The village of Hinoto only had two moods in the year: quiet, and far too loud. Today was the latter.
Wooden banners painted in bright reds and golds swayed between rooftops. Stalls lined the central square, spilling out the smells of roasted dumplings, sweet bean cakes, and sizzling skewers. Children darted through the crowd with painted masks, while drums pounded a lively rhythm from the stage near the fountain. The Festival of Sparks only came once a year, and no one planned to miss it.
"Oi, hurry up! The tournament's starting!"
Kenta Mori, broad-shouldered for his age and always the loudest in the group, was practically dragging his friend through the press of villagers. His dark hair was a mess, his grin even messier.
Behind him, Riku Tanaka tried to pull his arm free. At sixteen, he wasn't exactly scrawny, but the way he lagged behind made it seem like Kenta was hauling around a sack of bricks.
"I told you already, I don't care about this!" Riku muttered, half tripping over someone's sandal. "It's just a bunch of people showing off sparks. What's the point?"
"The point," Kenta said with the certainty of a prophet, "is that this is the only day the entire village cheers for us instead of yelling at us to haul water. You'd get it if you weren't always sulking."
"I'm not sulking. I'm… cautious."
"Cautious?" Another voice chimed in from the side. Hana Watanabe, her long braid swinging as she walked, gave Riku a teasing smile. "That's just a fancier word for coward."
Riku groaned. "Not you too, Hana…"
The three pushed their way through the sea of people until the tournament square opened before them. At the center stood a circular wooden platform, reinforced with chalk lines in glowing white. The lines pulsed faintly — the mark of Soul-stone dust, borrowed from traveling merchants, to safely contain the sparks of the participants. Villagers clustered around, faces bright with expectation, waiting for their youths to put on a spectacle.
Every year, the mock Soul Tournament was the highlight of the festival. It wasn't a real battle, of course — no one expected children to fight like warriors. But ever since the Soul Age began, people liked to see what kind of "spark" the younger generation carried. A spark could be as small as making your palm glow, or as strange as bending a trickle of water from a cup. Rarely, it was something more.
"See? You'll be fine," Kenta said, slapping Riku's back hard enough to nearly knock him into the dirt. "Just go up there, do something flashy, and everyone claps. Easy."
"I don't even know if mine counts as a spark…" Riku muttered, eyes fixed on the glowing chalk lines.
Hana nudged him with her elbow. "You won't know until you try. Besides, what's the worst that happens? You embarrass yourself in front of the whole village?"
"Comforting."
A voice boomed across the square, amplified by a conch-shell horn.
"Welcome, everyone, to this year's Festival Tournament!" The announcer was an old man with a voice so sharp it could cut bamboo. "Our youths will show their Soul sparks before the crowd, in honor of the light that guides our village! Remember — this is not battle, but clebration!"
The crowd roared approval. Children waved paper lanterns. The drums pounded faster.
Riku swallowed hard. His stomach twisted.
The first match began: two boys about their age stepped into the ring. One raised his hands, and flickering flames sparked from his fingertips, drawing gasps from the crowd. The other stamped the ground, and tiny stone shards lifted like teeth around his feet. Their "fight" was little more than posturing — bursts of flame against a shield of pebbles, both laughing nervously under the villagers' cheers.
"They're not even trying to hit each other," Riku said quietly.
"Of course not. It's about showing control," Hana replied. "See how he's keeping the flames in his hand, not letting them spill? That's impressive at his age."
Riku's gaze lingered on the flames. He felt the faint itch in his chest — the place his own Soul spark lived. But it was messy, inconsistent. It never looked the same twice. And every time he tried to "copy" what he saw in others, something twisted out of control.
Kenta noticed his silence. "Don't overthink it. Just make something happen when it's your turn."
"Right. Just make something happen. Easy for you to say."
One by one, teens rotated in. Sparks of light. A girl who made leaves dance. A boy who turned his hair into steel wires. Each display earned claps, laughter, encouragement. The festival was meant to inspire pride, not judgment.
