"Oh my goodness. You looked like someone who woke up to a devil staring right at him, face to face."
Ran angrily stared at him, his cheeks burning. "Why didn't you tell me it was going to be like that?" He accused.
Haru huffed, overcoming his amusement but still smiling. "I did tell you that it was going to be unsettling."
Ran huffed, and walked over to the teen acolyte. "You could have explained more, you know."
Haru shrugged. "I could have," he admitted and dropped the issue there. "Now, let me see these claws you were talking about."
Ran presented his hand to him and Haru placed his palm underneath his and inspected the sharp red claws of an unknown, dense material.
"Why do these look familiar," Haru mumbled to himself, running his thumb over the surface of the claws, carefully avoiding the edge. "Mukoku said it was Arkon blood she used on you. But Arkon's don't have claws."
"An Arkon?" Ran asked, cocking his head in curiosity.
"Yes."
He hummed to himself for a while, lost in memory. "In the village library there was a book from the Monastery, Demon Encyclopedia. It talked about the Arkons."
"That book don't exactly provide a a thorough list of all demons."
"I know that. I have met a few here that I didn't know existed. But I remember it said a few things about Arkons. Demons who could read and manipulate thoughts, wield powerful energies, possess and take control of minds and bodies, manipulate biological systems go healing or harming—regenerating or altering their own bodies, regenerate from injuries, manipulate the bodies of others, and create biological constructs and even minions."
"Indeed, those are Arkon abilities. A dangerous set, especially that last one. They are known for hiding themselves and creating monsters which they possess to attack others, never putting themselves in danger. Also, if they ever touch you, they could manipulate your biology, or worm their way into your mind to either possess you or control your mind. They are sneaky and dishonest. But they look like humans, only red-skinned. Arkons don't have claws."
Ran was about to speak when his mouth suddenly became dry as an incredible heat washed over them.
Right next to him, Haru froze.
The market around them became totally silent as everyone stopped what they were doing.
The heat came like a whispered warning—then screamed across the city like a dragon's breath.
Ran stumbled on the blackglass obsidian road, the stones suddenly hissing beneath his feet.
"No…" he mumbled, staring up. "It's too soon."
Beside him, Haru dropped to one knee, clutching his chest. "It's the Blaze. Hellfire. Early."
He wasn't ready. No one was.
Five years already? He hadn't even gotten anywhere close to saving his father.
Across the sparks-lit skyline, pillars of flame clawed toward the heavens. A low, rising roar followed—a sound like thousands of furnaces exhaling at once.
Denizens of the City of Severance screamed. Demons scattered, wings folding like cloaks as the day ones who could fly dove into shelters. Windows slammed shut. Doors sealed with bone-latches. Homes shimmered faintly with strange wards activating.
"What are those?"
"Shield made of righteous souls. They are called Blazeholdes, and only one can protect you from a Blaze. Every house in hell has a Blazeholde fencing them, but if the hellfire gets through the shield's border and reaches the house before it is activated then the Blazeholde will not push the hellfire back, only stop it where it'd reached."
Haru grabbed Ran's hand. "We have to get under one now!"
They ran.
The air cracked behind them. The street melted. The hellfire came not like a wave but a beast—alive, aware, devouring the world. Buildings it touched crumpled like statues made of ash. Statues cried molten tears before bursting.
"There!" Haru pointed down an alley at a chapel twisted into a shell of smoked bone and crystal.
A wall of flame burst down the alley from behind them like a god's wrath.
Ran had stopped to stare, losing hold of Haru who had continued running. He screamed as hellfire engulfed him.
His eyes met Haru's as the boy kept running, halfway turned towards him, staring at him in horror.
"Don't stop, Ran. Keep on running. Maybe I can activate the Blazeholde and pull you in," his friend yelled at him as he continued running to escape the flames that surrounded and overflowes over Ran, continuing on its tidal path, soon blocking Ran's vision.
The pain was blinding—his nerves lit up like wires in a forge. He hit the ground, wriggling in pain, vision swimming in hot air. Every gut feeling screamed that he should be ash. But he wasn't.
The fire licked his skin, but it did not consume.
Instead, his flesh twisted. Warped. Chunks of his skin blackened—not from burning, but from changing. Metallic tendrils became visible across his limbs, joining together, fusing, with sinew and bone. He suddenly gasped, choking on smoke, as his chest plated over in dark chrome. One eye flickered, blinking in fractured red.
He struggled unsteadily to his feet, limbs alien, flexing with unnatural strength. The hellfire tried to claim him again, but his new skin shimmered, pulsing with eldritch resonance. It no longer burned him—something had awoken inside of him.
He ran, half-human, half-forged, pain still roaring through his nerves. Whatever he was now, he was alive. Changed. Claimed.
Behind him, the street melted into a crater of fire.
He burst through the door, coughing and gasping. Inside, the temple was empty—left alone and forgotten—but a faint Blazeholde sigil glowed near the altar.
He was just getting through when he saw Haru, already near the altar, leap toward it, slamming his palm down on the sigil.
The shield hissed to life with a sound like wind through a forest.
Ran struggled and kept on running until he broke through the shield and dove into its cranny of safety, landing on his back in a gasp.
Outside, the hellfire roared up the stairs. It slammed against the threshold.
He stood up to stare at the raging fire from within the Blazeholde Haru had activated and his friend came to stand by his side.
Just five feet from where they stood. The hellfire blaze surrounded the building like a siege of flame. The smoke pulsed with silent screams, faces twisting in the fire—damned souls used to fuel the tide.
Ran and Haru stood there, inches from annihilation. Between them and death, only the Blazeholde—an invisible ward woven from righteous souls who had ascended, souls that still remembered the shape of mercy.
The fire beat against it like a storm at sea.
Ran felt the heat pressing against his bones, not just outside but within. He saw the fire thoroughly regard him. It knew his name.
Haru reached out to touch the invisible shield, speaking—barely above a whisper.
"We live only because they still believe we're worth it."
And so they stood, face to face with pure judgment, saved by the sacrifice of saints long dead.
The tide of the Blaze would pass.
But it had left its mark.
"You are not supposed to be alive."
Ran nodded. "I know. I faced the blaze. It burned everything around me. It even burned me."
He wondered if he should tell Haru about the metallic flesh that he'd turned to. It was gone now, gone as soon as he broke through the shield.
And his claws were gone with it.
Now he knew what they were. He felt cursed, so he kept the discovery to himself.
"All materials save the flesh are consumed by the Blazes. I saw you burn and I don't know why."
"People are supposed to burn in hell, Haru."
Haru shook his head in denial. "The blaze does not consume the flesh, Ran."
Ran stared at him.
"It consumes the soul."