The world was not always at war.
Before the fires, before the ashes, before the screams that haunted the silence — there was peace. There was balance.
Now there is only the wind. And a girl standing in the ruins of what once was home.
The sun hangs low over the charred remains of the Eclipse Village. Blackened wooden beams jut from the earth like broken bones. A fox mask — white and red, cracked along the temple — lies half-buried in the ash.
Izumi kneels, her fingers brushing the cold ceramic.
Kitsu
a soft whine escapes the fox beside her, pressing its small head against her arm
The wind stirs her strange hair — black on one side, white on the other. Her mismatched eyes — one pale as the moon, one dark as night — trace the horizon where smoke still curls.
Izumi
her voice is quiet, steady They’re gone.
Kitsu
licks her hand, as if to say “I’m still here”
A scroll lies open on the ground before her — ancient, yellowed, bearing the mark of the Eclipse Tribe. Her grandmother’s handwriting. A map. A name.
Izumi
General Mao.
She speaks the name like it’s carved into her bones.
Izumi
I will find you.