Ren, the elder brother—short, assertive, and the undisputed leader despite his size—and Kenta, the younger—tall, burly, yet submissive by nature—were once bandits. They had given up that chaotic life for the quiet solitude of a small cabin nestled near the eastern river. Today, they had left before the deepest shadows had fully receded, hoping to catch some fish for their morning meal. As Kenta stood waist-deep in the cold, fast-moving water, his net held ready, he paused and tilted his bald head back, letting the fine mist bead on his skin. He gazed up at the sky, a near-black canvas awash with the deepest indigos and bruised purples.
"The Stirring Dark holds on tight this cycle," he rumbled, his voice a low counterpoint to the hiss of the rain. "Feels heavier than usual."
His elder brother, Ren, gave a noncommittal grunt, his own sharp, weathered face focused on the riverbank ahead. His thumb unconsciously traced the line of his jaw, a habitual gesture of intense focus. It was Ren who saw it first. He stiffened, a hand shooting out to stop his brother.
"Kenta. Look."
Downriver, a dark shape tumbled in the current. It wasn't driftwood. It was a body, and it wasn't alone. Half a dozen ravens swirled above it in the gloom, their black forms stark against the bruised sky. A few would dart down, landing for a moment on the drifting form before taking flight again, a grim, unnatural escort.
"Spirits above," Kenta murmured, his eyes wide. "To have a sky-burial while still in the water... What is that?"
"A curse," Ren said, his voice quiet but firm. "Or a warning. Either way, we can't just leave her to the river."
The body was swept closer, revealing the distinct outline of a dark, damp mask. Ren's eyes narrowed. "There's a widening ahead," he noted, his gaze fixed downstream. "The current will pick up. If we don't get her now, the rapids will take her before the lower falls."
"The branch, then," Kenta said, already moving. With surprising speed, he located a thick, dead bough, snapping it from its trunk with a sharp crack of protesting wood. He hefted it, testing its strength as they hurried along the bank.
They positioned themselves just before the river began to accelerate. The current pulled, a greedy, insistent weight. Kenta extended the long branch out over the water, aiming to intercept the drifting body. The river pulled. Kenta dug his heels into the slick mud. Muscles burned. The branch bowed, threatening to snap.
"Now, Ren!" he grunted, his voice a raw tear in the air.
Ren scrambled forward. Knees hit the mud. He lunged, fingers clawing for purchase on the sodden kimono as Kenta, with a final, agonizing heave, wrestled her closer to the bank.
For a long moment after they hauled her limp form ashore, the only sounds were the visceral roar of the falls and the brothers' own ragged gasps for air. The ravens landed a few feet away, silent and watchful. Kenta waved a thick arm at them. "Get on, now! Shoo!"
The birds launched into the air with a flutter of wings, but only retreated to the low-hanging branches of a nearby tree, a jury of black-feathered judges refusing to abandon their vigil.
Ren quickly checked her. Her skin was cold and pale, but a faint, shallow breath escaped her lips behind the mask. "She's alive," he said, a note of surprise in his voice. His gaze traveled up from the mask, which had shifted in the struggle, to her forehead. There, stark against her pale skin, was a brand unlike any he had ever seen: an inky black sigil of a single, unblinking eye framed by sharp, feather-like wings. He saw the extensive bruising, the cuts on her arm and leg, the unnatural angle of her right shoulder beneath the soaked kimono. He noticed her left hand was still clenched tightly around the hilt of her katana. He gently tried to pry it free, but her grip was like iron, unyielding even in unconsciousness. He exchanged a look with Kenta—a silent acknowledgment of the formidable warrior she must be, and the chilling mystery of the mark she bore.
"I'll carry her," Kenta said. His movements were surprisingly gentle for a man of his size, his large hands cradling her with a care that defied his brutish frame.
As he carried her, the rhythmic jostle of his stride sent dull, echoing pulses of pain through her body. Her eyes fluttered open. The world was a smear of bruised twilight and dripping leaves, viewed through a haze of exhaustion. She saw the unfamiliar profile of the man carrying her—a broad jaw, the gleam of rain on a bald scalp. Her own body felt alien, a leaden weight being moved without her consent. There was no strength to fight, no will to resist, not even a coherent thought of protest. Her mind, a fortress that had endured so much, was now just a silent, hollowed-out chamber. The instinct to survive, that raging fire, had been reduced to a single, guttering ember. Her eyelids, impossibly heavy, slid shut again, surrendering her to the darkness.
They arrived at the sturdy wooden cabin the brothers called home, a dark shape nestled deep within the Shadow-Wood. Kenta carried her inside, laying her with surprising gentleness on a simple cot. The air within smelled of woodsmoke, damp wool, and something metallic—old blood.
With efficient movements, Ren cut away her soaked and ruined kimono. The bandages beneath, stained brown with mud and old gore, were a testament to a battle already fought. He carefully unwrapped them, his face impassive as he revealed the latticework of cuts and deep, violent bruises that marred her skin. After cleaning her wounds with water heated over the fire, he bound them with fresh linen from a small medical kit—a hunter's necessity. Finally, he covered her with a thick, wolf-pelt blanket, its warmth a small mercy against the chill. Near the cot, he placed a neatly folded set of clean clothes: a simple brown kosode and matching nobakama.
