Chapter 37: 37 The Akatsuki (1)
"Hey... You alive?" Otto walked towards where Inshun collapsed, seeing that he hadn't stood up.
"I'm alive alright... Just have a hard time getting up." He weakly replied as he could feel his ribs broken.
"Oh, good." Otto didn't have any intention of killing him. Just like last time when Inshun left him alive when he had the chance to kill him.
"Let me help ya there buddy." Otto helped stand him up, as he still couldn't use the reverse curse technique to the point he even wondered if he hadn't gotten any inspiration for it or if he wasn't using 100% of his brain.
"You've changed a lot, Otto. Did my beating last time woke you up?" Inshun had a smirk on his face, before coughing out blood.
"Haha— you probably did. But I think the old man I found in the temple was the one who taught me a lot." He referred to the old man who talked about his bloodthirst.
"Who's that?" Inshun only knows one old man who was in the temple.
"I don't know... I forgot to ask for his name."
"Did he spit every second?" He asked, as his father had got the habit of spitting after every sentence.
"Yeah."
"I think that's my father... The previous master of the temple. He's very old like Ryouma."
"Really?"
Inshun nodded his head as several monks helped him from Otto's hands.
"Anyway... The fight was pretty fun, it's been a while since I've fought someone who could push me through that. But, I have a question for ya." Inshun asked.
"Go ahead, as long as it's something I can answer."
"Good, then have you reached it?" Inshun looked at him who had a confused expression.
"What's it?"
"The zen state."
"???" This was the first time Otto heard that term.
"I assume not? It has a lot of words to describe it. State of emptiness, the Realm of the gods, void state, or nirvana."
Inshun after all was training to achieve this state for many years now, ever since he learned the existence of it. As it became his goal was to become "Unparalleled with the spear". He didn't stop even if he was the genius of the Houzouin Temple as he believed that he hadn't reached the state.
"I know the term nirvana..."
'Didn't Shakyamuni say that I reached it in my previous life? Why didn't I feel any change?'
"Kindly explain?" Otto asked.
"Have you heard of Senju Muso?" To which Otto shook his head.
"... Okay. It's an ability that allows you to completely memorize and analyze your opponent's next move, by visualizing it for just a Blink of an eye..." Inshun explained while being patched up by the monks.
'Isn't that just like kenbunshoku / observation haki? True I can see and analyze some techniques to copy them. Just like what I did to Nene's movement technique. That was only possible due to my new strange eyes after absorbing the Sephira crystal.'
"So it's basically like a foresight?"
"Yup."
"So what you're saying is that I've reached it?" Otto didn't believe that he truly achieved Nirvana like Shakyamuni had said, as he took it with a grain of salt.
"Right on track..." Inshun replied hoarsely as he was slowly losing consciousness from the fight earlier.
"..."
"I guess sleep well then." Otto sighed seeing that Inshun had fallen asleep mid-conversion.
"Well, tell him thank you for the fight and I hope that next time we have a spar, we won't try to take each other's lives in the process." He said to the monks as they bowed in unison to him.
Otto left Houzouin Temple, on his way back to Bukyoku Academy after his short break.
...
Almost arriving at the academy... Just as the protagonist he is. He encountered trouble in his way.
"Are you Otto Apocalypse?" The man frowned and questioned him.
"Obviously yeah, the one and only." Otto rolled his eyes as it was already obvious since he'd been on TV with his long blond hair.
"Your fighting days are now over, give me Brynhildr." The man's eyes menacingly glowed in red as he released his aura in an attempt to threaten him.
"Are you sure, you wanna do this?" Otto gave him a chance to abandon that stupid idea, as the moment he's going to try and take his life it would be all over for the man.
"Just shut up and give it up. You don't deserve to be its master." He replied with a glare.
"And what made you think that?" Icked by the mob's reply, trying to steal his girlfriend in front of him.
"Brynhildr is a treasure from the hero clan... Her purpose is to annihilate and exterminate all evil beings that plague this world."
"But you—!!!" He said it in a way that Otto was using it wrongly.
"What?" Otto just picked his ears not bothering his yapping, he doesn't even remember this guy.
"Who even are you?"
Hearing Otto's words, he froze up thinking that he had been forgotten.
"You don't know me!? I was in the Hero's Village as well!!! I'm Seito. The one who should've been Brynhildr's owner!!!" Seito was having a mental breakdown just by talking to Otto.
"Who?" He shrugged, trying to irritate him even further.
"You—! That's it. I'll just have to take it by force." Seito summoned his sword and charged towards him.
'What a lousy movement...' Otto had a bored expression as he just stood there.
"HYAAAAAA!" Seito swung his sword which completely missed as Otto just slightly shifted his body.
"Are you trying to kill me?" Otto raised his eyebrows at him.
"YES! SO DIEEEE FOR ME—!"
Otto started to wonder if this guy was right on his mind as he was just trolling him.