Then the announcer lifted the conch again.
"Next! Riku Tanaka, step forward!"
Riku froze. His name rang out like a bell in the square. Villagers turned, eyes falling on him, expectant.
"Go on," Hana whispered, giving him a push.
Kenta shoved him harder. "Don't chicken out. You've got this."
Riku's legs carried him forward on their own. The square seemed too open, too bright. Every eye followed him as he climbed onto the platform. The chalk lines glowed faintly under his sandals. He rubbed his hands together, trying not to show how sweaty they were.
The announcer grinned at him. "Tanaka boy, eh? Let's see what spark your Soul carries."
The crowd hushed. Drums softened to a steady beat.
Riku stood in the center, facing the circle of villagers. His heart hammered against his ribs. He raised his hand — not too high, not too low — and reached inward, toward that messy, shifting itch in his chest.
Please, just once, work properly.
The air inside the ring was too still.
Riku swallowed, trying to steady his breathing. His pulse drummed louder than the festival drums. He stretched his fingers as if that would help the strange buzzing in his chest align into something… normal. Predictable.
Please. Just glow. Or spark. Anything simple.
A warm glow gathered in his palm. The crowd murmured encouragement — at least it was something. For a second, Riku thought it might actually work.
Then the glow warped, flickering like a candle in the wind. It sputtered, expanded, then shrank to a weak glimmer. Laughter rippled through a corner of the crowd.
"Ah, poor boy can't even hold it steady."
"Maybe he's a late bloomer. Happens sometimes."
"Or maybe he's just sparkless."
Riku's stomach twisted. The glow winked out entirely, leaving his hand empty.
The announcer cleared his throat. "Well… at least he—"
"Wait." A sharp voice cut through the mutters. A boy Riku knew too well stepped into the ring. Daichi Watanabe — Hana's cousin. Taller, sharper, with an easy swagger that annoyed Riku more than anything else. His black hair was tied loosely back, his smirk polished for the crowd.
"Let me test him," Daichi said. "Maybe he just needs a push."
The villagers cheered approval. A match was always more exciting than a solo display.
Riku's heart sank. Of all rivals, it had to be Daichi.
Daichi bowed with exaggerated flourish. "Try not to trip, Tanaka. I'll go easy."
The crowd chuckled. Hana shouted from the sidelines, "Don't show off too much, Daichi!"
"Me? Show off?" Daichi grinned, then snapped his fingers. Blue-white sparks danced across his knuckles before forming a crackling whip of lightning. He lashed it against the chalk lines, and the glow sizzled, humming in resonance.
"Conduit type," an older man whispered. "He's channeling energy through himself. Strong one, too."
Riku tensed. He'd seen Daichi practice before, always crisp, always controlled. The worst kind of rival — effortless.
"Your turn, Tanaka," Daichi taunted. "Or are you just going to stand there and sweat?"
Riku clenched his fists. His own spark was unreliable, messy, but he'd practiced enough to almost mimic simple patterns. If Daichi could channel lightning… maybe he could copy it. Just a flicker. Just enough not to be humiliated.
He inhaled deeply, reaching inward. That strange shifting energy stirred again, eager, restless. He pictured Daichi's crackling whip, imagined it in his own hand — lightning dancing, controlled, powerful.
Something snapped.
For a moment, Riku felt the whip in his grasp. Electricity crawled along his arm, bright and wild. Gasps erupted from the crowd. Even Daichi's eyes widened.
But then —
The lightning fractured.
It splintered into shards of light, bursting like glass. The whip collapsed into a storm of colors — fire on one side of his palm, water spiraling on the other, shards of stone rising from beneath his feet, and a gust of wind ripping around him all at once.
The crowd erupted in shock.
"What—? That's not possible!"
"Four sparks? At once?!"
"No, look — it's unstable!"
