VERSE VI
A primal chill seized their very bones, forcing a profound tremor through their frames. From the Haven, a heatwave erupted, astonishing in its sudden ferocity, disastrous in its relentless progression.
The sky, once a canvas of cerulean, now bled gray and crimson, a canvas of burgeoning dread. Nature, in its terrifying splendor, proved its grim mastery of ruin: red lightning, jagged and malevolent, descended, striking the very earth. Each searing bolt left naught but internal rupture and desolation in its wake.
Kato witnessed this unfolding horror, a silent spectator, as their Uncle flew with desperate, unyielding speed.
Below, the tormented earth teemed with humanity's plight—a cacophony of screams echoing, of pleas for succor rising from the fleeing multitudes. But even as the cries reached him, Kato knew, as did all, that no aid was coming. No salvation. He cast his gaze back towards the Haven, a shrinking, distant speck kilometers behind them. Its infernal outpouring, if left unchecked, promised to consume the entirety of Section 2, leaving only ash and silence.
Officials, or perhaps the Supernaturals themselves, were sworn to urgent rescue, to the very act of sealing off such blighted areas. Yet, Kato understood the grim machinations of power, a bitter truth he'd learned long ago.
A place deemed inconsequential often served as a crucible, a testing ground for an outbreak's virulent strength. While such a scenario might seem improbable, especially given the formidable seal meticulously placed by the Supernaturals Board across this nation, Western Central, the reality remained stark: none in power would willingly forfeit their vital forces.
Thus, the menial, the unimportant, those deemed utterly expendable, were ever the instruments for measuring peril, their lives a fleeting cost.
Such was their world's stark, cold calculus, and for it, Kato harbored no enmity. One could not sacrifice their most crucial assets on a gamble where the adversary's true might remained unrevealed, unmeasured.
Therefore, the dying populace and the Supernaturals' delayed arrival served a singular, brutal purpose: to gauge the Haven's true danger, to chart the depth of its destructive potential.
Yet, another thought, stark and chilling, intersected this bleak assessment. The Haven of Devils was, by all accounts, the most perilous—or so the ancient texts had warned.
He glanced at his sister, Yuki, whose tears flowed unchecked, a torrent of despair she could no longer command. Kato, his face a mask of stoic resolve, clung fast to his uncle. The biting wind lashed his bare chest, his lips fluttering; only then did he register the absence of his shirt.
An all-encompassing heat now permeated the very air, its intensity rising, quickly escalating his sister's fevered temperature, evident in the flush that painted her face. Her cries, choked and desperate, were for those at the forefront, citizens who had, moments ago, been consumed, vaporized by the escalating inferno. Their Uncle, sensing the dire need, a desperate urgency propelling him, redoubled his speed.
Kato saw then how utterly soft Yuki was, too soft for this unforgiving world. Even if they were drowning in tears, even as they perished, no one could save them. Their uncle already bore them away from the immediate peril; her tears, therefore, were futile, a poignant waste. He closed his eyes, and the visceral screams of his kindred assaulted his ears.
He heard Nature itself, its very essence, rending and collapsing, groaning in the presence of the supernatural. Intensified disasters, a scathing, physical condemnation of the very land he once called home.
His bloodied hands, clutched tightly around his sister's small form, began to waver, a treacherous tremor. He willed them to hold firm, to ensure neither of them fell, yet the control slipped.
A shrill, deafening cry, sharp as shattered glass, tore through the air, instantly sending shivers, profound and paralyzing, down their spines. Uncle Li, assailed by its malevolent force, lost his command of flight for a terrifying, singular second, plummeting them thirty feet through the burning air.
Tree branches, like cruel talons, raked his chest, carving deeper, more grievous wounds before he wrestled back his aerial dominion, soaring skyward once more. They gasped for breath, lungs burning with the acrid air. The realization that they had almost perished, so utterly, so suddenly, was both insane and yet terrifying, a nightmare made real. A devil's cry had stripped a supernatural of his very powers.
Kato gripped his uncle tighter, his eyes squeezed shut against the inferno. The screams and wails of his kind had swelled, a crescendo of suffering, now interwoven with the shrill cries and guttural trumpets of devils, accompanied by the seismic impact of their heart-pounding footsteps.
