In the eleventh year, as the Sun changed polarization and shifted from a dark dreary red to bright vibrant yellow, a new generation of cloaked Palads was born into the village. This collective esteemed by the Sun’s direct acknowledgment of their birth signified by the magnificent colorful change. All upper levels of the Paladinian hierarchy honed in on the promised children born. Brimmed with anticipation for the next savior to be born, a child of pure light.

As known, all children were brought into the world for one purpose: to serve. Whether as warriors for the High Priest, diocesans to manage the lands, farmers to raise for the holy fertile grounds, smiths to design tools and weapons of control, or any other promised sector job they were designated with it from the day they were born. No choice in the matter as it was the Sun’s to make.

Very few earned the liberty of fighting the dangerous creatures that lurked around their homeland deep down within the dark caves and snaking around within the tall grass at the base valleys of their high mounds. Alongside this, the honor of warding off other nations from their elevated lands, the clan itself their glorified body; their temple. Squads formed to strengthen borders and diffuse any conflict. To be in such a squad was a child's highest dream.

Here in the domain of the Sunretsu clan the story truly begins.

New life incites a new journey.

Eleven years before such a night could be remembered.

Through the newborn perspective of Daisuke the world opens itself up to be foretold. A promised child that reached for the heavens as his eyes split open. Skin so supple and plush, his broad stare laid upon the enclosed wooden room around him. His first conscious reaction was something no child could escape: irritation. Radiation, a presiding shifter in the balance of strength, was inescapable in this vile world.

Children the first to suffer its rough grasp.

“Waahh! Waahh!”

The cries of newborn babies could be heard throughout the Nippon village. A sound that brought on rejoice within townspeople, the entrance of life into this brutal lapsed land a sacred sound. Their tender skin, still not hardened enough to fend off the cyclonic air, immediately burnt as the toxic air grazed them. A harsh welcome.

Each child glowed a subtle radiant green hue through their pale skin, some a pinch brighter than others. Every baby struggled to adjust the levels of radiation within their little bodies, forced to adapt the instant they took their first breath.

Whoosh!

A door to the matted room slid open with haste. Four maidens followed behind Nippon’s head priestess into the blessed nursery chamber, a massive open space within the town's central shrine where all newborns were cared for until they became able to walk. Closed off from the scorching red-hot Sun, the gray dead wooden walls lined with thick compact tar from the pits ventilated out the vile air.

The maidens, wrapped in pure white hand woven robes, stood off to the side beneath the wooden beamed crimson ceilings to await orders. Their next move was mitigated by the priestess’ very word of instruction. Purpose something that had to be bestowed upon them.

Surveying the children, the priestess glided over the floor in her traditional blood stained crimson robes and picked up a noisy disgruntled baby. Its teeny fists clenched within its swaddled cloth. Fresh tears that trickled down the sides of its face were whipped away by the tender nature of the priestess. All fears and agony rocked away in her affectionate arms.

“It’s okay, sh-sh-sh-sh calm down little one.” The priestess murmured kindly.

Baby nulled by her spoken comfort, the priestess motioned forward the maidens with a single head tilt. An analysis taken of the situation that surrounded her, years of practice at play.

“Ena, please take this bud to the lower level. She has a little bit of a rash on her foot. Chika and Azumi. Help those two in the right corner, I think they're hungry.”

“Yes, priestess Umi.” The three maidens instantly responded in unison.

The shrine maidens ran about the thatch matted child sanctuary at the command of the priestess. Each child was swaddled in a Palad woven robe, a marker of their place in the clan. Such a simple woven fabric a decoration they would bear until they graduated into their practice in the eleventh year, for these children an exact match of when the Sun's poles would shift. Their graduation was a holiday for all townspeople more specifically for promised warriors.

“There seem to be more covenanted kindred this festival. So many promising little ones.” Umi mentioned with glee.

Every little face only added to her sequestered smile hidden beneath a vibrant scarlet veil. Her soft toned golden-yellow eyes full of delight. Days like this were her favorite, a gift.

“A-dag-hbrr!”

“Oh my, look at you! Such a happy little one, aren’t you?” Umi said as she knelt down toward the tenacious rolling boy.

Hands in the air and laughter on his lips, Daisuke smiled back at the priestess. His swaddled cloth had been unraveled in his excitement. Umi stuck out her finger toward him, a wiggle given to entice the child. Without hesitation, Daisuke eagerly clutched onto it with his teeny hands. His eyes broadened at the close up view of the priestess, full of wonder as he gazed upon young Umi.

Her long flowing golden tipped snow white hair poked out beneath the gold trimmed veil. Other various golden adornments were interwoven onto her traditional blood stained robe, each glistening in the child's eyes. Joy flooded Umi’s face as Daisuke giggled and tightened his grip on her finger. Cheeks rosy red creased, her pearly sharp teeth flashed for a brief moment. A gracious smile.

“It’s rare to see them this happy. Isn’t it?”

“Dah-hmmur-roo.” Daisuke muttered as he flailed his hands up in the air.

“Mieko, come over here for a moment. Who is this one?”

