The first thing I noticed when I woke up was silence.
Not the heavy kind that pressed against my chest, but the still, balanced silence that comes after something ends. The cave felt… empty. The warmth that Tenma's voice brought was gone. Only a faint echo of his presence lingered in the air.
I sat up slowly. My body still hummed with his essence. The space around me—if that's what it even was—felt different. Every breath seemed to ripple through the air, like the world itself had weight.
Tenma's last words circled in my head again and again.
"Do not fight for revenge, boy. Fight for the truth."
But truth meant nothing if I couldn't even reach the surface.
So I began to train.
⸻
At first, I tried what he'd taught me. Breathing. Control. Meditation. The basics of Ki flow.
The deeper I sank into silence, the more I could feel it—Ki pulsing through my veins like a second heartbeat. But beneath that pulse, there was something else. A hum. Constant. Endless. Like invisible threads tugging at the edges of everything around me.
I knew what it was.
Space.
Tenma's gift.
And if I wanted to escape this pit, I'd have to master it.
⸻
Meditation became my world.
I spent hours sitting cross-legged on the cold stone, hands resting on my knees, eyes closed. The smallest breath could shift my focus, so I learned to listen instead of control. To feel instead of force.
Days passed. Maybe weeks. I lost track.
Eventually, I could sense everything—the drip of water from stalactites, the subtle motion of air bending around me, the faint vibration of energy that came from the earth itself.
That's when I tried it for the first time.
I opened my eyes, focused on the space before me, and let the hum inside me expand.
It wasn't Ki I was pushing outward—it was awareness. I wasn't moving energy through the world… I was reshaping the world around me.
The air warped. A faint shimmer outlined a circular field around me, like a distorted bubble of light.
The feeling was instant. Heavy. Overwhelming. My vision blurred as pressure filled my chest, but I didn't stop. The cave stretched and folded at the same time, my body existing everywhere and nowhere. I couldn't explain it—it just was.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, the field collapsed.
I fell to my knees, gasping. My nose bled, and my arms trembled so hard I could barely hold myself up.
But for that one second, I understood.
I wasn't creating space. I was defining it.
⸻
Every day after that, I pushed a little further.
I learned to hold the field longer—five seconds, then ten, then a full minute. The first few times, I'd pass out cold. My body couldn't handle the energy flow. But the more I practiced, the smoother it became.
And something strange started happening.
It was like my body remembered how to use it. I didn't have to think too hard about the movements, the breathing, or the control. Every instinct felt sharpened, as if the knowledge was already there—like Tenma's essence had etched it into me.
One time, while practicing, I noticed my sword—a black blade resting against the rocks—shimmer faintly when I summoned the field. The metal vibrated as though answering my call.
I extended my hand toward it.
"Come."
The sword vanished from the corner and reappeared in my grasp, like the air itself had handed it to me. No distortion. No delay. Just pure intent.
That was the day I stopped thinking like a samurai and started thinking like something else entirely.
⸻
Months blurred into years.
My body changed. The boy who fell off that cliff no longer existed. My hair grew long, brushing past my shoulders. My muscles hardened from training. My Ki pulsed with quiet steadiness.
My swordsmanship evolved too. I practiced both with and without Ki—learning to swing without dependence, to rely on technique as much as raw power. The dragon had told me once that mastery meant control without effort. I finally understood what he meant.
Sometimes, I'd hear his voice in faint whispers, guiding me through the movements, though I knew it wasn't real. Just memory.
I learned how to split my awareness—one part focused on the blade, the other on space itself. To fight not just within the world, but around it.
There were days my power frightened me.
One time, I misjudged the field size and split a boulder the size of a house in half—clean through, like slicing fruit. The edges didn't even crumble. Just perfect separation.
That's when I realized how dangerous this gift really was.
And how easily it could destroy me.
⸻
The more I trained, the more I saw the path forward. The cliff I fell from wasn't just above me—it was calling me. The cave no longer felt like a prison. It felt like a forge.
I was ready to leave.
One evening—if you could even call it evening down there—I sat before the black blade and closed my eyes. The Ki inside me pulsed with rhythm, calm and controlled.
"This sword," I whispered, "carries our name. Let it carry me, too."
I pressed my palm to the hilt. Ki rippled through my arm, sinking into the metal. A mark appeared—thin, glowing lines circling the blade like veins of light.
A connection.
Now the sword was part of me. Wherever it went, I could follow.
I took one last breath and threw it upward with all my strength. It soared through the air, vanishing into the darkness above.
I extended my hand.
"Shift."
The world bent.
For a moment, everything went silent—the ground, the air, even my heartbeat. Then, in the blink of an eye, I was no longer standing in the cave.
The cold air of the outside world hit my face. The light burned my eyes.
I was midair—high above the forest, my sword spinning just ahead of me.
I reached out and caught it.
The rush of wind tore through my hair as I fell, twisting the blade downward. I pointed it toward a distant hilltop.
"Mark."
The sword vanished. So did I.
In an instant, I stood on the hill, my feet pressing into the grass for the first time in years. My sword hummed softly beside me.
I looked down at my hands, then at the horizon—the sun breaking through clouds, painting the land gold.
The last time I saw this view, I was a boy running from fire.
Now I was something else entirely.
I sheathed the sword across my back and looked toward the distance where the Ryoma estate once stood. The ashes might be gone, but the truth Tenma spoke of waited there.
"I'm coming back," I murmured. "Not for revenge… but for answers."
The wind carried my words away.
I gripped the hilt once more, the faint hum of space surrounding me again—quiet, sharp, and obedient.
The boy who fell into the dark had died long ago.
And the man who climbed back up wasn't just a samurai anymore.