Morning came without warmth.
The bell of the shrine tolled twice, its iron voice rolling over the thatched roofs and crooked
chimneys of the village. To most, it was a call to work, to prayer, to life as it always had been.
To Aruto, it was just another reminder that he didn't belong.
He rose from the straw mat that passed for a bed. His body complained—ribs sore,
shoulders heavy, skin still smarting where Jirou's wooden blade had struck him yesterday.
But he didn't let himself linger. He had learned long ago that lying still made the whispers
louder.
He washed his face in the rain barrel, the water icy enough to sting, then stepped outside
into the narrow lane.
The village was already moving. A farmer's wife hurried with baskets of grain. A smith
hammered sparks from an anvil. Children ran laughing between stalls until they saw him.
Then the laughter cut short, like a knife across a song.
"Chainspawn," someone muttered.
"Curse-bearer," another whispered.
The words weren't meant to be heard, but they always found his ears.
Aruto kept his eyes forward. Not down, not up—forward. To look down was to admit shame.
To look up was to invite stones. He had found the middle ground, and it had become his
armor.
Still, he felt the heat of their stares, like coals pressed to his back. He smelled the faint tang
of incense from the shrine as he passed. On its notice board, a new parchment fluttered in
the breeze: Forbidden rites → Cleansing.
The priest's neat script was a warning, not a law. And it was written for him. Everyone knew
it.
The Training Ground
The path curved toward the edge of the fields, where the training grounds lay—an uneven
square of trampled earth marked by straw dummies and cracked wooden posts. The
hunters, old men whose arms were roped with scars, stood watching as the village boys
swung wooden swords and thrust spears at the dummies.
Aruto wasn't welcome, but he came anyway.
He bound strips of cloth around his hands, ignoring the glances from the hunters. His body
was smaller, leaner than the others, but he moved with a kind of stubborn rhythm: stance,
breath, strike. Stance, breath, strike.
Each punch thudded into straw. His arms burned by the fiftieth blow, his lungs protested by
the hundredth. But he did not stop. Pain was only proof he was still alive.
"Does the dummy bleed yet?"
The voice cut through the air like a splinter.
Aruto knew it before he turned. Jirou. The butcher's son. Taller, broader, the kind of boy who
had been handed strength as easily as meat from his father's stall. Two others flanked him:
Ken, thick as a fence post, and Sato, wiry with arms too long for his body.
"You should fight something real, Chainbearer," Jirou said, twirling his practice sword.
"Unless you're scared."
Aruto didn't answer. His fists kept moving. Straw shuddered with each hit.
Jirou's grin thinned. "Ignoring me? Fine."
The wooden blade cracked into Aruto's ribs. White pain flared, sharp enough to steal his
breath. He staggered but stayed on his feet.
"Don't call me that," he managed through clenched teeth.
Ken laughed. "Hear him? He thinks he's people."
The three circled. Ken lunged first, blunt spear aimed clumsily. Aruto sidestepped, jammed
an elbow into Ken's stomach. The bigger boy folded with a grunt. But Sato was quicker—he
swept Aruto's legs. Mud slammed into Aruto's cheek.
Jirou came down with a two-handed strike. Aruto rolled aside, felt the blade bite into the dirt
where his head had been. He scrambled up, fists raised.
For a moment, just a moment, he matched their rhythm. His jab cracked against Jirou's
chest. His kick found Sato's shin. He thought: I can do this.
Then Jirou's blade found his bruised ribs again. Agony lanced through him. His knees
buckled. The world blurred.
"Stay down," Jirou sneered, standing over him. "Stay where you belong."
Aruto spat mud, dragged himself up on shaking arms. "No."
The chains inside him hummed faintly, low and dangerous, as if mocking his weakness.
Jirou raised the sword again.
"Enough!"
The shout rang across the field.
Sachi stood there, basket dropped, herbs spilling into the dirt. Her face burned with fury.
"You'll kill him!"
The hunters shifted uneasily but did nothing.
Jirou scoffed. "He's cursed. Better broken than loose."
But another shadow moved. Yori. Silent, amber-eyed, stepping forward like a wolf into the
clearing. He didn't speak—he only looked. And Jirou, for all his bravado, stepped back.
"Another day," Jirou muttered, nose bloodied, pride dented. He motioned for his friends.
They left, spitting curses.
Aftermath
Aruto slumped to the ground, ribs screaming. Sachi knelt beside him, pressing a poultice to
his side.
"Why do you let them do this?" she whispered fiercely.
"Because I have to."
Her hands trembled. "You'll break."
"Then I'll break."
She stared at him, eyes wet with anger, not pity.
Yori crouched nearby, gaze still fixed on the treeline. "You stood against three. That is
enough."