Behind Kato, it conjured the vivid, horrifying image of a million-army massacre. He heard the roars of destruction and the echoes of oblivion, a symphony of annihilation, exactly as he "remembered" it from some forgotten, terrible place.
"A war," he thought, a chilling clarity piercing the chaos, "more like a one-man slaughter." He could feel it, see it, not with his eyes, but with an inner, terrible vision.
"Kato!" The sudden roar of his name, a desperate lifeline, wrenched him back to the agonizing present. He found himself atop his uncle's leg, surrounded by a maelstrom of blood and flames.
Smoke billowed into the atmosphere, thick and choking, the entire landscape painted in a terrifying, vivid crimson. It seemed Nature had finally surrendered, relinquished its ancient pact of protection, given up its very will to preserve. Trees burned, their massive forms toppling amidst the chaos, like giants in their death throes.
He coughed, a shallow rasp at first, then deepening, becoming prolonged and agonizing, tearing at his throat. His eyes streamed, a relentless flow of tears that no amount of frantic wiping could stem.
He was in profound shock, his mind reeling from the sudden, brutal shift.
He frantically sought his sister, his gaze darting through the smoke and fire, and then he saw her, kneeling beside Uncle Li. She was pressing against his chest with her hands, a futile, desperate plea to make him breathe. Kato's gaze fell upon his uncle's body, and the horror solidified: disheveled, disfigured, dismembered. His arms had been savagely ripped away, his chest and abdomen scored with grievous, gaping cuts.
The very soil beneath them pulsed with an unholy heat, all traces of grass charred and obliterated, leaving only scorched earth. Dust, thick and obscuring, veiled their vision, turning the world into a red-tinged haze. "Damn it! How?" he thought, the question a desperate, wordless cry.
He had been upon his uncle's back but moments ago, safe, or so he thought. He looked up at the sky. The gray heavens had indeed been dyed red, as though splattered across the vast expanse with the very blood of the fallen. A single drop of liquid descended, hot and viscous, touching Kato's face. "Rain?" he mused, a fleeting, almost delusional thought.
No! The droplet burned with an agonizing, searing fire, scorching his skin. He turned to his sister, her face etched with profound exhaustion, utterly spent. In his haste to pull her clear, his eyes widened, locking onto it: a large twig impaled through her back, a cruel, impossible wound.
She seemed utterly oblivious to it, lost in her own desperate focus.
"We must find shade!" he croaked, a guttural sound that produced no sound. His eyes widened in dawning horror, the realization dawning upon him. He didn't want it to be what it was. He shook his head violently, desperately casting the thought aside, even as its undeniable truth hammered at him. He struggled to move, to crawl, but a wild, alien sensation coursed through his veins, paralyzing him.
His ears began to ring, a high, piercing keen that drowned out the world. His vision collapsed inward, the edges of his sight darkening, narrowing.
His strength felt utterly sapped away, as if siphoned from his very being. He was covered in red, smeared with dust and filth. The scent assailed him, thick and cloying—the stench of charred flesh, cackling in the flames that devoured their surroundings. He struggled to crawl, stretching his hands towards his sister, pouring his last measure of strength into the effort, a desperate, final reach. Who had called him back? What had transpired in that fleeting moment? How had all this befallen them in mere, agonizing seconds?
He knew something profound had occurred while his eyes were closed, during that fleeting unconsciousness, but now, he remembered nothing. His brain was literally empty on the volition, a terrifying blankness.
His sister turned to him, her face a canvas of terror and profound fear. He saw her tears, glistening in the hellish light as she slid across the rough, scorching earth towards him. She gathered him into her arms, her voice a muffled, indistinct murmur lost to the roar of the inferno. He could see her, but only through a blurred veil, the world a hazy, fiery nightmare.
