The morning mist clung to the village like a shroud, thick, unmoving, heavy with silence. It drowned the rooftops and softened the fields until even the hills looked like bruises under a bandage. Shinji sat on the porch of his family's home, legs tucked beneath him, his back pressed against the wooden wall, unmoving.
He watched the path to the rice fields.
Or tried to.
Even that had faded beneath the fog.
His fingers scraped idly across the warped floorboards, following old knots and grooves he'd traced a hundred times before. Today, even the wood felt unfamiliar, colder, more distant, like the grain no longer remembered his touch.
The village didn't sound like itself.
No creaking buckets or sloshing water. No hammer from the forge. No laughter, not even the lazy call of crickets from the underbrush.
Only silence.
Goro's forge had gone cold two days ago. Since then, Ren hadn't spoken. Not once. Not to Shinji. Not to Hana. Not even to his mother, who now sat each evening outside the forge with her hands folded and her eyes dry, as if tears had been rationed to survive the grief.
Shinji closed his eyes.
Breathed.
Tried, for the hundredth time, to find it, the warmth.
That quiet flicker inside him. That soft glow that had pulsed in his chest during the rains. When he'd touched the wall of the rice terrace, it had risen like steam from deep within. Not fire. Not heat. Just… something.
Alive.
But now it felt gone. Distant. Like it had sunk deeper to hide from something.
He exhaled slowly, watching his breath curl into the morning mist.
Just as he was about to give up, he felt it.
A pulse.
Small. Quiet.
Like a coal hidden in ashes.
His spine stiffened. His eyes snapped open.
And then, the world tilted.
Not with sound. Not with wind. But with presence.
The porch didn't move. The village didn't sway. And yet—it felt as if something massive had leaned too close.
His breath caught.
The mist thickened in an instant, not outward but inward, like it folded around him. He could no longer see the fields, the hills, or even the fence posts ten steps ahead. The world was a blank page, and he was the last word still written.
And then, just behind his eyes—
A snap.
A flicker of light.
A shift in air.
And he wasn't in Kinsen anymore.
....
A sharp pain lanced through his temples, and suddenly, he wasn't on the porch anymore.
He was in a room. A strange room, dim and buzzing faintly with the sound of something electrical. The light overhead was harsh, flickering slightly. His body was small—his hands, thinner than they were now. No calluses. No dirt. Just soft skin, warm and smooth.
The air smelled different. Artificial. Like warm plastic and old food. A television screen flickered in front of him, colors bright and shifting.
Cartoons. No—anime.
The images moved fast. A boy in an orange jumpsuit stood on a tree trunk, upside-down, arms crossed. Across from him, another boy with dark hair charged up the trunk as if gravity meant nothing. They weren't using ropes. No tricks. Just walking—up a tree.
Shinji's breath caught in his throat. It was the kind of thing a child would laugh at, call "cool," and forget.
But he didn't forget.
He stared.
There was something in the boy's hands.
A glow. Faint. Blue. Subtle like a memory—like mist made of light. It pulsed as he pressed his palm to the tree trunk, clinging to it like gravity was just a suggestion. Another boy followed—dark-haired, focused—his feet planting against the bark as if the world had forgotten which way was up. The word was said casually, as if everyone knew it.
Chakra.
Shinji's breath caught.
It was just a cartoon.
It was just an anime.
He knew that. He knew the characters didn't exist, that their powers were drawn by animators somewhere far away, their voices dubbed and looped.
But still—something stirred. Something old and cold and hot all at once. His chest fluttered. His fingers twitched.
He leaned forward without realizing it, eyes wide, heart pounding softly in his ribs.
It wasn't the coolness of the technique. It was the familiarity. Like déjà vu wrapped in nostalgia. Like he'd forgotten a secret until just now.
He knew that word.
Chakra.
It echoed through his bones, not as sound, but as weight.
He opened his mouth without knowing why.
And then—
A sound. Real. Sharp. Too close.
The lock clicked.
Shinji flinched as the front door opened with a groan, hinges too tired to resist the weight.
He didn't have time to move.
A shape filled the doorway—a shadow first, then a figure. The light from the kitchen caught the woman's face as she stepped inside, casting her in a harsh, flickering glow. Her cheekbones were sharp, her hair pulled back into a messy knot. A cigarette burned low between her fingers, the smoke curling up and over her shoulder.
One heel clacked against the tile as she kicked the other shoe off roughly, letting it skid into the hallway with a dull thump.
Then she saw him.
The television cast shifting light across his face. He hadn't touched the remote. Hadn't cleaned the dishes in the sink. Hadn't even turned the volume down.
Her eyes narrowed.
"You're still up?" she snapped, her voice hoarse from smoke and hours spent shouting over customers or coworkers or traffic—he never knew which. "Just sitting here like a dumb-ass lump."
Shinji opened his mouth. "I—"
"You just sit here like your dumb-ass father, huh?" she spat, cutting him off. "What, too hard to clean the dishes? Too hard to turn off the TV before I get home?"
Her voice cracked across the room like a whip.
He shrank instinctively into the couch cushions, trying to disappear into the worn upholstery. "Sorry—"
"Don't 'sorry' me."
She tossed her bag against the wall. It hit with a sick, meaty thud, and something inside shattered. Probably glass. She didn't even glance at it.
"Where the hell is he?" she demanded, already stomping into the kitchen.