"Even a newborn soul may carry echoes of forgotten gods."
— Whispered Legend, Temple of the Hollow Flame
The fire refused to stay lit.
Tomo struck flint again. Sparks jumped, caught on the dry wood, flickered… then vanished.
For the third time that night.
He glanced behind him.
The child still lay wrapped in a worn quilt beside the altar—silent, warm, breathing.
But the air was cold. Wrong.
It hadn't been like this yesterday.
✦ The Eyes That Watched
Tomo had lived in the Temple of Yumeno most of his life. He knew the rhythm of silence. The way it spoke between chimes. The way the wind circled the roof before drifting into the trees.
But now, the silence was stretched. Held.
As if someone—or something—was watching.
He stepped to the infant's side.
Asahi looked peaceful, tucked against the quilt's folds. The crimson-gemmed talisman shimmered faintly under the candlelight. But tonight… his hand had moved to rest upon it.
Not by chance.
Tomo hadn't placed it there.
And when he reached to move the gem—
A jolt.
Like ice and heat at once, rushing up his arm.
He pulled back quickly.
The gem throbbed once with red light, then stilled.
✦ The Scroll Returns
Downstairs, the sealed scroll waited.
Tomo had tried to forget it. The warning. The prophecy. The symbols drawn in faded red ink.
But that night, he found himself drawn again to the hidden basement.
Dust coated the air.
He unrolled the scroll by candlelight.
"Beware the Crimson Child. He shall awaken the shadows long buried."
And beneath it, scratched into the parchment more recently:
"If he remembers the eclipse, the cycle begins again."
Tomo's hands trembled.
Remembers?
A child… only months old?
Yet the way Asahi had looked at him the night before…
It was the gaze of someone aware.
Not fully, not yet—but enough.
✦ The Flicker
Tomo returned upstairs to find Asahi staring at the ceiling.
Not the blank gaze of a baby.
He was tracking the candlelight as it shifted along the rafters.
Then, just for a moment—
His eyes flashed red.
Not the harsh red of flame, but the deep, ancient hue of a memory long buried.
And in that moment, Tomo swore he saw the boy smile.
Not from joy.
But from recognition.
✦ Echoes Across the World
Far beyond Yumeno Valley, in the ruins of an ancient fortress buried beneath ice, a mirror long sealed began to hum.
A single fracture split its surface—new, fresh.
A cloaked figure knelt before it, as if listening.
Then, softly, they whispered:
"He's waking up… too early."
✦ The Whisper in the Dream
That night, Tomo dreamed of the old world.
Not as stories, but as memory.
He stood on a hill beneath a red sky, watching temples collapse into dust. Shadows crawled across the land like spilled ink. A child stood ahead of him—tall, older, cloaked in black and red, facing away.
The wind carried a voice not his own:
"He was not meant to remember yet."
The child turned.
It was Asahi.
But his eyes were no longer human.
✦ The First Warning
Tomo jolted awake, breath ragged.
The candle had gone out again.
Beside the cradle, a raven perched on the windowsill—its feathers white as snowfall.
Tied to its leg: a scroll sealed in black wax.
Tomo opened it slowly.
"The relic has chosen. But he is not alone."
"If the child speaks, let it not be his name."
Beneath the message, an old sigil:
A mirror wrapped in chains.
✦ The Quiet Pulse
Before dawn, Tomo knelt beside the child again.
The talisman now glowed softly, and Asahi slept without stirring.
But faint red light pulsed beneath the skin of his shoulder, where the crescent-shaped mark lay.
Once.
Twice.
Then stillness.
Tomo didn't touch it.
Didn't breathe too loudly.
Instead, he whispered into the darkness:
"You were not meant to remember yet… were you?"
And from the other side of the world,
the moon began to darken once more.