Phew! Would you look at that? Nine months later and what started as an idea has now become a reality for me. This book has been something I’ve been meaning to work on for the longest amount of time, ever since it was an idea back as a senior in high school. Back then it was just simply an idea, something I thought of to take my mind off of things when it was getting difficult but now it’s real. Something I’ve been working on for so long has now come into fruition and hopefully will continue to be something I am proud of.

I want to thank everyone who is a part of my life because without them, I wouldn’t have the drive or the motivation to continue with this. Although it’s something I want to do for myself, having my friends and family motivate me to finish the book is something I am extremely grateful for and will try my very hardest not to let them down on.

I hope and wish this project, this story of mine, becomes something great and hopefully works in my grand plan. This isn’t something I want to end so shortly. I have plans on making this a comic and then later making it into a show so that everyone can see what I’m picturing in my mind.

So with that being said, I also want to thank every single one of you that is currently reading this. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to come all this way. You’ve helped me in one way or another, to continue this and keep on going. I appreciate you in every single aspect and I hope I can put a smile on your face as you read this story.

That’s it from me now. I’ll leave you to your reading now so please, and don’t ever forget this, you are someone who’s very important and I wish for nothing but your success and pursuit for a better future.

Stay safe and enjoy!

Many years ago shortly after the birth of life and time itself, humans roamed the world of what was once known as Gaia. Gaia was filled with life, prosperity and created in the eyes of “Him”. The people lived a wonderful life filled with harmony and tranquility. This was the ultimate utopia for humans to ever experience until one day that would forever change the course of the human race to go into eternal war. 

Ever since that day of reckoning, the humans have lived in a life filled with confusion, despair, and had to start from zero. As life continued, the world underwent major changes and pushed through major catastrophes that left not only a mark on the planet but ended one period of time and began anew another. Throughout the years, after each catastrophe, humans began to learn how to manipulate the basic elements and use them for their benefits and slowly built their way back up.

As life progressed, the world of Gaia shifted and formed four major bodies of land which is now called Earth. These four bodies of land are named: The Americas, Afro-Eurasia, Antarctica, and Australia. With the progression of life slowly increasing over the centuries, new things begin to come to life such as human mutations and technology. Humans begin to develop certain traits that not everyone may have and makes them unique. With power, comes responsibilities. Well not for those who use their powers for evil.

The year is 2014 and Earth has become a planet filled with technology and nature. In this day and age, power is desired, as those who have it, rule over the nations. Conflict reigns over the nations who are crippled in power, corruption, or are warzones for political reasons. Treaties are signed to keep the peace but contracts are made to make or keep power, whether it be with national leaders or those from another realm. 

Iza is a fourteen-year-old boy who, up to his last year of middle school, has lived a relatively normal life being a young teen turning a new page in his life until he is accepted into an elitist high school by recommendation from the chairman himself of the highschool. From that moment forward, a new chapter in his life starts and Iza will forever change as he will come to learn the many secrets that will be uncovered to him that scale from the school, to himself and to the very essence of the world.

SOMEWHERE DEEP WITHIN THE FOREST
Friday, June 6th, 2025 9:15 PM

“Hehe... Hehe... Hehe...” 

The sounds of a little girl panting in the mildly snowing night. Sounds of heavy footstep quickly trailing right behind. The little girl trips on a long root covered in snow and quickly sinks into it. She looks behind and sees a very large silhouette of a creature that has been on a murderous rampage. The child gets a clearer look and it is a wolf-bear fusion creature with one eye missing, scratch and bite marks laid all over its body, blood covering the majority of its coat, claws that go from its waist to its ankles, and teeth razor sharp. 

“What an eventful night you have given me, little girl. Might I ask you to scream a bit more for the excitement?”

Shocked and paralyzed the child remained silent and in fear with tears running down her cheeks. 

“Well then, we’ll take what we can get,” said the wolf-bear creature as he opened his mouth in preparation to feast on the child. 

A mysterious man in a worn and torn cloak dashed in quickly as if he appeared out of thin air and kicked the creature hard enough to create a sonic boom with its body. The wolf-bear was sent deep into the woods and broke trees in its way. The child grew in more fear and began to whimper as it thought it was the end. 

“It’s fine, you don’t need to worry anymore. I’m here to keep you safe,” The man flung his robe to indicate he had a weapon, an odachi about six feet long with bandages wrapping it. 

“UGH! Excuse me!?”

