Raaga

Raaga never wore the mask to be mysterious. It was a tool, same as the silenced blades and the climbing claws they left at the bottom of the river. Their mission was simple: retrieve an artifact from a high-ranking official in the city of endless bamboo. But the “artifact” was a living child. Raaga hesitated for a single breath in the cold, thin air, and in that moment, their old life ended. They fled, not from the city’s guards, but from their employer’s wrath. These days, they trade jokes for rice balls and play hide-and-seek with local kids among the cherry blossom trees. The poncho covers their past, but the mask remains, a silent confession of the person they refuse to be again.