The road shaped him.Years passed like smoke, and the boy who had once crawled from the altar of sacrifice became a wanderer whose name drifted between villages like a rumor.
Rinz fought wherever he went.Sometimes for food, sometimes for silence, sometimes because fighting was the only language left that made sense.Each battle refined him, body and mind sharpened like a blade through stone.
But no matter how many he defeated, the emptiness stayed.
The wind was his oldest companion.It had followed him from the moment he crawled away from death, whispering through his broken body, carrying the scent of iron and fire wherever he went. Years passed, but Rinz Izen never stopped walking.
Rinz didn't yet know that his journey, this endless road of blood and solitude, was leading him not toward another battlefield, but toward something gentler, and infinitely more dangerous.
The path to the western ridge cut through withered trees and quiet valleys. The locals spoke of an old master who lived there, a hermit once known as the "Master swordsman," who'd retired after losing everything in a forgotten war.
Rinz found him splitting wood behind a weathered cabin. The man's hair was white, his eyes calm and steady, and when he raised them, Rinz felt something in him still, like a blade sheathed but not dull.
"I've come to challenge you," Rinz said.
The old man chuckled softly. "Challenge me? You barely have both legs beneath you."
Rinz unsheathed his blade. "Try me."
They fought under the noon sun. Rinz's movements were fierce, every swing honed through years of pain, but the old man flowed like water, his feet barely disturbing the dust. Every strike Rinz made missed by inches; every attack he saw came too late.
Within moments, his blade flew from his hands and landed in the dirt.
Panting, he dropped to one knee. The old man stood over him, expression unreadable. "You fight well," he said, "but you fight like a storm, beautiful and blind. Tell me, do you know what lies beyond rage?"
Rinz wiped blood from his lip. "Strength."
The man shook his head. "Peace."
He turned to leave, but Rinz called out, voice rough, desperate. "Teach me. Please."
The old man paused, glancing back. "If you truly wish to learn, survive the mountain's night. Then we'll see."
That night was the coldest of his life.The wind howled like beasts, and snow bit through his thin clothes. By dawn, his lips were cracked, his breath shallow, but he was still standing.
The old man found him at sunrise, sitting cross-legged beneath a tree, frost clinging to his hair. "You didn't sleep?" he asked.
Rinz opened his eyes. "Couldn't."
The man smiled faintly. "Then the mountain accepts you."
From that morning on, he became Rinz's master.
His name was Daigo, once a legend, now a ghost living in the quiet woods. His training was cruel in its simplicity. He made Rinz chop wood until his hands blistered, meditate by waterfalls until he could hear his heartbeat echo in the current, and spar every dawn until both men bled.
But Daigo never praised him. He only repeated one truth:"Power is easy. Balance is not. You chase strength like fire, but fire consumes its source."
Rinz listened, but didn't yet understand.
It was during those long days of training that Rinz first saw her, Hana, Daigo's daughter.She was sunlight in the quiet cabin, carrying baskets of herbs and laughter in her eyes. At first, she stayed distant, speaking little to the stranger with metal limbs and wooden arms and a haunted gaze. But curiosity has its own rhythm.
She began to watch him train, at first from afar, then closer. Rinz felt her presence before he ever looked her way. When she finally spoke, it startled him.
"Does it hurt?" she asked one morning, pointing at the prosthetic joint gleaming under the sun.
He blinked. "Not anymore."
"Then it did once," she murmured, almost to herself. "Everything strong starts with pain."
Her words stayed with him longer than he wanted to admit.
Over time, her silence turned into small questions, and his replies grew longer than one-word answers. She brought him meals, sometimes laughing when he burned through them too fast. She'd tease his serious face, and when he glared, she'd grin wider.
"You know," she said once, "you'd be less terrifying if you smiled sometimes."
"I don't have much to smile about," Rinz replied.
She tilted her head. "Then find something."
It became their quiet game; she'd try to make him smile, and he'd pretend not to.But one night, when he caught her staring at the stars with her hair loose and the wind weaving through it, he smiled without realizing.
