Prologue : Regretful_Fate

Kotsuba Musashi.

Hearing this name would instil the image of that one "Word of Power" hunter. Kotsuba Musashi was that sort of man - A slim, well-built being, wearing a simple tanned leather coat and chitin pants, with hair the colour of charcoal. It was easy to distinguish his Ohdean background from other Word of Power hunters out there.

Right now, he had arrived at a place no one else seems to have been to for the longest of time.

With wooden flooring and walls riddled with soot, it was no doubt a strange room. The ceiling had been blasted off by some form of attack, revealing the strange inter-dimensional space surrounding the room. Broken debris of the pillars and walls lay on the wooden panels which comprised the floors.

Kotsuba Musashi had arrived at one of the mythical Sealed Rooms, which supposedly houses a Word of Power within. These rooms, rumoured to have belonged to castles decades ago, have been ripped from their citadels in entirety, and sealed within this strange, distorted dimension, away from the vile claws of Man.

But there he stood, with the resilience and triumphant valor befitting a representative - In defiance of it all.

In the centre of the room, was a most strange pillar with a simplistic design.

The pillar was floating above ground, tilted at a 45 degree angle with the bottom pointing toward the room's entry point. Just slightly above the base was a character of an Anikan origin, radiantly glowing with a golden light.

One ought to have been happy at this sight. Being inside a mythical Sealed Room, with a Word of Power before oneself, anyone would have gladly accepted this power with open arms.

And yet...

Musashi's face twisted into a heavy, anguished look of disbelief.

"No..."

He was blatantly unsatisfied with what was before him.

With his eyes fixated onto the golden character, he slowly dragged his feet across the dusty wooden panels, stopping before the pillar. He recognized that character in his native tongue, but he knew subconsciously that it had meant something else in its entirety, something meant to be spoken in a different language and intonation.

That character, was 定.

"No... No! NO!!!"

Kotsuba Musashi collapsed down, and knelt on his knees. Holding his head in denial, he looked up toward his 'prize', as if in a prayer. From a distance, he looked quite insane, had what he uttered been left unheard.

"This... This wasn't supposed to happen... The most heavily guarded Word of Power should have been 再... Why is it 定!?"

The undeniable fact laid before his face, almost cackling at his grimace. He shook his head ever so slightly, refusing to believe the reality blatantly laid out before his eyes. But there it was - In its greatest glory, that golden word lay upon the barren, plain pillar.

(All the lives lost... All the resources sacrificed... All of that could be rewound if I had 再 to create a 再度 concept... All of that could have been recovered... All of it didn't have to go to waste if only it had been 再...!!!)

He could not even cough.

Relaxing his hands slowly, he sunk deeper and deeper into devastation.

Had that word been something else, it would have been different.

Had that word been what he expected it to be, he could have saved them all.

(... I don't have the dignity to walk back alone like this, with them dead... As much as I wanted a Word of Power, I needed 再, not 定...)

Certainly, had he retrieved what he sought after, the power to revive the dead and recover the resources expended must have been valuable enough to risk it this far.

His will wavering, Musashi looked at the pillar above his head once more.

(... I dare not take it.)

He was afraid. Had he taken that power, and went back to Rugnud, he would be ostracised as a cold-blooded murderer who had used others' lives for personal gain; A merciless, dishonourable monster who would throw the lives of others away to achieve the end-goal.

He did not want that.

As pure as the power was, as beautiful as it had always been, in his hands it would be viewed as something obtained through dirty means. The act would be misjudged by the corrupt eyes of the people who sought after it, and these hands of his will be branded by, stained in the blood of the people he didn't kill.

Musashi did not mean for this to happen.

His head drooped into a position where it was just dangling on his neck. He looked down at his attire, stained with the blood of those who had given their lives willingly.

He remembered the owners of the stains clearly.

The spattered drops were from that young boy Rohat, whom was impaled by a spear wall. A joyful, sprightly man with a great future ahead of himself, dead from a moment of folly and an unexpected trap.

The smudge of blood and grime belonged to his childhood friend Dekomura, whom gave his life to redirect a boar down a cliff. Unfortunately, the boar's tusk scarred a great wound on his left thigh, and the persistent Bloodswarm locusts made his wound fester much faster than normal.

In the end, he too succumbed to fate. And despite that, Dekomura's final words...

... He offered Musashi his corpse to disable the traps ahead, such that his chances of reaching the Word of Power may heighten, as little as it may be.

The moments of their deaths flashed before his eyes in an instant. The valiance and dignity they had, in order to ensure that this retrieval had been a success, would be sullied by those greedy hyenas in human skins.

He couldn't accept the Word of Power.

Those very lives would have their sacrifices pinned upon him wrongfully.

Those very people who looked up to Musashi as a model would weep and turn in their graves when they learn of their families' spite towards the man they gave their lives willingly for.

And yet, he could not let their deaths be in vain.

(Everyone... I have let you down... I-... I'm truly, truly sorry. As much as you have put into getting this for me, I can't accept this.)

Musashi stared blankly at his body, his head devoid of energy and his eyes losing its brilliance.

His focus was, unconsciously, locked onto a specific part of his field of vision.

A vial.

A vial, dangling from his neck, with a strange, white liquid within.

It was his lucky charm, should he be killed on the job - A bottle of his own semen to carry on his heritage.

"... ! "

Luster returned to his pupils and he grabbed the vial on his neck gently, but quickly.

He sprang up, determined.

The solution had been under his nose the entire time.

Dangling the vial on his hand, he slowly tapped the vial onto the pillar. The simple motion sparked a strange effect - The golden character faded away, and the vial glowed a brilliant, equally radiant glow. The pillar, which was supposed to have dropped, remain suspended - Part of the pillar had been stuck in some debris before Musashi, preventing it from falling.

(... I will never live with myself had I taken this power. I won't be able to answer the dead respectfully. That is why... My dear, precious child, please understand... This is Daddy's only gift to you. Cherish it well, my sweet child.)

Holding the vial in his hand tightly, he uttered to himself. Or perhaps, he was talking to something?

"Let's go home... Katachi."

Turning back, he exited from whence he came, a door which was not a door, the only entrance and exit of the Sealed Room.

And with that...

Kotsuba Musashi's days as a Word of Power Hunter ended with his failure.

... But what of the 定 he had gifted the semen?