The wind carried the scent of woodsmoke and damp pine.
Kairo sat cross-legged on a flat stone overlooking the valley below Doran's home. It was dawn. The mist was thick enough to swallow the edges of trees. No birds called. No insects hummed.
He hadn't spoken to Doran in three days. Not because the old man wasn't around—Kairo could see the chimney smoke and hear the occasional outburst of curses from behind the crooked door—but because the old master had made his instruction painfully clear.
"When you can hear my heartbeat from across the mountain, come back."
So Kairo trained.
Not with punches. Not with kicks. Not even with Vaultspace.
With breath.
He inhaled slowly through his nose, feeling the expansion of his ribs. Then, he held it—not until discomfort, but until presence. That small moment between inhale and exhale, where the world stood still, was the space Doran had called the "true rhythm."
Then he exhaled, guiding it out with control, like unraveling a scroll.
It was harder than any technique he'd practiced in Vaultspace.
Inside Vaultspace
At night, he trained inside his dimension. The empty golden field of Vaultspace stretched forever, silent and surreal. Here, Kairo had infinite time. He could sit for what felt like months, years even, and the world outside wouldn't notice.
But he would.
Vaultspace changed him—not just mentally, but biologically. He needed to eat, to sleep, to stretch, and if he pushed himself too long inside, his real-world body paid the price. One time he had spent the equivalent of six months perfecting footwork patterns, and when he emerged, he'd collapsed from sheer fatigue, even though only ten seconds had passed in reality.
So now, he'd started setting limits. One day inside. Rest. Another day. Rest.
Inside Vaultspace, he practiced The Pulse, the breathing scroll Doran had given him.
At first, the technique felt like a waste of time. But soon he began to notice things.
His posture adjusted without conscious thought.
His steps became lighter.
And then… the sounds came.
Whispers.
It wasn't voices exactly—but on the 112th day inside Vaultspace, while meditating under the sunless sky, he heard something like footsteps on water.
He opened his eyes. Nothing.
Then, in the very corner of the field, so far it had never drawn his attention, he saw something flicker.
A silhouette.
Brief. Gone. But it had shape. Height.
And it was watching.
He jolted to his feet, heart hammering. "Who's there?"
No answer.
Nothing moved.
Then, just as quickly—it vanished.
Reality — Two Seconds Later
Kairo emerged from Vaultspace, gasping.
Even though only two seconds had passed, his skin was cold. A thin sheen of sweat clung to his back.
"Someone's in there…" he whispered to himself.
But that wasn't possible. Vaultspace was his personal domain. Nobody could enter. Not unless—
Unless they were made of it, too.
The idea made him uneasy.
He stood, brushed himself off, and headed back toward Doran's.
But before he reached the house, he heard a voice.
"You look paler than usual, city boy."
Kairo turned. A girl, maybe a year older than him, stood beside the vegetable garden. She wore traveling leathers, her short silver hair braided to one side, and carried a staff taller than she was.
"You from the mountain?" she asked.
"I—I live near here. Kinda."
She raised an eyebrow. "You don't smell like river moss or burnt soup. You're not from here."
Kairo didn't answer. He didn't know what to say. Who was she?
She stepped forward. "Name's Sura. I'm a drifter. Looking for someone called Doran the Fossil."
Kairo blinked. "Why?"
"Because the Wind Vault Monk said he's the only one who can break an internal block like mine."
That phrase—Wind Vault Monk—made Kairo's stomach twist.
There were others who trained in time-based dimensions?
Before he could ask, the girl gave him a once-over. "You training under the Fossil?"
"I guess," he said. "He hasn't taught me much yet."
Sura chuckled. "He won't. Not unless he sees something in you."
Kairo wanted to ask her more, but Doran's door slammed open.
"Sura of the East Gate! I told you your aura would leak before your staff did."
She grinned. "Still cryptic, old man."
"And you," he snapped at Kairo, "you're late."
"Late?" Kairo blinked. "But I didn't even—"
"I meant your improvement. You should have heard my heartbeat yesterday."
"I…" Kairo hesitated. "I heard something in Vaultspace."
Doran froze.
Then stepped down the porch slowly.
"What did you see?" he asked.
Kairo explained. The footsteps. The silhouette.
Sura's playful look disappeared.
Doran muttered under his breath. "So it begins…"
The Legend Beneath the Silence
Later that evening, Doran told them both a story.
They sat around a low fire in his crooked hut, steam curling from teacups.
"There are places deeper than Vaultspace," he said. "Places older than memory."
He stared into the flame.
"Once, there were nine martial monks. Each had their own Vault—Time, Flame, Beast, Ice, Wind, Echo, Shadow, Thunder, and Bone. They trained in silence, away from the world. But then one vanished."
"Which one?" Kairo asked.
"Echo," Doran said softly.
"He didn't just disappear. He folded. Became part of the space itself. And now, every Vault-walker hears him eventually."
"You think that's what I saw?" Kairo asked.
"Maybe. Or maybe something worse."
Sura looked uneasy. "I was told the same thing, you know. To find the other Vaultborn. That our fates are tied."
Kairo looked at her, stunned.
"You're one too?"
Sura smirked. "Wind. Mine's different than yours though. Time moves faster, not slower. I've got maybe a minute to train for every second outside. It's not much, but it's enough."
Their eyes met, not with competition, but something like understanding.
They were rare. But not alone.
The Training Deepens
The next week blurred into a blur of silence, practice, and tension.
Kairo trained harder than ever—both in reality and Vaultspace. His breath control improved until he could slow his heartbeat on command. He walked without sound. He could tell when a squirrel was ten feet away. He could sense Sura's presence before she even opened her mouth.
Doran nodded occasionally. That was the most praise he gave.
But Kairo also began preparing something else: a personal kata. A fusion of everything he'd studied—his stances, his pulse breath, his footwork—and he practiced it until it was etched into his bones.
He called it First Echo.
Not flashy. Not strong. But precise. Clean.
A foundation.
And in Vaultspace, every step of it echoed.
As if the space itself was listening.
Closing Scene: A Crack Appears
One night, while meditating, Kairo noticed something strange.
A line. In Vaultspace.
A thin, jagged crack—barely visible—floating in the air far away, just above the horizon.
He walked toward it. Slowly. Carefully.
As he drew closer, he felt… resistance. Like wind pushing back.
And then—he heard a sound.
"You are late."
His heart stopped.
He turned around.
Nothing.
When he looked back at the crack, it was gone.