The night Akira Kazehaya was born, the cold winds howled through the barren streets of Rukongai, carrying with them a promise of death. The district, known for its harsh climate, had never seen a winter like this. Snow piled up against the doors of the ramshackle houses, and the river that cut through the district had long since frozen over, becoming a silent, icy expanse. It was as if the world itself had decided to stop moving, frozen in time by the bitter chill.
Inside a small, dilapidated hut on the outskirts of the district, a woman lay dying. Her breaths were shallow, each one a struggle against the crushing weight of the cold that seeped through the thin walls. Her name was Aoi, and she had once been known for her kindness, a light in the otherwise bleak district. But now, as she lay on a straw mat, her body weakened from the strain of childbirth, even that light was fading.
Aoi's husband, Kenta, sat beside her, his face a mask of despair. The baby, a small, fragile thing, lay wrapped in a tattered blanket beside her. The child had not cried when he was born, and his skin was as pale as the snow outside. Kenta looked at the boy with a mixture of fear and resentment, his heart hardened by the loss of the woman he loved.
"Aoi," Kenta whispered, his voice breaking. "Why did it have to be this way?"
Aoi turned her head slowly, her once bright eyes now clouded with pain. She looked at the child, then back at her husband. "He... he is special, Kenta. I can feel it. You must protect him..."
Kenta shook his head, unable to suppress the anger that surged within him. "Special? This child... he's the reason you're dying! How can you ask me to protect him?"
Aoi's eyes filled with tears, but she did not have the strength to argue. She knew Kenta was suffering, that the loss of their child would break him even further. But she also knew that this child, born on the coldest night of the harshest winter, was not ordinary.
"He is our son, Kenta," Aoi murmured, her voice barely audible. "Please... promise me..."
Kenta could not bear to look at her. His heart, already fractured by the relentless hardship of their lives, shattered completely at the sight of her fading away. In his mind, the child was a demon, a bringer of death that had taken the only person he had ever loved.
As the first light of dawn crept over the frozen horizon, Aoi took her last breath. The room fell silent, the air thick with the weight of her passing. Kenta remained by her side, unmoving, his eyes hollow as he stared at the lifeless form of his wife.
The child, still wrapped in his blanket, made no sound. His eyes, a strikingly unnatural shade of blue, were open, staring at the ceiling as if he could see something beyond this world. The temperature in the room seemed to drop even further, and a thin layer of frost began to form on the walls.
Kenta finally tore his gaze away from Aoi and looked at the child. There was no warmth in his expression, only a cold, seething hatred. He reached out with trembling hands, gripping the bundle tightly.
"Yuki no Akuma," Kenta hissed through clenched teeth. "You are nothing but a demon born of snow and death."
With that, he stood, cradling the child in his arms. The warmth of his own body did nothing to penetrate the cold that radiated from the infant. He walked to the door, hesitating only for a moment before stepping out into the biting wind. The snow crunched beneath his feet as he made his way to the edge of the village, where the forest began. The trees, bare and skeletal, loomed like silent sentinels in the gray dawn.
Kenta stopped at the foot of an ancient tree, its roots twisting out of the frozen ground like the fingers of some long-dead giant. He looked down at the child in his arms, his vision blurred by a mix of tears and fury.
"I won't let you take anything else from me," Kenta whispered. "This ends now."
With a final, desperate cry, Kenta placed the child at the base of the tree, the cold earth pressing against the boy's tiny body. He turned and walked away without looking back, his heart heavy with the knowledge that he had condemned his own flesh and blood to die in the wilderness.
The wind picked up, swirling the snow into a frenzy around the infant. Yet, despite the fierce cold, the child did not cry. His ice-blue eyes remained open, unblinking, as if he were waiting for something—or someone.
Hours passed, and the sun climbed higher in the sky, though its weak rays did little to warm the frozen world below. The child, abandoned in the snow, should have succumbed to the cold long ago. But he did not. Instead, the air around him seemed to still, the wind dying down as the snow settled gently over his tiny form.
It was then that she appeared.
A figure cloaked in white, her presence almost indistinguishable from the snow itself, approached the child. Her steps were soundless, her movements graceful and otherworldly. She knelt beside the boy, her pale hands reaching out to touch his cheek.
The child did not flinch at her touch. Instead, he turned his head slightly, his gaze meeting hers with a startling intensity. The woman—no, the spirit—smiled, a faint, enigmatic curve of her lips.
"Yuki no Akuma," she whispered, echoing the words of the boy's father. "A demon of snow... or perhaps something more."
The spirit gently lifted the child into her arms, cradling him as if he were her own. The cold that had once surrounded him seemed to dissipate, replaced by a strange, comforting numbness. The woman's eyes, the same piercing blue as the child's, softened as she looked down at him.
"You will be strong, little one," she murmured. "The cold will protect you, and I will guide you. For you are not of this world, but of the winter itself."
With that, the spirit turned and began to walk deeper into the forest, her form gradually fading into the snowstorm that had begun to brew once more. The wind howled around them, but it no longer seemed so menacing. Instead, it was a lullaby, a song of the winter that would become the boy's constant companion.
The child, still silent, closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, nestled in the arms of the spirit who had claimed him. And as the storm raged on, the first chapter of Akira Kazehaya's life began—a life that would be shaped by the cold, by the snow, and by the unyielding will to survive.
As the spirit carried the newborn Akira deeper into the forest, the world around them seemed to transform. The towering trees, coated in thick layers of snow, stood silent and still, their branches bowing under the weight of winter's grip. The forest floor, a pristine white canvas, bore no tracks other than those left by the spirit's light steps, which quickly vanished as the snow fell steadily from the heavens.
The spirit, her movements as fluid as the wind itself, came to a stop before a secluded clearing. Here, the snow had formed a natural cradle, a hollow in the ground surrounded by ancient pines. With a tender touch, she laid Akira down in the snow, which seemed to mold itself around him, holding him as gently as a mother's embrace.
For a moment, the spirit gazed down at the child, her expression unreadable. Then, she raised her hand, and the snow around the clearing began to swirl, forming a protective barrier. The wind outside raged on, but within this small, enchanted space, there was peace—a stillness that seemed to exist outside of time itself.
"You will be safe here," the spirit whispered, her voice barely louder than the soft rustle of snowflakes. "For now, rest, little one. The world will soon reveal its true nature to you, and you must be ready."
With those words, the spirit faded into the snow, her form dissolving into the very essence of winter. The clearing remained, undisturbed, a sanctuary for the child who would one day become Akira Kazehaya, the Winter's Enigma.
