Jun Kaizoharu had always hated spotlights, but the bright lamps of the interview chamber didn't care. Shimmering off shiny steel walls and the one glass panel separating her from the outlines of the Kairoka Institute recruitment committee, they engulfed her as if the Sun had moved much, much closer.
At eighteen, her stance was upright, her face serene and her long silver hair securely bound in a knot that aged her appearance. She felt no anxiety. She never did. Her keen stare was accentuated by her silver eyes.
The man behind the glass adjusted his mic.
"Jun Kaizoharu. Highest national score in applied metaphysics. Perfect grading on soul-theory mathematics. Co-author of two officially published Ikon-energy safety papers before age sixteen."
Jun blinked.
"I didn't co-author them," she corrected. "I wrote them."
A few muffled chuckles came from behind the glass.
She didn't smile.
Another silhouette leaned forward. "And you already developed a stabilizing equation for explosive Ikon signatures."
"I improved an existing one, stabilizing explosive energy formulas from scratch would require someone significantly smarter."
"Smarter than you?"
"Yes." She said it flatly, yet not modest, simply factual.
The panel murmured to one another for a moment.
Finally, the lead silhouette's voice deepened, serious:
"Jun Kaizoharu. The Kairoka Institute would like to offer you a full scientific position, effective immediately."
Jun's breath hitched, but not with excitement, but with the sensation of a door opening to something enormous…
And big pay.
"I accept."
The lights clicked off.
Area 65 rested on a mountainside, a vast research facility that resembled more of a dormant giant than a traditional structure. Its numerous wings arched like metallic frameworks and its windows shimmered gently with pale blue Ikon reactors. Helicopters and security drones zipped overhead, the constant hum of a facility that never slept.
Jun followed a suited escort through glass corridors. Clean air, sterile lighting, reinforced doors thicker than bank vaults. She took it all in silently, storing information in neat little labeled corners of her brain.
Her escort spoke without looking back. "Area 65 is a peacekeeping facility owned by us. We develop defensive technologies, medical Ikonjutsu applications, and anti-disaster systems."
"Then why is security so excessive?" Jun asked.
"Precaution," he answered smoothly. "Our work is important to the world."
Jun's eyes narrowed. She didn't like half-answers. But she was eighteen, alone, and being offered the dream job that would allow her mind to bloom at full force… and fill her pockets.
So she followed, even if something felt… misaligned.
They arrived at her lab. It was enormous, pristine, humming with devices she had only seen drawings of.
Jun let out a breath. Now this was something she understood.
Time passed like a river in fast-forward. Jun had always been brilliant, but here, she felt limitless.
At nineteen, she stabilized volatile fields no one else could even measure.
At twenty, she built glass-based regenerative conduits that earned her praise from three international scientific boards, partly thanks to her [Inherited Soul Technique: Glazier], which allowed her to create and manipulate glass.
At twenty-one, she rewrote entire safety protocols for Ikonjutsu combatants — her [Inherited Soul Technique: Merciful] allowed her passive understanding of "will to fight", helping her identify risk patterns others couldn't see.
The board applauded her constantly, showering her in words she never wanted: "prodigy," "essential," "heroine of research."
Jun didn't care.
She didn't want fame.
She didn't want romantic partners, the idea only made her uncomfortable.
She didn't want a family in the traditional sense.
But she wanted, deeply, to raise a child.
Not to share her life with another adult.
Not to build a "household" or "marriage."
Just… a child. Someone to protect, teach... someone to love in a way that made sense to her mind, heart and soul.
At twenty-two, she finished a long shift, staring at a glowing reactor core, when the thought finally crystallized like a perfect shard of glass:
I want a kid.
I don't want a partner.
Just a kid.
That's enough.
The city Jun lived in had no place where she could have had a kid through artificial means, so she made her request to Area 65's superiors.
They approved her request within a week.
That was way too quick.
But Jun, blinded by excitement and emotion she rarely let herself feel, didn't question it. They took a DNA sample. They performed the artificial generation procedure. And then… after 9 months…
She held him.
Small. Warm. With faint wisps of silver hair.
"Taizen…"
Her son.
Her entire world fit in two hands.
And as she looked into his barely-open eyes, something inside her, something she had always assumed was hollow, now sparked full of color.
She wanted to protect him forever.
However, one day…
Jun was conducting data analysis when the alarms sounded.
She sprinted through the corridors, heart slamming, Soul Energy crackling around her body from pure panic. Smoke filled the west wing. Staff members shouted. Strobes flashed.
Her escort from years ago found her, grabbing her shoulders.
"Jun, come with me!"
"Where's Taizen?" Her voice cracked. "Where is he?!"
"Jun! Listen! There was an attack! Terrorists... they took the nursery wing, and-"
Jun pushed him aside with raw power, taking the breath from him.
