Chapter 2: Chains of Illusion
The wind carried ashes and whispers of death. The ruins of the Akeron estate were nothing more than a field of charred debris, where Arashi's brown hair, tousled by the breeze, seemed to capture the last glimmers of light in this landscape of darkness. Kneeling between the bodies of his parents, he stared at his hands, covered in dried blood—a red so vivid it seemed unreal.
"This… is me?"
His voice was a crack in the silence. He remembered. Stifled laughter behind masks. Frozen fingers tightening around his wrists, guiding the blade. His father's voice, gentle even in death: "You… are… free…"
The clinking of armor shattered the calm.
The Nine Clans emerged from the smoke, their twisted silhouettes sculpted by centuries of cruelty. Leading them was their leader, the woman with hair as white as snow, her face hidden beneath a veil of shifting mist. Her armor, a deep black inlaid with golden runes, molded to her form with lethal grace. Her eyes, visible through the veil, gleamed with a spectral violet glow.
— "Look at what they did to you, little Akeron," she murmured, crouching before Arashi. With her fingers clad in black silk, she brushed the crescent-shaped scar on the boy's forehead. "Your parents locked you away, restrained you… out of fear."
Arashi shuddered. Images surged in his mind:
His mother locking a secret door, her gaze evasive.
His father burning scrolls marked with the same symbol as the rune on his wrist.
Whispered conversations in the night: "He is too dangerous…"
True memories… or manipulated ones?
— "They wanted to kill you, Arashi," the leader pressed, her breath reeking of poisoned lilies. "But we… we see your potential." Her hand rested on the boy's shoulder, a touch so cold it made the hairs on his neck stand on end. "You are the Chosen One. The last hope of this corrupt Omniverse."
Arashi wanted to pull away, but his muscles were stone. He stared at his mother's corpse, whose frozen fingers still clutched a fragment of the kite with golden cranes—torn, stained, but recognizable.
— "Liar…" he growled, a fleeting golden light flashing through his pupils.
The leader of the Nine Clans laughed, a sound like fractured bells.
— "Ah, rebellion! That is what we love about you." With a theatrical gesture, she motioned to the ruins. "But look: they left you alone. You, the child they secretly called 'monster.'"
Arashi closed his eyes. Monster. The word echoed with familiarity. Fragments of memory returned:
His mother weeping in the night: "Why him?"
The furtive glances of the servants, mixing pity and fear.
— "Come," she commanded, standing, her veil undulating like living smoke. "We will show you your true family."
The other Clans chuckled, their grotesque masks (tengu, oni, kappa) reflecting the fire's glow. One of them, a man whose face was hidden behind a raven mask, threw a bone chain that coiled itself around Arashi's wrist.
— "Don't try to run, little lion," the leader murmured, her voice echoing like a chorus of ghosts. "You belong to us now."
Arashi let himself be dragged forward, his brown hair streaked with ash. As they left the ruins, he cast one last glance behind him. Near his father's body, something gleamed: the blade of the family katana, broken in two… but the tip pointed eastward.
A hope? A trap?
The leader followed his gaze and chuckled.
— "Memories are fallible, Arashi. But pain…" She tightened the chain, carving a bloody groove into the boy's wrist. "Pain is eternal."
And so the march began.
Through forests of twisted trees, their branches like skeletal fingers.
Under a sky where the moon glowed red like a wounded eye.
Toward a black tower, whose walls oozed muffled wails.
— "Welcome to your cradle, little monster," the leader whispered, pushing Arashi inside. "Here, an hour is an eternity. An eternity… to become what you truly are."
The door shut with a final creak.
In the darkness, Arashi's eyes flickered with a golden light—weak, but unyielding.
On his palm, where he had clenched the piece of kite, a paper crane began to glow softly.