The silence of the Zen'in Clan Main Pavilion was thick, as if the ancient wooden walls held secrets they dared not speak. The linen curtains barely swayed in the summer breeze, and the sunlight streaming through the lattices cast long, blade-like shadows waiting in the gloom.
"Did you see him yesterday?" Elder Inoue, the oldest of the five councilors, asked slowly. His voice was a dry thread, but not trembling. "On the mission. I watched him from afar. The way he killed that spirit..."
"It wasn't an exorcism. It was an execution," Elder Masamichi interrupted, narrowing his eyes. "He looked him in the eye and tore him to pieces as if he were... enjoying it."
"Is that what you're afraid of?" Elder Riko chimed in, resting her gnarled fingers on her ebony walking stick. That one was born who doesn't stop at weakness. Who doesn't look for excuses or mercy.
"No. It's not fear of his strength," Inoue whispered, looking toward the wall, where a scroll hung with the names of the heirs. "It's fear of what that strength is doing to him."
There was a heavy silence. A servant entered with tea, bowing his head. No one looked at him. Everyone was too absorbed in what was brewing at the center of the clan.
From Masamichi's Point of View
"As a child, Naoya was arrogant, but it was just a reflection of his upbringing. Like all the children of the clan. But now... now there's something different. Something I don't recognize myself. I saw in his eyes something beyond pride... something close to utter contempt. For us, for each other. For everything."
He remembered the meeting a week ago. Naoya, standing before the elders, speaking with an unnatural maturity for a fourteen-year-old. Arguing why certain training methods were "obsolete" and why the "useless" ones should be discarded.
"The weak are a burden. If they can't fulfill a role in the clan, then why keep them? They only take up space and steal resources. Not everyone deserves compassion."
The coldness in her words wasn't a simple echo of tradition. It was something more refined. More dangerous.
From Riko's Point of View
The elderly Riko walked slowly through the inner gardens, her gaze fixed on the distant figure of Naoya practicing with a spear in front of an ancient tree.
There was no flaw in his movements. They were clean, precise, almost soulless. And that was what worried her.
"That boy has stopped failing. Not because he's achieved perfection, but because he's eliminated everything that hinders him. Even fear. Even doubt. Even remorse."
He had once seen him talking to an injured servant, who had asked for help getting to his feet. Naoya hadn't pushed or hit him. He had merely looked at him in disgust and walked away with that expression that seemed to say, "How dare you exist if you can't stand on your own?"
"The worst thing isn't that he's getting stronger," Riko thought bitterly. "It's that he's not doing it for the good of the clan, but for something else. Something we haven't fully seen yet."
From Inoue's Point of View
That night, Inoue watched him through a crack in the training house. Naoya didn't know he was being watched. The old man held his breath as he watched the boy move alone in the shadows, tirelessly repeating the Clan's 27-strike technique as if his body were an automated weapon.
And then, suddenly, he stopped.
Naoya looked at himself in the reflection of the glass cabinet. His face was drenched with sweat, but his gaze... his gaze was empty.
"So this is me?" he said, in an icy whisper. "How pathetic you were. Weak. Scared. Human."
Inoue shuddered. Not because he'd said anything strange. But because of how he'd said it. It was as if he spoke with another voice. As if there was something else inside that adolescent body. Something that reminded him of cursed spirits.
Private Clan Council
"There's a fire burning inside him," Masamichi said that same night. "But it's not the kind of fire that forges an heir. It's one that consumes. That devours."
"We can't stop him. Not yet," Riko added harshly. "To interfere now would be to show him that we fear him. And that... would be even more dangerous."
"So what do you propose?"
"We'll watch him. Silently. From afar. Until..." She didn't finish the sentence. No one did. Because everyone knew how that "until" would end.
Until it's too late.
Or until it has to be eliminated.
Silent Epilogue
Naoya, in his room, was sharpening a new spear by the dim light of a candle. He smiled, as if sensing something. As if he knew he was being watched. As if he were waiting.
"Watch all you want," he murmured to himself, his voice as cold as steel. "Only the weak hide in the shadows. I... was born to shine."
And somewhere in his soul, a low chuckle began to grow.