The sack of rice sat at the center of the house like a trophy. Cagiver, her eyes still wet, stroked the grains with almost religious delicacy. For her, it was not just food. It was proof that her youngest son—the one thought fragile—already carried the soul of a survivor.
Blisen, however, remained pensive. He stared at Ciel with a troubled look.
"You're playing a dangerous game, little brother," he murmured.
"Everything is dangerous in Sanwi," Ciel replied, without lifting his eyes from his notebook.
He kept scribbling, recording every detail from the day before: the words used, the crowd's reactions, the faces that had tensed.
But beyond the walls of their home, Sanwi was buzzing.
At the clandestine market, men whispered:
"A kid… he predicted the fall."
"A hundred bills… turned into a whole sack."
"He humiliated Moruto, the fat merchant."
And soon, in taverns and alleys, his name began to spread.
Ciel Darkness.
It was only a murmur, but already, some listened with suspicion.
In a smoke-filled room, far from the commotion, the fat merchant Moruto raged. His fists slammed the table.
"A boy! That rat humiliated me in front of everyone!"
Another man, tall and lean, smiled from the shadows. His eyes gleamed with dangerous light.
"Then he isn't a rat. He's a serpent. And serpents… you crush their heads before they grow."
Meanwhile, Ciel remained unaware of the storm gathering.
That evening, he went out walking again. The moon washed Sanwi in pale light. He stopped before the old gray-bearded man who had given him his first pouch.
"You kept your word," the man said with a smile.
"A contract is a contract," Ciel replied.
"Do you know what you've just done?"
"Won a sack of rice."
The old man shook his head.
"No. You've declared a war. And believe me, silent wars are the deadliest."
Ciel stayed quiet. But deep down, he knew. Every word spoken at the market, every line written in his notebook, carried him further from childhood.
That night, before falling asleep, he wrote one final line:
A name is a weapon. When it begins to spread, it draws both allies and enemies.
And in the shadows of Sanwi, the first enemies of Ciel Darkness were already preparing their strike.