📖 Chapter 14 – Shadows of Silk and Steel
The candles in the room flickered under the night breeze when Rei returned to his inner world.It wasn't a conscious decision.It was a need.
After reading his mother's diary, anxiety, doubt, and fear had coiled back into his chest like snakes.The seal on his body pulsed stronger than ever, and on the threshold of sleep, he felt it…
A new door had manifested.
It wasn't like the others.This one had a frame of charred wood and a sheet of rice paper inscribed with kanji symbols that flickered, as if being written in real time.
"The Path of the Silent Crow."
Rei swallowed hard.He stepped through.
The world shifted.
The sky was stained blood-red, and over the old wooden walls and black-tiled roofs, silence reigned absolute.He stood in a feudal village—deep night, not a soul in sight.
He wore a tight black outfit, with bandages concealing his chakra.On his back, a small curved blade.No map—only an order, carved into a wooden tablet:
"Eliminate the corrupt Daimyo. Unseen. One failure, and it all resets."
A whisper rose beside him.A hooded figure—an illusory sensei made of mist—leaned close.
"You have only one night. Learn, or die. The shadows do not forgive."
The prior training was minimal.Rei quickly understood that direct combat here was suicide.
He moved slowly, clinging to the rooftops.He heard every creak, felt every breath of air.He began to understand how to tune his chakra to the vibration of the ground.
First technique unlocked:Whisper Step — a flow of chakra to the feet that erased his impact upon touching the ground.
He slid through a canal, avoided lanterns and guards.Hid under the eaves of a tavern.The lights were scarce.He breathed slowly.He felt the dungeon respond to his pace.
Every visual mistake sent him back to the start.Every sound, every misstep in the shadows, was a lesson burned into him.
It took four attempts to reach the central palace.
The daimyo was surrounded by sleeping guards.Only one path between the garden and the room:a corridor lit by a single lantern with chimes swaying beneath it.
Here, he learned his second technique:Inner Sound Nullification — holding his breath, slowing his heartbeat, erasing his presence.
It wasn't perfect.He tripped over an invisible cord—a bell rang.
Reset. From the very beginning.
But by the seventh time, Rei was no longer the same.He had become a specter.
He crossed the rooftop.Fell like a feather.
The daimyo slept, unaware of the blade resting on his throat.
And for the first time, Rei felt the weight of the decision.This wasn't a fight.There was no hatred.Only an order.
And yet, when his blade slid through the throat of the illusory target, something inside him cracked.Not from compassion—but from the coldness with which he had done it.
Absolute silence.Mission complete.
He awoke in his inner world.In his palm shone a new symbol: an obsidian crow with white eyes.
A voice whispered in his ear:"The shadow already knows you. Soon, you will be one of us."
In the real world, the next day, Rei trained under the rain with his wooden dagger.He spoke no words.
But there was something new in his movements—an economy of gesture, a silent tension, a contained presence.
Shuri, watching from the terrace, frowned.Her kunoichi instinct murmured something she could not fully understand.
That boy no longer walked like a boy.