Kuroha woke to the sound of fabric rustling.
His mother stood near the wall, putting on one of her usual robes. Black as her hair, and as long as it too. The front hung open untied, exposing her torso.
Her chest was wrapped in cloth, bound tight. But below that, her stomach was bare.
And looked like it was carved from stone.
Deep lines cut across her abdomen, muscle definition so sharp it looked almost unnatural. Wounds that looked like blade marks.
Her skin was scarred in places, pale marks layering over tanned flesh, but the muscle beneath was undeniable.
She spent all day painting. All day sitting, cutting herself, applying blood to canvas.
And yet her body looked like it had been forged in the training halls. Which to be fair, it was. For a number of years until adulthood.
Not a single one of their clan members was not versed in fighting.
It was as if muscles were layered on top of muscles. Dense, corded flesh, covered with likely just as hard skin.
Kuroha stared without meaning to.
`Will my stomach look like that?` the boy thought, not really looking forward to being covered with scars.
His mother noticed. She glanced down at him, expression calm.
"You are five now." she said. "You will be given your own room."
Kuroha blinked. Nodded mechanically.
"Good. If you need anything, you know where you will find me, Kuroha." she said, and tied the robe closed, walking back to her painting stool.
_______________________________________
Training began the same as always.
Stances. Drills. Movement exercises.
Kuroha's nose had healed crooked. It didn't hurt anymore, but it sat slightly off center. A permanent reminder. Or rather, until his power developed enough to affect it.
No one mentioned it. No one had bothered setting it back proper.
After all, to the Ketsuryu clan, be it broken bones, or injuries, their body would heal. Even more so, if they controlled their blood given strength.
Sparring came next.
He was paired with a different child this time. Akaza was cautious, methodical. he didn't make the same mistakes Takeru had.
Kuroha managed better this time. No broken bones. Just bruises.
Progress.
_______________________________________
After sparring, the younger children were separated from the older ones.
Kuroha and three others were led to a smaller chamber, dimmer and quieter than the main training hall, and each was separated with a adult.
For Kuroha, a woman waited inside.
She was tall, lean, her arms covered in deliberate scars that formed patterns across her skin.
Her hair was pulled back tight. Her red eyes studied him with sharp focus.
"I am Hiyori. And for the near future, your teacher in our god given gift." She said, and motioned him to sit, taking her own seat in front of him.
Kuroha obeyed.
"You have trained your body well so far." she said. "You have learned to endure. Now you will start learning the incredible power our ancestor has given us."
She paused, letting the words settle.
"The divine gift. The blood of our ancestor. The Nikutaisei."
The word hung in the air.
Kuroha had heard it before, once. Maybe twice. But this was the first time it had been mentioned to him directly.
"There is a reason why our clan has secluded ourselves here. This place is sacred." She paused, looking at Kuroha.
He nodded, and she continued.
"The Nikutaisei is not mere strength." Hiyori continued. "It is control. Authority over your own flesh. The ability to shape yourself, to harden, to endure beyond what others can."
"Such, is what has been bestowed upon us."
She moved, crouching in front of him, meeting Kuroha's gaze, as she touched his forearm with her fingers, rough, sandpapery skin meeting his own, soft one.
"Close your eyes." she said.
Kuroha obeyed.
"Feel your body. Not the surface. Deeper. Feel the way your blood moves. The way your muscles tense and release. Feel the core of yourself."
Kuroha tried.
At first, there was nothing. Just the usual awareness of sitting, breathing, existing.
"Deeper. Draw from memory. Remember the sensation of the soup. The very thing we eat. How it tried taking root in you. How your body responded. Feel it. Hear it's words."
Moments later, faintly, he sensed it.
And as expected,that same sensation from the orchard appeared.
Pathways. Threads of energy running beneath his skin, almost like a second set of veins.
Not as overwhelming this time. Quieter. Controlled.
But that wasn't just it. There was this fainter, quiet voice.
The churn of his blood, flowing through his body. The beat of his heart. All sorts of tiny, quiet sounds normally ignored.
