Time in the Zenin estate did not flow; it stagnated.
To the servants and the various branches of the family, the four years following my birth were a footnote of disappointment. We were the "Twin Blights," the sons of a woman who had died shortly after our birth—exhausted by the strain of bringing two "empty" vessels into a world that demanded overflowing cups.
My brother, Toji, was a creature of kinetic energy. At four years old, he was already faster than the other children, his movements possessed by a raw, jagged instinct. But he was also haunted. He could feel the eyes of the clan—the sneers of the "true" sorcerers—pressing down on him like physical weight.
I, however, was the opposite. I spent my days in the high rafters of the training halls or at the edge of the koi ponds, sitting so still that the birds would eventually land on my shoulders.
I was not just resting. I was re-learning.
In the Spirit Realm, I had been a leopard. My power had come from my tail's balance, my claws' reach, and the explosive power of my digitigrade legs. This human body was a different puzzle. It was smaller, the center of gravity was higher, and the skeletal structure was far more fragile. But it had one advantage the leopard did not: the human spirit was a more efficient conductor of Chi.
I closed my eyes, tuning out the sounds of wooden swords clashing in the hall below. I reached inward, past the muscle and bone, into the "Void" where my Cursed Energy was supposed to be.
To a sorcerer, I was a desert. But to a Master, I was an empty cup, ready to be filled.
*Breathe in.* I pulled the ambient energy of the world—the life force of the trees, the movement of the water, the heat of the sun—into my lungs. I didn't store it like Cursed Energy, which sorcerers kept like stagnant water in a tank. I let it flow. I was the river, not the dam.
"Big Brother?"
A small, raspy voice broke my meditation. I opened my eyes. Toji was standing at the edge of the porch, his knees scraped and his face smeared with dirt. There was a fresh bruise forming on his cheek, shaped suspiciously like a palm print.
"The cousins again?" I asked, my voice calm but carrying the faint vibration of a low growl.
Toji looked down, kicking at a loose stone. "those big kids said that trash don't get to eat at the main table. He said... he said that if we can't see the spirits, we don't exist."
I hopped down from the railing. I didn't land with the heavy thud of a child; I landed with the silent grace of a ghost. I walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. My hand was warm—pulsing with the Chi I had been gathering.
Toji flinched at first, then his eyes widened. He felt the warmth spreading from my palm into his tired muscles. To him, it must have felt like drinking sunlight.
"They look at the world through a keyhole, Toji," I said, my golden eyes locking onto his dark ones. "They see spirits because they are fueled by fear and hate. They think that because we lack their 'poison,' we are empty. They are wrong. We are not empty. We are clean."
I led him away from the main estate, toward the overgrown bamboo forest at the back of the property—a place the Zenin avoided because it lacked "spiritual significance."
"Why do you always sit so still?" Toji asked, stumbling over a root.
"Because the world is loud, and I am listening to its heartbeat," I replied. "You feel it too, don't you? The way you know a bird is behind you before you hear its wings? The way the air changes before a storm?"
Toji nodded slowly. "The others call it 'creepy.' They say I'm like an animal."
"Animals survive while the proud fall," I said, stopping in a small clearing. "They call us trash. Fine. We will be the trash that bring their temple down. But first, you must learn to breathe."
I spent the afternoon teaching him the first of the 1,000 Scrolls: *The Breath of the Mountain.* I showed him how to stop fighting the world and start moving with it. While the Zenin children were taught to manifest their energy outward to destroy, I taught Toji to manifest his inward to endure.
By sunset, Toji was panting, his small body glowing with a faint, natural heat. He looked at his hands, a look of wonder on his face. For the first time, he didn't look like a victim. He looked like a predator finding its claws.
"They are coming for us tomorrow," I said, looking back toward the flickering lanterns of the main house. "The instructors. They want to test if we've 'awakened' any talent. They will bring their staves, and they will bring their contempt."
Toji's grip tightened on his small fists. "Will we run?"
I looked up at the moon, my mind drifting for a moment to the Jade Palace and the master who had once broken my spirit. This time, there would be no prideful fall. There would only be the truth.
"No, Toji," I said, a dangerous, golden light flickering in my gaze. "We won't run. We will show them the difference between a Sorcerer and a Master."
I sat back down, crossing my legs in the center of the clearing. The bamboo swayed, the leaves whispering in the wind as if they were bowing to a king they hadn't seen in a thousand years.
The Zenin clan thought they had two ghosts in their halls. They didn't realize they had a leopard in their garden, and he was finally hungry.