Yuki is strong, he thought, a flicker of pride amidst the despair. She stands amidst this ruin, moving, struggling, weeping. And he, he had simply slumped. Something was terribly wrong! Perhaps her nature as a gifted one granted her this resistance, this impossible endurance. But then, a thought, bitter and sharp, pierced him: "Where are the so-called gods when their aid is most needed?" So Lady Benzaitan, the revered goddess, either knew not what befell her cherished child, or she simply refused to extend a helping hand.
He read his sister's lips, forming the silent, desperate words, and the terrible truth of her terror slammed into him. He looked at his own body, and his heart hammered, a frantic drum against his ribs. Fear, cold and profound, gripped him hard, a physical vise. He had suffered so much pain, endured such torment, that he hadn't even registered it—his waist had been torn from his abdomen. He was halved, utterly bisected, right there on the ground.
What terrified him was not the pain, nor the imminence of death, but the prospect of dying without witnessing his sister's ascent, without shattering the House of Omi and wresting power from the abusers.
What had truly happened? Yonikaharu's mother had once spoken of pain nerves, how they functioned, how to weaponize them against an enemy, to force submission or extract information. He'd felt no pain, no sensation of injury.
But it hadn't taken more than a few seconds for agony, a searing, all-consuming tidal wave, to crash over him, utterly overcoming him. He made futile, rattling movements, a desperate dance against the burning torment he felt, as if a thousand needles were being pierced through his very being. He gnashed his teeth, a raw, animalistic sound, as smoke, acrid and bitter, rose to the heavens from his very being, from the agony that consumed him.
The sound of massacre—this was it, the very symphony of annihilation. Wails for aid, a landscape of oblivion, death claiming countless lives. No supernaturals were in sight, or even if they were—he stared at his uncle's corpse, a stark, grisly testament—they, too, were dead. He could no longer feel his waist, a void where his lower body should be, but an incredible pain complemented and replaced it, a phantom agony that burned hotter than any fire.
His breathing became more rushed, ragged, and excruciatingly shorter.
The RAIN! The ACID RAIN!
Pain, sharp and unrelenting, kept his body agonizingly awake, every nerve screaming. He could see his sister clearly now, every detail etched by the inferno's light. Her face was bruised, blood dripping from her hair, a crimson stain. It seemed she had sustained a grievous injury at the very center of her head.
"The rain... burns," he struggled to utter, each word a rasp against his ruined throat. His sister shook her head, a silent, desperate plea for his words to be untrue. If what her brother said was true, if the rain truly burned, then she had to leave her uncle's dead body right there.
Burning rain? She didn't know what to do; there was no shade in sight, no respite from the inferno.
Nothing but roaring, bright orange flickers, an incredible, suffocating heat that promised to roast them alive, a fate that would surely be theirs if they did not get out of there quickly. She tried to console herself, shaking her head to banish her tears. These tears were useless, powerless.
She could only carry one thing. She hoisted her brother's upper half onto her right shoulder, a heavy, limp weight. Her feet recoiled with each step, her pain sensors screaming, excruciatingly active against the searing, hot soil.
She clamped her teeth together, a silent, grim determination to withhold the agony. She could feel her veins throbbing, her body having rapid, desperate movements to control and overcome the relentless burns on her feet.
Her clothing had been consumed, burned off, leaving only a tattered sling from her left shoulder to the right side of her abdomen, revealing parts of her bare chest. Her black shorts had parts of them burned and some still aflame.
She beat at the fire quickly, savagely, to put out the clinging flames. Spotting her brother's lower abdomen close to a flickering fire, a desperate hope surged.
She ran towards it, her feet pierced by pieces of filth and debris beneath her, each step a fresh agony. Her tears were being vaporized by the intense heat as she ran closer to the flames, driven by an singular need to retrieve the lower part of her brother's body.
She arrived there, swiftly, grabbing it by the leg, drawing it suddenly, with a surge of strength, unto her left shoulder.
"Are you alright?" she found herself asking, the words croaked, barely audible above the roar, the air itself hostile, burning her lungs. A sharp, searing pain spiraled through her from her back. She turned to see the source, but her gaze fell upon her brother. Kato wore a dim, almost ethereal smile, yet his eyes held a dead, vacant stare, utterly devoid of life.
He had removed the large twig from his sister's body, the cause of her agony, and held it in his hands.
