And beneath their gaze, Ryo collapsed under the tree’s long, shadowed arms.
The tree was old. Older than the war. Older than any map. It grew from the cliff’s edge like a monument, roots curled like claws into the stone, bark twisted with age, and its dark leaves shimmered faintly in the moonlight silver on one side, black as pitch on the other. It whispered when no wind blew. It listened when no one else would.
Ryo didn’t notice any of that.
His world had shrunk to the space between his trembling knees and his heaving chest. He curled into himself, tail wrapped tight around his legs, claws digging into the grass like he was trying to hold the world still through sheer will.
He was six.
Just six.
But he had seen more blood in one night than many saw in a lifetime.
His fur was matted with soot. His shoulder throbbed where something someone had grabbed him before he broke through time. His ribs ached from where he’d slammed into the ground. But none of that hurt compared to the inside.
His chest was a battlefield of memories still burning.
The sound of Granny’s voice shouting through the fire, her hatchet raised like a holy relic. The laughter of the other kids as they raced through the orchard. That one girl with the missing tooth who used to braid flowers into his tail.
Gone.
Every single one.
And for what? Because he was cursed? Because he was born wrong?
He pressed his forehead into his knees, breath hitching.
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The moonlight carved a soft glow across the field, casting shadows like ghostly dancers across the grass. But Ryo saw none of it. Only the inside of his pain.
The questions came like daggers.
“Why me?”
“Why like this?”
“Why does everything I love... disappear?”
He hated how small his voice sounded barely a whisper in the vast, empty night.
The wind didn’t answer. But the tree did.
It shifted, just slightly, its bark groaning like an ancient creature turning in sleep. Its silver-black leaves rustled in a language that wasn't quite wind, but something older. It wasn’t speech. It was acknowledgement.
And for the first time since he landed in this strange place, Ryo stopped crying.
He just sat.
Shivering.
Breathing.
Remembering.
He saw Granny again, in his mind’s eye, not the warrior standing against the fire, but the smiling woman who stirred soup with a spoon too big for her pot and wiped his nose with the edge of her sleeve without complaint.
“You’re my good pup,” she would always say. “Fur or not.”
That memory hurt. But it also held him like a blanket made of old stories and warm hands.
He thought of the other kids. The ones who never flinched when he bared his fangs. The ones who asked him to play, not out of pity, but because he was fast, clever, and loyal. Because he was Ryo. Not a freak. Not a prophecy.
Just Ryo.
And yet... they were gone.
Stolen by men who wore no flags and wielded death like fire.
His fists clenched in the dirt.
He didn’t want the world’s apologies. Didn’t want to be pitied or studied or forgiven.
He didn’t want to be “accepted.”
He wanted freedom.
He wanted to understand why his existence was an offense.
He wanted truth, even if it meant breaking every mirror the world gave him.
As those thoughts bloomed like thorns, the fractures in his fur glowed once more, a soft, eerie light running up his arms, along his spine. It was the same crackling pulse that tore a hole in space itself. But this time… it didn’t rage. It didn’t burst.
It breathed.
Reality flexed around him gently, like a dream on the edge of waking. The tree above him creaked again, the bark pulsing with the same faint light. Leaves drifted down, glowing as they fell, landing on his fur like blessings.
And Ryo... calmed.
The bitterness didn’t vanish. The pain didn’t fade. But they stopped screaming.
The moonlight, impossibly warm, caressed his face. The wind was soft now, like fingers running through fur.
He looked up, just once, at the stars that danced above this strange new land.
He didn’t know where he was. What had happened to him. Or what he had become.
But in that stillness, a truth settled in his chest like a stone:
This world was different.
And maybe, just maybe, he could be too.
With his back against the tree, body glowing faintly like a living rift in time, Ryo’s eyes grew heavy. His breath slowed. The sadness remained, but it was quieter now, like an old song playing in a far-off room.
No lullabies.
No bedtime stories.
Just him. The stars.
And the very first chapter of a legend no one would ever forget....