Outside, the last phase of Waxing Twilight began its slow ascent, the light shifting from bruised purple to a dusty, spectral mauve. The rain had softened to a whisper. The forest watched, indifferent, as the river flowed on, having given up its burden.
An hour passed in near silence, the only sounds the spit and crackle of the hearth and the soft thrum of rain on the roof. Kenta sat on a low stool, staring into the flames, his massive frame hunched as if to contain the nervous energy of the rescue. Ren stood by the fire, sharpening a skinning knife with methodical, rhythmic strokes of a whetstone—a grating, deliberate sound in the quiet space. He finally stopped, testing the edge with his thumb before glancing at his brother.
"You saw the brand on her forehead, didn't you?" Ren's voice was low, cutting through the quiet.
Kenta shifted, his bulk making the stool creak. "The one shaped like a feathered eye? Hard to miss."
"I've heard whispers in trader camps," Ren continued, his gaze drifting to the still form on the cot. "Tales of a woman with a mark like that. A bad omen. They say she leaves a trail of fire and death."
"She looked human enough to me," Kenta said, his voice defensive. "Just hurt."
"Human?" Ren gave a short, humorless laugh. "Did you see her eyes? When you carried her? Burgundy. Like old blood." He paused. "And she still hasn't let go of that sword. A grip like a corpse."
Kenta followed his brother's gaze to the hilt of the katana, clutched tight in No One's hand. "She's a warrior," he mumbled.
"She's more than a warrior," Ren corrected, his voice turning flat and cold as river stone. "She's a weapon. Something got to her before she hit that water, and she's still breathing. Think about that, Kenta."
The weight of Ren's words settled in the small cabin. Kenta looked from his brother's hard face to the vulnerable figure by the fire, the conflict clear in his eyes.
"So what do we do, Ren?" Kenta finally asked, his voice barely a whisper. "When she wakes up?"
Ren set the knife down, the click of steel on wood sharp and final. He turned, his sharp eyes pinning Kenta in place. "She owes us a debt. We pulled her from that river."
Kenta's brow furrowed in confusion. "But... we just helped."
"Help has a price," Ren snapped, his patience fraying. "Survival has a price. We gave up the old life because we were tired of being hunted. Tired of being weak. Well, I am still tired of it." He took a step closer, his voice dropping to an intense, conspiratorial whisper. "A woman who survives that, who carries a mark from the old tales... she isn't normal. She's dangerous. And we are going to use that danger."
He let the ugly word hang in the air between them.
"Use her?" Kenta repeated, recoiling slightly.
"She will repay her debt," Ren stated, leaving no room for argument. "She will teach us how to fight like she does. How to be feared. She will be our shield, our sword, until we are strong enough to protect ourselves from anything in these woods. That is her payment."
Kenta swallowed hard, his gaze flickering back to the cot. He saw not an omen or a weapon, but a broken person sleeping under his roof. "Ren... is that right?"
Ren scoffed, a dismissive, ugly sound. "Right is what keeps you alive. She knows that better than anyone. She'll understand." He fixed his younger brother with a look that was both a command and a promise. "She is going to make us strong, Kenta. That's the only plan that matters."
Kenta fell silent, staring into the fire, the warmth of the hearth doing nothing to chase the sudden chill from his soul.
A week dissolved into a relentless cadence of rain. The Raining Season had seized the Shadow-Wood, drumming a constant, muffling beat against the cabin roof. Inside, No One was lost to that rhythm, adrift in the gray space between life and death. Her body waged a silent war against its own decay. A fever had taken hold, a furnace stoked by the poison of her infected wounds. Ren tended to her with a hunter's pragmatism—changing bandages, cleaning the weeping cuts, and forcing thin broth between her lips when she surfaced from the delirium. But the fever worsened. Her skin was a landscape of clammy heat, her breath a shallow, ragged whisper. She would toss fitfully, murmuring words that had no meaning, her body arching against unseen pains.
Late one cycle, as the rain hammered down with a furious intensity, Kenta left to check his snares. He moved through the dripping woods, a giant made silent by the storm. He was resetting a trap near a deer trail when the forest itself seemed to hold its breath. He looked up and saw it. Not twenty yards away stood an ogre, its hide like gnarled bark, its immense gut hanging over a loincloth of stitched pelts. Its small, piggish eyes fixed on him. A colossal, knotted club rested against its shoulder.
A clatter of metal broke the stillness as Kenta dropped his snare wire. The ogre's head snapped towards the sound. Its lips peeled back from yellowed tusks, and a roar tore through the rain-soaked air—a sound that vibrated deep in Kenta's bones.
Terror, primal and absolute, seized him. He didn't think. He didn't fight. He ran.