With slobber coming out of his mouth from its hunger, the creature grows in rage and lets out a loud roar. Its eyes glow a blood-red and creates a heavy fog within the environment to make its presence faint and difficult to see. The creature, in a frenzy, dashes at full force to the thing that pushed him back with full kill intentions. The child gets up and crawls to the man for protection only for her to feel the ground shaking and the atmosphere to feel really heavy as if the gravity exponentially increased. 

“Stay back, this should be quick,” said the hooded man as he was preparing for the assault by gripping the handle of his weapon. 

He felt the creature's presence get closer to him very quickly and noticed the shadow getting bigger and bigger. The wolf-bear leaped out of the mist and had a very large tree trunk already cocked back to swing at the man. As the creature was about to swing down to crush the man, he unsheathed the blade and both weapons clashed. All of the pressure from the clash cleared the mist and surrounding snow on the ground. Shocked the tree trunk didn’t crush the man, the creature swung its other arm to land a punch on him but the man moved a slight bit to the left and angled the sword to block both the tree trunk punch. The sword pierced the ground and the man was able to free both hands. Within a split second the creature was still in the air, the man moved a bit from the sword and punched the creature with his left arm hard enough to break some bones. The creature was sent a good amount of distance and was on its knee with an arm on where it got punched. It started coughing out blood and started to pant for air. It looks up and notices the man was hiding the arm he punched with but with the wind breezing the cloak moved a bit and the creature noticed it. Rage grew within the creature as it slowly stood up and let out an intensified roar. Blood pouring out of its mouth, the claws growing larger and sharper, its size drastically increasing and it’s presence becoming something much heavier than before. 

“If it is really you, let me show you the wrath of a true monster!”

“Let's get this over with.” 

A red glare was seen from the creature and both fighters dashed towards each other to settle the score. The fight was quickly concluded with the strange man being victorious with one fell swoop. The creature was quickly split in half and disintegrated into ashes from the man's quick attack. The mist dispersed completely and the man returned to the young girl who was still too afraid to even move. 

“You okay?” says the man as he removes his hood to get familiar with the young girl. 

The young girl saw a man with medium straight hair as white as snow, two earrings, an x-shaped scar on his left cheek and another scar that ran from the top of his left eyebrow down to the side of his nose. The man had two different colored irises, his left eye being in the color dark red and his right eye being the color of sky blue. His face stood stone cold but the young girl couldn’t sense any danger from him. She nods to him and the man asks her if she’s okay to walk. He quickly notices that she is barefoot so rather than having her walk he takes off his cloak, turns back to have her climb on his back and puts the cloak over her so that it’s covering the both of them. 

“Mr… Thank you…” says the little girl.

“No need to thank me. You’re safe now. What’s your name?”

“My parents called Aurora.”

The name struck a chord with the man’s heart and his heart felt unusual. A feeling he hasn’t felt in years. He smiles and a tear runs down his face while the two make their way through the forest. The two traveled and they slowly approached a run down church with lights inside. Aurora had fallen fast asleep on the man’s back and she was gently awoken to the sound of her name from him, “Hey, Aurora. Welcome home.”

She rubs her eyes and takes a better look at the church. She smiles widely and her eyes glisten in awe to the sight of the shelter. As they get closer, the sounds of children are beginning to be audible and the girl becomes curious. 

“Are there other kids in there?” she asked the man. 

“Yeah, you aren’t alone anymore,” gently welcomed the man as he opened the doors to the church.

Kids were seen running around, eating, playing games with another, sleeping, and reading. One of the kids turned to the door and saw the man enter with another young child. 

“Big brother Iza is home...” mumbled the young child as he looked like he was going to burst out crying. 

One of the other kids heard the quiet child and screamed it louder and everyone turned to the man. They all stopped what they were doing and rushed to the man to grab his attention. 

“Big bro, I was holding the fortress down while you were gone and I took care of business,” said one of the kids with a mighty and outgoing voice, while wielding a wooden sword.

“Mr. Iza… Welcome back… Thank you for everything,” said the child who looked like they were about to cry.

“Iza, Iza, Iza! Me and Fiorella are taking care of Yugo and he’s getting better!” said one of the boys as they helped one of the girls take care of their younger sibling. 

Iza smiles at all of the kids who swarmed him and crouched down so that he can introduce to them another member of their family.

“I’m home, everyone, and I found someone outside all alone. Her name is Aurora so I want you guys to be nice and treat her like family because she is…”

“Family!” they all shouted together. 

