The first memory he had was of light on steel.
As a toddler, he would sit on the polished wooden steps of the veranda, small hands clutching a rice ball, and watch his grandfather, Kageyama Noboru, in the courtyard. The old man moved with a sound like the wind through pines, his body a part of the dawn itself. In his hands was the odachi, Gesshilla, its curve a sliver of captured moonlight.
This was the Tenbatsu Ryūdan—The Heavenly Punishment Severing Style. It was not a dance. It was a prayer. A ritual of absolute finality.
His grandfather's voice, deep as a temple bell, explained the four pillars of their legacy as the boy, Ren, grew old enough to understand.
Ikazuchi: The Thunderclap. "The first truth, Ren," his grandfather said, the blade flashing in a single, shocking draw-cut that seemed to tear the air itself. "It is the truth of overwhelming force. Let your enemy know his end has come before he even hears its sound."Chinmoku: The Silent Peak. Noboru would then become a statue, the odachi held high, unmoving for an hour or more. "The second truth is patience. A mountain does not rush to meet the sky. It waits, and in waiting, becomes unbreakable. Let your enemy break upon your silence."Metsubō: The Oblivion. This was different. His grandfather's eyes would go distant, his breathing would slow until it was nearly undetectable. When he moved, it was a single, precise thrust that was less an attack and more an inevitability. "The third truth is the void," the old man whispered afterward, sweat on his brow. "You must empty your heart of all fear, all anger, even the desire to win. From that nothingness, comes a strike that cannot be perceived, for it carries no intent."Mu: The Unborn. His grandfather would only demonstrate this once a year, on the longest night. He would not move at all. He would simply stand, and the leaves around him would fall, perfectly sliced. Ren could never see the cut. "The final truth, my boy," Noboru said, his face pale with effort, "is the cut that does not exist. It is the severing of a thing from its own reality. I have spent my life grasping it. Perhaps you will master it."
Ren's world was the courtyard, the weight of a wooden odachi, and the god-like figure of his grandfather. His life became a devotion to the blade.
At five, he was given his first practice sword. The regime was merciless.
Dawn: One thousand repetitions of the Ikazuchi draw-cut. His small arms burned, his hands bled.Morning: Holding the Chinmoku stance until his legs trembled and he collapsed.Afternoon: Practicing the breath control for Metsubō, learning to still the frantic beat of his own heart.Dusk: Meditation, trying to understand the concept of Mu.
He would chant to himself, a mantra through the pain: "The body is a blade. The mind is the edge. I will become the technique."
He saw his grandfather as a god, and his only purpose was to walk the same path. By seventeen, he had mastered Ikazuchi and Chinmoku. He could touch the edge of Metsubō, finding that cold, empty place for a few precious seconds. He was on the cusp of true greatness.
Then came the Crimson Night.
The Ōkami-gumi, their rival clan, feared the power of the Kageyama. They attacked not for land or wealth, but for annihilation. To erase the "Heavenly Punishment" from the world.
Ren was jolted from his sleep by screams and the smell of smoke. He grabbed his practice odachi—the real Gesshilla was forbidden to him—and ran into a nightmare.
The compound was chaos. Fire. Blood. The bodies of his kin lay scattered. He fought with the desperate skill of a cornered animal, his Ikazuchi cutting down one attacker, his Chinmoku stance deflecting a blow before a counter-cut severed a man's leg. But he was just a youth.
He found his grandfather in the main courtyard, surrounded by the Ōkami elite, Gesshilla in his hand. The old man was a whirlwind of terrible beauty, a master at work. Ikazuchi disarmed one. Chinmoku shattered another's sword. Metsubō took a third through the throat without a sound.
But he was old, and they were many. A spear found his side.
With a final, roaring effort, Noboru unleashed the Mu.
It was not a swing. It was a phenomenon. The four men surrounding him simply… came apart, their bodies separating into pieces as if the concept of their wholeness had been denied.
The old man collapsed to his knees, the effort having consumed the last of his life. His eyes found Ren's across the courtyard. With his final strength, he threw Gesshilla. The true odachi slid to a stop at Ren's feet.
