KYUUDAIME: NINTH GENERATION
Chapter 1
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April 1st / 7:18 AM
[ SCENE - THE RAIJIN HOUSEHOLD. MORNING. A small, warm home. Sunlight through open windows. The smell of rice and something slightly burnt. ]
The first thing you hear is Kora.
KORA: "LEO. YOUR EGGS ARE BURNING."
LEO (from upstairs, muffled): "THEY'RE FINE-"
KORA: "THEY ARE NOT FINE, LEO. I CAN SMELL THEM FROM MY ROOM-"
LAN (calm, from the kitchen): "The eggs are, in fact, on fire."
A clatter. Running footsteps. Leo appears at the bottom of the stairs - dark green hair sticking up in three different directions, half his bag packed, wearing one shoe. He slides into the kitchen in his socks, grabs the pan, and dumps it directly into the sink with a loud hiss.
He turns around.
He grins.
LEO: "See? Handled."
KORA (leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, brown hair pulled back, entirely unimpressed): "You handled them into the trash."
LEO: "I handled them away from the smoke alarm. That's a win."
Kora stares at him for three full seconds.
KORA: "I can't believe we share blood."
Leo laughs - the kind of laugh that fills a room without meaning to. He reaches over and ruffles her hair. She ducks. He does it anyway.
[ LAN WATCHES FROM THE TABLE. He's quiet in the way fathers are quiet when they're trying to memorize something. Brown hair, steady eyes. He doesn't say what he's thinking. He rarely does. ]
LAN: "You have everything?"
LEO: "I think so. Bag, clothes, books-"
KORA: "You packed three notebooks and no socks."
LEO: "...I knew that."
KORA: "I went in your bag, Leo. There are zero socks."
LEO: "I was going to do a second sweep-"
KORA: "You were going to show up at Hikari University with no socks and somehow be fine about it."
LEO (to Lan, helplessly): "She does this."
LAN (completely neutral): "She's not wrong."
Leo looks at the ceiling. He mouths something. It might be a prayer.
Luan comes downstairs.
[ She moves quietly. Green hair - the same shade she passed to Leo - worn loose. Her eyes are steady, the way people's eyes get steady when they've spent years keeping them that way on purpose. She looks at her son and she smiles. But her hands find each other. Hold. ]
LUAN: "Are you ready?"
LEO (turning, lighting up): "Almost! Kora found a sock situation-"
LUAN: "I packed you socks two days ago. Front pocket, left side."
A beat.
LEO (quietly, impressed): "...You're incredible."
LUAN (softly): "I know."
She crosses to him. She straightens his collar - even though it doesn't need straightening. Leo notices. He lets her.
LEO (gentler): "Mum. I'll be home every weekend."
LUAN: "I know that."
LEO: "It's twenty minutes on the train-"
LUAN: "I know, Leo."
[ She is looking at him the way you look at someone when you know something they don't. Something heavy. Something you've been carrying alone for a long time and are not ready - not yet - to put down in front of them. ]
[ She doesn't say it. She smooths his collar again instead. ]
LUAN (quietly, steady): "Call me when you arrive."
LEO: "First thing."
Kora appears in the doorway with his bag - fully packed, sock situation resolved - and drops it at his feet.
KORA: "Six pairs. Front pocket, right side. You're welcome."
LEO (pulling her into a hug she absolutely does not ask for): "What would I do without you."
KORA (muffled, into his shoulder): "Show up places without socks."
LEO (squeezing tighter): "-beautiful moment-"
KORA: "LEO-"
Lan puts his hand on Leo's shoulder.
LAN (simply): "Go be good."
Leo looks at him. Something passes between them - uncomplicated, full. The kind of thing fathers and sons say without saying anything.
LEO: "Yeah."
He picks up his bag. He looks back once - at Kora making a face at him from the doorway, at Lan standing steady and quiet, at Luan watching him go with that smile that almost hides what lives behind it.
He waves. He leaves.
[ Luan stands at the window long after the gate closes. ]
[ Lan comes to stand beside her. He doesn't ask. He knows. ]
LAN (quietly): "You could tell him."
A long pause.
LUAN (still watching the empty path): "Not yet."
LAN: "Luan-"
LUAN: "He has time. He's happy. Let him have it."
