In the beginning, before the world had names, the winds spoke in riddles and the rivers remembered every secret whispered into them. In the valley of Ankura, where red soil gleamed like ember, a boy named Kure was born beneath an eclipse. The elders said such births were marked by both blessing and burden — that the child would one day walk between the realm of the living and the spirits. Kure's mother, a weaver of moonlight tales, wrapped him in cloth dyed with charcoal and stars, whispering, "May courage find you before fear does."
Years passed, and Kure grew into a man whose silence carried weight. He was not the strongest of the hunters, nor the quickest of the dancers, but his eyes — those deep, storm-dark eyes — saw what others refused to see. When he walked past the riverbank, he swore he heard his name carried on the wind, spoken not by man, but by the ground itself. "Kure... Kure..." it sighed, as though the earth was both warning and calling him.
One night, under a blood-red moon, the ground trembled. From the sacred grove came a voice, ancient and trembling with sorrow. "The balance is broken," it said. "The spirits of the deep earth have turned restless. The world calls for a heart unafraid." The village elders gathered in fear, the sky shuddered with lightning, and all eyes turned to the eclipse-born child.
Kure stood before them — afraid, yet unmoving. The wind tore at his hair, dust circled his feet, and though his heart quivered like a leaf, he bowed to the unseen voice. "If the earth calls," he said, "then I will answer." Thus began his journey into the whispering ground — a path no mortal had walked and returned from whole.