She saw it and didn't look away.
The seasons changed.Rinz grew faster, steadier, calmer. Daigo taught him how to move without thinking, how to breathe until the blade became part of his soul. "When thought ends," Daigo said, "you touch the realm beyond limit, what some call Ultra Instinct. It's not magic. It's oneness."
At first, Rinz laughed at the name.But in time, he began to feel it, during meditation, when his breath aligned with the mountain wind, or when Hana's laughter softened something heavy in his chest.
They spent days wandering through the forest, gathering fruits, and sharing meals by the river. Hana showed him which flowers bloomed even in frost; he showed her how to sharpen a blade without dulling its soul.
Sometimes they spoke about the past, but mostly, they didn't.Silence was enough. It said everything words couldn't.
One afternoon, when rain trapped them indoors, she asked, "What drives you? Why train so hard?"
He hesitated. "Once, I thought it was vengeance. Now... I don't know. Maybe I'm just afraid to stop."
She smiled softly. "Then when you stop, let it be for something worth standing still for."
Years passed in that quiet rhythm.To outsiders, it might have looked like peace, the warrior and the girl living between seasons. But under it all, something tender bloomed, fragile yet real.
When their hands brushed over a bowl, neither pulled away.When they laughed too long, the silence after carried a weight they both pretended not to feel.And when she fell asleep by the fire, head on his shoulder, he didn't move until morning.
Daigo saw it all.One evening, while they sparred, the old master said, "You have the heart of an Izen warrior, Rinz. But remember, our blood finds peace only in battle. Don't let love be the war that ends you."
Rinz met his gaze. "Then I'll fight that war too."
Then one day, a messenger arrived.He bore the royal seal, a crimson phoenix, and news of the Grand Tournament to be held in the capital. For every kingdom, the strongest warriors will be selected, and those who triumph will join the divine force and earn the title of the strongest in the kingdom.
Daigo dismissed it as nonsense.But Rinz couldn't ignore it. The fire that had once nearly destroyed him flickered alive again.
That night, Hana found him standing outside beneath the stars. "You're thinking of going," she said.
He didn't answer, but his silence was enough.
Her voice trembled. "You've already found peace here. Why chase pain again?"
"Because peace means nothing," he said quietly, "if I can't protect the people who gave it to me."
The wind stirred the trees. She looked at him for a long time before whispering, "Then promise me you'll come back."
He turned toward her, eyes softer than she'd ever seen. "If the wind carries me far, it'll carry me back too."
The morning he left, the world felt strangely still. Mist hung over the mountain, the trees dripping silver light. Daigo waited by the gate, arms crossed. "You've learned everything I can teach," he said. "The rest, the world will teach you. Remember: the moment you lose yourself to rage again, everything you love burns with it."
Rinz bowed deeply. "Thank you, Master."
When he turned, Hana stood a few paces away, holding a small cloth bundle. "For the road," she said. Inside were dried fruits and a white ribbon.
He untied his sword and fastened the ribbon around the hilt. "Now it's yours too," he said.
She smiled through her tears. "Then don't lose it. Or I'll come find you myself."
He took a slow breath, as if memorizing her face. "When I win, I'll come back."
"And if you don't?" she asked.
He smiled faintly, not bitterly, but with a quiet resolve. "Then I'll still find the wind that leads me home."
They stood there a moment longer, neither speaking. Then he turned and walked down the path. The ribbon fluttered behind him, white against the dawn.
When he reached the ridge, he looked back once.Hana was still there, standing in the same spot, her hand raised in farewell.He lifted his sword slightly, the ribbon catching the light like a promise.
Then the wind rose, and Rinz disappeared into it.
Far behind him, Daigo's voice drifted faintly in the morning air."He walks the warrior's road now, Hana. But sometimes… even warriors find their way back."
And as the sun climbed above the horizon, the sound of a single wind chime echoed from the cabin, a song of farewell, of beginnings, and of love left waiting on the mountain.