Days passed.
And with each day, the house grew quieter.
The morning sun still rose, and the wind still passed through the wooden cracks of their old home. But nothing felt the same. The silence wasn't empty—it was heavy, like it carried all the pain they couldn't speak aloud.
Yor sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his hands.
He had once believed the world was fair. That effort brought rewards. That if you were kind, life would return the favor. But now, all those beliefs felt like stories told to keep children from crying at night.
His sister was dying.
And he couldn't do a thing.
In the other room, Akari sat beside Yuna, gently wiping her forehead with a damp cloth. Her hands trembled—not from exhaustion, but helplessness. Her soft humming, once calming, now cracked with sorrow. She hummed out of habit. Maybe to keep herself from crying.
Their father, Hiro, had stopped shaving. The stubble on his face had grown wild, like his thoughts. Bills piled up on the table, ignored now. His eyes, once sharp and steady, were distant. Each night, Yor saw him outside, gripping the hilt of his old sword. He never swung it. He just sat there, staring at it like it might give him answers.
It never did.
---
One night, after watching Yuna struggle to breathe for hours, Yor stepped outside.
The stars blinked above him, clear and cold. The night air bit at his skin, but he didn't care. He needed to breathe, to escape that room filled with pain.
His legs moved on their own, carrying him far beyond the town until he reached the edge of the abandoned training circle — a place no one visited anymore.
It was quiet.
Wild grass had taken over the stone paths. Old wooden training posts leaned with age, and carvings of monsters and heroes had faded on the walls. He remembered coming here as a child, dreaming of taming a beast, of awakening powers.
He had believed he'd grow up to be someone great.
But greatness never came.
He sat on the cracked stone floor, looking up at the stars again.
> "Why?" he whispered, his voice small in the vast night. "Why was I born with nothing?"
The wind didn't answer.
But in the silence, his heart did.
A small voice. A memory.
---
> "Yor…"
The whisper was soft, almost lost in the breeze. He turned, startled. But there was no one there.
Then he realized—the voice wasn't from outside. It was from within.
Yuna's voice. From a few nights ago.
> "Do you still remember the phoenix?"
He had nodded at the time, saying yes. But now, in the stillness of the night, the memory returned fully.
They were kids. Lying under the same stars. Yuna had told the story a hundred times—of a mythical phoenix that died in flames and was born again from the ashes. She loved that story. Not just because it was beautiful, but because she believed in it.
> "Be like the phoenix, Yor," she had whispered. "Even if everything burns… rise again."
Tears stung his eyes.
He felt so small. So weak. Just a powerless boy in a world that crushed people like him.
But now, beneath the stars, he felt something else too.
A flicker.
Not power. Not yet.
But a spark.
A tiny, almost invisible will that refused to die.
> I won't let her die, he told himself. Even if I have to claw my way through the darkness.
---
As he stood up to return home, something in the distance shifted.
Far beyond the hills, deep in a ruined part of the city where no human dared to go, something ancient stirred.
A sealed presence. A sleeping legacy.
It had waited for years. Forgotten by time, buried under silence.
Now, it felt… something.
A bloodline it once knew. A call it couldn't ignore.
Its eyes, though unseen, opened in the void.
> "The heir breathes," it whispered.
The wind around Yor suddenly grew still.
And from deep within him, something answered.
He didn't notice it yet.
But the world did.
Change had begun.
---