Shin began, his voice low but clear, recounting the events that had shaped him—the memories he hadn't shared until now.
"It was my sixteenth birthday. My clan had gathered for a celebration. Music filled the air, and the aroma of food lingered. There was laughter, joy… all of it was normal. But that day changed my life forever." His gaze drifted, lost in the memories. "I didn't touch a single bite. I spoke to the guests but stayed away from the food, instinctively uneasy. I never knew why, but I think I was the only one who felt the foreboding. While I entertained the guests, the Soma Clan was under attack."
He paused, his face hardening as he struggled to find the right words.
"The food had been poisoned before the gathering. It nullified the abilities of every one of us. We had no time to defend ourselves. The attack came swiftly—mercilessly. They killed every single one of us. My parents were among them."
Shin's eyes darkened, the memories resurfacing with painful clarity.
"I was hidden in the basement, and my parents… they fought to protect me. They gave their lives for me, even though they couldn't use their powers. The poison had robbed them of that. I heard it all. Their screams. The laughter of the attackers. The sound of my father being torn apart before me, his body sliced while he was still alive. My mother… She was tortured; her screams still haunt me. They raped her, over and over, before killing her the same way they did my father—by pulling the tails of our kind, drinking their blood to grow stronger with every death."
The room seemed to freeze, and Shin clenched his fists, trying to push the images back.
"They didn't stop there. The attackers were from the Okami Clan. They took joy in my suffering, dragging it out over three days. I was locked away in that basement, starving, terrified, hearing their torture above me."
His breath caught, and for a moment, he faltered. He hadn't spoken of this in years, not to anyone.
"When it finally ended, I crawled out of hiding, crying. I begged for it to be a nightmare, but it wasn't. My hands… they were covered in blood, my family's blood. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I reached out, desperate to wake them up, to shake them, to make it all go away."
Shin's voice grew quieter, a faint tremble creeping in.
"But then I saw it—the crystal orb, shining in my mother's garb. I took it. The moment I touched it, the orb glowed, and I heard their voices. My parents. They spoke to me, wishing me a happy birthday. And then my father… he told me there was a gift for me. He pointed me toward a hidden passage behind his library."
A pained expression crossed Shin's face as he continued.
"I followed the path, and at the end, there was another orb. I took it, and it transformed into something far more than I could comprehend—a katana. But it wasn't just any blade. It was infused with a power that ripped through me, coursing through every vein, burning me as if the souls of my fallen clan were surging inside me. They all spoke to me. Their voices filled my mind, their pleas for vengeance echoing through me, urging me to take up the sword. To make them pay."
He clenched his hand, his grip tightening around the air, as though still feeling the weight of the sword.
"The pain was unbearable. It felt like my body was being torn apart. I passed out from the sheer force of it. When I woke, everything was in ruins. The rain had begun to fall, washing over the destruction. The world I knew… was gone."
His eyes grew distant.
"I began training in the way of the sword, all on my own. There was no one left to guide me. The katana was my only companion, the only thing I trusted. I had no other choice but to keep moving forward. To stay alive, no matter the cost."
Shin's voice trailed off, his gaze unwavering. For the first time, he looked directly at Laverna. The weight of his past hung heavy between them, and his words hung in the air, unspoken.
Shin had such a strange effect on her that she could only imagine it was due to the link he had forced upon her. Yeah… that had to be the only explanation.
She watched as Shin moved closer to the King, his words spilling out in quick succession. As the conversation unfolded, she instinctively grabbed bits of information, filing them away for future use.
But something else caught her attention—something deeper than the words themselves. She observed, and for the first time, she truly saw the King's reaction: utter stupefaction.
The man, the ruler of a kingdom, was shaken to his core by the very story Shin was telling. And yet, as the tale escaped Shin's lips, she could hear the raw pain in his voice, a pain that seemed to intensify with each word. The horrors he had endured, the loved ones he had lost…
Her heart ached for him. It was as if she could feel the weight of his past pressing against her chest, heavy and suffocating.
He had lost everything at such a young age—his family, his safety, his innocence. She had been through her own horrors, but in a different way.
She hadn't walked a road of training or survival. No, she had been taken, forced to fight for her life.
The Games… the twisted, cruel games the nobles played, using lives like toys for their amusement. She couldn't help but compare.
What had Shin experienced on the road? Had he been hunted like an animal, driven to do unspeakable things before he should have even known what it meant to fight?
The thought chilled her. His age, his innocence—both had been stolen from him in a brutal world that took no mercy on the weak.
Her heart squeezed painfully as she thought of the young boy he once was, standing there, powerless in the face of such violence. This world was unforgiving, especially to those as small and defenseless as he had been.
And now, even in his strength, his heart carried those scars. She wanted to reach out to him as he had done for her, to offer the comfort she hadn't been able to give before.
But she didn't. She stayed where she was, silent, listening to his pain spill out as he faced a king who could do nothing to ease it.