"HAAAAA—!?"
Seito's sword was stopped as Otto just pinched it.
"If your theme was playing in the background, this very action of mine would've stopped your weak-ass theme." Otto snorted before shattering his sword completely with a pinch.
"Carve this in your mind loser, this is the difference between you and me. You don't deserve to even wield Brynhildr."
"And as punishment for coveting her from me is... Death."
Otto threw a fear-inducing punch toward Seito's face who froze up before his life flashed through.
*Spat*
Seito's head immediately became mush, before Otto burned his corpse in disgust.
"Why are these mobs going after me now?" He felt annoyed by it, that he could sense someone was watching him.
"Who are you now?" He turned his head towards the dark alley, seeing a black long-haired man, wearing a black shitagi with an X scar on his face.
"Otto Apocalypse... To stop that sword perfectly with just a pinch. You must've trained real hard."
'I recognize him... He's Ouma Kurogane. Ikki's big brother.'
Otto didn't expect Ouma to come after him this early as he remembered that he was still mingling with Rebellion who would soon form their own Academy, called Akatsuki Academy to compete with the 7 other academies.
"No. I'm just talented." He responded. Not once did he think of training his skills hard to a point he achieved it. Seito to him was just too slow.
"Hmph, still humble after you had killed that person." He looked at the burnt ground where Otto cremated Seito's body.
"Never mind that what do you want? Are you here to have revenge for your great-grandfather, Ryouma? I'm sure you've heard from Ikki that I was the one who killed him."
He stated surprising Ouma who didn't talk to any of his family members and just focused solely on training his body to its utmost limit.
"I suppose, he kept quiet about it?" Otto said seeing his confused look.
"Then that would give me even more reason to challenge you to a duel."
"Let me ask you, did winning those fights make you like this?" Otto thought that Ouma's win streak made him so full of himself that, he failed to recognize someone who was stronger than him.
"If I were to die in battle, then that would only be proved that I was just weak and wasn't strong enough to beat you, a fellow A-Rank blazer." He flatly replied.
'Seriously, what's with the people using their ranks like it meant shit?' Otto believed the system was stupid as it wasn't accurate because it didn't record anything past A-Rank, except for one individual.
But mostly he was just salty that his physical strength wasn't recognized as S-rank or higher and that his luck was at rock bottom, which wasn't true. He considers himself as lucky.
"So you want to fight?"
"No." He flatly replied, which took Otto aback as he remembered that Ouma was someone who sought real battles from strong foes.
'I see... He must be ordered by his gang of criminals.' Otto speculated that he was ordered by Edelweiss whom Ouma respected after saving him from death's hand.
"Then what do you want exactly?"
"I just want you to follow me..."
"..." Both were silent for a moment.
"That sounds suspicious. But alright." Otto followed him regardless as there might be a chance that Edelweiss was there waiting.
...
"You're back." A blonde pale-skinned young woman, wearing only an apron which exposed her side boobs, and jeans. Said while painting a canvas.
Ouma just silently nodded at her and the rest of the group.
"Did you just lead me to the villain's hideout?" Otto asked as he found no Edelweiss around.
"Do you want to find Edelweiss?" A frail-looking blonde kid with a Kyomon Academy uniform politely said.
'The entire Akatsuki Academy gang is present...' Otto recognized all of them, firsthand as he looked them up in his free time.
Ouma Kurogane, also known as the 'Sword Emperor of the Wind' from Bukyoku Academy.
The one with the apron, is Sara Bloodlily, an A-Rank blazer who's also known as the 'Bloody Da Vinci' from Rokuson Academy.
The polite-looking kid is Amane Shinomiya, also an A-Rank blazer, the only blazer who has an S-Rating in their statistics who earned their name 'Bad Luck'.
The gloomy young girl wearing grey winter clothing with a scarf and a hat that had a skull design is named Yui Tatara, raised from a family of assassins, and is assigned to Dunrou Academy.
Nagi Arisuin is a femboy, with soft eyes and girly lips who identifies herself as she. A student who'll enroll in Hagun Academy as a spy for their Academy.
The pink-haired girl, with an eye-patch on her right eye, is named Rinna Kazamatsuri, a blazer with a unique ability the ability of subordination manipulation, which enslaves humans or animals as her pet which she got her name 'Beast Tamer'. She's from Rentei Academy...
Her maid Charlotte Corde, and a lion named Sphinx are the subjects she raised from childhood.
And lastly their leader, Reisen Hiraga a puppet created by the executive of Rebellion, Or-Gaule. Don't know much about the leader aside from Its connection to Or-Gaule and the ability to control strings like Doflamingo from One Piece.
Each and all 7 of them joined different Academies to dominate the next 62nd Seven Sword Art Festival, to reveal themselves as the Akatsuki Academy to the world...
'Oh, too bad I won't be joining the next festival.'
"Yes! I AM!" Otto replied confidently.
...
-Chapter End-
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