Thirty years ago, Ertha was already beginning to fracture.
Of the seven great domains, only the Eastern Kingdom—called Nippon—remained under human rule. It was a land of rolling green plains, terraced rice fields, and blossoming cherry trees that turned the hills pink every spring. Noble temples and shrines marked the ridgelines, and its people held honor and discipline above all.
The North, known as Valheim, was home to the Elves and Faeries—creatures of grace and magic. Towering pine forests blanketed the snow-laced mountains, where crystal rivers flowed with mana-rich waters and the air shimmered with illusion and song. Ancient stone monoliths whispered with old power.
The South, Dhi'l-Bāḏ, belonged to the fierce and primal Beastfolk. It was a scorching land of red cliffs, sun-cracked deserts, and savannahs teeming with creatures born from tooth and claw. Thunderstorms rumbled across the horizon, and ancient trees with golden leaves dotted the ridges.
The West Queendom, Atlantis, lay beneath the sea—an endless aquatic expanse filled with coral spires, bioluminescent cities, and siren-song trenches where only the brave dared dive. The Merfolk ruled with elegance and cunning, their voices powerful enough to part tides.
And the Central domain—then known as Ethiped—was home to the proud Dwarves, deep-forged craftsmen and defenders of mountain halls. Their realm sprawled beneath snow-draped peaks, shaped with artistry and engineering that rivaled the gods themselves.
At that time, only the far-flung Demonlands and the fractured Outlands had fallen to demonic conquest. But the rest of the world could sense the coming storm.
In the heart of Nippon, two brothers stood in the courtyard of the imperial palace.
Tenchi was seventeen then—taller than most grown men, broad-shouldered, with a lazy smirk that rarely left his face. He wore his robe loose and one boot half-fastened. His sword leaned against a bench behind him, forgotten.
Tendou stood across from him, breathing hard, sweat soaking through his training vest. His stance was textbook-perfect, muscles tight from hours of relentless repetition.
"Again," Tendou muttered.
Tenchi yawned. "You'll snap your wrists off if you keep at it like that."
"You're not taking this seriously."
"I'm not the one who needs to," Tenchi replied with a grin. "Father already knows I'm strong."
Tendou's jaw clenched. "That's not the point. We can't afford to be careless. Demons are spreading beyond the western gulch."
Tenchi flopped beneath a cherry tree. "Then let them come. I'll cut them down."
Tendou stared at him for a long moment. "You always pretend not to care, but you do. You just hate letting people see it."
Tenchi cracked one eye open and smiled. "Maybe. But you care enough for both of us."
Tendou's arms finally lowered. That was always the way—it had always been that way. One born with power. The other born with the will to chase it.
And in Ertha, shadows had weight—especially the ones cast by greatness. For Tendou, living in that shadow meant constantly measuring himself against the unreachable. It wasn't envy he felt, but an ache—a quiet, constant yearning to be worthy of the person he had chosen to protect.
The people of Ertha had a system to rank power—ancient as the first runes. Magical strength and physical might were evaluated separately, then combined into a classification. The tiers: Fairytale, Folktale, Epic, Deity, and Divinity. Each tier was split from 1 to 5.
Only a few had ever reached Deity.
Each domain had produced at least one individual who achieved the rare Divinity rank—except for Nippon.
Tenchi was ranked Epic-4. He had never earned it. He never had to. His presence alone could silence a battlefield. Emperor Izan often said he'd be the first to reach Divinity.
Tendou was Folktale-3. Not weak—but not enough.
And Tendou knew it. But he never resented it.
He adored his brother.
He would follow him into any fire.
That fire came sooner than either of them expected.
They were sent to clear demons from a forest in the southern frontier. It was meant to be a clean mission. A message.
The trees whispered wrong that day. The sun bled into gold. The shadows moved too much.
Emperor Izan led from the front, his obsidian armor gleaming, his commands cold.
"Hold the rear," he told Tendou, his tone devoid of warmth. His gaze barely touched his younger son. "Cover your brother's flanks. Stay out of his way."
"Yes, Father."
Tenchi grinned. "Let me at least lead the charge—"
"You'll obey," Izan snapped, eyes fixed on Tenchi with a cold intensity. "I won't bury my heir over foolish pride. Your strength defines the future of our bloodline. Do not waste it."
