TBATE - The Help of a Certain Being

Reborn

Preston Lang. That's my name. From childhood, I was identified as the 'Demon Child,' as I had killed my mother when I was born, and would later live on to become a notorious swordsman across the world. It wasn't just that too. If I stayed in one place for too long, the people around me would die. Nobody noticed it was my influence until I was three. But when they did, they exiled me; they called me a Demon Child and kicked me out. I never knew my father; only that he was some deadbeat that knocked my mother up and ditched her when he found out she was pregnant with me.

I resented my father. I never met him, never learned his name from anyone, never knew a single thing about him. And I hated him even more than those idiots who blindly followed others and called me a monster.

I cursed the world, for giving me this, this curse. I hated others and others hated me.

However, I don't know whether I should thank them or curse them for allowing me to train my body in the art of the sword. After enough time had passed that I grew tired of the constant harassment and bullying I suffered daily, when I turned 8, I ran away.

I ran away from home and erased all traces of Preston Lang. I took the name Kuro. It was a Japanese name after the color black, so my name was quite literally, Black.

As I was walking through the city I'd run away to, I visited a library, in hopes of finding some information on self defense and the like.

The library contained vast amounts of books on self defense, combat, and even sword training.

I was immediately drawn to the place.

I grabbed books to read; those on swordplay, training in the sword, even some on basic hand-to-hand combat.

I seemed to have run away from home to a fighter's city.

It'd been about six months since I'd come here. I've trained my body enough to the extent that I could probably beat up anybody who bullied me back home.

I'd recently started reading books on swordplay and how to wield a sword. I even had the help of a retired sword master, who taught me the basics. He said something about my sword not having a drop of happiness in it; it was a sword fueled by pure rage and resentment. Though, he did say I was a top grade genius that would definitely become an expert.

I told him about my history back at home. About how I killed my mother at birth, how people around me would die from strange accidents if I stayed in one place too long, about my deadbeat father, how I ran away when I turned 8. Everything, just out of the bag.

Four years later, I was now 12. I was swinging my sword around like usual when my "master," I guess you could call him, told me I was at the point of my swordsmanship that he had nothing more to teach. He said to find my way of the sword.

I asked myself this question everyday for two years: What is my way of the sword?

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I was now 14, and my swordsmanship was advanced enough to compete with experts of the master level. But I never found my way of the sword in those two years.

I'd gone around the world challenging other swordsmen and witnessed their ways of the sword, but they all lost to my sword. They all said the same thing: There is no happiness in that sword of yours.

I understood what they meant and I cursed myself for being unable to find my way of the sword.

Though, because I'd gone around challenging many prominent swordsmen amongst my opponents, my name became known. I was apparently called the "Bounty Swordsman Kuro," capable of defeating master swordsmen almost as easily as breathing.