Snowlight Valley - Northern Mountain Province, under High Council control
The mountains whispered old truths beneath the snow.
Daigo walked the upper pass alone, his boots crunching over frost-laced stone. Below him, the valley lay like a half-buried wound. Seal-towers blinked weak chakra light through the fog. Villages clustered tight around heating stones and ration lines. The High Council's banners fluttered at every gate, but the people's eyes told a different story.
They were waiting.
Not for salvation. Not for change. But for a break in the silence. A signal.
He reached the overlook shrine—abandoned, sealed, forgotten. Akomizu territory. His fingers brushed the broken talisman tied to its post. A genkai ward. Ancient. Illegal now.
He pulled out his spyglass. Adjusted the lens. Below, the academy square pulsed with movement: children in formation, rehearsing obedience drills. Watching them stood an instructor in a Black Quill mask.
Ichi.
She had been everywhere lately. A shadow with too many eyes.
Daigo sighed and turned back.
---
At the district archive, Daigo made his move.
He requested a full audit of food distribution and ration chakra seal usage. A legal procedure. A normal one. But it required opening deep storerooms—places few had entered since the valley was claimed.
The records clerk paled.
"We need a writ from the Arbiter."
"You have it."
He handed over the scroll. Real. Signed.
Stamped in an ink he wasn't supposed to possess.
---
Beneath the storeroom were two empty crates.
Nothing unusual.
Until he peeled back the lining of one.
And found a scroll hidden beneath chakra-stabilizing wax.
A clan memorial. Written in the Akomizu tongue. Folded beside it—a birth registry of children who no longer existed in official records.
---
That night, Daigo sat with Ichi in a candlelit corridor.
"I found something," he said.
She raised a brow. "You're always finding something."
"This one breathes."
He placed the scroll between them.
She studied it in silence.
"Will you report it?" she asked.
"Not yet."
"Why not?"
Daigo looked past the candle to the shadow on the wall—his own, tall and thin and straight.
"Because every time we report something, someone disappears. And every time someone disappears, the silence grows thicker."
Ichi leaned back.
"You're going to lie to the High Council?"
"No. I'm going to edit the truth."
---
That week, Daigo filed his ledger with all standard reports.
He marked the district's seal compliance as "under reevaluation." He flagged minor discrepancies. Just enough to keep the Black Quill busy. Just enough to delay enforcement.
And beneath the ledger, he wrote in invisible ink:
*Names erased are still alive in memory. And memory is the first kindling of rebellion.*