Darkness didn't fade gently.
It ripped away.
Light slammed into Ren's eyes like a blade.
Cold air stung his skin.
His ears rang with distant screams — no, not screams — cheers.
A crowd.
Thousands.
Ren's vision sharpened.
He wasn't in the ruins of his home anymore.
He was kneeling.
Wrists bound in black steel cuffs.
A rough wooden platform beneath him.
The smell of smoke, blood, and burning incense filling the air.
And surrounding him —
An ocean of people.
All staring.
All watching.
All waiting.
They were kneeling on the execution platform of Kagekawa's central square — the highest point of the district, where the Dominion carried out public punishment.
Soldiers stood in semicircles all around them, rifles loaded, spears glinting, boots planted firmly on the slabs. Civilians watched from behind the barricades — some crying, some looking away, some pretending they had no opinion at all.
Above them hung the crimson banners of the Northern Dominion.
Black sun emblem.
Oppressive.
Unblinking.
A voice somewhere to Ren's right trembled:
"Ren…? You awake…?"
Hikaru.
Shaking. Pale. Sweat crawling down his temples.
Ren opened his mouth but no words came out.
His tongue was sand.
His chest still burned from the shockwave that had ripped their home apart.
Aya sobbed quietly beside him, cheeks streaked with dirt.
Daiki's forehead bled.
Mika's hair was tangled with debris.
Takumi's eyes were empty, distant.
Kaede's breath came out too fast.
Yuki stared forward with wide, haunted eyes.
Their wrists were bound with steel cuffs.
Bruises everywhere.
Blood dried along their clothes.
Their mother was nowhere.
And the absence hit Ren harder than any whip.
A Dominion commander stepped forward, armored from shoulder to shin, voice booming through the square:
"Citizens of Kagekawa!
Before you kneel the eight children of the Fiend bloodline — enemies of the Dominion, carriers of forbidden power, and confirmed collaborators of treason."
Whispers exploded through the crowd.
Ren clenched his teeth.
It felt like swallowing knives.
The commander continued:
"Your mother resisted arrest, nearly killing Captain Genji and Officer Shiori. She unleashed illegal Kigen. She is being dealt with separately."
Ren's throat tightened.
He felt sick.
Hikaru whispered, "Ren… she's not dead, right? She can't be… right?"
Ren didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
The commander raised a hand.
"By decree of the Northern Dominion, the eight Fiend siblings are sentenced to public extermination—"
"EXCUSE ME?!"
Daiki snapped his cuffed wrists forward and lunged — a soldier immediately slammed a rifle butt into his stomach.
He collapsed with a grunt.
"DAIKI!" Aya cried.
The soldier pointed the rifle at her face.
She froze, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Any further resistance," the commander warned, "and we begin with the one on the left."
His eyes moved to Yuki, her disturbed pupils still focused on the unpleasant view below.
Ren felt Hikaru grab his sleeve again.
The same way he always did when he was afraid.
"Ren… say something… please, do something…"
Ren opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Not fear.
Not courage.
Not anything.
Just silence.
The commander raised his hand for the order.
"EXECU—"
A gust of wind swirled suddenly at the siblings' feet.
Kaede's eyes widened.
"Ren… the air… it hurts…"
And that's when Ren felt it too — something boiling beneath his skin.
Something that wasn't pain.
Wasn't fear.
Wasn't even his.
It was power.
Raw, electric, violent.
Like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks the sky open.
Ren gasped, "What… what is this…?"
The commander paused mid-gesture.
"What are you—"
Then it happened.
Eight souls cracked open at once.
Electricity erupted through Ren's body, bursting from under his skin like molten gold.
Sparks snapped from his fingertips.
Arcs danced across his cuffs.
Soldiers staggered back.
"HE'S ACTIVATING KIGEN?!" one shouted.
Ren screamed as lightning tore his veins open from the inside — not killing him, but claiming him.
Hikaru gasped — his hands flickered.
Then his arms.
Then half his chest.
He blinked in panic as his own body turned translucent.
"H-Hey— I'm disappearing— R-Ren I'M DISAPPEARING—"
His voice cracked.
His outline shimmered like heat rising off a hot stone.
Aya's palms ignited.
Actual flames burst from her skin.
"A-AAAH— IT BURNS—"
"It's not burning you!" Mika yelled.
Aya's hair lifted, embers floating around her like living sparks.
The soldiers aimed rifles.
"A FIRE-TYPE?! ON THE PLATFORM?! TAKE COVER!"
Takumi gasped as stones on the platform vibrated — then SKIPPED two meters sideways on their own.
A soldier aimed at him…
…the rifle JAMMED instantly.
"FUCK!"
Takumi blinked.
"I… didn't do anything…"
Reality disagreed.
Daiki roared — and the steel cuffs SNAPPED clean off his wrists.
The soldier who struck him earlier stepped back in horror.
Daiki slammed his fists into the ground.
The stone CRACKED.
Every loose object on the platform shook.
Then levitated.
Shards of wood, broken stones, lost weapons — all rose around Mika, orbiting her trembling body like a protective storm.
