Tsukihame

PROLOGUE

In an age long faded into legend, the world lay broken, its continents scattered like wary beasts, each turning its gaze from the others, fearful of what they might become. Borders were iron cages, and silence bound the realms tighter than chains. Yet one man, his heart ablaze with a vision none could name, declared it was enough. With defiance as his banner, he set forth to mend what had been torn asunder.
Across the western seas he sailed, through tempests that roared like ancient gods, and trudged deserts vast enough to swallow armies whole. In each of the eleven realms, he sought the greatest magi, their power woven into the very threads of the earth. One by one, he wove their wills into a single tapestry, forging a pact sealed in blood and starlight-a covenant that would reshape the tides of history.
From that pact arose the Halo of Sovereignty, a circle of power that heralded a new dawn-a new calendar, a new law, etched in the annals of time. The Alliance, its architects, stood as arbiters of justice, decreeing what was righteous and what was forbidden, who would rise and who would be cast into oblivion, all in the name of Balance. Yet they were no distant deities; they perched above mankind as gods who could bleed, their dominion as fragile as it was fierce.
Yet our tale does not linger in the gleaming citadels of the Sovereigns, where power hums like a living heart. It begins in a forgotten corner of the world, a mountain village named Shinaragi, cradled by ancient pines and veiled in fog that clung like a whispered secret. Its timber houses, their beams darkened by centuries of frost and fire, stood defiant against the howling winds. The folk of Shinaragi were wrought of sterner stuff-hunters who tracked shadows through the woods, farmers who wrested life from unyielding earth, survivors whose lives burned like small, steadfast flames beneath the vast shadow of the Halo's dominion.
At the heart of Shinaragi stood a tree, a Sakura that defied the seasons' call. No blossom ever crowned its boughs, no leaf stirred to greet the dawn. Its branches, brittle as ancient bones, stretched toward the heavens, bare and unyielding. When the wind wove through them, they clashed with a chime like splintered glass-soft, yet sorrowful, as if the tree sang of memories too heavy to fade, a sentinel guarding secrets the village could neither name nor forsake.
The villagers named It the Bell Tree, for no other title suited its mournful song. It stood as one of countless mysteries in a world woven with enigmas, yet this one, at least, was theirs-a relic of Shinaragi's quiet heart. Beneath its barren limbs, where shadows pooled like forgotten dreams, two children found their haven, their laughter a fragile defiance against the tree's eternal sorrow.
The first was a boy, Akashi Merau, his hair dark as the heartwood of a milk tree, his almond eyes agleam with a fire too fierce for his tender years. Wild and sharp, he hurled himself at boys twice his size before he could scribe his own name, his fists carrying both defiance and a curious kindness. Too old for his youth, he bore the weight of unspoken burdens. He dwelt with his grandfather, Akashi Yamen, a war mage whose soul had once burned bright in the service of the Halo of Sovereignty. Now, his glory faded, Yamen tended only to his grandson, wrapping Merau's hands in bandages as he wove tales of battlefields long left behind-stories Merau endured with weary patience. None knew why the bandages clung to the boy's hands, only that Yamen forbade their removal with a zeal that brooked no question. And so, Merau had never once defied him.
The other was a girl, Aya Akira, her blue eyes gleaming like shards of a forgotten sky, her brown hair framing a face both quiet and curious. She carried a stillness, as if part of her spirit lingered in a realm beyond reach, its light flickering from some distant star. She lived with her father, Aya Renji, a scholar whose life was bound to the mysteries of transport magic. Her mother had slipped from the world soon after Akira's birth, leaving a void Renji neither sought nor wished to fill, his heart tethered to his work and his daughter alone.
Like his daughter, Renji was a solitary soul, ever bent over his tomes and sigils, unraveling the secrets of transport magic. Yet he was never truly absent. His love gleamed in the quiet pauses-when he'd lift his gaze from an experiment to ask if Akira had eaten, how her day had unfolded, or why a shadow dimmed her eyes. These small questions, these fleeting moments, wove a promise that he would always remain, a steady anchor in her drifting world.
Yet Akira bore a gift, strange and untamed. When joy or fear seized her, the world seemed to bend at her will-stones, cups, once even a cart would shimmer and vanish, only to reappear paces away, as if tugged by an unseen hand. At times, she herself would fade, slipping through the fabric of the world, only to stumble back, dazed, her nose bloodied, standing hundreds of paces from where she began, her breath a ragged prayer to a power she could not name.
Once, the other children mocked her for her wayward gift, their laughter sharp as thorns. But that was before. She and Merau met at six, beneath the Bell Tree's mournful boughs. One rain-soaked afternoon, Akira huddled there, shivering, her clothes heavy with river water after a misfired jump had cast her into the current. A gaggle of boys had seen her stumble ashore, their jeers ringing through the fog.
Merau's silence was a storm gathering. With a clenched fist, he melted into the village's fog, his steps swift with unspoken fury. An hour later, he returned, dragging a boy by the collar, both marked by bruises, though the other's face bore the worse tale. Merau dropped him at Akira's feet, his voice steady but fierce. "He's the only one I could catch." Akira gazed at the stranger's swollen face, and a laugh broke free-a spark of joy that sealed their bond. From that moment, they were inseparable, two souls bound by the Bell Tree's shadow.
Day after day, they sought refuge beneath the Bell Tree, whispering secrets as the wind carried the tree's mournful song. In hushed tones, Merau confessed that his bandages stirred, as if something alive pulsed beneath them, restless and unseen. Akira, too, shared her truth: her jumps no longer seemed mere accidents but a summons, as if some unseen force, far beyond the fog, tugged her through the unseen seams of the world.
For two years, the Bell Tree stood sentinel, its silence a quiet witness to the children's blossoming bond beneath its barren limbs. Until one night, when its song rose sharper, louder, a cry that pierced the fog and stirred the stars. And from the dark beyond the world, something answered-a whisper, ancient and hungry, that promised the tale was only beginning.