Aruto met his eyes. Yori's words were fact, not comfort. Facts mattered more.
Sachi finished binding his ribs, muttering about stubborn idiots. Aruto forced himself
upright, every breath a blade. He glanced once toward the ridge beyond the field. For a
heartbeat, he thought he saw a figure—a shadow too still to be grass.
When he blinked, it was gone.
But the feeling of being watched lingered.
Night pressed down on the village like a wet cloak.
The fires in the hearths had died one by one, their smoke curling into the sky until only the
shrine's lanterns burned. The bell ropes swayed in the cold breeze, bells chiming faintly as if
restless in their sleep.
Aruto did not go home.
He slipped past the edge of the fields, ribs bound tight beneath his tunic, and followed the
familiar deer trail toward the riverbank. The moon was a dull coin half-hidden by clouds, but
he knew the way blind. He had walked it too many times, sometimes dragging himself after
a beating, sometimes crawling, always returning.
The river welcomed him with its low whisper. The reeds leaned close, shadows long and
crooked. He set the book upon a flat stone where moonlight struck it pale. The leather was
cracked, the binding frayed, yet the sight of it sent a shiver down his spine.
It wasn't his. It had never been meant for human hands.
He unwrapped the cloth binding, placed his knees into the mud, and opened the book.
Breathwork
The first page greeted him with the familiar diagrams—body outlines, inked circles, lines
connecting them like constellations. Each mark seemed to pulse faintly, as though ink
alone could hold breath.
Aruto inhaled. Four counts.
He held. Four counts.
Exhaled. Six counts.
The first cycles were easy. His lungs stretched, ribs protested, but his body knew this path
now. By the fifth cycle, his head swam. By the sixth, sparks danced behind his eyelids.
The book had warned of blood, and blood came. His nose dripped scarlet onto the page,
staining the diagram's chest. He ignored it.
Pain sharpened. His chest burned as though the chains inside had turned molten. Each
exhale dragged across iron. His vision blurred at the edges.
Still—he continued.
And then he heard it again.
The hum.
Low, steady, vibrating in his bones. The same sound that had haunted him since birth, the
same that whispered when he fought, when he bled. Tonight it grew louder, clearer, until it
was almost a song.
He pushed harder.
The chain inside shifted. Not snapping, not breaking—just shifting, as if something
enormous had turned in its sleep.
Agony ripped through him. He doubled over, palms pressed to mud, chest heaving. His ribs
felt aflame, his heart like a drum too fast for mortal rhythm. He tasted copper.
But beneath the pain was triumph.
He had moved it.
Flashback
The pain unlocked something else—memory.
He saw the night of his parents' death, the shadows of villagers slipping into their house
with knives, the muffled screams. He saw the blood on his mother's hands as she wrapped
him in cloth, whispering his name. He remembered the priest's voice outside: "The curse
must die."
And he remembered the silence after.
He had been too young to understand. Too small to fight. But even then, the chains had
hummed. Even then, he had known: I will not die here.
The memory faded with his breath, leaving him trembling.
Sachi
"Aruto."
He jolted. The book nearly slipped from his lap.
Sachi stood at the edge of the reeds, lantern in hand. Her hair clung damp to her face, her
eyes sharp as flint.
"You're bleeding." She knelt beside him before he could speak, pulling a cloth from her
basket to wipe his nose. "You're insane."
"I told you not to follow," he muttered.
"You think I wouldn't? You vanish every night. You come back bruised, coughing blood. Did
you think I wouldn't notice?"
He looked away. The river offered no answer, only the sound of water moving endlessly
forward.
Sachi's hands were firm on his shoulders. "You're going to kill yourself with this."
"Then I die training," he said.
Her palm cracked against his cheek. Not hard, not enough to bruise—just enough to shock.
"Don't say that," she whispered. Her voice trembled. "Don't you dare."
For a heartbeat, Aruto had no reply. He saw the anger in her eyes, but behind it was
something fiercer: fear.
He swallowed. "…I can't stop."
Sachi exhaled slowly, shaking her head. "Then at least don't do it alone."
Yori
The reeds rustled. Yori stepped out, silent as always. His amber eyes glowed faintly in the
lantern light, the eyes of his clan.
"I told her where to find you," he said simply.
Aruto frowned. "Why?"
"Because if you fall, someone should lift you."
Aruto stared at him, but Yori's gaze was steady, unflinching.
"Wolf packs don't leave their own," Yori said.
Something in Aruto's chest twisted. Not pain this time. Something stranger.
He closed the book with trembling fingers, rewrapped it, and set it aside. The hum of the
chains had quieted, but he could still feel them, deep inside, waiting.
