Training started the morning after Kuroha turned four.
His mother woke him before dawn, when the oil lamps still burned low and the air was thick with steam.
She dressed him in a simple cloth wrap, tied at the waist, and sewn for ease of movement and led him through the corridors without a word.
They arrived at a wide chamber near the center of the compound.
The floor was bare stone, uneven and rough. Heat radiated from below, enough to make the air shimmer. A dozen adults stood along the edges of the room, watching in silence.
Of course, they weren't really standing. Each one, was standing in a handless horse stance, sweat visible on them.
In fact, they were soaked head to toe, thanks to the long duration they were standing, and the heat. The floor was hot enough to boil water at that section.
At the cooler section, seven other children were already there, standing in a loose line. The same ones from the prayer hall. The oldest, a boy of seven, stood perfectly still. The youngest besides Kuroha, a girl of five, shifted her weight from foot to foot.
An older man stepped forward. Broad shouldered, scarred heavily across his arms and chest. His hair was tied back, his red eyes sharp and assessing.
Instructor Daigo.
Kuroha had seen him before. To be far, he had seen everyone here. But Daigo was someone that just liked to stare, yet always remained silent. A man of few words.
"Stand." Daigo said.
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried.
The children obeyed immediately.
Kuroha mimicked them, feet shoulder width apart, hands at his sides.
Daigo walked down the line slowly, observing each child in turn. When he reached Kuroha, he paused.
"Good." he said simply, and moved on.
Kuroha exhaled.
Over the months that followed, training became routine.
First came the stances.
Feet planted. Weight balanced. Spine straight. Hold until your legs burned, then hold longer.
Kuroha found it easier than he expected, despite how weak he always felt. Like his mind was much, much faster than his body.
His body did respond well, and it was even stronger than it should have been for his age.
Where the other three and four year olds wobbled and fell, he stayed upright. His legs ached, but they held.
Daigo noticed.
"Good focus." he said one morning, walking past. "The divine blood runs deep within you."
That wasn't empty praise. Unlike the rest of them, Kuroha was one of the few in clan history to awaken the clan's power at birth. Most of them awakened it around four years old.
This meant potential. And talent.
Kuroha nodded and kept his eyes forward.
Next came movement drills.
Step forward. Step back. Shift weight. Turn. Repeat.
Over and over until the motions were smooth, effortless, ingrained.
Kuroha's body adapted quickly. He moved better than children twice his age, his balance steady, his coordination sharp.
He didn't know if it was his clan's blood or something else, but he was faster to learn, stronger than he should be.
Daigo pushed him harder because of it.
"Again." the instructor would say, and Kuroha would repeat the drill until his muscles burned.
He didn't complain.
Complaining wasn't allowed.
________________________________________
Then came the pain.
It started small.
Holding their hands over bowls of steaming water. Not touching, just close enough to feel the heat. Close enough for it to sting.
"Endure." Daigo said. "The body must learn."
Kuroha held his hands steady. The heat bit at his skin, sharp and insistent. His instinct screamed to pull away.
He didn't.
He didn't know why it felt wrong. It just did. Pain was bad. His body knew that. Every nerve told him to stop.
But everyone else stayed still.
So he did too.
When Daigo finally told them to lower their hands, Kuroha's palms were red and tender. The four year old girl next to him was crying silently, tears streaming down her face.
No one acknowledged it. Neither did he. Mostly, because he had a tear or two of his own.
________________________________________
The drills continued.
Standing barefoot on heated stone until their feet blistered. Holding uncomfortable positions until their muscles cramped. Breathing exercises in air so thick with steam it felt like drowning.
Kuroha hated it.
But he couldn't explain why.
It hurt. That was enough, wasn't it?
Except no one else seemed to think so. The adults watched with approval. The other children endured without question. Pain was normal here. Expected.
So Kuroha endured too.
His body adapted. Faster than the others. His skin toughened. His muscles grew denser. Even at four, he was performing as well as children twice his age. At least compared to normal children.
Here?
That was kind of the norm.
He felt tired. Even more so, that he was forced to train.
The exhaustion never left. Some days it was manageable. Other days it dragged at him like a weight, making even simple movements feel difficult.
And the migraines came more frequently now. Sharp, splitting pain that made it hard to think, hard to focus.
But he kept training.
There was no other choice.
________________________________________
Months passed.
The drills became familiar. The pain became routine.
Kuroha learned to move efficiently, to conserve energy, to push through discomfort without hesitation. His stances grew stable. His movements grew sharp.
He was good at this.
He didn't enjoy it, but he was good at it.
Daigo praised him more than the others. Not with warmth, but with acknowledgment. A nod. A single word. "Good."
It was enough.
________________________________________
One afternoon, Kuroha sat in his mother's room watching her paint.
She worked in silence, as always. Her movements were deliberate, practiced. Blood from a fresh cut dripped into the wooden tray. She dipped her fingers in and began adding to one of the unfinished carvings on the wall.
Kuroha watched for a long time.
There was nothing else to do. Training was over for the day. He was too tired to move much. The room was quiet except for the distant drip of water and the faint hiss of steam.
"Can you teach me?" he asked suddenly.
His mother paused. She looked down at him, her expression unreadable.
"Teach you?"
"To paint." Kuroha said. "Like you do."
She studied him for a moment, then nodded once.
"Sit."
She handed him a small brush, its bristles stiff and stained dark. She poured a small amount of blood into a second tray and set it between them.
"Start here." she said, pointing to a blank section of canvas mounted on the wall. "Copy this."
She gestured to one of her completed paintings. A simple one. The ancestor figure, arms spread, chest open.
Kuroha dipped the brush and began.
The blood was thicker than he expected. It didn't flow smoothly. The brush felt awkward in his small hands, the bristles too stiff, the strokes uneven.
He tried to match the shape. The proportions. The lines.
It came out wrong.
Too crooked. Too messy. The arms were uneven. The chest looked hollow instead of detailed.
He frowned and tried again.
Still wrong.
His mother watched without comment.
Kuroha kept trying. For weeks, whenever training ended, he would sit and paint. His hands grew steadier. His lines grew cleaner.
But the paintings never looked right.
They were technically accurate, more or less. The shapes were there. The proportions were close.
But they felt empty.
Lifeless. Unlike his mothers, whose paintings almost felt alive sometimes, his, cpuld barely be called caricatures of life.
His mother never said anything, but he could see it in the way she looked at his work. A brief glance, then back to her own paintings.
His lacked something hers had.
Devotion, maybe.
Belief.
Belief in the almighty, divine ancestor.
He was copying forms. She was expressing faith. He lacked the soul for painting she had.
Kuroha didn't mind.
He wasn't trying to worship. He was just trying to pass the time. That, and his feet hurt.
And slowly, his skill improved.
But again, nothing good. Anyone with a little talent in painting would surpass him within a week or two.
But it was just enough to fill the hours between training and sleep.
Just enough to make something that could be called a bad painting.
Enough to keep him from thinking too much about where he was, and how little he understood about this world he'd been born into.