Today's chapter
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Akira ran.
His legs were a blur of motion, fueled by the adrenaline of a boy who had just looked a monster in the eye. The Phoenix Drive hummed in his muscles, a high-pitched whine of energy that pushed his body beyond its limits. Every step tore muscle fibers; every micro-second healed them. It was a cycle of destruction and rebirth happening in real-time, propelling him down the mountain path.
Behind him, the mountain shook.
BOOM.
A plume of smoke rose from the crash site, black and oily against the pristine blue sky.
Akira didn't look back. He couldn't. If he looked back, he would freeze. If he freezes, there will be deaths.
He reached the edge of the village in seconds. The streets were quiet. Peaceful. An old man was sweeping his porch. Two cats were sleeping on a roof. They had no idea that hell had just opened up a mile away.
Akira skidded to a halt in the center of the village square, his chest heaving.
I need to get their attention, he thought frantically.
He gathered the pool of energy in his chest. It felt hot, agitated, responding to his panic. He shoved it all into his hands.
"SCATTER!" he screamed, his voice cracking.
He threw his hands up. A torrent of blue-gold fire erupted from his palms, shooting straight up into the sky like a signal flare. It climbed sixty feet into the air, a pillar of azure light that outshone the sun.
At the apex, he snapped his fingers.
The pillar shattered.
Thousands of petals rained down over the village. They didn't burn; they drifted like glowing snow, illuminating the shadows, sticking to roofs, floating in the streets.
Doors opened. Villagers rushed out, squinting at the sky.
"What is that?" "Is it a festival?" "It's the boy! The one with the red hair!"
They looked at him. Confusion. Curiosity. But not fear. Not yet.
Akira gritted his teeth. He didn't have time for confusion.
He stomped his foot. Blue flames swirled around his sneakers, condensing into a flat, shimmering disk. He pushed off the ground, the Phoenix Drive launching him ten feet into the air. He hovered there, standing on his flame platform.
"LISTEN UP!" he bellowed, projecting his voice as hard as he could.
The chatter died down. Every eye was on him.
"THIS VILLAGE IS UNDER ATTACK!" Akira yelled, pointing up the mountain toward the rising smoke. "A VILLAIN IS HERE! A MURDERER! EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! HEAD TO THE SHELTERS! MOVE!"
Silence.
The villagers looked at him. They looked at the smoke. Then they looked at each other.
"A villain?" someone muttered. "Here?" "Maybe it's a drill?" "But the vegetable stew is almost ready..."
Akira felt a vein pop in his forehead. They aren't moving. Why aren't they moving? This isn't a movie! You don't wait for the dramatic music!
"What?" a man shouted up at him. "Are you sure, kid? It's probably just a landslide — "
Akira snapped.
"THE FUCK YOU MEAN 'WHAT'?!" he screamed, his cynicism and fear boiling over into pure rage. "I SAID FUCKING RU—"
KRA-KOOM.
The mountain didn't just shake this time. It convulsed.
A shockwave of air pressure slammed into the village, shattering windows and knocking roof tiles loose. The sound was deafening.
From the forest above, trees were uprooted, thrown into the air like toothpicks.
The villagers froze. The skepticism vanished, replaced instantly by terror.
"MOVE!" Akira roared, waving his arms. "GO! NOW!"
Chaos erupted. People screamed. Parents grabbed children. The elderly abandoned their brooms. It was a stampede.
Akira watched them scatter, panic threatening to overwhelm the order. They were running blindly.
They need direction, he realized. They're just running away from the noise.
He focused on the floating petals still drifting in the air.
Form up.
He moved his hands like a conductor. The thousands of blue flame petals obeyed his will. They swirled together, rushing through the streets, coalescing into massive, glowing arrows that pointed toward the designated emergency routes.
"FOLLOW THE ARROWS!" Akira commanded, dropping from his platform to the ground. "KEEP MOVING! DON'T STOP FOR ANYTHING!"
He ran through the streets, herding stragglers.
"Leave the bag!" he yelled at a woman trying to pack clothes. "Just go!"
"My cat!" a boy cried.
"I'll get the cat! GO!"
The sounds of the fight up the mountain were getting louder. Closer.
CRASH.ROAR.SPLASH.
It sounded like nature itself was fighting a war. The ground rumbled rhythmically, syncing with Akira's heartbeat.
Slowly, the village emptied. The last family disappeared down the evacuation trail.
Akira stood alone in the empty square. Dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight. A child's ball lay abandoned in the dirt.
He wiped sweat from his forehead. His chest was burning.
I did it, he thought, his breath coming in ragged gasps. They're gone. They're safe.
He looked back up the mountain path.
Should I go back?
The thought was intrusive. Dangerous.
Mom is up there. Sasha. Shino. They're fighting that... thing.
But I'm thirteen, his logical brain argued. I'm a liability. If I go back, I'm just a hostage.
But that's my mother!
He took a step toward the mountain.
WHOOSH.
Something shot past him.
It wasn't a bullet. It wasn't a bird. It was a blur of blue and grey, moving so fast it created a vacuum that nearly pulled Akira off his feet.
CRUNCH.
The object slammed into a massive decorative boulder in the center of the village garden. The stone cracked, spiderwebs of fissures spreading instantly.
Akira froze. He slowly turned his head.
The dust settled.
Embedded in the rock, held there by the sheer force of the impact, was a man.
Akira's blood turned to ice.
It was Shino.