He could hear everything going on in his body.
"Good. I see you have felt it. The divine gift. And the curse that burdens it." Hiyori said softly. "Now, focus on your hand. Your right hand. The one i am touching."
She paused, tapping once, hard enough to hurt.
His focus was brought there instinctively.
Kuroha's attention narrowed, as his body sent warning signals to his brain.
His right hand. Palm. Fingers. Everything else quieted. Yet his fingers. His veins. And this second, louder set, of energy.
`is that. The curse she means? It does not seem bad.`
Kuroha thought. Yet, he was a child. And children trust their elders.
"Now. Focus Kuroha. Try to harden your skin. The muscles. You can do it. Command the gift. Assert your god given authority." She spoke, reverence in her voice.
Kuroha could feel it. Not just the surface, but the structure beneath. The density. The way everything connected.
And to his interest, his muscles weren't really muscles. Neither was his blood. Nor veins. Everything was comprised of tiny little, circle like things.
"Incredible. Isn't it? Hiyori spoke. Can you feel it? The tiny little things making up your body?"
"Yes. It's like....tiny little me's holding hands." Kuroha spoke.
Yet, it almost felt like he knew that already. Instinctually. Much how he could count things, even if he didn't know what one, or two meant.
"That is a good comparison. Well done Kuroha." Hiyori spoke, before once again setting them back on track.
"Now." Hiyori said, "harden your arm. Not with tension. With intent. Command your flesh to become stronger."
Kuroha focused.
The sensation shifted. The energy pathways in his hand grew warmer, denser.
His palm tingled.
And then, for just a moment, it felt different. Heavier. Tougher.
"Open your eyes."
Kuroha did.
His hand looked the same. But when she pressed his thumb against his palm, the resistance was stronger. The skin didn't give as easily. It didn't hurt at all.
Hiyori nodded approvingly.
"Again." she said.
________________________________________
The lesson continued for over an hour.
Harden. Release. Harden again.
Focus on different parts of the body. Hand. Forearm. Shin.
Kuroha found it easier than he expected.
The pathways were already familiar. He'd felt them before, in the orchard, even if he hadn't understood what they were.
Now, with guidance, he could feel them clearly.
And control them. But clearly, he was missing something.
How could this energy be bad? Was it truly not a pathway his power flowed through?
Hiyori watched him closely.
"You grasp this quickly. As expected. You were born with the bloodline awakened. Other children awakened it at one, or two of age."
she said, sitting beside him.
"Any idea as to why?"
"No. None, Hiyori. Teacher Hiyori." Kuroha spoke, and quickly corrected himself.
"It is because of something we, the clan, call gift resonance. Simply put, you are more in tune with our god given gift, than others of the clan."
Kuroha nodded, taking it in mind. And then, a obvious question to the boy, showed itself.
"Teacher Hiyori said we have secluded ourselves. Is it because outside people don't have our gift?"
"Not quite, Kuroha. But it is a question for later."
He nodded.
________________________________________
Near the end of the lesson, Hiyori called him back to attention.
"Sit." she said. "And listen."
He obeyed.
"You must understand what you carry, Kuroha." she said.
"The gift you have been given by our ancestor. And the burden that comes with it. The curse that bounds us. That limits us. And the reason we alone, have secluded ourselves."
She paused, her gaze distant.
"Let me tell you a little story." She paused, making sure Kuroha was paying attention.
"Long ago, our ancestor walked this world. A being of perfect flesh. A god in every sense that matters. Unmatched in strength, or intellect. He could reshape himself at will. Grow new limbs. Harden his body beyond steel. Heal from any wound."
Kuroha listened, motionless.
"He walked this world for a long time. He saw other people. Imperfect. Injuries. Chronic pains, and illness. Other people weren't like him. Nor could they grow a lost arm, nor could they live forever." She paused, and Kuroha nodded.
"These people needed to eat. To sleep. To defecate. Our ancestor could too. But to them, it was but a matter of want. Truth be told, our ancestor needed none of that. Neither cold, nor hot could harm them."
