My name is Tokyo.
To the world, my father was just a farmer. A man who bent his back to the earth, living quietly in a forgotten mountain village. But to me, he was everything, protector, teacher, warrior.
He was the kind of man people respected without question. His presence alone demanded silence, and his words carried weight even when spoken softly. He never had riches, yet he gave me more than any fortune could. He gave me belief.
He believed I was meant for something greater.
I remember the long evenings when he'd train me under the fading sun. His hands, rough from years of labor, guided mine as I learned to aim with the old rifle he kept hidden in the barn. "A man who cannot protect his family," he would say, "has no place in this world." His lessons weren't about weapons they were about strength, endurance, and the unshakable will to survive.
Because of him, I wear this uniform today. Because of him, I serve.
But all of that, the pride, the discipline, the hope shattered on a Monday morning.
The Call
The barracks were alive with noise, the kind of noise only soldiers could make—boots striking the ground in rhythm, orders barked across the yard, laughter cutting through the sharp morning air. I had just tightened the straps of my gear when the vibration in my pocket stopped me cold.
Ring… Ring…
I almost ignored it. Calls from home usually brought trivial news: a neighbor's wedding, a festival, the harvest. But something deep in my gut twisted, urging me to answer.
"Hello?"
The voice on the other end was shaking.
"Tokyo… come home. Your father… he's gone."
My chest tightened. "What do you mean, gone?"
"They came at dawn. Armed men. He fought them… but he didn't make it."
The world tilted. My vision blurred. The phone slipped from my hand, clattering against the concrete floor. Around me, the barracks buzzed with life, but to me, the world had gone silent.
My father. The man who taught me everything. The man who sent me to the city so I could have a future he never did. Dead. Murdered in the very village he swore to protect.
And I wasn't there to stop it.
Return to the Village
The journey home was a blur of steel and smoke. Cities, highways, mountains, all passed without meaning. I carried only one thought: why?
By the time I arrived, the air in the village was heavy, suffocating. People avoided my eyes as I walked down the dirt road in my uniform. Their silence told me more than their words ever could.
They feared something.
I reached my father's house. The fields lay abandoned, the tools scattered as if frozen mid-work. But it was the stains on the ground near the barn the dark patches the earth hadn't yet swallowed, that tore into me.
My knees hit the soil. My fists dug into the dirt. And for the first time since I was a boy, I wept.
That night, the elders came to speak. Their faces were lined with sorrow, but beneath it, I caught glimpses of unease. They called my father "disciplined." "Respected." "A man of honor."
But none of them dared explain why he had been killed.
It didn't add up. My father wasn't wealthy. He wasn't involved in politics. Why send armed men to kill him?
Unless…
Unless he wasn't the man I thought he was.
The Relic
On the third night, I entered the barn where my father once kept his tools. Dust clung to every corner, yet something pulsed beneath the silence. My instincts as a soldier screamed at me: I was not alone.
I pulled aside a stack of wooden crates. Beneath them, buried in the earth, was a box,old, reinforced with strange markings I had never seen before.
The moment I touched it, the air grew heavy. My chest tightened as if invisible hands pressed against my lungs.
When I forced the lid open, I found it.
A shard of black stone, veins of crimson light snaking across its surface, pulsing like a living heart.
And the instant my skin brushed it—
Voices.
Whispers. Thousands of them, crashing into my skull. My vision blurred, my blood boiled, and then.
"So… you are the son."
A voice, deep and ancient, echoed through me. My body trembled, every nerve set on fire.
"Your father tried to seal me. But his time is done. And now… you will carry me."
The shard seared into my hand. Pain unlike anything I had ever known consumed me. I screamed, clawing at my skin, but the stone melted into my flesh, leaving behind only a glowing mark—an ancient sigil burning on my palm.
When I collapsed to the ground, gasping for air, I realized the truth.
My father hadn't been killed at random.
He had been the Guardian of this relic.
And I—his son—had just become its unwilling heir.
Awakening
The following days blurred. Fever wracked my body. Nightmares consumed my sleep. I saw visions of warriors draped in fire and shadow, of clans waging wars across battlefields that stretched into eternity.
And always, the same voice whispered inside me.
"Vengeance, child. Vengeance is your birthright."
When I awoke fully, I felt different. Stronger. My senses sharper. The world clearer. Every sound, every movement around me carried detail I had never noticed before.
But along with it came hunger. Not for food. Not for rest.
For blood.
At my father's grave, I swore:
"They took you from me. But they will not take this village. They will not take our name. Whoever they are, whatever clan sent them—I will find them. And I will end them."
The wind howled through the valley as if answering my vow. My father's spirit seemed to linger, but so too did the cursed power now coiled inside me, urging me forward, whispering promises of destruction.
The Intruder
That night, I heard footsteps outside my window.
Not the cautious shuffle of a villager. This was the calculated silence of a killer.
I reached for the old rifle my father once gave me. The wood felt familiar in my grip, grounding me.
When I stepped outside, the moonlight revealed him.
A man cloaked in black, a mask covering his face, twin daggers glowing faintly at his sides. He froze when he saw me, then tilted his head, almost… amused.
"So," he said, his voice sharp as steel. "The relic chose you."
My heart pounded. My grip tightened on the rifle.
He raised one blade, its edge shimmering unnaturally.
"Good. That makes killing you even more rewarding."
The wind stilled. My breath steadied. The sigil on my palm burned with heat, and deep inside, the ancient voice roared with savage joy.
"Yes… let me out. Let me show you what we can do."
The masked man lunged. The rifle lifted. My blood boiled.
And in that split second, I realized my life was no longer mine alone.
It belonged to the curse inside me.