He paused, the faintest tremor of emotion flickering behind his stern expression, then vanished.
To Tendou, he gave only a glance.
No words.
None were needed to convey how little his effort mattered in comparison.
They entered the woods.
First it was quiet. Then—screams.
The sky darkened with wings. Shadows burst from the trees. Claws, teeth, shrieks.
Tendou held the line—at first. But they came from everywhere. Above. Below. Through the earth.
He fought with every ounce of strength he had—gritting his teeth, lungs burning, arms trembling under the weight of his blade. Sweat blurred his vision, and panic clawed at his chest as he felt the line breaking. His strikes were clean, but they were too slow; his breath came too fast. The roar of demons drowned out the orders shouted down the ranks. For a moment, he was a boy again, not a soldier—just a younger son trying to hold back the dark with hands that weren't strong enough. And it wasn't enough.
Tenchi fought like a storm, but he was alone.
Tendou turned—and saw it.
Tenchi saw it too.
And for the first time, panic gripped him. His eyes locked on the demon lunging for his back, but he couldn't turn in time. He could feel it—this was the moment. His instincts screamed, but he knew his blade wouldn't be fast enough. Not this time.
A thousand thoughts flooded his mind in a heartbeat. Tendou. His stupid, loyal brother. His shadow. His shield.
Please—
He screamed, voice cracking with desperation, and sprinted like the air itself resisted his every step. "NOT HIM!" Tendou roared, eyes wide with terror as the demon's claws drew closer. "STAY AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!" He threw himself forward, blade raised in a final, desperate swing—His attack connected. hope was about to come back...
But it was too late...
The claws raked deep across Tenchi's side. Blood arced through the air like a slash of crimson paint. His body spun from the impact, feet skidding across the blood-slicked earth. He fell hard, gasping, vision blurring.
Tendou's scream was still echoing when the demon's carcass collapsed beside his brother—he had slain it, but not fast enough.
Chaos still raged around them. The forest echoed with shrieks and metal and dying breath. What had been a mission of dominance became a desperate scramble for survival.
The line had broken. Commanders were dead. Soldiers trampled each other in retreat. And at the center of it, Tenchi bled into the soil.
He clawed toward his sword with one hand while pressing the wound with the other. "Tendou…" he hissed, more from disbelief than pain.
The battle only lasted minutes.
But for Tendou, those minutes became a permanent scar.
Half the men died.
Tenchi survived.
Barely.
Back in the palace, Tendou faced Izan in silence.
"You failed," Izan said coldly, his voice sharp enough to cut. "You couldn't even do the one thing expected of you—stand still and protect someone stronger. Because of your incompetence, your brother—our future—was nearly lost. Pathetic."
Tendou bowed so low his knuckles bled.
"It won't happen again," Tendou said, his voice raw. "Please… let me make it right. I'll train harder. I'll do better. Just give me another chance—just one more chance to protect him."
His forehead pressed to the cold floor. His breath trembled.
But Izan's eyes were hard.
"You were born to follow," he said. "And you can't even do that."
Izan's gaze lingered coldly on his kneeling son. Then, in a voice like frost, he added, "Very well. If you want a second chance, you'll have it—but hear this, Tendou. The next time Tenchi is in danger, I expect you to throw your life away for him. No hesitation. No glory. That is your role—his shield. Nothing more."
Tendo
That night, Tendou didn't sleep.
He didn't cry.
He didn't curse.
He trained.
Alone in the darkened training court, beneath the looming silence of the palace, he swung his sword with raw, unrelenting force. His knuckles blistered. His palms split open. The cold bit into his bones, but he didn't stop. The phantom image of Tenchi bleeding into the forest floor haunted every motion.
He whispered his brother's name between gritted teeth, as if it were a prayer—and a punishment.
Memories flashed behind his eyes: Tenchi shoving two older cousins aside when they mocked Tendou for his weak mana reading. Tenchi bloodying his knuckles on a noble's son after the boy tripped Tendou during sword drills. Even the day Izan demanded Tendou step aside in court, Tenchi stood up, voice firm—"If my brother leaves, I go with him."
Tendou remembered the look in Tenchi's eyes then—not pity, but fierce loyalty. A refusal to let anyone—father, noble, or council—belittle his little brother.
Tendou had never forgotten.