[ Another silence. Lan doesn't push. He takes her hand instead. ]
[ She lets him. ]
[ Kora, leaning against the hallway wall just out of sight, heard the whole thing. She doesn't know what it means. But she files it away - quietly, carefully - the way she files everything. ]
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[ SCENE - HIKARI UNIVERSITY. CAMPUS. AFTERNOON. Big open courtyard, students everywhere, a fountain that someone has inexplicably put a traffic cone on top of. ]
Kenny is standing on a bench.
This is not unusual. Kenny stands on things.
He has a notebook open, he has a pen behind his ear, and he is surveying the courtyard with the energy of a general assessing a battlefield - except the battlefield is romantic in nature, and the general has absolutely no idea what he's doing.
KENNY (to Alex, who is sitting below him on the bench reading): "Okay. The plan."
ALEX (without looking up): "There is no good plan."
KENNY: "The plan, Alex-"
ALEX: "I'm telling you now, before you explain it, that it won't work."
KENNY (gesturing grandly with the notebook): "TARA confesses to LEO. TODAY. This is achievable. I have mapped the variables."
ALEX: "You've mapped the variables."
KENNY: "There are only three variables. Leo. Tara. The moment."
ALEX: "Those aren't variables, Kenny. Those are nouns."
KENNY: "...They are variables that happen to also be nouns, yes-"
Jenny drops onto the bench next to Alex from what appears to be nowhere.
JENNY (to Alex): "What did I miss?"
ALEX: "Kenny is planning a confession by proxy."
JENNY (immediately intrigued): "For Tara?"
KENNY (pointing at her): "YES. THANK YOU. Someone sees the vision-"
JENNY: "This is going to be a disaster."
KENNY: "JENNY-"
JENNY: "An incredible, watchable disaster. I'm in."
Alex puts his book over his face.
ALEX (from behind the book): "Where is Tara right now."
KENNY: "That's the thing. She's- okay, she's already over there."
He points. Across the courtyard: Tara, 170 cm of gentle catastrophe, is sitting on the steps with a sketchbook - long blonde hair, soft blue eyes, completely absorbed in whatever she's drawing. She has no idea a plan involving her is being executed twenty meters away.
JENNY (studying her): "She looks calm."
KENNY: "She's always calm until he's nearby and then she drops everything. Literally. I've seen her drop the same water bottle four times in one afternoon."
ALEX (emerging from behind the book): "Four times."
KENNY: "The third time she apologized to it."
A beat.
JENNY: "...She apologized to the water bottle."
KENNY: "She said sorry. To the bottle. On the ground."
Alex looks at Jenny. Jenny looks at Alex. Something passes between them - the shared look of people who love their friend very much and find her completely impossible.
JENNY (fondly): "Okay. What's the plan."
KENNY: "So. We engineer a situation where Leo and Tara end up alone-"
ALEX: "Leo doesn't notice situations engineered for him. He navigates them as if they aren't happening."
KENNY: "-and Tara confesses-"
ALEX: "Tara has been trying to confess for what I estimate is eight months. The words have not come out of her mouth once."
KENNY: "-because we will have primed her emotionally beforehand-"
ALEX (pause): "...How?"
KENNY (beat): "Jenny was supposed to figure that part out."
JENNY: "I VOLUNTEERED FOR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT NOT EMOTIONAL STRATEGY-"
KENNY: "Those are the same thing-!"
JENNY: "THEY ARE NOT-"
ALEX (standing, collecting his bag): "I'm going to the lecture. I'm going to sit at the front. This plan will not work and I am not going to watch it happen from close range."
KENNY (panicked): "ALEX-"
ALEX (already walking): "I'll send you my notes."
[ Meanwhile, across the courtyard. ]
[ Leo arrives. ]
[ He's just come from dropping his stuff at the dorm - bag over one shoulder, green hair in the wind, looking around at Hikari University like it is the best place he has ever been. He is 181 cm of entirely unbothered warmth and he has no idea his friends are plotting thirty meters away. ]
[ He sees the fountain. He sees the traffic cone on top of it. ]
[ He tilts his head. ]
LEO (to himself, with genuine appreciation): "...Who did that. Respect."
He spots Tara on the steps. He waves. Big, easy, natural.
LEO (calling over): "Tara!"
Tara looks up. She sees him. Her entire sketchbook slides off her lap.
[ Twenty meters away, Kenny grabs Jenny's arm. ]
KENNY (whispering intensely): "Did you see that."
JENNY (whispering back): "I saw it."
KENNY: "The sketchbook-"
JENNY: "I know, Kenny."
