"To name a child is to call the world to notice."
— Saying from the Eastern Monks of Yuugure
Spring came early to Yumeno Valley.
The snow had melted, but the air still held a bite. Mist hung low across the mountains, weaving through the trees like restless spirits. Inside the Temple of Yumeno, warmth lingered only where the morning sun kissed the old wooden floor.
Tomo didn't feel it.
He sat near the altar, fingers closed loosely around a strand of prayer beads. The beads weren't moving. His lips weren't either. The prayers had stopped days ago.
Instead, he watched the child.
Asahi slept in his usual place, wrapped in the same ragged quilt he'd arrived in. His chest rose and fell softly. Peacefully.
But Tomo's stomach twisted at the sight.
Peace was a lie here.
The quiet wasn't safety. It was warning.
✦ The Messenger
He heard the knock just before noon. Three slow taps.
No one knocked on temple doors anymore.
Outside stood a monk, barely older than a boy. His gray robes bore dust from far travel, and his hood hung low, casting shadow over a tired, unsmiling face.
He said nothing at first—only held out a scroll sealed with gold wax.
Tomo blinked at the sigil on the seal.
A sun split by a crescent.
The mark of the Sunbreak Order.
"This was meant for the Keeper of the Crimson Child," the monk said quietly.
Tomo's throat dried.
How did they know?
He broke the seal with careful hands.
✦ The Letter
To the one who keeps the child under red moonlight—
He will not remain hidden. The first has already begun to search.
If the child has been named, guard that name with silence.
If not… do not speak it aloud beneath the moon.
Names hold power.
And some still remember his from the old world.
There was no name or signature.
Only a final mark inked in blood-red script:
"If he says his own name, the mirrors will awaken."
✦ The Weight
That night, Tomo sat beside the child's cradle, letter clutched in his hand.
Asahi stirred in his sleep, small fingers curling slightly around the crimson talisman at his chest.
Tomo stared at the name stitched into the corner of the quilt.
Asahi.
It had come with the boy.
But now he questioned it.
Was it just a name? Or a tether?
Was it truly his… or something older, returned?
Tomo didn't speak it aloud.
He reached for the quilt, hesitated, then pulled it gently tighter around the boy.
And he prayed—not to the gods, but to whatever still listened:
"Let the world forget this name... until he's ready to carry it."
✦ Elsewhere...
Far beyond the valley, in a sunless grove choked by willow trees, a young woman awoke with blood on her lips.
She had seen a boy in her dream.
A child wrapped in red light, walking through shattered mirrors. Some showed him crowned. Others, monstrous.
She couldn't look away.
And as the dream faded, she whispered a word she had never known:
"Asahi."
Somewhere far beneath her, the earth cracked slightly open.
✦ The Cradle and the Smoke
Back in the temple, Tomo tried to sleep—but he woke at midnight to a sound he hadn't heard in years.
A low hum.
Like wind blowing through hollow stone.
He rose and rushed to the altar.
Asahi still slept… but his birthmark glowed faintly red, pulsing softly beneath the quilt.
Smoke curled upward—just a thin ribbon, rising from the talisman.
Tomo didn't touch it.
Didn't move.
He only listened.
And beneath that silence, a thought not his own brushed against his mind:
"Names are keys."
"And he has not forgotten his."
Tomo exhaled slowly.
Then whispered, "Then I'll make sure the world does."