The old priest spoke of omens long before the sky broke open.
Ereshan sat among the gathered villagers, the heavy scent of incense clinging to the humid night. Flames from the altar wavered under the breath of an unseen wind. "When the gods stir in their slumber," the priest rasped, "the heavens will bleed fire, and the ground shall awaken things best left forgotten."
But Ereshan, barely sixteen and with more calluses on his hands than years behind him, listened with only half a heart. Omens were for old men and women with hollow eyes. His world was simpler; muddy fields, stubborn oxen, and the endless pulse of planting and harvest. Legends belonged to another life, one he could not afford to dream about.
That night, as the villagers dispersed beneath a moon swallowed by shadow, Ereshan lingered by the paddies. Mist slithered across the water's surface, painting ghostly patterns that dissolved at his touch. He leaned back against the brittle fence, watching the stars flicker uncertainly. Then the sky split.
A roaring light, too brilliant to bear, tore across the heavens. It painted the night gold and crimson, trailing fire and smoke like the bleeding tail of a wounded dragon. Villagers screamed. Bells clanged frantically from the shrine tower. Dogs howled and oxen bellowed in their pens. The falling star plunged into the Sacred Forest beyond the rice fields, the ground trembling beneath its passage. Ereshan didn't think. His legs carried him forward before his mind caught up.
The forest had always been forbidden. Whispers told of spirits older than memory, of trees that drank the souls of those who strayed too far. Children were taught never to cross the crumbling torii gate at the forest's edge. But the fire called to him, a lure he could neither resist nor explain.
He crossed the torii. The world beyond changed. Mist grew thick and cold, muffling sound and swallowing the scent of smoke. Shadows stretched too long, bending around trees with gnarled arms. Somewhere, faintly, drums beat—a slow, ancient rhythm that set his heart to matching pace.
He found the crater after what could have been minutes or hours. Trees lay snapped like twigs around a blackened wound in the earth. At its center, half-buried and steaming, was no stone. It was a shard—jagged, metallic, and pulsing with soft, golden light. Strange characters, like the flowing script from forgotten temples, crawled across its surface. Ereshan's hand moved on its own.
The moment his fingers brushed the shard, pain lanced up his arm. His vision burst into a thousand images; floating islands crowned with golden palaces, dark rivers cutting through endless mist, towers of ice beneath a never-ending night. He saw a woman cloaked in flames, a serpent coiled around a drowned temple, a crow with three burning eyes. Voices clamored at the edges of his mind—pleading, warning, commanding.
And then silence. When he woke, the mist was thicker, the night colder. On the back of his hand, a mark burned—a crimson sigil, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
He stumbled home in darkness, the world around him distorted and wrong. The rice fields whispered his name. Shadows leaned in close, murmuring things he could not understand.
At the village gates, faces awaited him—grim, fearful, their eyes wide and full of something worse than anger, possibly terror. The priest stepped forward, his staff clattering against the stones. "You have crossed into the forbidden," he said. "You have brought the curse upon us."
It goes back seventeen years ago, before omens tore open the sky, before islands trembled and gods stirred in their sleep, there was a meeting beneath the Eternal Bonsai.
The Eternal Bonsai stood at the heart of the Whispering Pines, its gnarled roots coiling over a stone altar that predated memory itself. Its leaves, though few, shone like stars even in the thickest mist, each a whisper of ancient power. Beneath its sprawling boughs, the Elder Kami gathered—a rare, uneasy congregation that had not occurred since the forging of the Yamato Archipelago.
First to arrive was Hoshigami, the Starry One. Draped in a robe of indigo and stitched with constellations, her hair shimmered like a river of night. She reigned over the Skies and Signs, weaving the fates of mortals and gods alike with slender, ink-stained fingers. Her eyes, twin galaxies, blinked slow and thoughtful as she gazed at the gathering mist.
Next came Kawa-no-Oji, the River Prince. His body flowed like water, his form never quite solid—one moment a youth of blue robes, the next a cascade of silver streams. He bore dominion over Waters and Life, his laughter feeding brooks and his anger drowning cities. He settled silently by a smooth stone, the mist curling lovingly around him.
From the deeper woods emerged Tsuchigami, the Stone Mother, her frame towering and vast, skin rough as bark, crowned with a mane of moss and wildflowers. Her domain was Stone and Root; to her, mountains were but restless children. Each of her slow steps cracked the stones underfoot.
A rustle in the branches announced Kazenokami, the Wind Lord. Barefoot and draped in tattered banners, he moved like a sigh, never still, his many scarves snapping against a wind only he could command. His hair, the color of ash and cloud, tangled across his face. Over Sky and Storms he reigned, master of unseen hands.
The air darkened. From the shadows slipped Yamigami, the God of Darkness and Forgotten Places. His form was a shifting silhouette, cloaked in an absence so complete it swallowed even memory. Where he lingered, the ground frosted over with a quiet chill. He ruled Fear and Secrets, and few dared to meet his hollow gaze.
Last came Hinokami, the Flame Keeper, striding from a line of fire that withered the grass but left the Bonsai untouched. His armor was smoldering iron, his hair a crown of flickering embers. From him emanated heat, life, destruction—he was the Warden of Flame and Rebirth.
They formed a circle beneath the ageless tree. Above them, the Eternal Bonsai's leaves stirred, though no wind touched them. For a long while, none spoke. Then Hoshigami, voice soft and heavy with foreknowledge, intoned, "The prophecy is upon us."
"The Child of Flaming Wind," murmured Kawa-no-Oji, his voice a babble of distant brooks. "Born of smoke, tempered by storms. The one who will sunder the ancient accords between Kami, Yokai, and mortal alike."
Tsuchigami rumbled, folding her stone-carved arms. "We have preserved the Balance for a thousand ages. One child cannot undo the foundations of existence."
"One child," said Kazenokami, grinning like a mad storm, "or one storm—what is the difference? All it takes is a single crack in the stone to bring down a mountain."
"Balance is a fragile fiction," Yamigami whispered from the dark. "Mortals forget. Yokai hunger. Even Kami dream of more than what was decreed."
Hinokami stirred, flames flickering at his pauldrons. "What say the stars?" he asked, turning to Hoshigami.
She closed her galaxy eyes. "The child is marked by fire and carried by wind. Neither fully Kami, nor wholly mortal. Born to break... or born to rebuild."
A silence fell heavier than any mist. Above them, the Eternal Bonsai trembled, a single golden leaf falling, spiraling downward until it touched the altar stone and turned to ash. "The wheel turns," Yamigami said. "Whether we will it or not."
Tsuchigami's stone brow furrowed. "We could intervene. Find the child before the flames take root."
Kawa-no-Oji's watery voice wavered. "Yet prophecy weaves itself around such meddling. The more tightly we grip it, the more surely we carve its path."
"Should we not prepare instead?" offered Kazenokami, ever restless. "Forge alliances anew, fortify our domains, awaken old powers best left sleeping?"
Hinokami's gaze burned brighter. "Or we do nothing. Let the child choose. Freedom... even for one such as this... may yet lead to salvation instead of ruin."
The Elder Kami weighed his words. Beneath them, the ground breathed, above them, the heavens spun. The ancient Balance, silent and watching, waited for no decision.
Finally, Hoshigami spoke again, her voice barely a whisper. "We must remember that the the child is not merely a threat. He is a mirror. He will reflect what we have allowed this world to become."
One by one, without word or ceremony, the Elder Kami dispersed into the mist. Only Hoshigami lingered, tracing a constellation in the air with one slender finger, drawing lines no mortal eye could see.