Kaze had always loved the wind. He loved the way it rustled through his hair like the hand of a proud father. The whisper of its song against his ears, bearing words that he’d always sworn he could have heard if they were just a little louder.

The wind was solace. He’d spent so much of his childhood sitting at the edge of the small seaside cliff beside the house. Kicking his feet, watching pebbles dislodge themselves from the ground and plummet down to splash into the ocean far below. Listening to the wind.

Blocking out the yelling.

He’d sat, joined by the infuriating caw of seagulls fighting over food that didn’t belong to them. Watching the clouds drift through the sky, his body wrapped in the embrace of the wind. There were some days where its howl was so loud, its pull so strong, that he’d almost been able to drown out the sounds of his parents in the house behind him.

The wind was his friend. His only friend. They’d had their troubles. There were times when it had left him when he’d needed it most. When they’d fought, and its gusts had nearly tossed him into the ocean below. But in the end, the wind was his friend. It protected him.

There had been a time when he’d thought the wind to be the loudest sound in the world, but Kaze had learned that to not be the case. The wind was loud — but it had never been louder than the old gun that his father kept in the stained wooden cabinet at his bedside. The one he’d always waved around.

It was loud, but it was not louder than his mother’s scream. It was not louder than the second gunshot.

It was not louder than the silence that followed.

Kaze wasn’t sitting when his father emerged from the house. When his father found him, Kaze stood by the cliffside, wind whipping through his hair, snapping it against his eyes in its fury.

The man had said something as he stormed up to join him on the cliffside. Waved the gun in his hand, spittle flying from his lips. He’d swayed, eyes glazed and distant, lifted the gun. Pressed it against Kaze’s head. Said something, but the wind stole it from the air before it could reach Kaze’s ears.

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And, on that day, for the first time, Kaze heard the whisper of the wind properly.

It was a command. A simple enough one to follow. Just a tiny little push.

And, on that day, for the first time, Kaze discovered that while the wind hadn’t been loud enough to silence a gunshot, it was more than loud enough to swallow his father’s scream.

He’d watched the drunken man plummet over the edge of the cliff. Watched him hit the rocks that the ocean crashed against.

Watched him break.

Watched him drown.

Kaze did not hear the wind again for twelve long years.

He did not hear the wind until golden letters had formed themselves in the air before him. Until the System graced the Earth — until the System graced him.

And, on that day, for the first time, Kaze truly heard the wind. It was more than a word. More than a passing whisper that faded the harder he tried to seek it. It was a conversation. A guide.

A command.

His friend had returned, and it called on him to grow. To become more than he ever had before. In the wake of the System, there was a new way forward. A way in which he could hear it clearer with every step he took.

It gave him a class. A blade. It took him to his first monster, and it led him to victory.

It protected him from the new world that the System heralded. Showed him a future in which he could be more than a child sitting by the cliffside, waiting for the wind to save him. A future in which he could stand by its side.

Kaze killed every monster that arrived before him. He carved through them like a hurricane, taking their precious power and offering it up to his friend. There were always more. Creatures in all shapes and sizes fell before the wind.

Four-legged ones. Monsters that looked like flowers. Monsters that looked like animals. Monsters that walked on two legs and spoke with mouths that lied.

They had all fought to stand between Kaze and the wind.

They had all died.

But, today, the wind was louder than it ever had been. Perhaps even loud enough to hide the bark of a gun.

The monsters were in disarray. They fought each other, quarreled within their own ranks. The two-legged ones were surrounded by the undead ones, both so concerned with each other that neither paid any attention to the wind.

Few did. Its whisper was easy to miss. Even when it roared, there were few that stopped to listen. But Kaze listened.

And today, the wind told him to kill.