KENNY: "She didn't even catch it-"
JENNY: "KENNY."
KENNY: "He waved and she just let go of the sketchbook-"
JENNY: "I KNOW."
Leo jogs over and picks it up before she can. He hands it back to her, crouching to her level, genuinely warm.
LEO: "Hey. You good? How was the trip up?"
TARA (holding the sketchbook now with both hands, which is helping absolutely nothing): "G- good! It was fine! The train was - the train was on time, and - I- did you see the fountain?"
LEO (lighting up immediately): "RIGHT? Someone put a cone on it-"
TARA (grateful for the subject change): "I was trying to draw it. I couldn't decide if it was art or a mistake."
LEO (sitting down on the step next to her, entirely at ease): "Can't it be both?"
Tara looks at him. He's smiling at the fountain.
She forgets to say anything for approximately four seconds.
TARA (quietly): "...Yeah. Yeah, I think it can."
[ FROM A DISTANCE: ]
KENNY (hand over heart): "They're talking about the cone. He sat next to her. This is going beautifully."
JENNY (watching carefully): "He has no idea."
KENNY: "NONE. Zero. The man has zero idea."
JENNY: "He sat right next to her."
KENNY: "LIKE IT WAS NOTHING."
JENNY (quietly devastated): "It IS nothing to him. That's the whole problem."
KENNY (suddenly solemn): "...Yeah."
A beat.
KENNY (rallying): "Okay. New angle. I go over there-"
JENNY: "Don't."
KENNY: "I create a situation-"
JENNY: "The situation is already happening, Kenny. We just have to let it-"
KENNY: "-HAPPEN NATURALLY-"
JENNY: "NATURE IS TAKING TOO LONG-"
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[ SCENE - HIKARI UNIVERSITY. LECTURE HALL. FIRST CLASS. ]
[ The hall is big and a little cold, the kind that still smells like chalk even though nobody uses chalk anymore. Students file in. Find seats. ]
[ Fuyota slips in quietly - white hair, gray eyes, clutching a book to her chest. She finds a seat near the window and sits very still, the way small animals sit still in new places, waiting to understand the territory. ]
[ Kyuki takes the seat one row back - green eyes, focused, watching the hall fill up with the quiet efficiency of someone cataloguing exits. She doesn't explain this to anyone. She just does it. ]
[ Hashiro comes in last. Black hair falling across his left eye, one eye visible and entirely unreadable. He takes the seat nearest the door. He does not look at anyone. He sits. ]
[ Nobody talks to him. He seems to prefer it. ]
Leo, Kenny, Tara, Jenny, and Alex arrive together.
Or - they arrive as a unit in which Kenny is attempting to explain something and everyone else is at varying stages of wanting him to stop.
KENNY (still on the plan): "-so if we just naturally maneuver the seating so that Leo and Tara are next to each other-"
LEO (cheerfully): "I'll sit wherever-"
KENNY (snapping toward him): "NOT A FACTOR IN THIS CONVERSATION-"
LEO: "...Okay?"
JENNY (grabbing Kenny's sleeve, hissing): "KENNY."
KENNY (through his teeth): "-the subject is not supposed to be PRESENT for this part-"
LEO (looking between them): "Are you guys doing a bit? Is this a bit?"
ALEX (sitting down, opening a notebook): "Yes. It's a bit."
TARA (quietly, beside Leo, pretending to be very interested in the syllabus): "...It's a bit."
LEO: "Okay!"
He sits. By complete coincidence - because Leo Raijin operates entirely without awareness of romantic social engineering - he sits right next to Tara.
Kenny looks at Jenny. Jenny looks at Kenny. They both look at Alex.
Alex mouths: I told you.
[ At the front of the hall, the door opens. ]
[ Professor Kagimori walks in. ]
[ He is not a tall man but he takes up space the way very impatient people take up space - quickly, efficiently, and with the energy of someone who has things to do and does not consider your schedule. He sets down exactly one thing on the desk - a red pen. Just the one. ]
[ He scans the room once. ]
KAGIMORI: "First-years?"
Silence.
KAGIMORI: "I will not take attendance. You are adults and may make your own decisions. I will, however, notice who isn't here, and I will form an opinion, and that opinion will be present for the rest of the semester. We begin."
He writes something on the board. Turns back.
KAGIMORI: "Name. Row three, left side. You."
A beat. He is looking directly at Kenny.