Riku stumbled, nearly thrown by the sudden chaos. He hadn't meant to do any of this. It was as if his spark had multiplied, fractured into every direction at once. Fire licked at his sleeve while droplets of water hissed against the embers. The ground cracked under his sandals, and the air itself seemed to bend.
Daichi staggered back, his lightning whip fizzling under the torrent of conflicting forces. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"I—I don't know!" Riku shouted, trying to contain the mess with both hands. His fingers shook as fire and ice pulsed in the same breath, canceling and colliding, yet refusing to vanish.
"Impossible…" an elder whispered from the crowd, his face pale. "That's… Prism."
The word seemed to cut through the chaos louder than the crackle of flame.
Villagers froze, the name hanging heavy. Prism Souls were stories — myths told in warnings, not something anyone expected to see in their lifetime. A soul that didn't settle on one spark, but mirrored and refracted them into endless facets. Beautiful. Terrifying.
Riku didn't even hear them. The forces in his body strained, unstable, each spark trying to dominate the other. His chest felt like it was tearing in two.
"Stop before you blow yourself apart!" Daichi shouted, shielding his eyes as shards of stone spun outward.
"I can't!" Riku's voice cracked. The sparks swelled, each pulse wilder than the last. His vision blurred, colors bending unnaturally at the edges.
The chalk lines of the arena flared, struggling to contain the imbalance. Cracks spiderwebbed through the glowing boundary.
Hana's voice rang out from the sidelines, panicked now. "Riku! Control it—!"
Too late.
The sparks converged in his chest, colliding into something neither fire, nor water, nor stone, nor wind — something raw, pure, unshaped. His body convulsed.
And then it burst.
A shockwave exploded from the center of the ring, a prism-colored blast of raw soul force.
The crowd screamed. The platform shattered. Daichi was thrown back, rolling across the dirt. Villagers shielded their faces from the gust, banners ripping free, stalls toppling.
Riku's scream was lost in the blast.
When the shockwave subsided, silence lasted for one fragile heartbeat—then the chaos broke.
The tournament ring was gone, reduced to cracked stone and drifting motes of colored light. The crowd that once cheered now shrieked, scrambling over toppled benches and broken festival stalls. Banners of crimson and gold whipped through the air, set ablaze by stray sparks of fire.
"Move, move! Get back!" someone shouted.
But they couldn't outrun the storm. Riku's body convulsed as if possessed by something not his own. Every breath tore open another fracture of power. A jet of flame burst from his left hand, then instantly turned to frost, freezing the debris it had just scorched. From his right palm, shards of stone erupted like spears, only to dissolve into glittering streams of water midair.
Lightning crackled from his shoulders. Wind howled in bursts. His steps left behind glowing imprints that warped the earth like shattered mirrors.
"No, no, no—stop!" Riku staggered, clutching at his chest, but the energy ignored him. Each attempt to hold it back only split it further, cascading outward in impossible directions.
"Get him away from the crowd!" Daichi shouted, voice hoarse. He tried to dart in, but a whip of unstable lightning lashed between them, forcing him to retreat. "Damn it—he can't control it!"
Riku's vision flickered. People's faces blurred into streaks of light and shadow. The world itself seemed to bend, fractured into overlapping layers. He could see Hana shouting his name—but her outline doubled, tripled, each one delayed by a breath, as though the present was tearing apart.
What's happening to me?!
A stall of candied fruit toppled nearby, its skewers scattering. One moment they were splintering against the ground—then they snapped back midair, breaking again in the exact same motion. Time itself was stuttering, replaying fragments of the world like a broken record.
Villagers screamed louder. "A Prism… it's a Prism!"
"Extinct—they said it was extinct!"
"No child should—"
"Run!"
The words pierced through Riku like knives. Extinct? Prism? He barely had the clarity to register them. His power spiraled out in jagged bursts, overturning tables, shattering lanterns. Fireworks meant for the evening finale ignited prematurely, streaking into the sky.