She choked out, "I don't know how to stop it—!"
Yuki vanished.
Then reappeared a fraction of a second later.
Then vanished again.
The soldiers barely saw a blur.
"TARGET 7 HAS HIGH-SPEED— DON'T LET HER—"
Yuki tripped on her own feet, skidding across the stone, slamming face-first into a soldier's leg.
"Ow…"
But the soldier still got sent flying.
And Kaede—
Kaede inhaled.
The wind obeyed.
A tornado of spinning air wrapped around her, spiraling upward like a newborn storm.
Her hair whipped around her face.
Her eyes glowed with sharp, pale green.
Ren stared at her.
She looked just like their mother.
"FIRE!" the commander screamed.
Bullets flew.
Kaede's wind deflected them.
Mika's telekinesis flung some back.
Lightning from Ren melted two in mid-air.
Yuki zipped forward, knocking a soldier out before he finished blinking.
Daiki punched a shield so hard it bent in half.
Aya hurled a fire wave at the front line.
Takumi stepped aside reflexively — a spear missed him by pure impossible luck, stabbing a soldier behind him instead.
All eight siblings subconsciously worked together , their chemistry unmatched.
The crowd panicked.
Some fled.
Some screamed.
The soldiers tried to regroup.
"THEY'RE ALL AWAKENED— ALL EIGHT— THIS ISN'T NORMAL—!"
No.
It wasn't.
A soldier rushed Ren.
Ren barely lifted his hand—
CRACK—!!!
Lightning punched the soldier in the chest and sent him airborne.
Hikaru flickered into invisibility, slipped behind a soldier, tripped him, reappeared, punched his helmet, and went invisible again.
"Hey—HEY— stop swinging at me if you can't SEE me—!!"
Daiki grabbed two soldiers by their collars and smashed their heads together like cymbals.
Mika lifted a soldier off the ground, spun him like a rag doll, and threw him into another squad.
Aya blasted a fire kick into someone's chest, screaming, "STAY AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!!"
Kaede jumped — wind coiled under her feet — she hovered for a split second and came down with a spinning heel kick boosted by a violent gust.
Takumi moved through the chaos untouched.
Bullets missed him by centimeters.
Soldiers tripped at random.
Weapons malfunctioned.
He didn't even notice he was using his power.
The commander choked, "This— this is impossible… eight awakened at ONCE— eight— impossible—!"
Ren's lightning intensified.
Wind spiraled.
Fire grew.
The air warped.
Reality bent.
Bullets twisted.
The stone cracked.
The siblings rose slowly to their feet.
Together.
Bound by trauma.
The commander stumbled backward.
His voice shook.
"Y-You monsters… your mother… she's gone… you'll join her— NOW—!!"
Ren stopped breathing.
For a moment the world froze.
Hikaru whispered, "Ren… don't believe him…"
Aya shook her head violently. "He's lying— he HAS to be lying—!"
Kaede's wind dropped.
Mika froze mid-gesture.
Yuki clutched Ren's sleeve.
But Daiki—
Daiki stepped forward, fists shaking.
"You said what…?"
The commander raised his gun.
Daiki growled.
"Say it again."
The commander pulled the trigger—
Lightning FLASHED.
Ren didn't remember moving.
He appeared right in front of the commander, electricity surging through his veins like molten rage.
Ren's voice dropped to a whisper.
"…don't ever talk about my mother."
Lightning snapped across Ren's skin again, brighter and more vicious than before, crawling up his arms in jagged, twitching arcs. He didn't feel human — he felt charged, every nerve stretched to breaking. The soldier who tried to crawl away only managed a single panicked gasp before Ren seized him by the collar. The contact alone made the electricity flare, a crackling halo blasting outward with a sound like tearing metal.
The man screamed.
Not a normal scream — a raw, ruptured howl as his body convulsed violently, limbs jerking out of rhythm like a puppet with its strings pulled too tight. Ren didn't release him. He tightened his grip, teeth clenched, lightning pouring from his palms in an unbroken torrent. The soldier's armor began to glow red-hot, then white, the plates warping as if melting from the inside. His skin blistered instantly, bubbling and tearing apart under the surge. Smoke rose from his mouth and nose. His eyes rolled back, then bulged, veins bursting in purple threads beneath the skin.
Ren forced more power into him. More. MORE.
The stench of burnt flesh filled the air, sickening and heavy, mixing with the sharp metallic tang of ozone. Sparks jumped from the soldier's teeth as electricity found every path it could burn through. His body spasmed one final time — a full-body snap that made his spine arch unnaturally high — before collapsing into a twitching heap, steam lifting off him in thin white trails.
The lightning finally faded off Ren's hands in fading crackles.
His breath shuddered out of him, harsh, uneven.
His fingers were still curled like claws.
The soldier didn't move again.
And with the sudden silence… Ren realized he had just killed a man — no hesitation, no restraint — with a power he didn't even understand.
But in that moment, all he could feel was the aftershock humming through his bones…
and the terrifying certainty that something inside him had woken up, and it wasn't going back to sleep.