---
The rain poured like the sky itself wept for the past.
The battlefield lay in silence—ruins, blood, and memories.
But beyond that silence…
There was a story no one ever told.
Not even the man who lived it.
---
He was once a nameless child.
Not a leader. Not even a villager.
Just a boy…
Cradled by a storm.
The day he entered the village, thunder cracked the sky open.
In his arms, a white stork—injured, wings bent, body scorched.
The villagers saw him and didn't hesitate.
Outsider. Curse. Enemy.
They dragged him into the center of the square.
And there… they killed him.
They believed they were protecting their own.
But in their fear, they murdered a child.
When silence fell and the crowd dispersed,
only the stork remained—bloodied, breathing slow.
It crawled to the lifeless boy.
Its feathers glowed faintly, dimming by the second.
That stork…
Was not just a bird.
It was a spirit. A guardian.
And it made a choice.
The stork gave its life.
Its soul. Its last breath.
To bring the boy back.
But there was a cost.
Because the stork was not yet accepted by its own kind,
its power was incomplete.
The revival was painful. Incomplete. Cursed.
The boy awoke gasping, heart torn between worlds.
He looked around—but the stork was gone.
Dead.
He screamed.
For the first time in his life, he felt what it meant to lose someone who believed in him.
Later, the true stork spirits arrived.
They listened to the winds, saw the feathers, heard the truth.
When they discovered what had happened,
they took the fallen one as one of their own.
And in honor of his sacrifice,
they made a vow:
"If the boy ever calls for us again…
we will come.
But every wish to revive shall claim the price of his own life."
---
Years passed.
The boy never spoke of that day.
He grew. He trained.
He forgot his name.
He became the leader.
Not because he wanted power—
But because he knew the cost of life.
Because he once lost his.
Because he knew how it felt to be revived
by love.
---
When the last war took countless lives,
he could not sit still.
Even if the Kara army returned,
he had to find the storks.
He didn't tell anyone.
Not out of pride.
But because he knew they would try to stop him.
He was ready to give up his life
so that others could live again.
And now… he had returned.
Too late for the battle.
But not too late…
To tell the truth.
---