The shadows were coming after her. They found her, and now they were coming after her. All she could do was run as fast as she could. Because there was no place to hide, she had to run and keep running. She couldn’t stop running, if she stopped, it would mean death.

Screams from her brothers roused her from her deep dreamless state, and the conflagration that followed left burn scars not on her skin but in her mind. White flames lapped up what she considered her home for the past few years of her life. The fires burned up the hidden village tucked in what she knew as the Valley of Truth. The Temple of Dreams was no more, and she was running for her life.

To the safehouse. She was running towards the safehouse at the beach. She was told that she would be safe there. There would be an old house, and she would be safe. Left and right she saw her brothers running with her: Koujin of the flames, Fuujin of the winds, and their leader Suijin of the water. All four of them were running towards their safehouse.

Mists of white smoke crept under their legs, and they ran faster towards the light. They were running, but one by one her brothers disappeared. Koujin falling prey to the shadows, Fuujin getting caught in a pocket of darkness, only Suijin remained.

Suijin ran with her, telling her to not look back, but she was stubborn and she took one look behind her. Suijin was running, and then he wasn’t running anymore. He was floating! He was flying after her, the darkness slowly devouring him until he was shadow and his hands clawed after her.

Suijin was shadow.

“NO!”

Rai bolted from her dreams and into reality with a startle, knocking her off the motorcycle and down to the ground and tumbling to a halt. Junho hit the brakes instantaneously when he felt Rai’s grip around him loosen and he hastily dismounted to run after her. She shook violently as he picked her up in his arms. Her hands grasped desperately at the fabric of his clothes, clutching at him for dear life. Her dreams had become more and more alarming lately, and Junho did his best to calm her.

“Shhh,” he whispered, “the shadows can’t find you anymore.” He didn’t know what the shadows were, or what demons chased her in her dreams. All he knew that Rai was afraid. She was scared beyond her mind.

Rai crumbled under his touch, falling apart like a loosened weave. He couldn’t bear to see her like this, this wasn’t the Rai- not even the Ayame he knew. He continued murmuring words of comfort into her ear and rubbing gently circles on her back. He knew Rai could feel things more acutely than normal people did, and it was the same for pain as well. She felt the tiniest vibrations in the air and through solid objects. It was advantageous, but it came with the price of being sensitive to even the tiniest amounts of pain.

Rai lived her life in pain- Junho didn’t blame her for being so angry all the time.

Once she finally calmed down he assisted her back to the bike and continued driving towards the old orphanage by the beach. She wouldn’t speak to him now, but perhaps over there her memory would be jogged and Junho would be able to piece together the missing chapters to the story.

It didn’t take long until they were off the concrete national roads and on a dirt road that seemingly led to nowhere. Establishments and residences became sparse as dirt roads and trees increased in number. By late afternoon, Junho and Rai were already by the coastline, walking towards what appeared to be an endless beachfront.

It was empty save for large rocks and boulders that littered the sand. Waves crashed wildly against the shore, splashing droplets of water into the air. The saltiness could practically be tasted, and a wave of nostalgia washed over Rai as she followed Junho’s lead.

Beyond her, towards the darkening horizon, large cumulonimbus clouds rolled in blotting out the stretches of pink and purple sky. Instinctively she clutched at her swords- it was always in the darkness that the shadows came about.

“That’s the old orphanage,” Junho stated, pointing towards an large old wooden shack by the boundary between the beach and the forest after it. “That’s where we grew up, don’t you remember?”

Rai’s hands released her kodachi as the memory flooded her. This beach was where she saw Suijin die, the safehouse in her dreams had been the orphanage Junho had been talking about. “I know this place.”

The sliding doors were rickety as Rai pushed them aside to enter the abode. It was empty- she could feel nothing more as her feet touched the wooden floor. Behind her, Junho watched curious to her every action. “Why is it empty?” she asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me. I was sent to the city to study when I was sixteen, the last time I saw you was a year before that.”

Rai’s brows furrowed on her forehead as she tried to search her memory for anything. All she could remember was Suijin dying- anything before that was all a blur to her. She was aware of the gaps in her memories, but it didn’t matter to her. Instinctively she knew that whatever she needed to do she would find if the need arose. Killing Nichkhun had been her only goal, but with Suijin alive, her revenge was futile and her life had no more meaning.

Inside her mind was nothing more but a thick hazy moon obscured by dark clouds. Every time that she felt like she was close to discovery, she would be abruptly pulled back. The iris on her skin, the name Raijin, Sadame, Izayoi, and Suijin were all she could remember though she knew not where they all originated from. The way she could feel the vibrations in the air, and the way the pain she constantly felt was alleviated when she was fighting, it made no sense to her, but she ignored the burning questions in her mind.