She couldn't say anything to console him. Absolutely nothing, not even a whisper of goodwill or anything positive. It was utter disaster, all around her, and consuming her.
Kato had been unconscious since the early hour the Haven first got unsealed that morning, until now, where the sun had passed its highest point and began descending—the fourteenth hour, if she was precise. She couldn't decipher what went wrong, what terrible magic had been wrought, but it had happened as soon as he fell asleep on Uncle Li's back.
It seemed like all natural elements had just turned against them, a malevolent conspiracy hindering them from escaping the devils' wrath. Twigs like living cages entrapped them, the earth opening up holes to swallow them, the air suddenly blowing against them, a suffocating force stagnating their flight and ability to breathe.
The rain, it was a burning rain. Just like Kato described, but how?
There was clearly no liquid or rain in the atmosphere. How did Kato feel this burning rain? The question began to burn through her mind, a relentless, maddening fire. He had even said "shade." She was beginning to get skeptical, a desperate disbelief warring with the horrors around her, but she never stopped moving anyway, driven by instinct.
Yuki began to run, blasting through the flames, a desperate, fiery sprint. Anywhere seen as a path, she followed, a single-minded focus. Holding her brother, gripping him tightly on her shoulders. She was not going to lose him, no! Not him too.
Her vision began to fail her, the red and orange lighting around becoming more intense, blurring into a blinding, searing haze. It seemed she was running straight into the very heart of the fire, deeper into the inferno. She began to cough, from a little hack then it prolonged, becoming chronic, tearing at her throat.
Damn it, Kato was right all along! Where were the gods when they were needed? She needed help, desperately, and she was crying for it, though no sound escaped. Her feet were numb and sore now, utterly ravaged, the agony making her sting all over.
What the hell was going on? Kato felt the hot leaves graze him as they were in motion, being hit repeatedly against his sister's shoulder, like they were galloping through a fiery whirlwind.
How had all this come to be? Suddenly, the ringing in his ears and his blurred vision climaxed, a crescendo of sensation. It hit his body with intense, crushing pressure, and he blacked out for a second, a merciful, fleeting oblivion.
He felt his stomach gurgle with his body still in motion, still being carried. He spat out a large volume of blood, thick and viscous—it seemed like he had a vomit. Something was eerie, profoundly unnatural, a violation of reality. He wiped his mouth with his hands, and looked at it. The dim, almost vacant expression on his face was wiped off, replaced by a horrified, stark look. His blood was black, pitch black. There was no hint of color, nothing except absolute blackness.
At first, he thought it was just a vomit catastrophe, a byproduct of the trauma, especially since he had his core destroyed. But he glanced over Yuki's shoulders, spotting the lower half of his body. The blood on it was black, and it kept flowing out despite the half of him not being connected to him, a macabre fountain of darkness.
What surprised him most, piercing through the fog of pain, was the impossible fact that he was still very much alive. Though beset by bits of weaknesses and some eccentric feelings warping around his body, disabling basic functions, he was alive. How? It's not like he doesn't want to live, but how is he living? Was a god intervening in his matter, a celestial hand guiding him, or was it a sentient devil, a dark entity playing a cruel game? This is impossible, especially for a non-superhuman.
It was, by all accounts, a defiance of all logic, but yet he was living through it! Like some being who had crossed and brazenly defied fate itself.
A multitude of thoughts began running through his mind, a frantic, chaotic storm. He couldn't comprehend the world around him, this new, horrifying reality.
He felt utterly destroyed, his mind collapsing against him, making him crumble inward. He could feel his very self waning, sinking into darkness, an encroaching void, as that was the only thing he could see now. Struggling, fighting, to find a way out, his self fought. He swam in the darkness, a substance that seemed like liquid and air all the same, both stifling and burning. Surface! A desperate, primal urge.
He must get to the surface of the sticky darkness, to breach its oppressive hold. Futile kicks and waves, he persisted through, determined to get to the surface of his air-like liquid, to escape this suffocating inner realm. Was this a dream? A cruel, vivid nightmare?
