My LEGO Nexus Organization

   Kenji sat on the floorboards outside his home. He had been there a while, random thoughts plaguing his mind. At times they paused on his older brother, Kaze, who was very well known in their village. He was, after all, one of the greater samurai that had come out of the village in a while. This was to be expected, though. He was his father’s son, after all.

   His thoughts floated onward to his father, Kotetsu. It was only a few years ago that his father, along with several other samurai, were tasked with training young men and turning them into samurai. It wasn’t an easy process, but his father was left in a position of high honor, respected by all in the town.

   Kenji sighed. His father had always paid more attention to Kaze, always focused on his skills. He had always left for the academy early in the morning, and didn’t arrive till late in the evening. But he had always wanted Kenji to follow in his footsteps and work at the school, while Kaze went to join the military. But because of his father’s constant absence, he didn’t know.

   Kenji had a different dream.

   It had happened when he was traveling through town the other day. He was passing a peddler in the street, and would have kept going onward, would have ignored him, but something stopped him. Something caught his eye and stopped him, and so he turned to look at the stand. It was a simple stand, made of wood with several compartments and two wheels for storage and travel. The owner himself was a short man, with a small, scraggly white beard and thinning hair. He stood there with a wooden cane, bent as if he had found it in the woods on his travels.

   Kenji found the item he had noticed among the various knick-knacks in the display. There, hanging from a nail on one of the compartments, was a scroll. But it was what was printed on the scroll that had caught his attention. It was the most amazing landscape painting he had seen, not just for what the painting was of, but for the sheer amount of detail that it held. He couldn’t afford it, sure, but it had clicked some things together in his mind. This one picture had changed his goal in life forever.

   He would paint. And he would paint well.