"Even if the world turns to dust, my soul will be reborn… until the day my vow is fulfilled."
And when Raiketsu perished, quiet fell on the battlefield yet his soul never died".
Somewhere on the other side of the river of time, his soul roamed an eternity of darkness, memories of his life bursting like smouldering embers.
When the wheel of reincarnation summoned him, he was born again
with no memory, but tethered to the same fate.
He was not Raiketsu the conqueror of Shadow Dragon Monarch, but Kageya Kurookami, the heir of great Black Wolf Clan.
He did not remember his past life.
No memory of his wars, his strength, nor of the throne of shadows over which he reigned uncontested supreme.
But deep within his heart buried under heaps of abandoned hopes smoldered faintly, always an ember:
the power of the original ruler, the legendary relic, Shadow Dragon Monarch.
Although his body was that of a nine year old boy, the blood flowing through his own body still retained a vestige of that ancient power.
It spoke to him in the night, it moved when he slept, and it caused even the wild animals of the forest to lower their heads in deference as he passed.
The jungle was alive that morning.
It was teeming with birds singing their shrill melodies above, and leaves whispering a dance on the wind's rhythm.
Kageya pushed his way through the brambles, his wooden sparring sword slapping against his hip, beads of sweat glistening across his forehead.
His master, Ryouzen, tall with greying hair tied behind him in warrior's knot, oversaw him from atop a rock.
The old man's one eye shone with warmth under his battered brow a reminder of the numerous wars he had fought.
"You've accelerated quicker than most lads your age," Ryouzen stated, his voice like rough stone.
"But your blows continue to tremble. A sword that dreads blood is unable to guard anyone."
Kageya remained unyielding, inhaling softly. "I am not afraid, Master. I just… I do not want to hurt unnecessarily."
The old man smiled, half shock, half compassion. "And for that, you are worthy of the Black Wolf's throne."
The boy smiled weakly. He adored these mornings the serene cadence of practice, the cloudy mantle that wrapped about the trees, and the comfort of a master who was nearly a member of his family.
As far back as he could remember, life had been straightforward: train, eat, sleep, and pray that he would be hard enough one day to be worthy of fighting for his tribe.
Fate had already started to have other plans.
The whisper started first a rustle of wind through the trees.
Then the sharp hiss of arrows.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Three black feathered arrows soared from out of the shadows like snakes.
Ryouzen struck with lightning speed, sending Kageya flying. An arrow scratched against his shoulder, another pierced deep into his thigh, and the third into his stomach.
Blood splattered all over on the forest floor, splattering down onto the roots at his feet.
"M–Master!" Kageya screamed, grasping for him."
The old warrior gritted his teeth and held onto the arrow shaft. His breathing was strained, but voice firm.
"Listen to me, Kageya… return to the clan. Tell them. Now!"
"But I can help!"
"No!" Ryouzen's bellow echoed through the forest, his one eye blazing. "You're the heir!You must survive, whatever it takes! Go!"
Kageya stood paralysed caught between obligation and revulsion before Ryouzen pushed him so hard that he balanced inches above the earth.
"Run! That's an order from your master!"
Scarlet eyes overflow with tears as the boy turns and runs.
He did not dare turn to look. He could not.
Pursuing after him, he heard ringing of metal upon metal and his master's stifled bellow and then nothing.
Forest stretched out interminably as Kageya ran back to the village.
Trees blur past in a haze, his chest pounded to his racing heart, and air became denser with each step.
A bitter smell greeted his nose thick, suffocating, all too familiar to make his gut twist.
Smoke.
He slowed, eyes wide as he emerged from behind the trees.
The Black Wolf Clan was not real.
The village that had been so full of life lay now in ruins of ash and flames.
The houses he would run past were burning skeletons, collapsing one by one.
Bodies filled the streets warriors, children, old people all still, their once proud faces now indistinguishable.
"N-no."
Kageya stuttered, stepping forward. "No. this can't be."
He ran faster, screaming names, but there was no response.
All that was heard was the odour of the burn and the distant rush of the wind.
As he stepped through the middle well, the odour of death became a nauseating stench.
He peered down and halted.
The well was brimmed with lifeless bodies.
Women, the elderly, infants torched, battered, beyond recognition heaped together like sacrifices to an insane god.
Kageya collapsed onto his knees, his stomach roiling in a tide of vomit streaked with bile rising to his mouth.
"Mother…? Sister…?" his voice broke. "Where are you…?"
The ensuing silence was as barren as any scream.
He struggled himself to the chief's manor his home.
Each step reverberated through empty space. His boots made sucking sounds in puddles of blood that no longer steamed.
As he approached the great gate, his legs shook.
The mansion was reduced to ashes, its wooden pillars to charcoal. And as for the gold emblem of the Black Wolf Clan, they were trampled on the ground.
Kageya staggered in and halted.
Bodies everywhere where he gazed.
Men decapitated, women executed by hanging on doorways, and odor gods, the stench adhered to his skin.
Then his gaze was attracted to movement beside the altar.
It was not movement. It was a flutter of a banner, savagely nailed on top of a decapitated man fixed on a wooden cross.
The sign on the banner was unmistakable a white crescent moon with falling petals.
The Tsukihana Clan.
His breath caught in his throat. His heart bucked, its beat shaking his skinny body.
"Why…?" He gasped. "Why would they do this…?"
The wind replied with a dismal howl.
His eyes went out. His body shook.
Then low in his chest, something beast awakened
growl, not in his mouth, but in his very self.
The air cooled. The temperature dropped.
Dark curling mist rolled back from the earth at his sides, and shadow crept up his arms like living bonds.
His own eyes blazed with cold red worse, fouler than ever.
The Hidden Dragon Monarch's dormant strength started to stirs.
Glimpse of a life he could not recall burned in his mind dark throne, shadow for wings, dragons' thunder.
He clutched his head, gasping, as the dark figure of an enormous dragon black as night materialised in the background, its blood red eyes burning.
"They will pay…"
Kageya snarled through clenched teeth, and his words were barely above a whisper.
"Every last one of them… the Tsukihana Clan… I'll incinerate them."
The black air around him swirled uncontrolled, jolting the earth. His hair flowed in the gusts of his own might.
The child for an instant was not a boy but a tempest in human shape.
The dragon's scream shook the darkness, unwitnessed by all living things.
Not merely the cry of wrath
It was a vow.
A curse.
When the air at last cleared, Kageya fell to the earth, shaking and broken.
He glanced once more at the charred-down house at his father's severed head, his mother's empty eyes and took in the only phrase his heart could muster.
"I will never forget this… not in this life… not in any to come."
He stood up from the ground, wiping away tears with bloody hands, and charged into the black woods.
The flames danced in his eyes like the break of something new not hope, but revenge.
That night, in the silver light of the moon, the remainder of the Black Wolf Clan left behind the devastation of his kin.
Kageya died that village, that child.
And something darker, colder, stronger was born in his stead