by Brandon Chen
Darius slid his weapon back into his sheath and turned to his younger sister. “Go on, heal him. I know of your power, little sister,” he said with a small smile. “You see, I know of everything. There isn’t a secret that you can hide from me any longer.”
Aika stared at her brother in disgust, reaching down to Keimaro’s pale, frail body. She placed her hand gently over the bleeding wound, and her hand began to glow a bright white light. The flesh wove back together as if time itself were reversing. The blood was absorbed into the wound like a sponge as the skin kneaded into place. In only seconds, the wound was closed, and the color had returned to Keimaro’s face.
“What have you done, Darius?” the princess screamed, turning to face her brother with tears in her eyes. “That was our father! He’s done nothing but care for us our entire lives, and this is how you repay him? We have no reason to—”
“Power,” Darius said. The single word silenced Aika, and the prince laughed. “Isn’t that what it’s been about all along? The only reason I decided to take up arms and fight for our empire is for power. I was granted the ability to command subordinate men to give their lives for whatever cause I chose, but that power wasn’t enough! I will rule this continent and hold power over all. Haven’t you known this all along, sister? There are those who are born to rule and those who are born to be ruled! Our father had his era of fun and games, but I am here to ensure that we dominate over everyone in this world. No one will be able to stand up to our empire with me as king! Any opposition will be crushed, whether it’s outside or inside my empire!”
“Now you sound like the monster that I came here to kill…,” Keimaro muttered weakly, slowly pushing himself into a sitting position. He chuckled with a shake of his head. “You know, I always found it weird. I don’t care if all of you nobles look at me as a monster now, but only moments ago, you respected me. There is no difference between the Hayashi clan and ordinary humans. But, while I was posing as an ‘ordinary human,’ I noticed something odd. Your father didn’t seem like he was the monster that I came to Bassada to kill. It was you—you led the Bakaara massacre. In fact, it was your idea to invade Bakaara all along, wasn’t it?”
“You got me,” Darius said with a sly grin, “and I’m happy to tell you that you’ll feel the same pain that you felt before, soon.”
“What?”
“I told you that I know everything.”
Keimaro’s eyes widened when he thought of Z’s mansion. Darius knew about that, too? His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides as he stared at the new king. What had become of them? “I’ll kill you, you disgusting bastard,” he snarled and watched as Junko walked back into the room with the chest gripped in his hands.
“Oh my, it looks like you’re getting Kei all hyped without me!” Junko said as he set the chest down heavily onto the ground. All of the nobles stood back and watched in awe as Darius pulled out Keimaro’s key and began to walk to the chest.
“Darius, stop it!” Yuri’s voice yelled as three guards pulled the werewolf inside and forced him to kneel beside Keimaro. His face was covered in heavy bruises, and he gasped as he watched helplessly while the prince inserted the key into the chest and threw open the latch, lifting the lid. “You don’t know what will happen if you do this. The world will be thrown into darkness! Humanity as we know it will perish! You won’t have the power that you desire. All that will happen is corruption. You will die as well.”
Darius reached down into the chest and pulled out a tiny silver whistle. He chuckled as he held it up into the air, glancing at Yuri and Keimaro over his shoulder. “I don’t think you understand. This is my era. An age of darkness is coming, boys—the darkest storm that this world will ever see. You can either face the tempest and be engulfed by the shadows alone, or you can join me in the eye of the storm, where I will be your ruler.” He raised the whistle to his lips and said, “Long live the king.” Then he blew.
***
In that moment, the earth began to quake rapidly. The Forbidden Forest shook as the trees whipped back and forth. Monsters and beasts of all types raced from the forest line to stagger out onto the fields outside of Bassada. The earth split as a massive fault shot across the ground, opening a giant sinkhole that swallowed everything in its path. A roar split the air, mimicking an earthquake. A huge claw shot from the hole, squashing trees underneath its gigantic grasp, and the king of beasts began to haul itself out of the darkness of the forest. Large, bone-like structures flapped into the air with webbing that formed giant wings. Black scales that were stronger than steel covered the colossal beast, coating it in protective metal plates. Its eyes gleamed like two emeralds the size of boulders. They blinked a few times as the creature flapped its wings once, pushing the lower part of its body out of the abyss. It shook its graceful, monstrous head and snorted, smoke rising from its nostrils. Hind legs gained their foothold, smashing trees as the majestic beast stood upon the earth. The beast opened its mouth to reveal its sword-like teeth and released a jet of flame into the air, covering the sky in roaring fire.