The young girl felt the warmth from the other kids as they all hugged each other and smiled together. Iza leaves the kids to play and introduces Aurora to their house and makes his way to the church’s center aisle. Along the walls were torches that were lit up to keep the church warm and heated, along with an area where the kids sleep at that has a fireplace. The church itself resembles a Catholic church but has a hole in the roof that allows any form of light to shine on a patch of flowers. The chapel, the main room of the church, has rows of benches leading towards the patch of flowers in the center. At the back of the church is a staircase up to the pillars by the ceiling, though the back is also largely in ruins due to a crash. The attic of the church has several pillars at the top, with a path to escape through the hole in the roof.

“I’m home…” Iza whispers to himself as he takes a seat in front of the patch of flowers with the moonlight shining on it. 

He closes his eyes and begins to pray for everyone as he usually does. Aurora notices Iza sitting at the end of the walkway and begins to walk to him but is quickly pulled back by one of the other kids in the group.

“Don’t go near him when he’s praying, he’s talking to his other family,” says the girl as she shakes her head. 

“His other family?”

“Yeah, he has another family that’s far, far away so he prays for them and makes sure that his loved ones remain safe,” the young girl explains. 

Now that Aurora got a better idea of the situation she smiles and the young child is confused for a moment, “How come you’re smiling?”

“Because that means we will remain safe since he loves us all right?”

The young girl realizes what Aurora says and smiles along with her, “Mm-hmm!”

They leave Iza and he coincidentally finishes praying. He gets up and makes his way up the walkway and enters a playroom that has all of the toys the kids use. With a fully functioning bathroom and a full size kitchen in the playroom, Iza calls up everyone with his kid voice and takes a seat. 

“Alright kids, what is it that we want to have for dinner tonight?”

Everyone started blurting out suggestions until one young kid raised their hand before giving out a suggestion. 

“What is it, Aurora?”

“Can we have soup?”

“What type of soup do you want, Aurora?” asked Iza in a gentle voice with a curious face. 

“How about… Chicken noodle soup?” 

All of the kids began to repeat the dish’s name because they’ve never heard that type of soup but to Iza, it was one of his favorites back when he was with his family. 

You’re killing me here…

“It’s an old school soup that they don’t make anymore. I still remember how to do it so just leave it to me!” exclaims Iza in a childish and enthusiastic way. 

He gets up and lets the students know that he’ll need to gather up the ingredients first and that he’ll be right back. Aurora wanted to tag along but Iza shut the idea down as soon as she brought it up. She continued to beg and made a face that reminded him of a person he once loved, which made him break. 

“Alright, just this one time. And only because you need to learn as well about the wild.”

Aurora smiled and her eyes glistened in excitement. Iza tells Rikyu, the brave and outgoing child, to guard the fortress once more as he and the new family member will be getting food for the family.

“Leave it to me big bro! I’ll make sure everyone is safe.”

Iza chuckles and smiles at him and takes along Aurora for the hunt. Before they leave, Iza gears up and grabs his cloaks and reaches into the kids closet and gets something for Aurora to warm up in. They reach the entrance and wave to everyone as they depart for their mission, “We’ll be back everyone.”

“Stay safe!”

“We’ll see you soon, big bro!”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Iza…” 

The two hunters walk out and make their way to go get their ingredients. 

“Make sure you don’t leave my side, Aurora. It gets dangerous at night and we don’t want to attract attention okay?”

The young hunter nods her head and tugs on Iza’s cloak. They travel through the snowy forest but thankfully the snow has stopped so it wasn’t something that was slowing them down. They come across a flock of chickens and Aurora begins to tug hard on Iza’s cloak as she spots them. He looks over and notices the chickens but tells Aurora that they aren’t there to hunt those chickens as he points out to a bigger and more scary chicken. 

“We are going to hunt that one since it wants to hurt that family of chickens,” he says as he tries to educate the young hunter. 

She understands the hunters mindset and begins to look for a hideout spot. The young hunter finds a spot to hide in and leaves it to Iza to take down the scarier chicken. Iza picks up a stick and lightly tosses it to the family so that they are alerted and run away. The bigger and scarier chicken turns to the hunter and its eyes begin to glare red in anger. It rushes towards Iza but is quickly turned into minced meat as Iza didn’t even have to move to cut the creature down. Aurora was in awe to see how strong Iza was against the chicken and went up to him to thank him. 

“Thank you so much for killing the bad chicken. Now the family over there can rest in peace.”

“That’s exactly why we protect those who need protection. So let’s collect this main ingredient and look for the others.”

The two hunters bag the meat in an old school sack and Iza carries the heavier load while Aurora carries a lighter load so that she feels like she’s doing something. On their way back home, three mysterious figures dressed in all black cloaks appear out of nowhere. Iza readies himself by putting his hand on his sword’s handle and asks for their identification. 

