Chapter 952: To My Beloved Dawn, Part 25
Trace AI "Ryuguin Fugaku."
For the god who created Shangri-La Frontier... or rather, the woman who called herself its Administrator, it could truly be called a stroke of fortune.
When constructing a world, having NPC AIs create swordsmanship of their own is not particularly difficult. But obtaining the movements and thought processes of a real, accomplished master swordsman contributed enormously to the "reality" she desired.
Why had Ryuguin Fugaku, after once rejecting her offer to create a Trace AI of him, suddenly contacted her to say he would accept?
She had neither interest nor sentiment regarding that. It was something that belonged within his own heart, and neither his heartbreak nor his despair... nor his love for his son and grandchildren had anything to do with her, nor were they matters upon which she should act.
Even she knew that everyone had memories they did not want anyone rudely touching.
But whatever his motives, she was not herself cold-blooded, and she did feel gratitude and respect for his cooperation.
Thus.........
A select few among the strong, a mere handful of skills.
Only within those is a real-life "master swordsman" embedded.
◇
"....................."
She felt almost nothing, far less than she had expected.
Kyogoku was inwardly astonished to discover herself so remarkably calm, when she had imagined that perhaps she might lose control and erupt in fury.
"Well, the Ryuguin Style isn't passed down to only one heir or kept secret or anything... maybe that's why?"
Anyone can learn it by paying the monthly lesson fee. That is the Ryuguin Style.
But the fact that her grandfather's skill had been repurposed wholesale... surely even Kyogoku herself would have no choice but to go ballistic───
Except she did not.
"Grandfather never went senile, after all... I'm sure he knew what he was doing."
Cooperating in the creation of a Trace AI was, in other words, turning one's experience into data, nothing less than selling off one's life.
But getting angry by assuming he had done it without understanding what it meant would be the greatest insult of all to her grandfather.
The self who would soon become the past, or perhaps had already become the past, would surely be surpassed, and if his experience could serve as one step toward that... then he could ask for no greater joy than for the one who did so to be a member of his own family.
There was no way to verify whether she was right; a Trace AI reproduced only movement and tactical thought, and no emotion existed within it.
That was why she believed that the grandfather in her memories, the one behind every thought of, 'I'm sure he would do this, would say this'... analog, and for that very reason more precious than anything, the remembered grandfather within Kyogoku, would surely say exactly that.
That aside.
".........Well, there is one other reason."
Compared to the absolute idiot who learned purely by watching and copying and lacked everything but the "technique" in mind, technique, and body, yet still bounced around while infuriatingly imitating her grandfather's fighting with absurd skill... merely understanding and digesting the technique, then implementing it in powerful fighters, was practically well-mannered.
At the very least, compared to the idiot who spouted, "All riiight! Behold the Heaven-and-Earth Inversion Double-Speed Ryuguin Style!!" while sliding along with the crown of his head scraping against the ground! Far more!! Refined!!
"How does movement that utterly ridiculous still retain the feel of the real thing...!?"
Those movements bore no resemblance whatsoever, and before even that, using the word "resemble" for them was absurd, yet finding herself thinking, 'Ah, yes, that movement there really does feel like the Ryuguin Style,' remained a humiliating memory for Kyogoku.
It is incredibly, incredibly aggravating... but that freak can imitate "technique" with "body" alone.
He derives the process backward from the conclusion, 'Basically, he does this movement because this is what he wants to accomplish,' then extracts only the part he wants, 'But this is the only bit I want, so I don't need to do the rest.'
Thus, that "Ryuguin-Style feel" remains inside somersaults that look nothing like the Ryuguin Style, which infuriates Kyogoku beyond reason... and at the same time, it is a kind of gospel, proof that in this world there truly is a "reason" to use the techniques of the Ryuguin Style.
"ShanFro is ultimately nothing more than a game, nothing more than play..."
And precisely because of that, she could pull this ridiculous stunt.
Pointing her katana at the shadow of her grandfather, Kyogoku spoke with a smile that bared one canine.
"Something I could do when I was little, but stopped being able to once I grew up... I'll use you to try it."
"i do not quite underStand... but i Will accepT your challenge───"
Hyun, a sharp whistle through the air.
"wHAt!?"
Yozora reflexively swung her katana and knocked aside the object flying toward her... a thrown concealed weapon even smaller than a dagger.
"I asked my father! My mother! My brother! They all gave me the same answer!!"
In the instant Yozora was forced onto the defensive, Kyogoku accelerated all at once, concentrating enough killing intent in the point to make the thrust a killing blow... and drove it toward her throat.
Her poison-hued serpent eye swivelled, training its sights on the blade about to be driven into her at that very moment, and she evaded with only the smallest motion, a slight tilt of the head.
But what Yozora saw next was... a tail of purple flame, roaring ablaze.
"...I asked whether they had ever thought, 'Maybe I could beat Grandfather if, just once, I ambushed him without caring what it looked like!'"
【Flame of the Sixth Tail】.
The burning tail that no human should possess once again forced Yozora, who was just about to return the favor with a counterattack, back onto the defensive.
───Naturally, she had never once considered actually doing it.
Back then, she had been in sixth grade... still quite young from their perspective, and after carefully making sure the man himself was nowhere nearby, they quietly let slip their honest answers to her question.
Her father said.
"When your brother was born, I saw my father passed out drunk and did think about it."
Her mother said.
"Your father... my childhood friend kept losing so badly that I did once think about lacing something with a laxative for him."
Her brother said.
"You absolutely, absolutely, absolutely have to keep this secret from Dad. I've done it twice."
Her desire to surpass her eminent grandfather on the path of the sword was unwavering.
But separate from that... there was also undeniably a desire within Kyogoku to hurl her entire body and soul at him in a disgraceful, pathetic, utterly shameless fashion.
And that feeling took shape as an unwavering desire in the land of Bakumatsu, where pot lids, fireworks, and dango skewers fly through the air, executing people on Heaven's behalf.
She still hesitated to do it in the place her grandfather had left behind, where she could face the man himself.
But here, she could. Her grandfather's shadow, the night of the decisive battle, a reason she had to fight.
"It's an informal bout, so let's throw manners out and have some fun."
Author's Afterword
Q. What were Kyogoku's brother's two prior offenses?
First offense: On the night of the day he won the elementary-school division, he was so frustrated after getting utterly demolished that he attacked from behind. His bamboo sword was caught barehanded, and he got a lecture.
Second offense: At a summer resort, he sniped with a water pistol while trying to bash Fugaku over the head with a sports-chanbara sword. Despite going so far as to use a ranged weapon, he was scolded even harder than when he attacked from behind: "What kind of half-assed surprise attack was that!?"
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