KENNY (pointing at himself): "Me?"
KAGIMORI: "Is there another person in row three, left side?"
KENNY: "There are several-"
KAGIMORI: "You are the one who came in talking. Name."
KENNY (straightening): "Kenny Carlos, sir."
KAGIMORI (writing it down): "Carlos. I'll remember that."
KENNY (small, to Leo): "What does that mean?"
LEO (small, back): "I genuinely don't know."
KAGIMORI (without looking up from the register): "It means I'll remember your name, Mr. Carlos. Whether that's relevant will depend entirely on you."
Kenny sits very straight. He does not say another word for twelve minutes.
This is a personal record.
The lecture goes as lectures go - Kagimori talks, everyone takes notes, and the hour moves. But twelve minutes in, Kenny leans over to Alex.
KENNY (whispering): "Do you think he actually remembers everyone's name or is that a tactic-"
ALEX (whispering, not looking up): "It's a tactic. Stop talking."
KENNY: "Because if it's a tactic then it worked on me and I feel manipulated-"
ALEX: "Kenny."
KENNY: "-but also kind of impressed-"
ALEX: "Kenny."
KENNY (in full whisper): "-like was that a power move or does he actually- okay I'm going to ask him-"
ALEX (grabbing his arm): "DO NOT-"
KENNY (already raising his hand): "-Professor?"
A pause. The entire hall goes slightly still.
Kagimori turns from the board with the slowness of a person who has made a decision about this.
KAGIMORI: "Mr. Carlos."
KENNY: "When you said you'd remember my name - was that a pedagogical device or a genuine memory commitment?"
Three seconds of silence.
Somewhere in the back, someone makes a noise into their sleeve.
KAGIMORI (after a very long pause): "Yes."
KENNY (blinking): "...Which one?"
KAGIMORI: "Both. Sit down."
Kenny sits. He mouths 'that's not an answer' at Leo. Leo bites the inside of his cheek.
Tara, very quietly, is pressing her knuckles to her mouth. Her shoulders are shaking.
Leo glances at her. She won't look at him. He grins and looks back at the board.
[ In the back row, Hashiro - who has been still and silent the entire time - looks at the board. If you watched carefully, you might notice that the corner of his mouth moved. ]
[ You would not be sure you saw it. ]
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[ SCENE - THE DORM. ROOM 4B. THAT EVENING. ]
This is the dorm room situation:
Four boys. One room.
More specifically: Leo, Kenny, Alex - and then the fourth bed, which belongs to Hashiro, who arrived first, unpacked one bag with surgical precision, and has not moved from the far corner since.
KENNY (surveying the room with proprietorial energy): "Okay. I call the kitchen."
ALEX: "There's no kitchen. This is a bedroom."
KENNY: "The space near the window where I will set up the- the area. For food."
ALEX: "There's no food yet, Kenny."
KENNY: "THE AREA. For when there is food. It's forward planning."
LEO (dropping his bag on his bed, looking around with genuine delight): "I love this room."
ALEX: "You love every room."
LEO: "It's a good room."
ALEX (looking at the very average room): "It's four walls and a ceiling."
LEO (perfectly sincere): "Yeah. I love it."
Alex stares at him. It is unclear whether he finds this endearing or deeply confusing. Possibly both.
Hashiro has not acknowledged any of this. He sits on the edge of his bed. He has a book open. He is reading.
Kenny notices. Kenny approaches.
KENNY (crouching to be at eye level with Hashiro's one visible eye): "Hey."
Hashiro looks at him. This takes a moment.
KENNY: "I'm Kenny."
HASHIRO: "...Hashiro."
KENNY: "That's a cool name. You okay with the corner bed?"
HASHIRO: "Yes."
KENNY: "Cool. Did you pick it on purpose?"
A pause.
HASHIRO: "Yes."
KENNY (nodding, like this is deeply reasonable): "Fair enough."
He stands up. He turns back to Leo and Alex. He gives a single solemn nod - the universal signal for we've established communication.
Leo smiles at Hashiro from across the room. He doesn't cross to him. He doesn't push. He just smiles, easy and warm, and then turns back to unpacking.
[ Hashiro watches him for a moment. Then he goes back to his book. ]
Twenty minutes later, Kenny has established the kitchen area. This consists of: one fruit bowl (empty), a kettle, and a carefully arranged row of instant noodles.
KENNY (with genuine pride): "Architecture."
