"
But the moment passed. He sighed.
"…Ugh, whatever. I still got way too much out of that one encounter."
His gaze drifted to the ceiling again, expression softening.
"A maximum technique… and also…"
A chill passed over his skin, faint but real.
"…That fight made me remember what I lack the most."
His voice dropped lower.
"…AOE."
He paused.
"…Not a problem anymore, though."
A grin began to tug at the corners of his lips.
Ren lifted his hand slightly, letting cursed energy slowly swirl around his fingers. It still felt jagged, rough—unrefined. But beneath it was something new.
Something stolen.
Something dangerous.
He whispered to himself:
"Magnetic Decree."
He still remembered the feeling.
The curse. Its gaze. The iron swirling in the air. The scream of pressure. The hatred. The weight of its grudge.
And now… it was part of him.
Ren's smile didn't fade.
Three techniques.
1st Iron Rule
Ren could control any metal object he touched or saw within 15 meters.
2nd False Gravity
Weak flight. Floating. Clumsy, but functional.
3rd Maximum Output: Grudge Collapse
A magnetic area. 20-meter radius. Total control over all metal in the zone.
But the last one needed a chant. Just like Izanami.
Ren's hand twitched as he recalled the lines.
Dark eyes bear witness…
To the silence of God and the scream of iron.
Fall, false order—collapse beneath my will.
Just remembering it made his breath shorten.
"…This cursed technique," Ren murmured, "it gives me chills…"
The curse he stole it from had been wrong. Its very existence screamed like a nail in a chalkboard of reality. And the chant?
Too polished. Too deliberate.
That curse wasn't normal.
"…Now that I think about it…"
Ren narrowed his eyes.
"That thing… it must have been a womb curse. It evolved after eating Maki's spear."
He thought harder.
"Not only that… its cursed technique… the way it was structured…"
He paused, eyes darkening.
"…That was weird."
His mind flashed back to the moment. The rage. The fixation. The metal screaming through the air.
"…What are the chances of that?"
A shiver danced across his spine.
"Was that a trap?"
He bit his lip.
"…No. No, I can't think like that. Not yet."
Not without proof. Not now.
"…For now, I should just put my mind to recovering…"
He let his head relax into the pillow.
"…And completing the Red Cursed Circuit."
His eyes narrowed.
"Talking about that…"
Ren slowly closed his eyes.
He pushed cursed energy into his hand, focusing on the sensation, tracing the path…
But something was wrong.
There was no path.
The energy dispersed, leaking out like water through a broken net.
"…Ah," he muttered. A quiet, bitter laugh followed.
"Great…"
He opened his eyes.
"My Red Stitch cursed circuit… it's burned away."
He flexed his hand weakly.
"Yeah… I don't have any cursed circuit in my body right now."
He let his arm drop with a soft thud against the bed.
"Great. Just great."
Then, slowly—his expression shifted.
"…So I have to make a basic one fast…"
His eyes glinted.
"Or… just make a perfected one."
He stared at the ceiling again.
"I have a few ideas…"
His mind was already ticking again—faster than his heartbeat.
The red threads, the field-wide binding, the complete saturation…
All of that—every part—had been guided by instinct.
But instinct was enough to prove it was possible.
"This whole maximum technique stuff… it came to me, and it worked…"
A breath passed.
"That has to mean something."
He reached up with his free hand, fingers clawing at the light above.
"…This showed me something."
A path. A blueprint.
A way to build something better.
"…I might not even need the blood manipulation cursed technique after all."
A smile cracked across his lips.
Something between hope and madness.
"Understanding"
...
..
.
[Ren's Cursed Techniques...
(1st Red stitch
Maximum technique: Binding of Izanami
指組み (Handsign: Clasped hands with interlaced fingers)
[Chanting:
"Stitching through form... Connecting through will..."
"Thread becomes law—bind this domain!"])
(2nd Copy
Copied Cursed Techniques...
{1st Flood Maw.
1st Water Blades. Razor-sharp streams of water that I could launch from my hands like compressed slicing discs. They could cut through metal if focused enough. User has to throw there arms to release them.
2nd Water Beam. A high-powered jet of cursed water that fired from the mouth like a cannon. It packed force—enough to tear down buildings if given the charge-up time. But that was the weakness. It needed buildup. A few seconds too long in close combat.}
{2nd Magnetic Decree "NEW"
1st Iron Rule
Ren can control any metal object he touches or sees within 15 meters…
2nd False Gravity
Pretty much weak flight and floating…
3rd Maximum Output: Grudge Collapse
Ren creates a magnetic area around him (20-meter radius) and will have control over all metal in that area… But Ren needed to make a chant before he could use the 3rd technique… The chant was…
"Dark eyes bear witness…
To the silence of God and the scream of iron.
Fall, false order—collapse beneath my will."})