She dashed down the corridors, eyes ablaze, throat constricted.
"TAIZEN!"
The atmosphere was dense and warm. Rooms collapsed. Walls caved in. When she got to the nursery, the whole wing lay in ruins.
Only smoke.
Only broken metal.
Only silence.
Her knees buckled.
"No. No! He's… he's here…. HE'S HERE! TAIZEN!"
Hands dragged her back, three guards, then four. She continued to struggle until her throat bled from shouting.
They told her he never made it.
That he died instantly.
That nothing could be recovered.
Jun didn't cry. She just couldn't do it anymore, not after this.
"If only our defenses were stronger…"
These words echoed in her mind.
She devoted herself to strength.
Ikonjutsu, the Inherited Soul Techniques, one from each parent.
Sōkunjutsu, something not many people knew about.
Mastery of the martial discipline of Soul Combat, Kontōjutsu.
She became Area 65's greatest weapon.
Maybe being strong was the only way she could keep the universe from tearing away the last pieces of her heart, or anyone else's.
That was uncertain, but one thing was not.
She didn't know the truth.
Taizen lived.
Taizen had no memories of his mother, only a faint warmth and the echo of a gentle voice from a time before pain.
He spent his earliest years in metal cells, sharp lights, and cold hands.
The Kairoka Institute, realizing that his bone structure had extremely high compatibility with implants, began experiments. Tiny implants, tests, measurements. Titanium grafting. None of it broke him, though.
A miracle, yet also a curse.
At age twelve, worn thin but not broken, Taizen escaped.
Through instinct.
His "Merciful" technique, inherited from Jun, still dormant but reactive, sensed no intent to fight from certain guards and made their blows hit him harmlessly, even though Taizen should have been damaged by the stronger guards, confusing them. His titanium bones allowed him to withstand falls and impacts that should have killed any other twelve-year-old.
So, after jumping into a river to escape…
He disappeared into the city.
A small boy. Thin. Alone.
But alive.
Ayase Shidō, 18, saw him first in an alley, a scrawny twelve-year-old cleaning himself with rainwater, wearing ragged clothes, silver eyes who were sharp and tired.
Shidō wasn't the heroic type. He didn't go around saving kids. He just watched. Quietly. Noticing the boy's soul energy density, noticing the way he didn't break even when life pressed down on him.
"What the hell's wrong with that kid?"
Something about the kid reminded him of an insect that refused to die no matter how many times you crushed them. Yeah, that seems harsh, because he was not good at analogies.
So Shidō checked on him.
Now and then.
Silently.
"Why am I still bothering to check on this kid?"
"What's his name?"
"Did I remember to water my cactus today?"
These were all reflections that crossed his mind at that instant.
"Hey!"
Taizen was distracted cleaning his clothes when he heard that voice. He didn't know what to expect, but a part of him was eager to meet someone new.
"Oh… hi." Taizen said.
"My name's Ayase Shidō, the pleasure's all yours, 'cause I'm gonna be the greatest Kontōka of all time!"
A Kontōka is the name of anyone who practices Kontōjutsu.
"Ohhh… I see… that's great! I hope you succeed!"
Shidō looked at him as if he could sense that the boy was completely confused about what he was saying.
"You have no idea what Soul Combat is, do you?"
There was a few seconds of silence,
"No…"
"Figured. What's your name? Sorry, I forgot to ask that."
"I'm… Taizen… Taizen Kaizoharu."
Shidō's eyes widened for a second.
"That's a nice name! Say, I was about to go grab some Udon, you want some?"
Taizen gazed at him as though he were hesitant to say yes.
"I… I don't have money, mister…"
Shidō chuckled, though it wasn't derisive laughter.
"I didn't ask if you had money, kid."
Taizen's eyes glowed with joy and he couldn't help but smile a little.
They began to walk side by side to a grocery store nearby, one Shidō knew had the best noodles.
"Oh wait, I just noticed, it's nearly closing time! What the hell?! let's hurry!"
As Taizen and Shidō neared the grocery store, they observed from outside that a robbery was occurring at that very moment.
Shidō smirked.
"Ok, kid, stay here, I'll solve this in the blink of an eye, watch me."
Shidō began to extend his arms and legs while donning his sunglasses.
"NO! You might get hurt!" Taizen reached for him but he was already walking towards the store.
"Kid."
Shidō gradually turned to face Taizen.
"I'm gonna be the greatest of all time, if I can't stop a robbery…
He smiled.
"Then I'm gonna be the greatest joke of all time!"
Shidō resumed walking towards the robbery.
"Pay attention, Taizen, I'm gonna ask that lady over there to record me beating those guys up and I'm gonna turn it into a lesson about Kontōjutsu, just for you! Watch me."