They collided with his wild sparks midair—fireworks and soul energy merging into an unnatural aurora. The night sky rippled, filled with fractured bands of color bending across the stars.
Children cried, clutching their parents. Yet a few stared upward in awe, whispering as though they were witnessing something divine.
"Beautiful…" one girl gasped, her face aglow in the prismatic lights.
"Terrifying," her father muttered, pulling her away.
Riku fell to his knees, gasping. His hands shook uncontrollably as fragments of light spun off him, orbiting like broken shards of a mirror. Each shard contained a reflection that wasn't quite right—a stall standing whole when it was shattered, Daichi caught mid-smirk instead of wide-eyed, Hana leaning forward before she'd actually moved.
It was as if reality itself had splintered, showing all its what-ifs at once.
Echoes of eternity… [1]The thought wasn't his own. It pulsed through his mind in a voice he didn't recognize, ancient and hollow.
"Riku!" Hana's real voice pierced through. She shoved past panicked villagers, her braid whipping behind her. Ignoring Daichi's warnings, she tried to grab his arm.
The moment her hand touched him, a burst of force flared outward. She was thrown back, tumbling across the dirt.
"No!" Riku cried, lurching toward her, but his body betrayed him again. A wall of ice spiked up where she had fallen, harmless only because she had rolled clear. His own fear was fueling the storm.
"Stay down!" Daichi shouted at Hana, then turned back to Riku. "You'll kill someone if this keeps up!"
"I'm trying to stop it!" Riku's voice cracked. His throat burned, his eyes streaming from smoke and light. He clutched his head as fractured visions flashed—streets he didn't know, battles not yet fought, fragments of people's faces he couldn't name. Past. Future. All crashing into the now.
The villagers had retreated as far as they could, huddling at the square's edge. Fear coated the air, thick and suffocating.
And then—
A shadow fell over the arena.
From the far rooftops, cloaked figures descended in silence, landing at the perimeter with unnerving precision. Their garments were dark, trimmed with silver threads that caught the prismatic glow. Masks obscured their faces, smooth and expressionless save for a single crest etched over the brow.
The crowd hushed instantly, as if the weight of authority itself pressed them down.
"Soul Enforcers…" someone whispered, dread in their voice.
The figures stood tall at the ruined edge of the ring, their presence cutting through the storm like drawn blades. One raised a hand, signaling the others.
"Contain the anomaly."
Their cloaks billowed as they stepped forward in unison, the festival's ruin reflected in the mirrored visors of their masks.
Riku, gasping, barely registered their arrival—only the crushing sense that whatever had just awakened inside him was about to change everything.
The fractured light pulsed once more, casting the entire square in impossible colors.
The square reeked of smoke and ozone, the last wisps of distorted light still dancing in the air where the blast had torn through the festival. The laughter and music from moments earlier had long been replaced with screams, and then, finally, silence.
Heavy boots struck the stone as figures in black-and-silver uniforms advanced through the stunned crowd. Their polished armor gleamed even in the fading glow of shattered lanterns. Each of them carried an aura of discipline so sharp it cut through the confusion.
"Order! Now!" barked one of the enforcers, their voice slicing across the square like steel drawn from a scabbard.
Parents pulled their children back, vendors lowered their heads, and a suffocating hush rippled outward. Only the crackle of burning decorations filled the void. The crowd's terror and awe funneled toward one trembling point—me.
I could feel every eye drilling into me, a boy who only hours ago had thought this day would end with fireworks and cheap sweets. My legs shook, my breath jagged, and in my hands… in my very skin… the remnants of light still shimmered, flickering like dying fireflies.
"Did you see it?!" someone hissed from the crowd.
"A Prism… it can't be…"
"They're gone… they were wiped out generations ago…"
The whispers grew like a rising tide, overlapping—fear, reverence, suspicion. My stomach lurched. Prism? Sub Types? My parents had told me bedtime stories about heroes of light, about souls that fractured into infinite hues. I never thought—never wanted—to be one.