Or... it used to be Shino.
The stoic hero's mountain jacket was shredded. His left arm was bent backward at the elbow, the bone protruding through the skin. His legs were twisted at horrifying angles, like a discarded action figure that a child had snapped in half. Blood was pooling beneath him, staining the white gravel of the garden.
"Shino..." Akira whispered. The sound died in his throat.
Shino's head looked to the side. One eye was swollen shut, the other focused on Akira.
He tried to move. He couldn't. He coughed, and blood splattered onto his chin.
"R..." Shino rasped. A bubble of blood formed on his lips. "R-Run..."
Akira stared.
His brain, usually so quick to analyze, to crack a joke, to find the trope, simply shut down.
There was no trope for this. No anime logic could explain the angle of Shino's arm. There was no "New Game Plus" setting that could undo the wet, metallic smell of iron filling the air.
He stumbled back. His stomach convulsed.
"Blargh."
He vomited. Acid and bile hit the dirt.
What? Akira thought, wiping his mouth with a trembling hand. What the hell is going on? Why is this happening? Why? Why?
He was frozen. Fear wasn't a cold feeling. It was a heavy, paralyzing weight that nailed his feet to the ground.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The scream tore through the air. It wasn't human. It was the sound of a heart being ripped out.
BOOM.
Another body shot through the village.
This one didn't hit a rock. It smashed through a house. Wood splintered, glass shattered, and the thatched roof collapsed in a cloud of dust.
The figure skidded to a halt in the street, gouging a trench in the earth.
It stood up.
Muscular.
The villain looked... damaged. There was a massive cavity in his chest armor — the muscle fibers had been blasted away, revealing raw, bleeding skin underneath. He was panting, a manic grin plastered on his face.
"Stay down!" he roared, spitting a tooth onto the ground. "You annoying little pests!"
Following him was a demon.
Sasha Izumi landed in the street, the impact cracking the pavement.
She looked nothing like the cheerful woman who had bragged about her son ten minutes ago.
Her eyes were glowing white. Tears of blood were streaming down her face, mixing with the grime. Her entire body was encased in a swirling, high-pressure armor of water that moved with the violence of a typhoon. Jets of water propelled her forward, keeping her hovering inches off the ground.
She didn't look at Akira. She didn't look at Shino's broken body. She only saw the man who had thrown her husband.
"HOW DARE YOU!" she screamed, the water around her boiling with her rage.
She thrust her hands forward.
"STREAM JET!"
A cannon of pressurized water, thick as a tree trunk, blasted from her palms. It hit Muscular square in the face.
CRACK.
The sound of the impact was sickening. Muscular was launched backward, crashing into the mountainside with enough force to shake the ground again.
Sasha didn't follow up. She spun around.
"HONOKA!" she shrieked, her voice raw. "HEAL HIM!"
A flash of green light.
Honoka appeared beside the boulder. She was battered, her clothes were torn, and soot covered her face. But she was moving.
She looked at Akira. For a split second, her eyes widened in terror seeing him still there. But she pushed it down. She had a job.
She rushed to Shino.
"Shino!" she gasped, her hands already glowing with green fire.
She fell to her knees in the bloody gravel. She placed her hands on his neck, pushing the healing flame into him.
"Come on," she hissed. "Come on, Shino. Don't you dare. Don't you dare leave us."
Sasha landed beside them, the water armor dissolving into puddles as her concentration broke. She grabbed Shino's good hand.
"Honey?" she sobbed. "Shino? Open your eyes. Honoka is here. She's fixing it. Just breathe. Okay? Just breathe for me."
Akira watched. He couldn't look away.
He watched the green fire wrap around Shino's broken body. He watched the skin try to knit. He watched the magic of this world try to fight the finality of death.
However, Honoka froze.
The green flames flickered.
They died.
Honoka pulled her hands away as if burned. She stared at Shino's chest. It wasn't moving.
"Honoka?" Sasha asked, her voice trembling. "Why did you stop? Keep going! Fix his arm! Fix his chest!"
Honoka didn't move. She stared at the ground.
"Honoka!" Sasha screamed, grabbing the doctor by the shoulders and shaking her. "HEAL HIM! DO YOUR JOB! HEAL HIM, DAMN IT!"
Honoka looked up. Tears were streaming down her soot-stained face.
"I can't," she whispered.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T?! YOU'RE THE BEST! YOU SAID YOU COULD FIX ANYTHING!"
"HE'S DEAD!" Honoka yelled, her voice breaking into a sob.
The words hung in the air. Absolute. Irreversible.
"His heart stopped on impact," Honoka cried, clutching her own chest. "The brain trauma... Sasha, he was gone before he hit the rock. I can't... I can't heal a corpse."
Sasha let go of her. She turned back to Shino. She touched his face softly.
She let out a sound that wasn't a scream. It was a whimper. A broken, dying sound.
Akira stood ten feet away. He watched his mother cry. He watched Sasha break. He watched the man who didn't like video games stare blankly at nothing.
Dead, Akira thought.
The word felt heavy. He knew death. He had died. But this...
This wasn't a clerical error. This wasn't a truck.
This was a murder, in the most gruesome way possible.
He thought of the promises he made at his father's grave. I'll be the shield.
He looked at Shino's twisted body. He was a shield. Look what happened.
A hero is supposed to be the hope. Is there really hope? he wondered, the cold creeping into his heart. In a world where monsters like that exist... is there really any hope at all?
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