Akashiko

The biting wind whistling through the bamboo-lined streets of The Great Panda City carries the scent of cherry blossoms, but to Akashiko, it only smells like absence. They used to share this spot by the river with another, someone who taught them how to cast a line and read the currents. Back then, Akashiko’s mystic sight revealed shimmering shoals of fish, paths of light their partner called ‘dragon whispers.’ But the last vision the river showed them was not of light. It was of splintering rock and crushing darkness. Akashiko survived; their partner did not. Since that day, the tactical goggles stay on to dull the world’s glow, and the mask hides a face they no longer feel is their own. They still fish. But they never look for whispers in the water anymore.