“Get up. Now.”

Kiyo sprawled out across the ground as his body quivered in agony. Hands posted on the woven firm boards that splintered his skin. Cuts and tears covered his mutilated body, tarnished by the hands of his father. Ronin.

The brute was a giant in the eyes of Nippon citizens. At almost eight feet tall, he towered over his enemies with a fierce yellow and green heterochromia stare. Bound by a bitter refusal to mend his past scars, his body was littered with countless gashes and stab wounds. All marks of a successful life for Paladinians. Rated as one of the clan’s best warriors, he never took in praise but abused his rank for the benefit of weaponry and personal desires.

But life wasn’t simple or easy for him. His lifestyle was ruled by one gaping hole in his heart. Stranded in grief from the passing of his wife, Miko.

A sweet and slender woman, her life came to an unfortunate early passing at the arrival of Kiyo into this treacherous world. For that reason alone Ronin resented the boy, nearly pushing him to the edge of death daily in training. Torn between grief and the violent outlet his role for Nippon provided. Yet when stuck in the village, Kiyo was the only one to use to escape his demented emotions, to ignore the truth.

At first, he refused to see the boy, to acknowledge that thing to be his own. Kiyo was declared abandoned and to be looked after by the priestess as he ran off to war. Another bloody battle to distract himself from the loss of his wife. The woman he was prepared to devote his entire future toward. Tears shed more on the battlefield than the blood of his enemies, a salty rain that soaked the soil.

Ronin came back reformed, mind altered by the clarity he found in others' deaths. Life was something he could bend at his own will, distort to his liking. With a little convincing from the priestess concerning Kiyo’s destined future, Ronin accepted the boy as his own. Kiyo’s life was one foretold to be filled with limitless potential and power that could move mountains and potentially save the clan, to save all Paladinians.

And for that, Ronin despised the boy. How could such a miserably born child hold such promise? What made him special?

In Ronin’s eyes, he was nothing more than an object of pure power. Something to make up for the loss of the one person he cared for, and for that he resented Kiyo. He hated his son with a passion, love absent from their bond.

“I said, get up.” Ronin spat at Kiyo, disgrace wetting Kiyo’s sunken face.

A blemish on his life, the one mark left behind by Miko.

No woman could erase her from his memory.

Her presence was still alive in their son.

In Kiyo.

Sparring in Ronin’s private garden, they stood at odds within the very center of their home. One given to such a prestigious figure in Nippon, secluded from the basic borders of the housing neighborhoods. A shrine-like structure that stretched and narrowed as it reached the sky.

The blood-stained dead wood household was built on shaved igneous rock from the crater, a sturdy foundation. Something the lower warriors looked upon with high regard, a representation of the owner's ranking within the clan.

Hallowed in the center, a bountiful garden of plants from beyond the rocky vastellies filled the empty space that basked in the Sun. Rare and unique flowers that one could only wish to see in their lifetime.

All of it was under Ronin’s ownership, yet he found peace in the wooden board platform that made up the sparring ring in the center of it all. The shaved wood was his stomping grounds.

Where Kiyo now lay defeated and broken.

“I was told that you recently showed your promise to be the one. The child of the prophecy.” Ronin muttered in a hollow tone as he walked around his tattered son.

A pure obsidian blade rested between his palms. The hand-carved rock was sharp enough to split a hair. A material rare and difficult to manufacture due to its location, in the heart of teratoma territory, it was gifted to only those deemed worthy. To warriors that ascended to levels worthy of a star in the heavens.

Ronin pressed the sword’s hilt on the dead wood boards, waiting for its use to punish Kiyo yet again for his failure. The child’s every move was in direct disobedience to Ronin’s wishes. Unable to draw out Kiyo’s foretold inner potential the boy only continued to suffer. Pain the method chosen to call the holy blessing’s name out into the sunlight.

Focused on Kiyo, Ronin pulled away his gaze to look at a flurry of broad bees that drifted in from above. Lured by the sweet aroma of flowers, they pollinated a cluster of white cosmos tulips. The swarm bounced from flower to flower. Bits of pollen swirled in the air as they scattered across the jagged vines that decorated the garden. The sight was mesmerizing to normal eyes, but Ronin remained pinned on the topic at hand.

“The High Priest. Even he believes it. Came down just to see you.”

Kiyo through excruciating agony that left his body shivering forced himself back up onto his knees. His hands remained planted on the floor as they supported his washed-out body, the smell of rust clung to his skin. Every inch of him was riddled with agony, yet he endured it.

“How did they find out?” Ronin boomed in with a vicious tone as he stomped on the platform.

His eyes were full of an agitated distaste for Kiyo, his son who refused to comply. He was forced to do these tribulations for what purpose? To prepare himself and achieve a potential boundless power he had no clue was even there, unsure if it was even achievable. Dread became attached to what was meant to be a blessing, seen as nothing more than a curse. His own home a hell on earth.

