The first punch didn't hurt.
Kaito reikan had taken worse
His head snapped to the side,blood dripping from his lip as three shadows closed in around him under the sickly flicker of a back-alley streetlight concrete walls pressed in like a cage.Trash bins reeked.The city didn't care what happened here.
Neither did kaito.
"Still standing,huh?"Toru granted.He was built like a rusted vending machine and he smelled worse.
"You've got guts,reikan.Shame we're about to break 'em."
Kaito didn't bother answering.He rolled his shoulders.wiped his mouth,and stepped back-subtle,calculated.
The moment one of them twitched,he bolted.
"Oi!Get his ass!"
Sneakers slapped pavement.kai rounded a corner,ignoring the pain flaring in his ribs.The night wind bit through his school uniform.He vaulted a fence,darted down a slope,and plunged into the trees.
Let them follow.
Let them see what happens when they chase him into the dark.
The city noice died behind him.The forest swallowed it whole
Branches scratched at his face.Mud sucked at his shoes.He didn't care.He just run.away from fists,from faces,from questions he didn't have answer to.
He didn't stop until the world opened up around him,quiet and still.
A shrine
Old forgotten.Half-buried by creeping moss and time.
The torii gate was cracked in two.Wind-chimes hung from rotten wood,silent.The offering box was split down the middle like a broken jaw.And at the centre of the shrine-resting in a mound of faded earth-was a sword.
Kaito's breath cought.
It stood upright,stabbed into stone,untouched by rust or rain.Its blade was jet black,etched with faint red symbols that pulsed slowly like a heart.The hilt was wrapped in what looked like old prayer cloth,now soaked in dried crimson stains.
Something In his chest stirred.
He didn't understand why,but his feet moved forward.
Draw me.
The whisper wasn't a voice.It was a feeling in his blood.A pressure behind his eyes.The air turned heavy.The forest seemed to lean in,listening.
Kaito reached out.
His hand shook slightly.He hated that.
He gripped the hilt.
And pulled.
The sword slid free with the sound of tearing silk.
The ground shudderd.Wind howled through the shrine like the first breath of a long-sleeping god,leaves scattered,shadows snapped.kaito stumbled back,eyes wide.
The blade was warm in his hand.
And then his cut hand-scraped from the earlier fall-dripped a single drop of blood onto the steel.
The runes flared to life.
A red glow spiraled up the blade,and then-she appeard.
She rose from the blade like smoke curling into a shape.A woman-tall,sharp-featured and terrifyingly beautiful.her armor shimmered with black and red metal,cracked and scarred.Long silver hair flowed around her like living moonlight.Her crimson eyes locked on him with a gaze that saw everything,kaito froze."Who...are you?"
The woman took a single step forward.Her bare foot touched the mossy ground,yet left no mark.
"I am ayame,"She said.Her voice was cold and low,like steel dragged across glass."you are the one who bled.You are the one who drew me."
"I didn't mean to-"
"You did."she moved closer."You touched the blade.you fed it blood.That is no accident.That is a pact."
Kaito scowled."I don't even know you!"
"Then learn quickly,"she snapped."Becouse I am yours now,and you...are mine."
The crach of leaves behind them broke the tension.
The gang had cought up.
Toru and his two idiots emerged from the bush,panting."Reikan!what the hell-this some kind of-?"
They froze.
Ayame turned slowly,her eyes glowing faintly.
The smallest of the gang bolted without a word.the other two stared.Toru finally growled,hefting a lead pipe."You think a cosplay girlfriend gonna scare me?you're so dead!"He charged.
Kaito opened his mouth to warn him.Ayame moved,fast.
She blurred through the air,catching the pipe mid-swing with her hand.The metal groaned.Then,without changing expression,she backhanded toru across the clearing.
He crashed into a tree and dropped like a stone.
The third boy screamed,dropped his weapon,and ran.only Toru remained,groaning.
Ayame knelt beside him.
She dragged her finger across the thin cut on his cheek-drawing blood.Her sword materialized from her arm again,runes glowing bright.
The air pulsed.Her eyes lit up.
And her body...become more vivid,less ethereal.The cracks in her armor healed.Her presence grew heavier.
She stood,stronger than before,and turned back to kaito.
"I told you."She said softly."Blood fuels me,not much,just enough.But when I drink deeply..."
Kaito swallowed."You're not human."
"I Was,"she said."once."
A beat.
Then she turned toward the ruined.
"More are waking.I can feel them.you've drawn me.others will come.They will hunt us."
Kaito stepped closer,still gripping the sword."you said I'm your wielder.What does that mean?"
"It means you're responsible,"Ayame replied,without looking at him."For the blood i spill.For the lives we take.For what comes next."
"Yeah?"he muttered."What does come next?"
She turned,and her eyes gleamed in the dark.
"A war,"She whispered."The old war.The cursed blades are calling each other home."