Chapter 1: The Boy in the Dark Room
The world first knew him not as a warrior, not as a leader, but as a boy who preferred the dark. While other children fought over cricket bats and cricket balls under the sun, Shino Taketsu sat in his room with the lights off, the ceiling fan humming like a distant guardian, and the glow of his thoughts brighter than any bulb could provide. He was not hiding. He was waiting.
His name itself was prophecy. Shino Taketsu — though born in ordinary soil, it meant something deeper. Names are not just sounds; they are weights carried by souls. "Taketsu" whispered of strength, "Shino" hinted at silence, and together they spoke of light born in shadow. His parents may not have intended such a meaning, but destiny does not ask permission.
From the beginning, Shino felt the world differently. While others rushed to share every thought, he observed. While others laughed loud, he measured silence. To his classmates he was the "quiet boy," the one who didn't join every game, the one who sometimes drifted away mid-conversation, staring into a horizon that existed only in his mind. They thought he was absent. But he was present in a way they couldn't yet understand.
In those early years, loneliness was his first teacher. There were afternoons when he sat cross-legged on the floor, toys scattered but untouched, and a strange emptiness breathing beside him. He didn't cry often, but when he did, it wasn't for broken toys — it was for something he couldn't name. A weight. A question. Why am I different?
The answer never came in words, but in patterns. Shino began noticing what others missed — the way people's voices changed when they lied, the way footsteps carried tension or relief, the way even adults contradicted their own rules. He was just a child, yet he could already see the thin cracks in the walls of human behavior.
And still, he remained the boy in the dark room.
There was something about that darkness — not despair, not sadness, but focus. In shadows, the world outside disappeared, and only his mind remained. He could replay entire conversations, break them apart, and discover truths no one else noticed. He learned chess moves in silence, tracing strategies on the floor with chalk. He whispered his dreams to no one, letting them ferment, grow stronger, sharper.
It was in that dark room that he first heard the whispers of destiny. Not from spirits, not from gods, but from within. A voice that told him: You are not here to be ordinary.
But being extraordinary carried a cost. Childhood was supposed to be full of games, laughter, innocence. For Shino, it was full of awareness. He could not laugh freely when he saw how temporary everything was. He could not play without wondering why others played blindly. He could not simply live — he had to observe, to dissect, to prepare.
The other children sometimes mocked him. "Why do you sit alone?" "Why don't you come outside?" They couldn't understand that for him, solitude was not punishment — it was training. Every hour spent alone was an hour polishing the blade of his mind.
Even at home, his family noticed his strangeness. His mother would enter the room, switch on the light, and ask, "Why are you sitting in the dark again?" He never had an answer that satisfied them. How could he explain that the darkness felt like a cloak, a shield, a place where his true self could breathe?
There were moments, though, when his silence turned into rebellion. When teachers underestimated him, assuming the quiet boy knew little, he would strike back with perfect answers, precise arguments, and an intelligence that left them unsettled. Shino never sought applause, but he couldn't deny the quiet pleasure of seeing their surprise.
Still, praise meant little. A part of him remained untouched, as if his heart carried a flame that no amount of approval could warm. He longed for something else — something greater, something beyond the ordinary recognition of school prizes and kind words. But at this stage, he could not name it. He only knew that his path would not be like others'.
The boy in the dark room carried a secret: he didn't belong to his childhood. While other kids were busy being children, he was already becoming something else. He was preparing.
And yet, he was still human. There were nights when loneliness cut deep, when silence felt heavier than usual, when he wished someone could see the world the way he did. Someone to share the shadows with. But wishes are fragile things, and Shino soon learned that destiny rarely grants them easily.
Instead, destiny gave him a gift disguised as struggle. His early teenage years would bring storms — friendships that crumbled, the ache of being misunderstood, the first touch of betrayal. But that would come later.
For now, the boy in the dark room was still building himself, brick by brick, silence by silence. He did not yet know that his darkness would one day forge light.
One day, the world would see him not as the quiet boy, but as the strategist, the leader, the fire that refused to die.
But in the beginning, he was simply Shino Taketsu — a boy sitting in the shadows, listening to a voice no one else could hear.
And the voice whispered:
"Your time will come."