The rain didn't fall; it hammered. It turned the dirt path leading to the small wooden house into a sludge of grey silt and rotted pine needles.
A sharp, jagged wail cut through the rhythmic drumming of the storm. It wasn't the sound of a creature. It was the raw, high-pitched friction of a human lung fighting for oxygen.
Inside the house, the air smelled of damp cedar and the metallic tang of an old wood stove. Kazuki pushed himself away from the table, his chair scraping against the floorboards. Beside him, Hana paused, her hands clutching a bundle of dry herbs. They didn't speak. In the three years they had lived in the outskirts of the village of Itosai, the only sounds at night were the mountain winds and the occasional groan of the timber.
The wail came again.
Kazuki grabbed a lantern, the wick sputtering as he stepped into the downpour. Hana followed, pulling a threadbare shawl over her head. They reached the porch, the light from the lantern swinging wildly, casting long, distorted shadows against the rain.
A casket sat on the muddy earth. It was made of dark, heavy wood, its surface unmarred by the wetness.
Hana gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Kazuki stepped down, his boots sinking into the muck. He lowered the lantern. Inside the box, wrapped in a coarse, black cloth, was a child. The infant's hair was a shock of deep, furnace-red, wet and matted against a brow that seemed too calm for the noise he was making.
Thunder rolled across the valley, a low, tectonic vibration that rattled the lantern's glass.
"A gift," Hana whispered. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the child's face. For seven years, they had watched the seasons turn in a house that was too quiet. For seven years, the cradle in the corner had remained empty.
Tears tracked down her cheeks, indistinguishable from the rain. She raised her palms to the churning black clouds, her lips moving in a silent prayer of gratitude that the thunder swallowed whole.
Kazuki reached into the casket. His hands were calloused, stained with the sap of the trees he felled for a living. He slid his arms under the small weight, lifting the boy with a slow, trembling care.
"He looks..." Kazuki started, his voice thick. "He looks like he belongs to the sun."
As the light of the lantern shifted, it caught the boy's wrist. A mark was etched into the pale skin—a tattoo of intricate, swirling black lines that converged into a central point, resembling a thousand tiny souls woven into a single knot.
Kazuki's grip tightened. "Hana. Look."
She leaned in, her breath hitching. The mark didn't look like ink; it looked like a scar that had been there since the beginning of time. It was a brand. A symbol of something ancient and heavy.
"It doesn't matter," Hana said, her voice turning fierce. She took the child from Kazuki's arms, shielding him from the wind. "The heavens sent him. We will take care of him."
She let out a small, breathless laugh, the first sound of genuine joy to hit the porch in years. As they retreated into the warmth of the house and latched the heavy door, a bolt of lightning ripped across the sky.
For a fraction of a second, the white glare revealed a figure standing at the edge of the treeline. He wore a heavy, black hood that drank the light. In his hand was a blade of impossible length—a mythic, ascendant sword that hummed with a silver light. The figure didn't move. He watched the door click shut. Then, without a sound, he vanished. There was no rustle of leaves, no footprint in the mud. He simply ceased to be there.
The years in Itosai didn't pass; they accumulated.
The village was a cluster of grey stone and timber tucked into the hip of a mountain. It was a place where people measured time by the harvest and the weight of the snow.
The boy was named Kenjiro Arisaka.
From the start, the village knew he was different. He didn't crawl; he dragged himself toward the door with a singular, quiet focus. By the time he was twelve months old, he was walking with a steady, grounded gait that lacked the stumble of a toddler.
By the age of six, Kenjiro had become the silent engine of the Arisaka household.
The routine was a machine. In the mornings, Kazuki headed into the high timber with his axe and a rusted rifle. In the afternoons, Hana packed crates of mountain vegetables and hardy fruits for the market.
Kenjiro didn't play with the other children. While they chased wooden hoops through the dirt, Kenjiro was at the market. He carried crates of produce that should have required a grown man's strength. He moved through the crowded stalls of the lower village, his red hair a beacon in the grey morning fog. He didn't complain. He didn't ask for rest. He placed the heavy containers with a soft, deliberate touch, bowing to the merchants with a humility that made the village elders nod in approval.
"A good son," they would mutter, watching the boy's broad shoulders disappear into the mist. "The Arisakas have been blessed."
In the evenings, he followed Kazuki into the brush. He didn't carry a gun, but he watched. He watched the way his father tracked the wind, the way he stepped over dry twigs to keep the silence, the way he adjusted the sight on his rifle when the mountain goats appeared on the ridgeline.
Kenjiro's strength was an anomaly—a dense, coiled power that felt like a spring under tension. He could outrun the village hounds and climb the sheer cliff faces behind the house before the sun had fully cleared the peaks. Yet, he remained quiet. Respectful. A boy of few words and heavy actions.
"Kenjiro!" Kazuki called out one evening.
The boy was in the shed, sharpening a skinning knife. He dropped the whetstone and ran toward the porch, his boots thudding against the packed earth.
The rain had started again, turning the front yard into a slick, treacherous slide. Kenjiro's foot hit a patch of standing water. His center of gravity shifted. He began to tilt, his weight carrying him toward the jagged edge of a stone planter.
Kazuki reached out, but he was too far.
Time didn't slow down; it curdled.
From the shadow cast by Kenjiro's own body, a dark, fluid shape erupted. It wasn't a limb, and it wasn't a trick of the light. It was a silhouette of armored shadow, massive and terrifyingly fast. It reached out with a hand made of frozen smoke and caught Kenjiro's shoulder, holding him upright with the strength of an iron pillar.
For a heartbeat, the air in the yard grew cold enough to frost the grass. The shadow stood there—the towering, necromantic echo of Renji Kurozawa, the Mortal King.
Kenjiro gasped, his eyes wide, his hand flying to his marked wrist. He felt a jolt of ice-cold energy shoot up his arm, a memory of a throne and a void he hadn't yet learned to name.
The shadow vanished back into the dirt.
Kenjiro stood alone in the rain, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He looked at his hands, then at his father, who was frozen on the porch, his eyes wide with a confusion he couldn't voice.
"I'm okay, Father," Kenjiro said. His voice was steady, but the weight on his wrist felt heavier than any crate he had ever carried.
He looked down at the mud. The shadow was gone, but the ground where it had stood was scorched, the water hissing as it turned to steam.
The King was still there. He was just waiting for the boy to grow into the crown.