In one of the ghost towns in Kuri, in a small hut that was filled with a torn apart futon and a hearth, a delicate girl with turquoise hair was sleeping next to a fatigued boy.
Suddenly a series of lightning flashes appeared on the boy's body as it started wreaking havoc in his surroundings.
A few moments later, the boy opened his deep red eyes and screamed.
The turquoise haired girl who wore a ragged kimono, hastily awakened after hearing the commotion. She fearfully took a step back, seeing the maelstrom of lightning surrounding the boy.
After a few moments, the lightning stopped crackling wildly and slowly died down. Haruto jumped back and took a combat ready stance as he observed his surroundings.
The turquoise haired girl quickly raised her hands, indicating that she wasn't a threat, "Please relax samurai san, after the battle you were deeply exhausted.
"I took you to one of the many ghost towns in Kuri, I'll make good on our promise and start cooking food."
Haruto warily glanced at her before slowly dropping his guard, "My name's Haruto Ren, no need to call me samurai san. What's your name?"
The turquoise hesitated, "My name's Kuromi Hei. I'm originally from the Flower Capital but we had recently moved to Kuri…. before it became like this."
Hei's hands gripped the bottom of her tattered kimono as her throat tightened. She blinked hard as she tried to suppress her tears, clearly she was remembering something unpleasant.
Haruto didn't press her, but she felt awfully familiar. She looked a lot like Kozuki Hiyori. He knew that after abandoning one of the Akazaya, she spent a few years on the run before she travelled to the capital and became an Oiran.
Was she Kozuki Hiyori, or was he just imagining it? Haruto just shrugged his shoulders as he decided to solve the mystery later.
Haruto looked at her as she prepared food, her tiny hands grasping and cutting each vegetable. He turned his attention to the guy they were currently in, it was unremarkable, perfect for avoiding attention.
But the longer Haruto looked the more worried he became, the swords of the Ronin he had killed weren't present!
He looked at Hei as he hurriedly asked, "What happened to the swords of those samurais? Did you collect them?"
Hei shook her head, "Your battle with them attracted a lot of attention, after you won I quickly grabbed you before running."
Haruto cursed inwardly, those swords were his loot. They looked pretty darn sharp, and would probably bolster his combat abilities if he was able to grab them.
"How long has it been since I've passed out?"
Haruto looked at her hopefully, if it wasn't too long, he would prepare to go off and collect them. But, his hopes were quickly diminished as Hei held up 3 fingers.
Haruto's energy quickly vanished as he slouched in the corner, his hopes of becoming an all powerful samurai had quickly vanished.
"....."
Haruto laid on the floor as he held his bulging stomach, "Jeez Haruto san, you are so much. I wasn't able to eat properly because of you."
Hei pouted as she crossed her arms, Haruto just waved off her complaints and laughed loudly, "Well I did save your life, this is just payment."
The battle with those two samurai had taken a lot out of him, even though he had recovered a smidge. Haruto was still very fatigued, he had pushed his Observation Haki to limit during that fight.
Although he suffered a lot, he also reaped a lot of benefits. His Observation Haki and his physical features had improved while he also enriched his combat experience and Devil Fruit powers.
Truly, fighting battles was the greatest way to become stronger.
Haruto had to admit, his victory was just pure luck. After trading the first few blows with that samurai, Haruto had already understood that he was way weaker than him. The only reason he was holding on was due to his Observation, something that Samurai didn't have.
But Haruto was also aware of his limited Haki reserves, in a prolonged battle he would definitely lose. So he focused all his energy onto doing an Elemental Split quietly, without his enemy noticing.
Elemental Split was his ultimate move, it allowed him to split into clones, each carrying a different element. When using Elemental Split, Haruto essentially produces copies of himself, but pertaining to each form that is called upon.
The resulting Elemental Forms are their own people, each with a unique personality that in one way or another ties back to their element and is a component of Haruto's original personality. They are able to function independently from Haruto, usually under the command of one form. This is usually the one who summons the forms, or who the forms return to when combining back into one.
Any injury sustained by any one of the clones would only emerge as mental fatigue and phantom pains from the injured part, once he merged back again. Though to truly hurt him, one had to leave a wound on all three of the elements, the wound had to be the exact replica or it wouldn't carry over.
This meant that Haruto was simply invincible, but using Elemental Split came with the price of having his individual elements considerably weaker.
The samurai helped him in this part, his attacks were unruly and wild which destroyed their surroundings quite a lot. Hiding in the smoke, Haruto quickly used an Elemental Split and made Haruto Earth create a space in the ground for them to hide in.
After that, he instructed them to only come when the opponents guard had fully dropped, when he thought victory was in his palms. At the samurai's weakest moment, his clones burst in, though heavily injured.
Each clone could feel what the other was going through, so even though they didn't receive any wounds, it didn't mean they were unscathed either. They too had experienced the pain Haruto lightning went through.
It was pure luck that they had been able to maintain their consciousness for so long and be able to deliver a counter attack.
'Praise The Gacha and Gambling God's!' Haruto quietly whispered in his mind.
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A/N - How was the story up till now? Did you guys like it or nah. I'm pretty sure I butchered the fight scenes but I'm learning so please be patient