Her feet led her deeper into the house, turning left and right until she reached the central room. Without knowing why, Rai felt as if all her answers laid behind that shoji door and she slowly slid it open. On the floor was a familiar diagram: the four cardinal directions and the mythological beasts they were associated with.

“You’re everywhere I go,” she muttered as she walked inside the room. “I’m supposed to remember something, aren’t I? Why isn’t anything happening.”

Junho chuckled softly behind her. “It doesn’t work that way. What I want to know is what could have happened for you to forget everything like that again.”

“Again?”

Junho sat Rai down in the middle of the room and pulled out the kit he now perpetually kept on his belt. Rai was bleeding again and her preoccupation with the gaps in her memory distracted her enough from what could have been life-threatening pain.

Rai didn’t resist as Junho tended to her wounds. Unlike Junsu, Junho was gentle and his hands were light to the touch. They weren’t cold like Junsu’s was, they didn’t tremble the slightest as if they were afraid of causing harm.

“I was five when we first met. My parents had just died- casualties of the war, and during my parents’ funeral these men just grabbed me and stuffed me into the trunk of a black car.” Junho’s voice was soft as he recalled the memory. He wished he could cry or remember how it was like to feel the distant memory of a clenching heart. Mai had always wanted to know about his roots, she wanted to know about him and he always refrained from telling her the whole truth.

“They brought me to the tunnel underground and you were there too,” he continued. “They kept talking about how your father didn’t want you, but you kept fighting back.”

“My father didn’t want me,” Rai scoffed. “Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t remember.”

Junho smiled sympathetically at her as he cleaned the blood off the iris branded on her skin. “One day they took you away and when you came back you just stopped talking.” It was a fearful memory for him. The men just dragged a screaming Rai away from their cell, and Junho could still hear her cries from across the several rooms that separated them then. Rai was brought back into the cell mute with glazed eyes. She refused what little food that was offered to them, and the only time she would respond was to act violent when anyone would try to touch her.

“A few days later we got branded with the iris...” Junho shuddered at the memory of the scalding branding iron on his skin. “I don’t think I can experience any kind of pain like that in my whole life. They brought us to the lab after that, and then...”

Rai’s eyes shut tight as the memory began swirling in her mind. She could remember the big burly men with toothy grins and large hands and her cries to make them stop hurting her. She remembered the branding iron seared into her skin. It was the kind of pain she lived with now. The laboratory was a blur to her, but she remembered that after that day everything hurt more than she could bear. It was the kind of pain that made her hold on to her sanity- the kind of pain that made her question all her beliefs, made her question what could she possibly have done wrong for her own father to not want her. The memory was vague at best, but the pain was beyond doubt.

She doubled over the floor clutching at her midsection. Tears sprung from her eyes as the pain returned to her in an unexpected wave. She held on to what tether of life she could hold on to. It was the most pain she had felt in years. It was pain that was worse than death- more than shards of glass digging deeply into her skin, more than raw wounds being exposed to saltwater.

The day she received that brand was the same day that world started to frighten her. She felt the very core of the ground in her fingertips, there was no more sleep when every movement was clear to her. Even with her eyes closed it was as if she could see clearly.

“You’re like me?” she asked, voice faint.

Junho shook his head. “I looked into all the data I could gather from the latest Fortuna missions. I think what they were trying out on us back then was a way to numb the pain sensors in our bodies. I was the hit.”

“I was the miss.”

Junho’s gaze dropped down to his hands as he settled Rai on the floor. To suddenly stop feeling pain frightened him. To him, if he couldn’t feel the pain on his own body, then he couldn’t dare hurt another person. He was afraid to take fighting classes, he knew his own strength, he knew how his unexplainable instincts worked. He didn’t want to risk hurting another person because of the monster that lived inside him.

“What happened after that? How did we get here?” Rai struggled to speak even as Junho did his best to calm her down.

“We were saved? I don’t know. Suddenly all the bad guys were dead and we were brought here. The other kids made fun of me because I really couldn’t see things, I was farsighted and it was a little hard to explain. They liked to beat me up, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t even cry because of it because I couldn’t feel anything. I thought maybe you’d save me like you did back at the warehouse, but you just stopped talking and you didn’t look anyone in the eye. You were always just afraid. You couldn’t even say your name, that’s why they all just called you Ayame, because of the iris.”

The pain slowly receded as Junho slapped up the patch on Rai’s wound. Cool sensations crept up her scars like tiny lines worming their way across her. She knew fear, but there was also and inherent part of her that constantly fought against it. “If I was always afraid, how did I-”

“Sensei chose you.”

Rai was suddenly up on her guard at the intruder’s voice. She didn’t even feel him coming!

Junho however, was more relaxed as he stared hard into the pallid face of the tall man that walked into the room. Behind him was a shorter man, even more paler- his skin almost transparent as if it were never touched by the sun. “Yuu? Takuya?”