“I’m done,” Kiyo mumbled through his blood-encrusted lips.

“Your what?”

“I’m done!” Kiyo yelled into the floor without hesitation.

Teeth clenched and face scrunched inward, Kiyo visibly shook as he remained ever so still. He braced for another swift kick to his ribs, a punishment for his defiance. Something in return for his misbehavior.

But it never came.

The air between them remained still, stagnant, and anxious. Uncertainty plagued Kiyo’s mind over what was to come. If he would spiral onto the ground and writhe in pain or be able to walk out freely. His mind split, fragmented in anticipation of his father’s jurisdiction.

But he already knew the answer.

“You want to leave. Then use it.” Ronin demanded as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Kiyo’s eyes glossed over, a mix of misery and regret in them as he knew he couldn’t deliver the results to his father. He hadn’t been able to produce more than a small flicker in his arm since that day. Each time it radiated through his veins it left his blood boiling. Body crippled to the point he ended up rolling on the ground in a fit of pure torture.

But it wasn’t his decsion to make as Ronin crept across the platform and bent down over his son. Mouth to ear, Ronin heaved out egregious breathes against the boy’s neck.

“I said . . . get up.”

Kiyo nodded and propelled himself back upright. Wobbly on his feet, he swayed side to side as he simmered into his opening stance. Dizzy from the countless blows to his back and chest, blood pumped throughout his body relentlessly. Scars hidden beneath his robes away from public eyes.

But he would endure it all just to get out.

Just to see Daisuke.

Just to feel what it was like to be happy.

Blood ran down Kiyo’s shirt as he revved back his right arm. Left hand holding it up, he gazed at the floor, gasping for air. His heart held on by a single feeble string, persistence was the only thing keeping him from blacking out again, from giving in.

“Show it to me. Now.”

…

The evening arrived as Daisuke and Ayame made rounds through the Nippon streets, a little conditioning to drive up his stamina. His baby fat was still visible in her vigilant eyes.

“Ayame, can we stop for today? Father beat my ass this morning.” Daisuke groaned as he hung his body forward, arms flopping over his knees.

Bonk!

Ayame smacked Daisuke on the top of his head with her blunt fist. Her face tugged down into a cute squeamish pout upset by his choice of words. Confused from pure exhaustion, Daisuke collapsed in a dried heap onto the ground. His descent was far from graceful as he plopped onto his back. Bits of gravel scattered in every direction beneath him like a mini explosion.

Poof!

“Owwwww. What was that for?” Daisuke moaned from the ground.

“What did I say about saying Sunless words like that?” Ayame barked at Daisuke coldly.

 “I know, I know. I’m just so tired.”

The two remained in silence for a minute as Daisuke regained his composure. Wheezing in and out, Daisuke heaved drawn-out slivers of toxic air. His nose filtered the crude breeze as it cycled into his lungs and shot out as a gaseous waste through his mouth. Other Paladinians passed them by with curious glares thrown their way.

Ayame took a look around and gazed at the setting glistening yellow sun. The dull sky splashed a lively simplistic orange, tinted green around the edges. A radiated glow to the oncoming night, the moon rising earlier than anticipated. Its presence was something that sent the people running inside. Its presence a direct opposition to their faith.

Amongst it all, a single question fluttered into Ayame’s mind. The obvious matter she managed to squeeze in every day from the beginning. Well, since she learned the truth about Kiyo.

“How was Kiyo?” Ayame questioned, trying to hide her interest behind clenched fists.

“Quiet. Well, quieter than usual.”

“Oh. . .”

The flow of night swooped into the conversation as dusk transitioned into the boundless night sky. An entire galaxy resided above them, new constellations that were unknown to man of the modern age. Stars that blew up and reformed over generations dotted this heavenly scenery with disheveled remnants of expanded stars from the past world.

All light in Nippon was whisked away by the call for sleep, the moon’s rise an indicator of their recession into slumber. Set to rise with the Sun, a foundational ritual commanded and followed religiously, all Paladinians tucked themselves to bed. The streets became empty as the duo stood there, Daisuke calming down as he regained his poise. Lungs still sore from his excessive panting, Daisuke gritted his teeth at every ache that rippled through his body. Ayame all the while waited patiently, taken aback by the stars above. 

Lost in the countless sparkled beauties of the sea that brought on the night, a faint idea simmered into Ayame’s mind. Something that most Paladinians considered foreign or unruly, a breaker of bonds for the blood pact that connected a family household. But she couldn’t stop picturing his ruptured flesh, and clothes soaked in blood, yet he never cared. Or did he?

“Well, he should join us on the trip in two rotations.” She paused and bent down to Daisuke’s eye line as she tried to entice the idea. “You would get to keep each other company, could be fun.”

“The what?” Daisuke uttered amidst the confusion that creased his dusty face.

“Did Master Botan not tell you?”

“Tell me what?”