LEO (studying it): "Is that MY kettle?"
KENNY: "It's the communal kettle now."
LEO: "I haven't agreed to that-"
KENNY: "Leo. Think of the greater good."
LEO: "I- okay but-"
KENNY: "The greater good, Leo."
A pause.
LEO (sighing): "...Fine."
KENNY (immediately): "Thank you. I'll make you something nice with it first. As tribute."
LEO: "Tribute."
KENNY: "Respect payment. For the kettle."
Alex, from his desk, does not look up from his notes.
ALEX: "This is going to be a long semester."
"Yes," says Hashiro, from the corner.
Everyone looks at him.
He is still reading. He does not look up. But there was something, very brief, at the edge of his voice. Not humor, exactly. Something quieter than humor. Something like: I'm paying attention.
Kenny points at him. Mouths: I like him.
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[ SCENE - KURAYAMI'S HEADQUARTERS. SOMEWHERE THAT IS NOT LIGHT. ]
[ The room is dark. The darkness is not an absence - it is a presence. It sits in the corners and fills the spaces between things and does not move unless it is given a reason to. ]
[ In it: two yellow eyes. Bright. Quiet. The color of something old and very, very patient. ]
[ TEKNO sits at a workbench, surrounded by blueprints and small mechanical components and the particular organized chaos of a workspace that belongs to someone who knows exactly where everything is, even if nobody else ever could. She is 16, wavy orange hair, elbow-deep in a mechanism she has been building for three days. ]
[ WHITE stands near the wall. She doesn't lean. She doesn't sit. She simply is - 170 cm of pale hair and black eyes and four hundred years of perfect stillness. ]
The yellow eyes move.
KURAYAMI (quiet, almost cheerful): "Something is waking up."
WHITE (without inflection): "The Thunder Bloodline."
KURAYAMI: "Mmm." A pause. "Ninth generation."
TEKNO (not looking up from her work): "Does that change anything I'm building?"
KURAYAMI: "Not yet."
TEKNO: "Okay."
She picks up a small tool. Goes back to work.
[ The yellow eyes shift slightly. The darkness breathes. ]
KURAYAMI (thoughtful, light - the way someone might observe that a season is changing): "It's been a long time."
[ White watches the darkness. She has been watching it for 414 years. She does not offer anything. She never offers anything. She simply processes, analyzes, and files. ]
[ Tekno tightens a screw. The small click of it is the loudest sound in the room.]
[ SCENE - UNIVERSITY COMMONS. THE NEXT AFTERNOON. ]
It happens quickly.
Tara is walking back from the campus library alone - sketchbook under her arm, earphones in, taking the path between the south buildings because it's quieter and she is a person who appreciates quiet.
[ She doesn't see Jack until he steps in front of her. ]
He's tall. He's got two friends with him. He's got the particular confidence of someone who has never learned that there are consequences for things.
JACK: "Hey. You're from Kagimori's class, right?"
TARA (pulling out an earphone): "...Sorry?"
JACK: "I said-" He steps closer. "You're from Kagimori's class."
TARA (carefully): "I am."
JACK: "I need the notes from Tuesday. Give them to me."
A beat.
TARA (politely): "I- I can share them through the class portal, I think-"
JACK: "I don't want them through the portal. I want them now."
He reaches forward - not violent yet, but pointed, invasive, the kind of casual that isn't casual at all.
TARA (stepping back): "I really think-"
JACK (moving with her): "I wasn't asking."
LEO (from across the path, calm): "Hey."
Everyone stops.
Leo is just- there. He wasn't there a second ago, or maybe he was and nobody noticed, but he's there now - not rushing, not loud, not performing anything. He walks over at an entirely normal pace and stops between Tara and Jack like it's the most natural position in the world to occupy.
He looks at Jack.
He smiles. It is not an unfriendly smile. It is also not a smile that is offering anything.
LEO: "What's going on?"
JACK (recalibrating): "Nothing. We were talking."
LEO (glancing at Tara, reading her immediately): "Looks like you were done talking. Right, Tara?"
Tara looks at him. Something in her steadies.
TARA (quietly): "Yes."
LEO (back to Jack, easy): "There you go. All done."
A beat. Jack looks at him. Looks at his friends. Looks at Leo again, who is still smiling, still standing right there, still occupying the space between them with the complete physical certainty of someone who has decided to be very difficult to move.