Oath
"You'll regret this," Aruto said finally.
Sachi tilted her head. "Regret what?"
"Standing near me. Everyone else already does."
Yori's answer was as calm as rain. "Let them."
Sachi's was sharper. "Then they'll answer to me first."
Aruto almost laughed. It came out as a rough breath instead. He looked at the two of
them—his only allies, his only thread to the world that wanted him gone. For the first time
that night, the ache in his chest eased.
The Watcher
But the river was not silent.
Across the water, among the reeds, something shifted. A figure crouched low, cloak dark as
midnight, face masked. Silver eyes glinted faintly, too still to be animal, too intent to be
accident.
Watching. Waiting.
Aruto felt the hairs on his arms rise. He reached for the wooden practice sword at his side,
but when he blinked, the figure was gone.
Only rippling water remained.
The night deepened.
By the time Aruto returned to the riverbank alone, even the shrine bells had fallen silent. The
village slept behind shuttered windows, but he could not. Sleep was a luxury for those not
bound in chains.
He stripped to the waist, set the book before him, and knelt in the mud. His breath clouded
in the cold air.
Inhale four. Hold. Exhale six.
The rhythm began smooth, familiar. His body protested, ribs tight beneath the cloth binding,
but he forced the cycle. By the third round his head grew light. By the fifth, his chest
screamed for release.
Again.
He obeyed.
The hum of the chains returned, louder now, vibrating through every bone. His vision swam
with sparks. The book's diagrams blurred, then twisted into motion as though the ink itself
breathed.
He followed the pattern up his spine, bead by bead. Pain knifed into his ribs. His hands
clenched against the earth until his nails tore.
Blood dripped from his nose. He tasted iron. His lungs howled for air.
And then—something shifted.
Not the faint stir of yesterday, not a whisper. A true movement. One chain inside his chest
strained, groaned, and cracked—not breaking, but loosening.
Agony consumed him. His body convulsed. He doubled over, coughing blood into the mud.
But in that agony was power.
The river stilled. For a moment, every ripple froze. Reeds bent toward him as though pulled
by unseen gravity. The air thickened, pressing down like a hand on his back.
And then it came.
A shadow rose behind him. Tall, thin, crowned with antlers of bone and knives of light. Its
form was incomplete, wavering like smoke, but its presence pressed against the world until
the reeds bowed.
Aruto's vision went black. The only thing he saw was that figure—his first true glimpse of the
KI bound to him.
It spoke without voice.
Pain is the toll. Will you pay it again?
"I will," Aruto whispered, though his lungs had no breath left.
The shadow tilted its head, as though in approval. Then it sank back into him, leaving only
the hum of chains and the taste of blood.
Collapse
He fell sideways into the mud. His chest rose and fell shallow, too fast, each breath like
swallowing glass. His arms shook with the effort of keeping his face above the water pooling
at the bank.
For a moment, he thought he might die here—drowned in inches of rainwater, forgotten by
all.
Then strong hands pulled him back.
"Idiot."
Yori's voice, low and sharp. He must have followed again, silent as wolves do. He hauled
Aruto up, threw his cloak over his shoulders.
"You'll kill yourself," Yori said.
Aruto coughed blood, managed a broken grin. "Not yet."
Yori's amber eyes flickered. That was as close as he came to respect.
The Watcher Returns
But the night was not theirs alone.
From across the river, silver eyes gleamed once more. The watcher was back, standing half-
shrouded in mist. Cloaked, masked, unmoving.
This time, Aruto saw clearly: the figure carried curved blades across its back. No villager
owned weapons like that.
Yori saw it too. His hand went to the knife at his belt.
"Who?" Aruto rasped.
"Not one of us," Yori said. His voice was cold.
The figure did not move closer. It simply raised one hand, palm outward—as if in warning.
Then it melted into the mist, gone as though it had never been.
The reeds whispered violently as the wind picked up.
Foreshadow
Yori's jaw tightened. "The priest's message has been answered."
Aruto spat blood into the dirt. "An inquisitor?"
"Or worse," Yori said.
Aruto felt the chains inside stir, restless, as though they too knew what approached. He
looked toward the village, toward the faint glow of the shrine's lanterns, and knew sleep
would not come again.
Cliffhanger
The next morning, before the bell rang, a rider arrived at the village gate. Armor dark beneath
a travel-stained cloak. At his hip, a blade that gleamed far too well to belong to a simple
guard.
The villagers whispered, huddling in the lane. The priest greeted the rider with bowed head
and eager words.
Aruto stood apart, mud still on his hands, blood still on his lips. His eyes burned red
beneath the dawn.
He knew, before a word was spoken, that the rider had come for him.