"The style must not die! LIVE, and make our name a shadow that haunts them for eternity!"
Then, silence. The last of the Ōkami-gumi, seeing their primary target dead, faded back into the smoke, their mission complete.
Ren was alone. Surrounded by the corpses of everyone he had ever loved. The boy who was Kageyama Ren died in that courtyard, suffocated by ash and grief.
For three days and three nights, he did not move from the courtyard. He sat amidst the ruins of his life, the stench of death his only companion. On the fourth dawn, as the sun rose, it did not bring light, but only illuminated the full, horrific extent of the carnage. It revealed the flies, the pale, still faces, the proud Kageyama banners now torn and trampled into the bloody mud.
A sound tore from his throat, not a scream, but a raw, guttural declaration that echoed off the silent walls.
"Look at this!" he roared at the uncaring sky, his voice cracking with a pain too vast for tears. "This is the world's truth! Not honor, not discipline, not legacy! It is blood and ash! It is a cruel, hungry void that consumes everything! It takes families, it takes futures, it takes names!"
He staggered to his feet, Gesshilla feeling like the only real thing in a world that had become a lie.
"They thought they could break us by killing us. They thought they could erase the Kageyama name." His voice dropped to a venomous, icy whisper, more terrifying than his shout. "But they made a mistake. They showed me the true path. The path of nothingness."
He looked at the odachi in his hands, then at the corpse of his grandfather.
"A name is a chain. A past is a prison. Hope is a weakness. I cast it all away. From this day forward, I am not Ren. I am not Kageyama."
He raised the odachi, the rising sun glinting off its edge, a final, defiant farewell to the boy he had been.
"I am the emptiness they created. I am the void that will consume them. I am the number that remains when everything else has been taken away."
"I am ZERO."
The name was not spoken. It was sworn. A vow etched into reality with the sharpness of his blade and the cold fire of his hatred.
He was no one. He was a vessel for vengeance. The bodies of his family became his new training partners, their sightless eyes his motivation. His regime became a terrifying penance, a cycle of pain and emptiness aimed at mastering the three stances he knew and unlocking the fourth that had killed his grandfather.
Years passed. The ruins were his world. He was a ghost, a rumor of a demon haunting the ashes of the Kageyama lands.
On the anniversary of the massacre, as he performed the Ikazuchi under a bleeding sunset, the world shifted. The air grew still and heavy, not with grief, but with a power that made the very atoms of his being hum. The ruins of his home, the graves of his family, seemed to blur, becoming insubstantial.
A point of pure, silent white light blossomed in the center of the courtyard. It did not illuminate the devastation; it erased it, swallowing the shadows and the blood-stained earth in its absolute radiance. It was a void more profound than any he could create with Metsubō.
Zero did not hesitate. He did not fear it. He saw it for what it was: a gateway. A new, greater whetstone upon which to sharpen his soul. He lowered his odachi, his silver-green eyes reflecting the expanding maw of light without a flicker of emotion.
"So," he whispered, his voice a dry rasp from years of silence. "The call to a greater forge."
The light surged forward, consuming him. The scent of ash and blood vanished. The weight of his grief lifted, not in absolution, but in replacement. A new, immense pressure filled the void inside him.
And then, words. Not in his mind, but etched directly onto his consciousness, in a font of cool, blue light that was both alien and perfectly intelligible.
SYSTEM BOOT-UP COMPLETE
SCANNING... CONFIRMED.
CANDIDATE SELECTED.
NAME: [NULL]
DESIGNATION: ZERO
ORIGIN: SHINKŌ-KEN (EARTH-2)
STATUS: SOUL-BOUND.
OBJECTIVE: ASCEND.
WELCOME TO THE TOWER.
The message was not a greeting. It was a verdict. An induction.
A fierce, cold smile finally touched Zero's lips, the first in a decade. It was not a smile of joy, but of grim, terrifying satisfaction. The path to the final stance, the power to exact his vengeance, had just been laid before him.
The last thing he felt was not fear, but the solid, comforting weight of Gesshilla in his hand, now humming with a new, divine energy.
He was a candidate.