Chapter 1 (Part 1) Genesis and Exodus.

 10 YEARS AGO WINTER MONTH 5, DAY 28, SAMURAI COUNTRY NAGASUKE [1.]

 Moonlight shone over a small compound holding a well, a house with a broken roof and 3 figures. Outside it, the snow gathered more than inside, so that some tree tops could not even be seen.

 "Remember what must you do?"

 "We must never tell a single soul about our breathing technique."

 "And why is that?"

 "It will be a disaster and can even start wars."

 Adriel Yokuta nodded as both her children had their legs fully extended, and their heels supported by a pile of stones.

 "You will begin the breathing techniques when your physiques have been conditioned."

 It was another night where they were having another routine.

 Since they were 5 they had begun such training and when they had cried, she told them it was to condition them for their breathing technique. And they had wailed for the fist few months. The 1 year, they would sleep on the spot and in puddles of their sweat. The 2 month passed and even though they had energy to crawl back inside, they would not want to shower. The 3rd month came since she gad began her regimen and at least they now took showers.

 5 years since, they had made physical fitness into a hobby of theirs.

 Adriel Yokuta clapped her hands and both kids dropped to the ground.

 Skrylla Yokuta rolled forward from his position and ran into the house.

 "Young man, go take a shower!"

 Eiko Shandiry Yokuta, his sister, bent back till her hands were on the floor. Then she walked on her hands before nearing her mother, the sitting down upright while she folded her legs above the other with both her hands in between them.

 "What are we going to eat today?"

 Skrylla Yokuta ran buck naked to the well beside his house, holding a bath that was more of a bowl large enough to keep him curled into it.

 "It's the same old!"

 Adriel Yokuta furrowed her brows and the next 5hjng Skrylla Yokuta knew a rock bounced off his head, making him drop the pail back into the well. Rubbing his head hard, he frowned and complained.

 "Ow, ow ow!"

 "You have a problem with my cooking?"

"No, but but. Everyday the same thing. Why do we have to do it over and over and over and o-"

 His sister was the one who threw a stone at his scalp this time. And he would have dodged it for he conditioning he jad been taught so far. But he was still complaining from the first cry his mother had dealt him.

 Fetching the water and warily staring at both ladies, he dropped the paler and fell to his knees.

 "Mother, allow me to go and get food for us like the way we eat whenever we travel."

 "You think travelling is so fun? You go on your own journey, then."

 "Exactly my plan." He said with no fear, "I could help us live better lives like the ones we see when we go to different gatherings."

 His sister reached out to slap his head as his mother scowled at him.

 However, just when her hand was about to reach, he upturned the water on her head and she shivered before screaming and chasing him in circles.

 "Can you pay for that!"

 "My point exactly!"

 He got caught finally, and they sparred with their fists and legs in an impressive display.

…

 She had heard this argument over he last month and frankly, she was getting very tired of it.

 "I can provide for us mother, they are hiring mercenaries and I have practiced the sword forms from the book I found of that trash's belongings he left behind, excluding us." [2.]

 PAH!!!

 The resounding slap coming from the gaunt lady didn't diminish the young kid's spirit, shown as he stood back up and walked again to her. In the hole through the roof, lunar light fell through bringing light where the only candle could not.

 She did not like when he insulted his father, so he would have to stop it if he wanted to convince her. And if he did not want another slap. "They are giving out 10 Bronze Hyur per mission. I can do this, mother!"

 "You are just like him." She turned away, tears in her eyes with the washed-out gown which was frayed at the end, split in some parts and cut at some others, trailing behind her. She knew that tears too were in his eyes but she also knew he would wipe them away so she wouldn't see him looking weak and needy.

 His sister walked to one of the good walls in the house and peeked from behind it. He brightened up, puffed his chest out and balled his fists. "I'm going to work hard, ma."

 "Go and sleep."

 "MA, WE ARE POOR AND I CAN HELP!!!"

 She stopped in her tracks, the wrapper of cloth on the floor the kids used as their bed rumpled, his sister jumping in fright and his mother trembling. She trembled until she turned around to face him, tears covering her face. "Go, GO THEN, JUST LIKE YOUR FATHER!!! GO AND OUT AND PROVIDE FOR US. SAVE US, HERO!!!"

 "I will save us but being a hero is boring." Something told him that if he asked her why she was crying she wouldn't take him seriously so he took on a pondering look, fingers cupping his chin. "And I WILL COME BACK." Now he stared back angry at her. "TRUST ME!!!"

 They held their poses until she took a breath in and turned to her daughter, Eiko Shandiry Yokuta. "You will take over his chores, is that okay?" Her whisper could barely be heard.

 She had seen those eyes before in the man she loved. This stubbornness would not be quenched.

 "Mn."