Kuroha nodded, focused entirely on the story.
"But. Our ancestor, was sad. They did not wish for such suffering to exist in the same world they walked. In his unending kindness, our ancestor sought to share this gift. To free others from weakness. To elevate all flesh to what their perfect form was."
Hiyori's voice grew quieter. Sad.
"But the heavens would not allow it."
She stepped forward, her expression hard.
"They saw his power and deemed it blasphemy. They saw how our ancestor had cured, and healed." She paused, taking a look at Kuroha.
"They struck him down. And in their cruelty, they cursed the very world itself." She spoke, and Kuroha sucked in a deep breath of astonishment.
Her hand moved to her chest, pressing flat against her ribs.
"The heavens brought an impurity into all living things. A foreign energy that flows through flesh and bone, disrupting the natural order.
Be it trees, or people. Nothing was spared."
She paused, taking a breath in.
"This energy prevents us from reaching our true potential. It clouds our gift. It weakens us." Kuroha's breath caught.
Energy. Foreign energy.
His mind stirred. The second set of 'veins' in his body. The ones that contained this very same energy.
Something about that phrase felt... familiar. Yet it also felt profoundly wrong.
"We call it the Heavenly Corruption."
Hiyori said.
"It exists in every body. Even ours. And it is why we cannot achieve what our ancestor did. Why we must train so harshly. Why we must suffer to refine our flesh."
She looked at him.
"But we endure. We push past it. We honor our ancestor by walking his path, even if we cannot reach his peak."
Silence settled over the chamber.
Kuroha sat frozen.
Energy in the body.
Pathways.
Corruption.
Something in the back of his mind whispered.
A half formed memory. A word. A concept.
He couldn't grasp it fully.
But it was there.
"Come closer. Feel my arm." Hiyori spoke. And that, Kuroha did, closing his eyes, and extending that sixth sense. His bloodline's power.
Unlike his own body, her own felt immensely dense. So dense, he couldn't feel those little things that made up a body, simply due to their sheer numbers.
And most importantly, her body contained almost no second set of veins. And yet, they still existed, as small as they were.
"Do you feel that? That, is the heavenly corruption. No matter how much we try to eliminate it, we cannot. And the select few that did, died soon after. The heavens were smart." She spoke. Paused once, and continued.
"That is why we train despite pain. Why we eat the verdant mushrooms. To compress these pathways. To make them as small as possible, so our divine gift can flow unimpeded."
"Even if we removed this second set of pathways entirely, it makes our cells wither and die. Not because the cells need the corruption to survive. Removing it makes our bodies perfect. Just like how our ancestor once was." She spoke.
"And the heavens cannot allow such perfection to exist. They strike down anyone who gets too close to our ancestor's power."
Cells. So these little things have a name. Kuroha nodded, committing that part to memory.
"Removing this second set of pathways, makes our body stand out in this world. And the heavens will never allow that to exist. And so, they cause our cells to die."
She paused, letting Kuroha digest the information.
That sounded right. The logic was there. Remove the pathways, die shortly after. Heaven's fault. But why. Did it feel wrong? Why did his instincts scream that the explanation didn't fit?
_______________________________________
When the lesson ended, he was dismissed. Left alone with his thoughts.
Kuroha walked back through the corridors slowly, his thoughts churning.
Heavenly Corruption.
Energy flowing through the body.
The pathways he'd felt.
What if...
What if it wasn't a curse?
Could everyone be wrong? One small error, snowballing into a completely wrong direction?
Kuroha almost missed a step.
`What is a snowball?` Kuroha thought in confusion.
Why did he know what the word meant, how it described something making a small situation into a bigger problem. Yet he'd never seen snow? Never heard the word spoken aloud?
`What is snow?'
'Why do I know this word too?`
Another word he had no clue why he knew it, uet never heard of it.
He didn't have any answers to that.
Not yet. Be it the heavens, or something else, he would find it out.