The enforcers halted in a line before me. Their leader stepped forward. He was tall, his uniform more ornate, bearing the insignia of a commander. His face was carved into harsh lines, but when his eyes fell on me, the rigidity faltered.
He studied the air still bending unnaturally around me, the fractured glints of color, and I saw recognition strike him like lightning.
"…Impossible," he muttered under his breath. Then louder, with a voice that carried authority and weight: "This manifestation… it's a Prism. A Sub Type thought extinct."
The crowd gasped collectively. Some crossed themselves in old superstitious gestures. Others backed away as though I were cursed. Children peeked from behind skirts and sleeves, wide-eyed, as though I were some kind of living legend—or a monster.
I wanted to speak. To tell them it was a mistake, that I didn't even know what had happened, that I hadn't meant to unleash anything. But the words strangled in my throat. My body was still quaking, not from exhaustion, but from raw fear.
The commander's gaze pinned me. He didn't look at me like a boy. He looked at me like a weapon, freshly unearthed from a forgotten tomb.
He raised his hand. "You," he said, his voice resonant, final. "You must come with us."
Gasps rippled through the villagers again.
"Take him?"
"He's just a child—!"
"No. He's dangerous. You saw it!"
I staggered back instinctively. "W–Wait, I… I didn't do anything! It was an accident!"
But my protests only seemed to harden their expressions. The enforcers advanced a step, formation unbroken, disciplined like wolves closing in on prey.
The commander's tone carried no room for negotiation. "Your existence is both a danger… and a hope. Left uncontrolled, you could unravel more than just this village. But under guidance—perhaps—you might hold the key to what we have long lost."
My heart hammered against my ribs. Danger. Hope. Two words that made me feel like the ground beneath me was tilting. My existence wasn't supposed to mean anything. I was just… me. Just a boy who wanted to celebrate the festival, eat too much food, maybe sneak off with friends.
Now? I was a myth dragged screaming into reality.
The villagers' stares burned hotter. Fear painted their faces, but so did something else—yearning. Reverence. Like they wanted to believe in me, but were terrified of what that meant.
"Mom… Dad…" I whispered, searching the crowd desperately. But I couldn't find their faces. Only strangers' eyes. Only distance.
The commander lowered his arm and gestured sharply. The enforcers spread, creating a corridor through the crowd. The message was clear: I was to walk it. To leave.
My body refused to move. Every part of me screamed to run, to deny, to cling to the life that was collapsing around me. But strong hands seized my arms.
"Don't struggle," one of the enforcers murmured coldly. "It will be easier this way."
I thrashed weakly, my voice cracking. "I don't want this! I'm not—whatever you think I am! Please—"
The commander didn't flinch. He watched with a soldier's patience, then spoke words that cut deeper than any blade:
"Your wants no longer matter. You are Prismbound."
The word slammed into me with finality. Prismbound. Shackled not by chains, but by what I was. By what I couldn't change.
As they dragged me forward, the villagers parted in silence. Some averted their eyes. Others reached out as if to touch me, then pulled back, afraid. Every step away from the festival felt like a step away from the life I'd known.
I glanced back once—the square, the broken lanterns, the stunned faces, the ashes drifting where fireworks should have been.
This was supposed to be just another festival. Instead, it was the day everything ended.
The night air was cold against my damp skin as we crossed the threshold of the square. The commander marched ahead, and behind me, the villagers whispered again, their voices fading into the distance.
"Prism… alive…"
"…Hope… or ruin…"
"…The last one destroyed cities…"
I clenched my fists, fighting the tears burning in my eyes. I wasn't a savior. I wasn't a threat. I was just me. But no one cared what I thought anymore.
And so, under the weight of fear, reverence, and inevitability, I was taken.
The festival's music would never return to me. The lights would never seem the same.
Everything had shattered into fragments of eternity—
[1] I meant to name the Novel "Fragments of Eternity" but it was taken so I aed it "Prismbound". Hipe you understand.