『Stories. The soul of people are stories.』

『—narratives told and forgotten under the gaze of the divine.』

What is a person but the sum of their choices?

Of course— we each want to believe that our lives are shaped by the grand acts we perform, by the legacies we leave behind.

But it is the small, quiet moments—the setsuna when you stand at a crossroad and choose—where a person is truly defined.

Every decision you make, every small sacrifice, every risk, even the moments where you fail— they all add up.

And sometimes… it’s the fall that matters most.

I used to believe that people were only as valuable as their success. That a person’s worth could be measured by what they achieved, how they were remembered.

I was wrong.

It’s not the destination, but the journey. It’s not the victories that matter, but how you march forward even after you've lost everything.

People are molded by the choices they make when the world demands too much.

A person is not their name nor their bloodline. Their worth is not determined by where they began, but by how far they've come—their actions when faced with an unyielding fate.

How far they fall.

And whether they manage to stand back up again.

Because life has a way of breaking people.

Challenging them.

Twisting them.

Forcing them to choose, even when there are no good choices left.

And in the end, it is the ones who stand back up that shape history.

Before all of this, I thought I was content. I had everything anyone could want—a noble family, wealth, status.

Born and raised with dignity, my every need fulfilled, surrounded by the warm glow of respectability.

Yet, no matter how much I had, no matter how many people admired my position, there was always a gnawing emptiness deep inside.

It felt like I wasn’t doing anything—like I was nothing more than a mere ornament clinging to the life I was born into, weighing down the shoulders of those who truly mattered.

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I watched others shape their destinies, take risks and make choices that carved their paths—even at the expense of everything they knew.

But could I accomplish that? What was I doing? What was my purpose?

All my life I believed that what I had was enough—until it wasn’t. This foolish girl wished for something more, something grand.

The child in me wanted to be someone who changed the world, an individual who wasn’t just… existing.

I wanted to feel the fire of something truly meaningful burning inside me.

I wanted to be different from the masses. To do something grand and meaningful. To leave behind a legacy earned, not inherited.

I used to think that was a noble dream. A tender longing for purpose.

And the gods heard my wish.

—Just not in the way I expected.

The price of my ambition was steep, far steeper than I could have ever imagined. I thought I wanted to be the hero, but what I became… was far more complicated.

The question isn’t whether I’m worthy.

—it’s if I can find the strength to keep moving forward. No matter how much I must sacrifice, despite the monster I might become.

"The world does not weep for the fallen, nor will it pause for those who bleed and scream— until their soul shatters into a thousand pieces."

But as long as I’m still breathing, this story isn’t over.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned—it's that even the greatest of falls can lead to the highest of rises.

I used to think I was powerless. Just another noble girl who would live a quiet, uneventful life.

But then—fate intervened.

The life I knew shattered, burned to embers before my very eyes.

The wings that kept me afloat— turned to ashes by the very fires of my ambition.

It was only when I slowly began my rapid descent— did I realize that they were merely made of wax, poorly adorned in sparkling jewels that my family had earned.

And when the cinders marred my very soul...

It was then—my role in this story began to change.