Those moments burned like kindling beneath his obsession. If Tenchi would throw himself into fire for him, then Tendou would become flame itself to protect him.
And he would burn everything in his path to be worthy of that defense.
Strike after strike, Tendou carved his shame into the air. Not just to grow stronger, but to erase the part of himself that hesitated.
And as the stars dimmed and the first light rose, his body trembled from exhaustion—but his heart had changed.
What had once been devotion… had hardened into obsession. Tendou's failure branded itself into his every waking thought. Because of that moment—because of the blood spilled and the judgment in his father's eyes—he became obsessed with strength. Not for glory. Not for title. But to never feel that helpless again. To never see his brother fall while he stood powerless. He would do whatever it took. Learn any art. Break any vow. No boundary mattered if it meant he could protect Tenchi, no matter the cost.
Because love, when twisted by failure, does not fade—it calcifies.
And Tendou vowed—he would never fail Tenchi again.
Even if it meant losing everything else.
Time moved forward—slowly, steadily, as it always did. Not long after the failed mission, Izan passed away in his sleep. No great war, no glorious end. Just silence. The empire mourned, though few wept. He had been a stern hand, and for some, that hand had lingered too long.
Tenchi ascended the throne with reluctant grace. The coronation was grand, but he looked out over the nobles not with pride, but with something closer to caution. He hadn't asked for a crown, but once it sat on his head, he wore it with surprising weight.
And through it all, Tendou remained close. He stayed by Tenchi's side for years. In war. In counsel. In silence.
He trained when no one watched. He bled for strength that never came.
He watched over Tenchi's children.
Especially Samara. Of all Tenchi's children, it was she who stirred something deeper in him. Quiet, overlooked, and fragile—Samara reminded Tendou of himself in ways he never admitted aloud. She had inherited no flame, no divine blessing. Just a soft voice, timid steps, and a heart too big for the world that demanded strength.
She became his light, the anchor he didn't know he needed. He held her hand when she stumbled, taught her how to tie her obi, and stood watch when she cried herself to sleep.
She called him Uncle.
And in that word, Tendou found the smallest flicker of peace—a purpose that wasn't borrowed or commanded, but chosen. He smiled every time she said it, as though the title alone made the weight of his failures worth bearing.
But the world was darkening.
And light, no matter how precious, could not hold back the tide.
Tenchi grew stronger. Tendou did not.
Whispers came. Glyphs beneath Ethiped. Bargains written in blood.
Tendou read. Studied. Broke rules. Bent lines.
He found a path.
He followed it.
He sacrificed his humanity.
Not for power.
But to protect the only man he had ever loved more than himself.
His brother.
He left Nippon under cover of darkness.
No guards saw him leave. No gate records noted his passage. Only a folded letter on Tenchi's war table and a smaller one nestled on Samara's pillow.
"I don't want to be weak anymore. I will find true strength. To protect you and Nippon." —Tendou
Tenchi found it the next morning, the wax seal still warm from Tendou's hand.
Tenchi stood frozen, the weight of the letter sinking into his chest like a blade. He read the words again and again, but they didn't change.
His fingers clenched the parchment until it crumpled.
For a moment, he said nothing. Then the silence shattered—he struck the table with his fist, splintering the wood. Servants flinched in the next room.
"He left," Tenchi muttered. "That idiot left."
His breath trembled. Anger churned inside him—not at Tendou's decision to grow stronger, but at the way he did it. Alone. Without warning. Without faith.
"He said he would protect me. He promised," Tenchi whispered, voice cracking.
He paced the war room like a caged beast, torn between grief and fury.
"That coward… he couldn't stand being weak, so he ran off to play god?" Tenchi spat, but his voice shook beneath the anger. The words came bitterly, but not without heartbreak. His grip on the crumpled letter trembled. "Why couldn't he tell me? Why couldn't he trust me?"
He turned from the shattered table, eyes stinging. There was fury in him, yes—but deeper still, betrayal. Pain. A gaping hole where Tendou's loyalty used to be.
"I would've helped him. I would've carried him," he whispered to no one. "He didn't have to run."
It was then that something inside Tenchi shifted. Trust fractured. Compassion hardened.
And the seed of his hatred toward weakness began to grow—rooted not in pride, but in pain. Every time Tenchi looked at Samara, he saw echoes of his brother—the same quiet eyes, the same fragile presence, the same unwanted softness. And it hurt.
