Chapter Text
One. Two. Three. Four.
Breathe in.
Before you learn anything and long after you’ve forgotten everything, you know breathing. It ebbs and flows with life. It remains unbroken just as long as your body holds on.
Breathe out.
It cradled you the first time you took from the Earth and it will follow you until the bittersweet embrace of death.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Breathe in.
There is one steady promise sticking to you even when you’re left with nothing, even when you don’t want it. This is it.
When all you know is breathing, you’ve stripped yourself down to nothing.
Breathe out.
You didn’t understand it until now; until it all became too much and they ripped your soul out of its core. You didn’t understand it, but this is what Sensei has been teaching all along.
Sensei?
One. Two. Three. Four.
Breathe in.