He fled back towards the cabin, the only sanctuary he knew, the ogre's pursuit a rhythmic, ground-shaking thump-thump-thump that grew steadily, horrifyingly, closer.
Kenta burst through the cabin door, his face a mask of rain-streaked panic. "Ren!" he screamed, his voice raw. "Ogre! It's coming!"
Ren, who had been crouched by the cot, was startled not by the ogre, but by his brother. He had been lifting the edge of the blanket, his eyes lingering on the pale, bruised skin of No One's thigh with a furtive curiosity. He shot back with a guilty yelp, his face flushing. "Kenta! What the hell—!"
"It's here!" Kenta shrieked, scrambling away from the door and pointing a trembling finger into the storm. "I led it here!"
The cabin walls shuddered. The thump-thump-thump was deafening now, right outside. A guttural roar, thick with rage, followed. Ren's face went pale. He grabbed his short sword, the flush of shame replaced by the ice of dawning horror. "You fool! Lure it away! Go!"
But Kenta was paralyzed. He dropped to his knees, crawling under the small wooden table, whimpering. "I can't, Ren! I can't!"
There was no more time. A colossal shadow blotted out the light from the doorway. The ogre swung its club.
The world exploded.
The cabin wall disintegrated in a horrifying shriek of splintering wood. The force tore through the small space. Ren didn't have time to scream. His upper body simply vanished in a red mist. His legs collapsed, a grotesque punctuation to a life ended in an instant. Debris rained down. A heavy, angled beam crashed across the cot, pinning No One's lower body without crushing it.
Kenta screamed, a sound of pure terror and grief. He scrambled out from under the table, fleeing through the ruin. The ogre's small eyes tracked the movement. The club rose and fell. A sickening, wet crunch echoed through the storm.
Embers from the scattered firepit spat onto the dry, splintered wood. Small flames licked greedily at the wreckage. The ogre surveyed the destruction, its chest heaving, before turning and lumbering back into the indifferent darkness of the Shadow-Wood.
A searing, blinding agony jolted No One into a fractured state of awareness. She was drowning, not in water, but in pain and the acrid smell of smoke. Broken ribs grated. Her shoulder screamed. New bruises bloomed, and the deep burns from her tumble in the river throbbed with a fresh, vicious heat. Her thoughts were a haze, the edges of reality blurred by fever.
Then, the vision hit: a violent, undeniable flash of herself consumed by fire.
The certainty of it was absolute. Trapped. A final, dark irony—to be saved from water only to be claimed by fire. She tried to move. To roll. To crawl. Her instincts shrieked. Her body refused. The beam held her fast. Her right arm was useless, her left unable to find purchase. She was a prisoner in her own broken form.
The heat intensified. The splintered wood of the beam itself caught fire. Pain erupted as the flames kissed her skin. Her blanket smoldered, then ignited. Third-degree burns blistered across her torso and legs. Flames licked at the right side of her face, the smell of her own burning hair and flesh sickeningly distinct. Smoke choked her, stinging her eyes. The fire roared, a cage of flame.
The agony became so absolute it was transcendent. The roar of the fire faded, replaced by a soft murmur.
Faces coalesced from the smoke. Her mother. Her father. Her brother, Shio. They stood amidst the burning ruin, their faces serene, smiling with a gentle light she hadn't seen in an eternity. They spoke, their voices soft whispers lost in the haze, beckoning her towards a peace she craved. She saw their hands, so close, and she tried to reach back. Her mind screamed the command. Her body remained trapped, paralyzed, a burning effigy.
Hot tears streamed down her face, carving clean trails through the soot. She didn't know if she cried from the pain or the unbearable hope of seeing them again, only to be held back.
The vision faded. Their smiles grew distant, swallowed by the smoke. The raw pain of the burns returned for one last, brutal assault. She drew a ragged, smoke-filled gasp that turned into a choked, final sob.
As the world went black, her eyes remained open, fixed on the sky. Her breath ceased. She was still.
Outside, in the hammering rain, the six ravens that had kept their silent vigil shrieked in unison. Their call was not one of grief, but of summons. As if in answer, the sky began to fill with them. From every direction, through the driving storm, they came—dozens, then hundreds. Her dying mind, her very soul, had cast out a final, desperate net, pulling them from the depths of the Shadow-Wood.
The ogre, turning from the wreckage, paused. It looked up as the flock swelled, the air growing thick with the beat of a thousand black wings. The birds began to circle the ruined cabin, faster and faster, their sheer numbers creating a churning vortex of feathers that seemed to swallow the firelight, a swirling, living storm of obsidian. The sound was deafening, a chaotic roar of caws and shrieks that drowned out even the thunder.
The beast's small, brutish eyes widened with a primal fear it had never known. This was not nature. This was a dark magic, an omen of a power far more terrifying than the fire and ruin it had wrought. With a guttural grunt of pure terror, the ogre turned and crashed back into the woods, fleeing the unnatural spectacle.
The vortex of ravens tightened, a cyclone of black fury descending upon the smoking pyre, hiding the broken form at its heart from the indifferent, bruised sky.