 The next day, he woke up to his mother sleeping on the rocking chair, 'watching over them'. Skrylla Yokuta thought it wasn't true but a part of him played along, usually waiting for her to wake up after he did by pretending to sleep until she was strong enough to begin taking care of the house for that day.

 Today was different, though.

 The house was divided into the kitchen, a sitting room which was used as their bedroom as they had gotten no visitors for as long as he could remember, his father's room which was left since it was realized he won't be coming back anymore and only accessed to because it had a restroom. At this point, it was almost a store room. Some areas of their house had holes in the roof, where the water would pour if it was rainy and thus had clothes draped over them in winter or summer. Luckily, in their part of The Samurai Country of Nagasuke, winter was only 6 months. In the Capital - every Village Nagasuke citizens' dream, the home of Nagasuke's trade, a hub of trade and commerce, the modern center of all Samurai – it was winter for 8 months.

 He walked through the kitchen and ignored the bread there.

 *I'm not eating till I hunt it.* [3.]

 He looked at spices and realized they did not count since they were not directly food. He took spices like salt, pepper, turmeric, ginger including more like it that he could recognize. He did not forget to take a spare pot that was yellowed from use, a portable charcoal fueled stove, and a huge plastic bag of water.

 Walking outside the kitchen doors, he met the untarred ground with a sprinkle of trees in every direction he could see. He then picked a tree he was sure of and climbed it, deftly reaching a branch high up, high enough to destroy all of his bones if he was a tiny bit careless, and retrieved a box he had stolen from a trash can.

 Skrylla opened up the box and handled up one of the many wooden swords he had sharpened - his mother didn't know he was the reason for all the chipped knives in the kitchen - and strapped it from a pack of strings – a Genre 0 Potent Artifact which was highly elastic and durable - he had tied together which were firmly slung diagonally across the front of his chest like ammunition although they were cramped because of their quantity. For his makeshift scabbard, he found a used can of a drink near the bins and fitted a stray piece of mattress into it, gumming the ends with glue he stole when he once visited some shop, some time ago amongst the times when they had gone to a nearby town to get supplies.

 The last part of the box that he needed was a book not too big but currently resembled a scroll, because he unfolded it from when he had last kept it. Stretched out, it revealed a pill he had kept atop it. His eyes went back to the book that looked frayed but resumed its sturdy straightness once unrolled which had diagrams of the basic sword techniques.

 The title of the book had the characters of 'heaven' on it but that was not all as he saw that it had been scratched, it looked like a chicken had been running over it. The consequent pages were empty. He had always wondered about the book because even whenever he tried writing on it, the ink would slide of the page like oil on water. When he had asked his mom, she watched him a while before copying its contents down into another parchment.

 Putting the pills, extra swords, Potent Artifact in the form of a pill and the book, Skrylla held the box and proficiently jumped down in movements that looked very practiced from branch to branch until he reached the ground. He then rummaged around the dust bins to find scraps and pieces of scattered sections of rope that he tied together. Skrylla Yokuta then removed the wheels from the other dustbins.

 The cardboard he had found in this one, he layered it over and over again, until he was content, and kept the cooking materials into this one.

 The water, he saved in one of the two jars they had in their house which was almost a box.

 The bin tied to both wrists by a different set of strings so that it wheeled behind him.

 And with the box strapped to his back the sword, hanging to his left, he stepped towards the east direction, not planning to come back the same.

***

 Under the lazy, sun which was supposed to bring more warmth than it was and that also did not help with the terrible winds, with naught but a dust bin he used as a suitcase, a box within at suitcase that had a sealed jar of water and a few spices, a box full of equipment like the sword, the pills and the notes, a sword at his waist and no packed food, Skrylla Yokuta told himself that he would hunt for game and be the man his blood at home needed. However, four hours of walking between vastly spaced trees and wild ground with patches of grass here and there that were mostly covered with remnant snow clumps, made his rests lead him to wonder why he started in the first place but he wasn't going to leave doubt there, not in his mind. So, he picked up apace and told himself that he wasn't going to rest until he found game. Luckily for him, although he didn't see anything till evening, he found fruits, Cherry Peaches. The trees usually had these birds with big beaks and large talons.

 It was not his first time seeing them before and he knew that they weren't aggressive, so he wasn't too scared to approach them. Skrylla Yokuta set his pack down, untied his hands from his bin suitcase and hugged the trunk, inching his way up until he reached a branch, and then clambered up. Steadying himself, he had scared the ones settled in this area into flight with his presence and had to hug the trunk again so that he could go around to reach the branch with fruits. When he was there, he stabled his balanced with outstretched arms and walked three steps before the branch broke. Flailing his arms, he managed to catch the part extending from the trunk.

 *That works too, I guess.*

 He dropped to the floor with a shock that forced him into a squat and had to jerk his head from hitting the ground. Beside him though, were the fruits which were bright pink, almost round and crammed with liquid. He didn't like the taste, because everything taken too much left a sickening feeling, but anything is better than nothing. He stored some in his dustbin of a suitcase and chewed the others.