All he could see was darkness, and his struggling self being glued to the sticky black liquid, unable to break free. A dream? No, it was far too vivid, too painfully real. He could feel the sticky liquid slowly burning his skin apart, atom by atom, with an agonizing slowness.
"Damn it, what is this? What deity is toying with him now? What cruel hand is twisting his reality?". He suddenly remembered the mark from the seal placed by the House of Omi, a burning brand upon his soul.
In a desperate bid, fueled by his unwavering determination to verify the absence of the seal, to find any hope of freedom, he dragged his arm off the liquid, a monumental effort.
There was a sudden loosening, a tearing sensation. A profound sensation of loss and torture flushed through him, an emptiness that echoed his physical mutilation. Something felt empty, hollow; he used to control that particular thing, a part of his very being. He couldn't see, trapped inthe darkness, so he couldn't register what he had lost, only the gaping void it left behind. Well, that was what he thought. That he needed only his eyes to identify his surroundings, to orient himself, but he was horrifyingly wrong. He felt strands being forcefully loosened, then ripped from his shoulders. An eerie snapping sound was produced, sickeningly audible even in the chaos, accompanied by a scream of futility, his own, primal and unheard. The flesh on his arm had been ripped off, leaving behind his bloody, black-stained skeleton, glistening with the viscous darkness. But Kato couldn't see it, that even his bones had been modified, transmuted, into the color of darkness itself—the very darkness that now sought to consume him, to claim him entirely. Emanating from his deepest fears and experiences forged over the years, this darkness seemed ever growing, an entity feeding on his despair.
So deafening, so profound, was his scream, a silent cacophony within his mind. His throat gurgled so hard at the pitch of his weeps, a sound of utter brokenness. Then he felt another loss, a new, cold void. His fluids were flowing atop his body from a location so close to his chest, a river of blackness. He felt a cold blade pass his throat, quick as thought, an invisible, cutting presence. Black blood splurged like a geyser from his throat, gushing, drizzling across him like rain atop his body, chilling him to the bone. He could taste a cold liquid in his mouth, but it had a very faint, metallic taste of blood, a taste he knew too well. His tongue caught the specific taste, and he matched it with a particular, profoundly provoking smell from his ties—his ties with the House of Omi. The taste at which all power is vanquished, at which the noblemen are fallen, their might turned to dust. The taste of being forced to eat the rotten flesh of his former classmate back in kindergarten, a brutal memory, his punishment for failing a task, a lesson in cruelty. He still remembered how he cried, tears scalding, when he saw her lying dead amongst her kinsmen, her life utterly wasted. He recalled it all. The taste of decay. His blood's taste perfectly matched decay, the essence of rot and ruin. Decay? Was he finally dying, truly succumbing? Did the sins of the House of Omi finally build upon him, crushing him beneath their weight? Is this his damn condemnation, his final, inescapable judgment?
He couldn't scream anymore, his throat utterly ruined. He gnashed his bloody teeth, grinding them, to express and spiral out his agony, the raw, uncontainable torment.
Saliva mixed with his black blood, a macabre ornamentation for his mouth, his lips discolored from his blood, dignifying his pain, giving it a grotesque grandeur.
His vision was glitching, flickering through in and out, a desperate struggle for clarity.
He managed to control himself, restricting his balance from being easily sapped from him, a desperate clinging to consciousness. He could hear the water bubbling and stirring up, a malevolent cauldron.
He could feel an increase, a terrifying, exponential increase in temperature, consuming him.
His mind raced even more, a frantic, desperate thing. He didn't even know what had happened to his uncle. How the heck had all that commotion happened with a second he fell asleep, in that single, lost moment? And his body was still alive, an impossible, grotesque miracle.
Questions began to devour him insatiably, a gnawing hunger for understanding. He was impatient, desperately wanting more answers, more clarity amidst the chaos. He began wading, a desperate, futile struggle that seemed he was tied to a pole with a thick rope, unable to break free.
Everything was turning against him, even his own damn mind, betraying him.
In this crushing frustration, this utter breakdown, he let his mouth carve a word, a single, raw expression, in a spur of his emotions. He finally cursed.
"Just what the fuck is going on!"