Jack makes a sound. Somewhere between annoyance and the wisdom to not pursue this further.
He leaves.
The path goes quiet.
TARA (after a moment, carefully): "...Thank you."
LEO (turning to her, the smile going softer, no performance left in it): "You good?"
TARA (nodding): "I'm - yes. He just-"
LEO: "You don't have to explain it."
She looks at him. He means it completely. It's one of the things about Leo - he means things completely and without asking for anything back.
TARA (quietly): "How did you- were you just nearby?"
LEO: "Kenny sent me to find you, actually. We're getting food. You want to come?"
A beat.
TARA (something between a laugh and relief): "...Kenny sent you."
LEO (grinning): "He's been very management-oriented this week. I think the dorm situation is giving him a sense of purpose."
Tara laughs - a real one, small and warm.
[ Twenty meters away, half-concealed behind a building corner: Kenny and Jenny. ]
KENNY (watching, eyes wide): "He saved her. He SAVED her. This is the moment, Jenny-"
JENNY (watching intently): "She's laughing-"
KENNY: "She's LAUGHING AT HIS JOKE-"
JENNY: "Her whole face changed-"
KENNY (fist): "TELL HIM, TARA-"
[ Tara and Leo start walking - side by side, easy, towards the group. ]
[ Not confessing. Just walking. ]
Kenny deflates.
JENNY (sighing): "Next time."
KENNY (quietly): "Every time I think- and then he just- he's so- HOW does he not know-"
JENNY: "I ask myself this constantly."
A beat.
KENNY: "He walked straight up to a guy three times his aggression level and just STOOD THERE-"
JENNY (softly): "I know."
KENNY: "For her. He just- for HER-"
JENNY (even softer): "...Kenny. He would've done it for any of us."
A pause.
KENNY (quieter): "Yeah. That's kind of the whole thing, isn't it."
[ SCENE - HIKARI CITY. JUST BEFORE NIGHTFALL. ]
[ The light is wrong. ]
[ It happens slowly, then all at once - the afternoon gold going flat, the shadows running in the wrong direction, the air tightening into something that isn't wind. ]
[ Students on campus slow. Look up. Some of them don't know what they're feeling. They just know they're feeling it. ]
[ Fuyota stops walking. She looks at her book. The pages feel different in her hands - heavier, like they're trying to tell her something. She holds it tighter. ]
[ Kyuki looks at the sky. Her jaw sets. She does not run. She moves, efficiently, toward the nearest building. She does not explain herself to anyone nearby. She doesn't have time. ]
[ Hashiro, on the path near the main building, stops walking. He puts one hand on the wall beside him - not for balance. Like he can feel something through the stone. He looks at the ground. Then up. Then back at the ground. ]
[ He steps into the shadow of the building and stays there. Still. Watching. ]
KENNY (to Leo, voice going different): "...Hey."
LEO (already feeling it): "Yeah."
JENNY (low): "What is that."
ALEX (standing, putting his book away, the strategy part of his brain engaging): "I don't know. Stay together."
TARA (beside Leo, and she doesn't notice herself move closer, but she does): "Leo."
LEO: "I see it."
[ It comes from the east side of the campus - or rather, it doesn't come from anywhere. It rises from the ground the way a held breath rises - slowly, until it's everywhere. ]
[ A darkness. Not like night. Not like shadow. Like something deciding to exist. ]
[ And in the darkness: the echo of something. An old wound that was never fully closed. Something that was supposed to be gone. ]
[ Something that isn't. ]
[ The five of them stand together. ]
[ Leo is at the front. He doesn't move forward. He doesn't run. He stands at the front of his friends and he watches it arrive, and his heartbeat is steady, and his face is open, and he has never - not once in his entire life - been afraid of something that was coming toward other people. ]
[ Only of something that was coming toward people he loved. ]
[ Right now, that's the same thing. ]
[ FINAL PANEL. ]
[ Leo's eyes. Wide open. Green - the same shade as his mother's, the same shade that has stood at the front of something terrible eight times before and will stand at the front of it now. ]
[ He doesn't know that yet. ]
[ He just knows this: the world was warm this morning. He had breakfast with his family. Kora stole his socks back to pack them properly. His mother held his collar a beat too long. ]
[ And something is here. ]
[ And he is not going to let it reach the people behind him. ]
[ He doesn't know what he is yet. ]
[ He will. ]
to be continued...
END OF CHAPTER 1
BEFORE EVERYTHING