“Rin!”
The sudden shout jolted Rin, yanking her consciousness out of the Transparent World.
The bamboo sword slipped from her grasp and hit the ground with a soft thud.
The crystal-clear vision that had filled her eyes receded instantly like a retreating tide.
An overwhelming wave of dizziness struck her, causing her knees to buckle.
Her small body collapsed, dropping weakly onto the sandy training ground.
Before Rin could process what had happened to her body, a figure in silk robes rushed forward.
The woman knelt immediately and pulled her into a tight embrace against her chest, her breathing frantic with worry.
“Rin, what happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”
Rin blinked several times to gather her scattered awareness.
The familiar scent of incense calmed her nerves, allowing her to recognize the beautiful woman hugging her with trembling arms.
It was her mother, Akane.
A gentle-hearted noblewoman who poured all her love into her children.
“Mother…? Why are you here? I was just…”
Rin’s heart pounded hard inside her chest while the back of her kimono was already soaked with cold sweat.
She tried to piece together the fragments of what she had just experienced.
She remembered picking up the bamboo sword Yoriichi had discarded after her brothers left the training ground, imitating her older brother’s movements.
Then, her soul felt as if it had been pulled into a… transparent dimension.
In that world, all matter became see-through.
She could even clearly see the flow of blood and the pulsing of her own organs.
*This is insane…*
*Can an ordinary human body really access such a terrifying ability?*
Unaware of the turmoil raging inside her daughter’s mind, Akane only tightened her embrace.
A single tear of anxiety fell onto Rin’s shoulder, accompanied by a voice trembling with fear.
“You foolish child… Mother waited far too long in the dining hall because the three of you never showed up. That’s why I decided to come look for you.”
Akane slowly released her hug, then held Rin’s shoulders while gazing at her child’s face with pained eyes.
“I couldn’t find your two brothers. Instead, I saw you standing here all alone, holding up a bamboo sword. No matter how loudly I called your name, you didn’t respond at all. Do you know how terrified Mother was just now…?”
“I’m sorry, Mother. I was only…”
Rin bit her lower lip, holding back the words that nearly escaped her throat.
She knew there was no point in trying to explain what had just happened.
How could she say that she had just peered inside a human body and seen the structure of the outside world through transparent vision?
If she spoke those words, her mother would surely think her youngest daughter had lost her mind.
“Never mind. The important thing is that you’re safe. Don’t think about it anymore.”
Fortunately, Akane didn’t press any further.
She wiped the remaining tears from the corners of her eyes and shifted her gaze toward the sword instructor still lying powerless on the ground.
Her brows furrowed deeply with worry.
“Rin, tell Mother honestly. What exactly happened here? Who made your sword instructor faint like this? And where did your two brothers go?”
“Big Brother… they…”
Rin fell silent, unable to continue.
***
From that day onward, rumors of Yoriichi’s terrifying strength spread like wildfire throughout the Tsugikuni clan residence.
After the sword instructor woke up and recounted the entire event with a trembling body, their father’s attitude changed drastically overnight.
In the eyes of that powerful man, Yoriichi was no longer a cursed child who needed to be locked away in a rundown room.
The skinny boy suddenly became revered as a ‘Child of the Gods’ destined to lead the Tsugikuni clan to the highest peak of glory.
A ruthless idea immediately crossed the father’s mind: to change the legitimate heir of the clan, removing Michikatsu and replacing him with Yoriichi.
The rundown room in the rear courtyard was emptied.
Yoriichi was moved to a magnificent main chamber, given the finest silk clothes, and served luxurious meals that surpassed even what Michikatsu had previously received.
In contrast, Michikatsu’s fate reversed completely.
The boy who had been groomed as the heir to the family was now ignored and positioned as the child who would be sent to a temple once he turned ten.
The drastic fall in status shattered Michikatsu’s spirit.
The boy stopped waking before dawn.
He no longer touched his bamboo sword, ignored his father’s harsh scoldings, turned a deaf ear to his mother’s worried pleas, and remained indifferent to the servants’ belittling whispers.
He was still breathing, but his eyes were hollow, as if his soul had been forcibly ripped from his body.
Rin knew exactly how hard Michikatsu had worked all this time.
Her eldest brother possessed extraordinary talent and perseverance to achieve his goals, no matter how bloody his palms became from training.
Yet all that effort crumbled because of one undeniable truth: Michikatsu had realized there was an unbridgeable chasm between an ordinary person and a true genius.
Yoriichi’s lightning-fast sword swings that morning had reduced all his grand dreams to ashes in an instant.
Rin clenched her fists inside her kimono sleeves.
As the little sister carrying memories of the future, she knew this was the moment she needed to act and mend the relationship between her two brothers before it was too late.
The name ‘Rin’ her mother had given her symbolized the hope that she could stand in the middle and hold both her brothers’ hands.
However, bitter reality struck Rin first before she could take a single step.
While Michikatsu was losing his will to live, shocking news from the main meeting hall suddenly snatched away Rin’s remaining hope in this residence.
His father had arranged a political marriage for her.
The chosen fiancé was a wealthy daimyo from a neighboring clan.
Rin had seen the man once during an official banquet.
He was an old man nearly fifty years old, with a fat, bulging belly and a perpetually oily face.
The old daimyo’s first wife had just passed away, and Rin’s father quickly seized the opportunity to offer Rin as a tool for a military alliance.
Upon hearing the decision, Rin’s entire body shook violently with overwhelming fear.
She knew she had been reborn in a patriarchal samurai era, but she had never imagined being sold to an old man who was more suited to be her grandfather.
The marriage would not take place anytime soon because of Rin’s young age, but her entire future had already been locked away in the alliance documents. in a few years, once her body was deemed ready, she would be sent away from this house to spend the rest of her life confined in a foreign castle with that old man.
Rin gathered the courage to face her father, kneeling on the wooden floor to beg for the decision to be canceled.
What she received in return was only a hard slap across her small cheek, accompanied by a cold, piercing shout.
“You are a daughter of the Tsugikuni clan! Sacrificing yourself for the clan’s prosperity is the only reason you were allowed to be born into this world!”
Rin wanted to run to her mother for protection, but Akane’s own condition was growing worse.
The woman kept getting into fierce arguments with her husband to protect Yoriichi and Michikatsu’s rights, causing her health to deteriorate sharply until she could only lie weakly in bed.
Time continued to flow cruelly, ignoring the suppressed cries.
Six months later, amid a residence increasingly filled with cracks and thick fog of hatred, a major event finally erupted and changed the fate of the three Tsugikuni siblings forever.
Their mother, Akane, drew her last breath in a silent room.