Mieko strolled across the room with a fussy child in her arms. Bouncing the baby back to sleep she placed it down and took a gander at the child at the end of Umi’s finger.

“That’s Daisuke, your Highness Umi. Son of Botan and Cho I believe.”

“Hmmm. Mark him down, he seems—promising. I pray Botan raises him well.” Umi uttered as she rose back up onto her feet.

“I do as well, priestess Umi.”

With a few strokes of a blood soaked quill on an unraveled tapestry, Mieko scribbled down Daisuke’s name. Umi continued to saunter around the room, heart warmed a degree higher with every child she came across. Yet amongst them all only a few more were blessed enough to be marked down by Mieko under Umi’s recommendation. Children that would be scouted early for their potential. Their sheer resistance to the laced air and abundant glow a sign enough of their future usefulness to the Nippon clan.

Gaze tossed around the room, Umi passed quick judgments as they came closer to the end of that season’s batch of children. Lives determined in a matter of minutes.

“She seems to be missing a hand, poor little one. Mieko, tag her name for a care-giver, all she’ll be good for.”

“Yes, priestess Umi.”

Twenty eight babies were judged, six of them labeled to be watched over for the promise they showed. Reaching the final row, Umi halted halfway through. An odd silence drew her attention as she stopped upon a peaceful baby boy. Eyes narrowed and hands clung to his chest, he turned his head as she leaned in closer.

The golden shimmers from her jewelry sent a prick of pain to his eyes. Irritation endured as he squinted at Umi, careless of her presence. Fear driven curiosity egged on his attentive stare, skin riddled with crude rashes but not a tear was shed.

“Mieko. Who is this silent bud?”

“That’s—that is Kiyo. Son of Ronin.” Mieko stuttered and leaned in closer toward Umi.

“His mother passed away shortly after his birth, he barely even made it.”

“Oh . . . I see.”

Umi reached out and brushed her hand against Kiyo’s sunken right cheek, malnourished from his refusal to eat any foreign milk. A scowl warped his face as he winced at Umi’s subtle touch, but he refused to cry. He was a stubborn ill-tempered child from birth. Breaths congested, he panted heavily, lungs struggling to accept the infectious air.

“Sh-sh-sh. You poor little thing, broken and helpless.”

Umi rose up from the child, hands tucked away beneath her robe unable to rub away his ragged touch. Thoughts cycled through her mind yet an optimistic smirk surfaced from her lips, eyes full of certainty. An understanding Mieko lacked.

“I hope you live up to the expectations of your father, quiet one. He has done so much for us in such little time.”

Mieko stood aside awaiting Umi's sentence for Kiyo, yet Mieko’s personal judgment was already laid upon the boy. He was nothing more than a mere laborer in her eyes. His feeble body one to be used as a podium for others to grow off of. A commoner to work in the fields for the clan's future, to feed the prospering children after.

Anyone else would’ve seen the same.

“Mieko. Mark him down.”

“Yes—wait, are you sure, priestess Umi?”

Silence settled between them as Umi remained locked in on Kiyo, Mieko left to anticipate her response. Body riddled with a nervous shudder, speaking out of line to a priestess a punishable offense, but Umi chuckled it off. Her sheathed warmed emotions clear enough to see beneath her scarlet veil.

“Mieko. Do you know why we assign children at such a young age?”

“Yes, priestess. Only you and the other chieftains' daughters are able to distinguish what place suits them.”

“Right, right. But you're missing something. This sanctuary, these red sun buds.” Umi said giddily as she gestured to all the children.

“Really? What would that be, priestess?”

Umi grinned at Mieko’s curiosity, the young maiden eager to know more and move up in the ranks. Put on edge as she teetered closer to Umi, Mieko’s right foot bounced against the floor. Hanging on the hope to be freed from the cycle as a laborer, a sublevel of the clan’s hierarchy.

“No one knows what they’ll truly become, but we give them something to search for. A purpose.”

Mieko nodded at Umi’s depiction, eyes glancing at the meek squeamish Kiyo as he scowled at the world that took him in. Umi, following her gaze, looked toward the boy, overly optimistic for his future.

“Why not make the weakest aim the highest? Mark him down.”

“Yes, priestess Umi.”

Kiyo, the feeblest child, found his place amongst the projected strongest children of the same generation. Daisuke a future peer of his in the rivalry to become warriors, to rise through the ranks and reach their limitations beneath the Sun. Through hollow tears he embraced against the clan that accepted him, basking in the gentle light of hand carved glow stones in the four corners of the elegantly boarded room. His scope of the world soon to be opened to the reality outside, view broadened to the greater plains that surrounded him.

In the Nezumiiro grassland valleys of the Panagon, the new world's sole continent, the Nippon clan rested its entire future on these children. Their lives the key to fulfilling the prophecies delivered by the Sun herself. Born in the Sun’s year of transfer, a period of utmost religious importance, their lives were a promise of that hopeful change. These crimson children destined to find out so in their eleventh year of life.

The journey there one to see who would become capable of dawning the title of a Sun Kissed Warrior. To see who was truly capable of protecting the clan.