# Who is Mamoru

No one truly knows Mamoru.

What is known is fragmented. Whispered. Passed down among the imperial palace guards the way ghost stories are told: in hushed voices, glancing over shoulders.

They say he was born into a noble family. That he lost everything before he could even remember what it meant to have something. That the world chewed him up, spat him out, and trampled him before he ever learned to walk.

They say someone saved him. That this someone became the center of his universe. The only sun to orbit. The only reason to breathe.

They say he dedicated every heartbeat to protecting that man. With a devotion that surpassed honor. That surpassed duty. That surpassed reason itself.

They say that devotion became something else. Something no one dares to name.

And they say he was cast out. Exiled. Discarded like a blade too sharp — one that cuts even the hand that wields it.

For fifteen years, the world believed him dead.

The world was wrong.

Now Mamoru has returned. There is a new, young Emperor on the throne. A thirteen-year-old boy with a smile too gentle and eyes too innocent.

And Mamoru wants him.

Not to harm him. Never that.

Something worse.

*To protect him.*At any cost, gainst any enemy, including the boy himself.

"My name is Mamoru. Some call me the Hound of the Throne. Dead, they say. As you can see, they were wrong."

"My one and only Lord... your life is my altar."

"Come."