Age: 12 years, 2 months
The world ends softly.
Not with thunder or flame, but with the closing of a door.
The house was still. Father's breathing echoed faintly from the upper hall, uneven and shallow.
Mio's room was empty; her toys neatly stacked, her laughter long gone.
Mother's herbs hung above the kitchen window, dry and brittle, whispering whenever the sea breeze passed through.
I walked through each room once, memorizing the weight of the air.
Every scent, every creak, every silence.
Observation—always the first rule.
Age: 12 years, 3 months
Father called me before sunrise.
His face looked carved from stone, every line deepened by the years since the council's fall.
He held a small blade across his palms—our clan's ceremonial knife, dulled by time.
"You're leaving," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Where knowledge hides."
He studied me. For a heartbeat, I saw the man he had been—the commander who once believed discipline could save a clan. Then the look faded, replaced by quiet resignation.
"Ren," he said, "the world beyond these waters is not made for silence. It will demand noise of you."
"Then I'll learn to make it quiet again."
He gave a dry, tired laugh that turned into a cough. "You always answer as though you've already seen the end."
"I have," I said. "It looks like this."
I bowed, low and deliberate. When I rose, his hand hovered in the air, almost reaching for me, then fell back to his side.
Age: 12 years, 4 months
The cliffs were pale with morning fog. Waves broke below, their rhythm steady as breath.
I stood where sea met sky and opened my palm. A thin thread of water rose, twisting around my fingers before dissolving into mist.
It responded instantly now—no effort, no resistance. The silence between thought and action was gone.
I whispered the doctrine one last time, each rule a heartbeat.
When the last word faded, there was no echo. Only wind.
In that emptiness, I felt neither pride nor sorrow—only clarity.
The void was not absence; it was potential.
I turned from the sea. Behind me lay the remnants of the Soryu. Ahead, the continent waited—cities built on lies, nations trembling under the illusion of peace.
A world of systems. A world ready to be studied, refined, and rewritten.
I took my first step into it.
The mist closed behind me, erasing the footprints almost instantly.
Even silence leaves no trace.