“Iza…? Is that you?” asked one the cloaked people, in a female voice. 

“Who are you and what are you doing all the way out here?”

Aurora begins to get nervous and closes in on her guardian. Iza opens the cloak and hides her so that they don’t get a better picture of her. 

“Is she yours?” asked the other hooded female. 

“She is mine but I won’t ask you again. Who are you and what are you doing all the way out here?”

“It’s been a long time, pal,” said the man who pulled down his hood to reveal himself to Iza. 

“No, stop! What are you doing!?” exclaimed the other hooded body. 

Iza froze up to the sight of a long lost friend who he thought he’d never see again, “Why are you here, Reinhart?”

“You two, put your hoods down,” commands the long lost friend to the other two cloaked bodies. 

Aurora peeks through the cloak and sees three new faces. She comes out underneath the cloak and looks up to Iza to verify how serious the situation is. Iza’s face turned into a serious face compared to the usual nice face she was used to and she began to worry. 

“Aurora, stay with me. Don’t listen to them or answer any of their questions, please.”

One of the girls walks up and crouches down to call out the girl, “Hey, little girl. How are you? What’s your name?”

Aurora looks up to Iza and he shakes his head signally to the young girl to not respond to the questions. She tugs hard on Iza’s cloak he crouches down to her and reassures her that everything will be fine with the same old gentle face she is comfortable with. Iza closes his eyes and summons a clone to take Aurora back to the church. 

“I’ll be right behind you. The other me will take you back to the church and cook dinner for everyone okay. If you want to wait for me, just stay awake. I won’t take long, okay?”

Aurora nods and heads over to the other Iza. They both instantly vanish from the area leaving the real Iza with Reinhart and the two other females. 

“She’s so cute, I bet she gets the looks from her mother,” said the woman that was attempting to talk to the girl.

“I wouldn’t know how she’d look like, I just found her out in the forest,” replies Iza to another old friend of his. 

“That’s a relief to hear…” sighs the woman as she slowly gets up from the floor. 

“We need you, Iza.”

“For what, Leona?” he responds in an upset tone.

“When was the last time you saw the sun, Iza? If I’m not mistaken it’s been seven years… seven fucking years! Do you know what caused this!?” shouts Reinhart in pain.

Iza remains quiet and looks dead into Reinhart’s eyes, knowing extremely well what the cause of all of it was. 

“You! You did all this! If only you had finished the fucking mission as you were told to do then none of this would have happened…”

“It’s all in the past now. This world has since adapted and w-”

“I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation, Iza. Demons are constantly infesting the areas and corruption is at an all time high with all of the countries. Ever since then, humanity has been going down hill,” explained Leona. 

“You need to do something about this. Everyone needs you again, Iza,” said the other young woman. 

Iza stood quiet and looked up to the starry night sky. He rests his eyes and begins to think to himself. Memories of the past begin to flow, ever so gently in his mind and recalls the time he and Reinhart graduated middle school, eleven years ago, “What day is it today, Reinhart?”

“Friday, June 6th, 2025.”

“It’s been eleven years since we graduated middle school, you know that?” says Iza as he takes a deep breath in.

“What does that have to do with anything, Iza?” asked Reinhart as he was beginning to get agitated with his old friend. 

“I finally remember about the dream I had eleven years ago.”

“Oh, really? Well, honestly, I don’t give two shits. You’re coming with us whether you like it or not,” states Reinhart as his arms ignite in a bright fire. 

Both women try to hold back Reinhart but Iza pulls out his sword with a sad face. The blade of Iza’s weapon held a presence like no other. This was never something he’d expect to be doing but from what he remembered in his dreams, eleven years ago, it was something that appeared to be destined to happen. 

“Are you sure you want to resort to this, Reinhart?” asked Iza as his demeanor completely changed, from being sad to being completely focused. 

“Like I said, you’re coming with me whether you like it or not.”

Iza sheathed his sword and Reinhart took it as if he wasn’t going to go all out, which angered him greatly and increased the intensity of his flames. Ever since Iza split from everyone, seven years ago, all he ever did was train and walk the way of the wanderer. Travelling through villages and torn down cities, helping the homeless, and building his shelter which homes little children. 

“Don’t underestimate me!” shouts Reinhart as he dashes in with full force. 

So this is the end. If this is what my ending truly is, then so be it. Just don’t make it harder on anyone else, please. I hope the younger me understands this… 

Until the next time, kiddo.