The names rung bells in Rai’s mind, and her arms became limp at her sides as she stood and took one wobbly step towards them. “Kou...Fuu...”

A large grin spread on the two men’s faces and they both tackled Rai into a hug. The girl was limp as she let herself feel the warmth of her two shinobi brothers. Without knowing how, she just knew that they hadn’t changed.

“Junho found you!” Fuujin, formerly Takuya, beamed. “He really found you!”

Koujin nodded. “I’m so happy! You’re alive! We thought you didn’t make it after the attack.”

The Attack? “What happened? How were we found out?! And Suijin, Sui is alive!”

The grins disappeared, and both shinobi took a step back to take their seats on the floor. Rai dropped down confused. “What happened? What’s going on?”

“Rai, do you remember the night of the attack?” Koujin’s face was grave.

She shook her head. All she could remember was Nichkhun killing Suijin and revenge consuming her. Everything before that was a blur.

“Do you remember our focus?”

Instinctively she pulled out both Sadame and Izayoi from their sheaths and laid them down. Koujin and Fuujin followed, laying their swords Hachiman and Dojigiri next to them. “Sadame, fate. Hachiman, god of war. Dojigiri, monster-cutter. Izayoi, the moon of the sixteenth night.” As if the haze from her memory were all wiped away, the full moon glared intensely at her.

On the night of the sixteenth moon, shinobi will ascend into the shinto spirit that watches over them: Suijin the water dragon, Koujin of the fire, Fuujin, of the wind, and Raijin of the storm. Their hand will be played, and they will be granted their instrument of war. Izayoi, the moon of the sixteenth night. Hachiman, war god. Dojigiri, monster-cutter. Sadame, fate. They will live out their focus and live for nothing more.

Rai’s eyes scanned the floor again, her eyes marking out everything she could remember from both her sensei and what she knew. “We’re after Fortuna too,” then it dawned on her. “But Suijin!”

Koujin nodded gravely. “Suijin betrayed us. The night of the attack Suijin- no, Kazuki revealed the secret village. Those monsters came and wiped out what they thought were threats to them.”

“Suijin, he wouldn’t do that, he was our leader.”

“Sensei knew Suijin would betray us, and Suijin killed him,” Fuujin added. “He has dishonored himself. Only the sword of a shinobi through his heart will purify his soul.”

Suijin had always been their leader, and the fearless Suijin was the one person Rai looked up to. Knowing all this, hearing about his betrayal, seeing him in the state that he was now in robbed her of what courage she had been able to gather. For as long as she could remember her focus was to seek revenge for the slain Suijin- she was right. Kazuki killed Suijin, not Nichkhun. “I will kill Kazuki myself. Then we will bring Fortuna down.”

“Yuu, you said Fortuna came that night?” Junho asked. Something was bothering him; Rai had told him that she received the injury from that same night. Junho recognized the effects of that poison, he had seen it before.

“Yes, why?”

“Because the wound Rai now has, it was an effect of a developing bioweapon we were studying at the Academy labs.”

…

Kazuki realized he had to give up being Suijin. It didn’t matter. What mattered to him was a life beyond the shadows. A life where he didn’t have to hide. This man right here was presenting him with an offer he couldn’t refuse. How he was even found didn’t even matter. True, Kazuki couldn’t believe that he himself could be captured, but he had been careless.

“So, how about it? A perfect world. We can create a perfect world, but we need to take care of all the opposition, people who don’t understand.”

It was very tempting, and the idea floated seductively behind his lids. Kazuki said yes.

“You need to do something for us first. Someone needs to be taken down, but don’t kill her. She’s been tainted by some barbarian’s mindset but I can save her. I can make her alive again and her perfection will be forever.”

Kazuki said yes.

“Oh, by the way, that sword is archaic.”

His hands wrapped around the heavy blade given to him. It was nothing like he had ever seen before. A large blade crossed with a pistol. “What is it?”

“It’s a gunblade. The barrel of the pistol runs through the blade, it doesn’t shoot projectiles, but it does create a shockwave when you pull the trigger. Use it wisely. Oh, and there’s someone I’d like you to meet. She will be leading the first wave of attacks.”

Kazuki didn’t know if he was to be impressed or not by the lithe woman who walked into the room. She smiled at him, but he didn’t return it. “I will take care of the shinobi, the rest is up to you,” he said.

“That’s no fun,” she replied. Her voice had a husky quality to it, something that Kazuki didn’t trust. “Let me at least have some fun. There’s something I’ve always wanted to try out, you know how it’s like. New toys, new opportunities.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh you know, blades that deliver wounds that never heal.”

Kazuki was impressed. Now all he needed to do was convince the others to drop their focus and come with him. A new world was in order, and perhaps in this world the shinobi would rise.

[A/N]: lol is it just me, or do I keep losing subs every time I update?