Caricature | KNY

2 | Extraordinary

It is nighttime when you find yourself ambling across a valley, the mountains rising above you against the endless sky. You don't know what it is about tonight, but your intuition is oddly silent, as if telling you that you stand exactly where you're meant to be. Though you are no stranger to having to guess at what the universe [so to speak] wants you to do, the fact that it has led you out into the open in the dead of night is unusual. Perhaps someone with a stronger survival instinct would be afraid of what may lurk in the shadows, but you find you don't mind either way. Moments like these, where you feel like you have nowhere to be and are missing out on nothing, are a rare luxury that you relish in spite of potential dangers.

It is then that you notice a shift in your beloved stillness, something approaching from the distance that trickles tragedy into your tranquillity. A long-haired boy in plain robes runs through the dirt with unceasing footsteps, as if propelled by an unseen fire.

Your footsteps come to a halt, a silent sentinel in his path with your gaze turned up to the stars. Your hands are folded behind your back, body nearly motionless if not for your long sleeves sweeping faintly in the breeze.

Anyone else might have mistaken you for a ghost, with the way your figure shoulders a certain solemnity, or perhaps a sculpture, occupying a curious valley between human and imitation. But Yoriichi senses more beneath the stillness you present. The rhythmic cadence of breath, the flow of blood within your veins – all these unconscious markers of vitality paint you as irrefutably human. And yet, he cannot help but sense, lurking just beyond his perception, something indefinable from within you that sets you apart – strangely, undeniably so.

"Even in the darkest of nights, the world holds much that is beautiful," you remark, smiling into the shadows. "It is a blessing simply to be born into it, is it not?"

You watch him carefully. His expression is remarkably stoic: the striking scar on his forehead and his eyes, pools of deep maroon, stand out against his otherwise pale features. A portrait of neutrality, his seeming impassivity contradicts his extraordinary athleticism: it is as if he flees without any sense at all of the danger that he outpaces and ploughs effortlessly toward horizons that most could never dream of glimpsing. His breaths, even after crossing the vast field, mirror the steadiness of your own.

A beat of silence elapses as the boy remains fixed a few paces away, scrutinising you with sharp red eyes. His silence is not one smothered by grief yet his senses seem too poignant to have missed your — admittedly rhetorical — question. Curious, you tilt your head to peer at him, your profile illuminated by the gentle moonlight.

It is there, the unmistakable tragedy that seems to haunt every piece of potential you come across. You know different people cope in different ways with suffering, yet although you feel his phantom pains bearing down on your heart and his remorse weighing upon your shoulders, the young boy in front of you stands as tall as ever, with not so much as a waver in his voice nor a furrow in his brow. And in his eyes, you finally recognize a rare serenity that takes it all in stride, neither guarded nor openly warm, and a conviction of someone far beyond his years. You realise at this moment that he is like nobody you have ever met before, an anomaly among anomalies that reeks of destiny and predetermined purpose. Your heartbeat quickens, before you haste to quell it.

"Why were you running?" you ask the extraordinary boy. He only stares up at you, large eyes unblinking. Expecting such a response, you instead invite him to sit next to you on the grassy bank of a stream a little ways up the mountain. Together, you listen to the familiar harmony of running water and buzzing cicadas.

Yoriichi shifts his gaze away from the current and back to you, who sits in seiza with your eyes closed. The long-haired boy is reminded of his brother, Michikatsu, who spent countless hours swinging his sword in the garden of their estate in unwavering pursuit of his dream to become the strongest samurai in the land. As with his brother's devotion to the sword, Yoriichi finds warmth in your equanimity as you delight in the simplicity of the moment. The thrum of your heartbeat slows and with each soft breath, tension escapes from every part of your body.