He began to pull away from her, not with cruelty, but with coldness wrapped in silence. He stopped inviting her to council lessons. He stopped asking if she slept well. He told himself it was because she was weak, but deep down, it was because she reminded him of how his brother left.
So he isolated her. Not out of hatred, but out of pain too tangled to name.
And Samara, too young to understand, simply felt unloved.
For Samara it was simpler, her Uncle wrapped around a strand of blessed holy beads from the shrine.
"I love you, my sweet blossom. I wish I could stay and hold your hand through every storm. But Uncle has to go now—to protect you, and everyone we love. I promise I'll come back. These beads will keep you safe from the bad things in the dark. Keep them close, and think of me."
The beads smelled faintly of sandalwood and iron, and she clutched them for years.
Tendou walked away from everything he loved, believing it was the only way to save it.
He didn't stop protecting Nippon. Not immediately.
For years, Tendou moved through the shadows like a phantom guardian. He intercepted demon scouts before they reached the border, assassinated commanders who had begun to eye Nippon too closely, and slipped false maps into the hands of enemy strategists. No one knew. No one suspected. Not even Tenchi.
He watched his brother from afar—during war briefings, processions, even when Tenchi visited the shrines. Tendou was there, hidden among the trees or cloaked in illusion, eyes never leaving the man he still swore to protect.
Still loyal.
But it wasn't enough.
One night, Tendou felt it—the shift in the air, the chill of dread clawing into his spine. Makaius had turned his eyes east.
Nippon was no longer a kingdom the Demon Lord would ignore.
And for all his cunning, all his quiet acts of defiance, Tendou could do nothing to halt the tide without revealing himself as a traitor to his new masters. His hands were bound by the very power he'd chosen.
He fled further into the darkness.
And Nippon braced for war.
Five long years passed.
Then came the forest again—the same forest where it all began. The same trees that had witnessed his failure. The same soil that had drunk Tenchi's blood.
Tenchi stood amid the chaos, bloodied and weary, his cloak torn, his blade slick with black ichor. Around him, his soldiers fell in waves, torn apart by things that wore flesh like masks.
Smoke curled from the treetops.
And from that smoke—Tendou emerged.
His horns gleamed faintly. His robes were darker than shadow. But his eyes—they still carried the weight of a brother who remembered everything.
They didn't speak.
Their blades did.
Steel clashed. Magic erupted. Fire met ruin, and wind screamed between them.
They fought not to kill, but to stall—Tendou's orders were clear: distract the Emperor. Keep him away from the real attack.
Only for minutes.
But in those minutes, the past surged between every blow.
Then, just as suddenly, Tendou vanished back into the smoke.
Leaving Tenchi with a deep gash on his ribs—and a deeper wound in his heart.
He stood alone in the forest once more, surrounded by blood.
The silence after was heavier than any battle cry.
Tenchi, still gripping his side, took a shaky step forward.
"Tendou," he rasped. "It's not too late. Come back to Nippon. Help us fight from the inside—we can protect them together."
Tendou didn't move. Didn't blink. The wind caught his cloak, but he remained still as stone.
"You don't have to keep running," Tenchi continued, his voice softening. "You don't have to carry this alone."
Still, no answer.
Tendou's eyes locked on his brother, unreadable. Then he turned—slowly—and walked into the smoke.
"TENDOU!" Tenchi roared.
But he was gone.
Tenchi stood alone, heart pounding, breath shaking.
"Damn you…" he whispered. "Damn you for leaving me again."
He didn't know whether to chase after him or collapse. So instead, he simply stood—burning with the grief of a brother lost not once, but twice.
Now, in the present—they clashed again.
Wind met abyss. Fire met ruin.
Their blades collided.
Samara crawled, dazed, watching gods in men's skins destroy the world over her fate.
"Tendou—don't!" Tenchi roared.
"She belongs to Makaius now!" Tendou snapped.
They struck.
Tendou's blade slipped through Tenchi's guard.
Blood.
Tenchi's left arm hit the floor.
Samara screamed.
Tenchi dropped, gasping.
Tendou hesitated.
"You're not protecting me anymore," Tenchi rasped. "You're killing what's left of us."
Tendou didn't answer.
TO BE CONTINUED