 Beggars have no choices; he would have to do with these until he found more.

 The young boy lost himself to the thought of being caught in the middle of night by hungry beasts and realized that he needed to start his practice, maybe the hunger would motivate him.

 He placed the container on the floor and opened the box to reveal his wooden swords, the pill and the book. He opened up the first page, happy that there were more trees with the same fruit around, started practicing the forms. He learned that it was better to cut in the direction of the length of the blade, so after making sure he was standing the right way, he cut the sword 10 times, horizontally vertically and diagonally, each. Then, he began his guard postures. An hour passed by and he was sweating profusely.

 *This is hard,* he thought.

 It was after he flipped backwards from the page he was on, since he had initially just checked where there was a diagram with a person holding a sword, that he saw there was an introduction.

Son Of Heaven Manual.

Over the course of….

 Skkrlla Yokuta did not understand some of the words as he was only 9 but he had pieced a few things together. He flipped past the introduction stages and reached a page before the first set of diagrams he had slipped when he had worked out.

 Before we begin to cultivate, the body should have a solid foundation. Cardiovascular – he did not know the meaning of this word – Exercises should be taken. These are exercises that have increase the action of the heart and circulatory – he did not now this one either - function. Examples are, jogging, swimming, cycling. Pictorial examples are down below.

 Skrylla Yokuta saw a bunch of pictures that he decided to do their exercises the next day. Some were jumping jacks, High jumps, prisoner squats, push up burpees and many more.

 Then, strength building in various areas such as the chest, shoulder, arms and legs and much more are very important.

 He skimmed past the exercises until It told him that after his body was conditioned was when he should begin the sword forms.

 The young boy saw another set to take care of. Following that was flexibility, plyometrics,, a bit of gymnastics and much more.

 Luckily for him, he had been doing a bit of some of each when he was growing up, although it had been nothing serious as his mother had encouraged them both to do so until his current age since he was 5, so that was 4 years. Not to mention when Adriel Yokuta would sometimes hurl objects at him to test his reflexes or hit him when he least expected it so that his threshold of pain was not pathetic. In fact, this was how he had deftly caught the branch instead of falling to the floor earlier today, and also how he had pulled his forehead when it was a breath away from smacking on the ground. Skrylla Yokuta would have even practiced today morning but leaving the house had occupiers his thoughts more than his fitness.

 Remembering that he had not worked out this morning, Skrylla Yokuta dropped the swords, and did some stretching exercises before trying rolling. After forward, backward and side rolls, he front-flipped consecutively until he was dizzy then waited. Repeating the same process for back-flips before trying somersaults and cartwheels. When he was done, he was forced to sleep by his tired body and mind that had been clumsy with at least 90 percent of the final movements he had made.

 Adding this to the workouts with the sword war not easy at all!

 He woke up some time in the night to hunger and, grateful for the moonlight, went searching for fruits, so that he would have the extra in his suitcase eaten tomorrow, which he found without too many bruises before he began looking for dry leaves and stones to start a fire. He searched for about an hour till his hands were covered in dirt and his body stinking like a rat from the sewer. But under his armpits were a bunch of twigs, sticks and lastly leaves stuffed into his pockets till they poured with every step.

 He looked for a trail of broken branches and found his box propped against a trunk.

 He had been warned from home about thieves but none of his things had been stolen.

 He had been warned about animals but the only one he saw were harmless.

 Skrylla Yokuta started to doubt the legitimacy of such claims, in fact he started to look down on them.

 Of course, he wished they weren't true.

 He struck stones against each other and the spark wasn't enough. But the next time it finally was, the leaves were blown by a perfectly times breeze. He huffed and kept on trying. On his 36th attempt, he cut his sore fingers, the anger made him throw the stones on the floor and kick the mound of leaves, allowing himself to fall back on the evening floor.

 He woke up again from cold this time, then curled up and found bits and pieces of his failed attempt, growling in anger at the memory. He was about to leave the site when he remembered he would need them again this night and then stuffed them into his box.

 Skrylla Yokuta slept knowing that if he had food, he might not be able to cook them in this weather, still he was not willing to turn back.

[1.]

Months are use here as the usual calendar. So, 1ST month will represent January.

January -Winter Month 4

February – Winter Month 5

March – Winter Month 6

April – Spring Month 1

May – Spring Month 2

June – Summer Month 1

July – Summer Month 2

August – Fall Month 1

September – Fall Month 2

October – Winter Month 1

November – Winter Month 2

December Winter Month 3

[2.]

Mercenaries will be used instead of bandits because of the situation in my country.

[3.]

Asterisk - * - will be used for thought and technique names – basically for Italics also for anything stressed.