The next morning, the village was already buzzing about the Naming Ceremony—how Tai's name lit up the sky like a firecracker, how Mei's glow shimmered like moonlight on water. Everyone had something to say.
No one mentioned Ren.
Which was... kind of nice, actually.
He sat under the plum tree near his house, chewing on a rice bun, watching the clouds drift by. The same clouds that had, just yesterday, blinked for him. Or maybe he imagined it. Probably. Maybe. Who knows?
Still, his chest felt warmer than usual. Not in the dramatic "I've awakened ancient power" way, more like he'd swallowed a hot pebble of curiosity and couldn't get rid of it.
"Did you hear?" a voice rang nearby. It was Kenji, one of the louder boys in the village. "They're saying the old bell in the temple cracked again! Must've been all the energy from the ceremony!"
"No way," another boy replied. "That bell hasn't rung in a hundred years. My gramps says it only moves when something big's about to happen."
Ren tilted his head.
The bell? Again?
He remembered the sound from yesterday—not a sound, really. More like a feeling. A breeze that moved through his bones. That... whisper.
"Make it yours."
"What does that even mean?" he muttered aloud, poking at a stray leaf. "Make what mine?"
The leaf didn't answer. Rude.
Later that day, Ren wandered up the hill to the Temple of Forgotten Things. It wasn't a grand place. Just a simple wooden structure with mossy steps and windchimes that never chimed. But it was peaceful, and the elders didn't really care if kids came here—so long as they didn't touch anything sacred.
He didn't plan to.
At least... not at first.
There it was—the bell. Huge, old, and very, very cracked. It leaned just slightly, like it had grown tired of standing tall. Strange symbols lined its surface, none of which Ren could read, but they felt oddly familiar, like a dream you couldn't remember but still missed.
As he stepped closer, the wind picked up. The air shifted—nothing scary, just... different. Like the world was paying attention.
Ren reached out and touched the bell.
Nothing happened.
He sighed.
"Guess I was hoping for something cool," he chuckled. "Like it'd glow, or whisper, or—"
Gong.
The sound didn't come from outside.
It came from inside his chest.
He stumbled back, eyes wide. The bell hadn't moved. Not even a twitch. But something had... resonated.
Inside him.
"Make it yours."
The voice again.
More solid now. Less like a whisper, more like... an invitation.
Ren looked down at his hands.
They still looked the same. No glowing, no fire, no dramatic tattoos appearing. But something had definitely changed. A thread had been pulled. A door, slightly open.
He grinned, just a little.
Maybe he really was a little special after all.
Back in the village, the elders gathered behind closed doors, their voices hushed.
"...He touched the bell?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"It stirred."
They went quiet.
Then, one of them whispered the words no one had dared speak in a generation.
"Another Nameless One has awakened."
To be continued...