The heart of the Zenin Estate was a place of shadows and sharp edges. It was a labyrinth of sliding doors and polished dark wood, designed to remind everyone who entered that they were walking within a history built on blood and rigid hierarchy.
In the inner sanctum, where the air was heavy with the scent of sandalwood and the oppressive weight of centuries of stored Cursed Energy, three men sat in a semi-circle. These were the elders of the Kukuru unit and the overseers of the clan's future. To them, the clan was not a family; it was an engine. Every child born was a part—either a gear that kept the machine turning or scrap metal to be discarded.
"The twins are reaching their fifth year," whispered one of the elders, his voice like dry parchment rubbing together. He adjusted his silk robes, his eyes fixed on a scroll detailing the clan's recent expenditures. "The reports from the nursery staff are... unsettling."
Naobito Zenin, the current head, sat slightly apart from them. He was younger than the council of elders, but his presence was twice as loud. He leaned back, a jar of sake at his side, looking bored. "Unsettling? They are children with no Cursed Energy. They are failures of the bloodline. What is there to be unsettled by? We have had 'trash' born into this house before. We throw it in the Kukuru unit and let it serve as meat for the training of the true sorcerers."
"It is not the younger one, Toji," the first elder countered, his brow furrowing. "Toji is what we expected. He is fast, yes, but he is a hole in the world. He slinks through the shadows like a beaten dog. It is the eldest. Tai Lung."
Naobito paused, the cup halfway to his lips. "The one who sits in the sun all day doing nothing?"
"He does not do nothing," the second elder interjected, his voice trembling slightly. "I watched him from the balcony yesterday. He was sitting by the koi pond. A servant tripped—a clumsy girl carrying a tray of hot tea. She was falling directly toward the stone edge. It should have been a broken neck."
Naobito snorted. "And?"
"Tai Lung did not move. Or rather, he did not appear to move. One moment he was seated five paces away; the next, he was standing behind her, his hand merely brushing her elbow. She didn't just stop falling—she bounced back to her feet as if gravity had simply decided to reverse itself for a second. I felt no Cursed Energy. No spark of a technique. But the air around the boy... it felt warm. Not the heat of a fire, but the heat of a summer afternoon. It was sickeningly... peaceful."
The room fell silent. In the Zenin clan, peace was a foreign concept. They dealt in the currency of Cursed Energy, which was harvested from fear, anger, and the darkest corners of the human psyche. To hear of a power that felt "peaceful" was like hearing of a sword made of glass—it shouldn't exist, and if it did, it was an insult to their way of life.
"He is a glitch," the third elder spat, his face twisted in a permanent scowl. "A child with no energy should be weak. He should be cowering. Instead, he looks at the instructors as if they are the ones who are beneath him. I walked past him this morning. He didn't bow. He didn't even acknowledge my presence. He just stared through me with those golden eyes. It felt like being judged by an ancient statue."
Naobito set his cup down with a sharp clack. "You are afraid of a five-year-old with no technique. If he has no Cursed Energy, he is a non-sorcerer. A 'human.' And humans are tools. If he is fast, we will use him. If he is arrogant, we will break him. The Zenin clan is built on the strength of our techniques. Without a technique, he is nothing more than a particularly agile insect."
"Then let us test the insect," the first elder suggested. "Tomorrow is the seasonal evaluation. Usually, we don't bother with the 'trash' until they are ten, but Tai Lung is... an anomaly. Let the instructors use the blunt staves. Let us see if this 'peace' of his can survive a Grade 2 sorcerer's pressure."
Naobito signaled for more sake, his eyes flashing with a cold, predatory light. "Fine. Prepare the courtyard. If he is a genius of the body, we will find a use for him in the shadows. If he is just a lucky brat, he will learn the price of standing tall in a house where he was meant to crawl."
Outside the council room, the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, casting long, jagged shadows across the gravel paths.
Tai Lung stood on the roof of the North pavilion, his small human feet gripped the ceramic tiles with a precision that defied physics. He could hear them. His ears, trained by the silence of the Spirit Realm, picked up the vibrations of their voices through the wood and paper of the estate.
Trash. Failure. Insect.
He didn't feel anger. Anger was a heavy, clumsy emotion—a tool for the weak.
Instead, he felt a profound sense of pity.
"They are so loud, yet they say nothing," he whispered to the wind.
He looked down into the courtyard where Toji was still practicing. The younger boy was exhausted, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Toji was trying to use his muscles to overcome his destiny. He was pushing his heart and his lungs to their absolute limits, thinking that if he just ran faster or hit harder, the elders would finally look at him with something other than disgust.
Tai Lung leaped. He didn't use a technique; he simply shifted his weight and let the air carry him. He landed silently behind Toji, who spun around instinctively, his fist flying.
Tai Lung caught the punch with a single finger.
The impact should have bruised the toddler's hand, but instead, the momentum simply... stopped. The kinetic energy was absorbed and redirected into the ground beneath Tai Lung's feet.
"You're tense, Toji," Tai Lung said, his voice a calm anchor in the darkness. "You are fighting the world. You are trying to prove them wrong. That is your first mistake."
Toji pulled his hand back, his chest heaving. "They called me useless again today, Big Bro. They said I'm just a 'spare' in case you died in the crib."
Tai Lung looked at his brother. He saw the potential in Toji—the "Heavenly Restriction" was not a curse, it was a pruning. By removing the Cursed Energy, the universe had been forced to compensate. Toji's body was becoming a temple of pure physicality, but his mind was still a prison of Zenin making.
"Listen to me," Tai Lung said, sitting down on the cold gravel and gesturing for Toji to do the same. "The men in that room think they are masters of the world because they can summon shadows or fire. But they are slaves to their own energy. They are like a man who thinks he is a king because he owns a very shiny leash. But he is still at the end of the leash."
Tai Lung reached out and picked up a small, jagged stone.
"This is Cursed Energy," he said, holding it up. "It is sharp. It hurts to hold. It is born of pain. Now, look at the moon."
Toji looked up. The moon was a pale, silver disk, hanging effortlessly in the void.
"Does the moon need a technique to stay in the sky?" Tai Lung asked. "Does the river need a 'spark' to flow to the sea? No. They move because it is their nature. Tomorrow, they will try to break you. They will try to show you that you are 'trash' because you have no leash."
Tai Lung crushed the stone in his hand. When he opened his palm, it wasn't dust that fell out—it was a faint, golden powder that shimmered for a second before vanishing into the air.
Toji's eyes widened. "How... how did you do that?
"I didn't destroy the stone, Toji. I reminded it that it was part of the earth. I aligned its Chi until it could no longer hold its form." Tai Lung stood up, his small frame casting a shadow that looked, for a brief second, like a massive, prowling cat.
"Tomorrow, don't fight them. Don't hate them. Just... let them be wrong. I will be there. And I will show you that a Master doesn't need a leash to rule the hounds."
Toji nodded, a new kind of light appearing in his eyes. It wasn't the desperate hope of a child wanting to be loved; it was the cold, hard realization of a warrior who had just found his weapon.
High above, the stars seemed to align. The Chi of the estate was shifting. The "stagnation" Tai Lung had felt for four years was finally breaking. The waterfall was coming, and the Zenin clan was standing right at the bottom, holding nothing but paper umbrellas.