The dragon had awakened.
***
“Now,” Darius said, spreading his arms with a wicked grin as the castle began to shake furiously from the force of the dragon’s roar. “Embrace your inevitable doom and accept me as your new king! Let’s hear the world quake in fear!” With a thud, the dragon landed on top of the castle, ripping open the ceiling of the room with a single slash of its enormous claw. Debris rained down from the ceiling as nobles screamed and scattered, fleeing from the fierce beast.
Keimaro stared with widened eyes at the bright emerald gleam of the dragon’s eyes as it snorted, prying apart the ceiling until there was nothing left but the open night sky. The boy’s eyes flickered to a slight movement from the top of the dragon, and he saw a man stand up from the beast’s mane before he leapt down, landing in front of Darius.
Kuro Hayashi.
The man had spiked black hair that was slicked back aside from a few strands that fell forward, casting shadows over his red eyes that truly resembled a demon’s. He seemed ageless, ancient, and youthful all at once despite the fact that Keimaro knew that he was hundreds of years old. The man slid his hands into the pockets of his black cloak, which matched those worn by the Bounts. He gave Keimaro a smile, a small necklace swaying as he did so. “Ah, so it seems that you have succeeded in awakening me, Junko. Well done. And who is this boy that we have before me today?”
“He is—”
“Why are you asking who he is rather than who I am?” Darius demanded, stepping forward. “I am your king and therefore your ruler. I am the one who awakened you. Not Junko.”
“Is that so?” the man said, glancing at Darius over his shoulder. He flicked his wrist, and Darius’s entire body was practically torn apart. There was no blade, no magic, no nothing. Crimson blood simply splattered onto the floor, and the prince collapsed to his knees, shock registering onto his face. The new king stared at the man, his hands shaking and his face growing pale as a ghost.
Keimaro watched in shock. How did he…?
“You … betrayed….” Darius coughed, his throat filling with his own blood as he glared up at the man with disbelief, his hand grasping a wound across his chest. “How dare…?”
The man swung his arm, and Darius’s body writhed in a barrage of invisible slashes before finally collapsing onto the ground in a heap, a pool of blood beginning to form around his unmoving corpse. The cloaked man’s eyes opened slowly, lacking any remorse—and any emotion, for that matter. He had not a care in the world for the murder he had just committed.
He cracked his neck and sighed, stretching his arm into the air with a small smile. “So! You are a member of the Hayashi clan, no?” he said, kneeling in front of Keimaro. “My name is Kuro Hayashi, so I guess you could technically call me your ancestor, huh?” He chuckled, but Keimaro spat in his face, erasing the man’s smile. He rose to his feet and wiped the spit off of his face with his ha
nd. “The first couple of minutes of being reawakened, and this is the treatment I get, huh?” He looked at Keimaro with a raised eyebrow. “From the look in your eye, you understand pain. In fact, you understand me, no? How the gods took everything from you and killed—”
Keimaro rose up to face Kuro, his eyes shining red with rage. “The Bounts took my parents from me. No one else. In other words, you are responsible for their deaths,” he said as he glanced over his shoulder at Yuri, who was still on his knees. He walked behind Yuri and touched the metal that cuffed his hands together. Keimaro’s hand released a surge of fire into the cuffs, turning the metal bright red before it liquefied and splattered onto the ground.
Kuro watched with keen interest, raising his eyebrows with surprise at the flames that left Keimaro’s hand. “It seems that we have quite the interesting specimen here, don’t we, Junko? Someone else who is like me—or, rather, he is one-third of what I am.”
Freed from the cuffs, Yuri moved to his feet, his spine writhing and stretching as his body sprouted white hair. His irises flashed bright red, and his body morphed into a werewolf in a mere instant, his claws sharp as knives. His snout elongated, and he snarled at the sight of Kuro, showing off his beastly fangs.
“And a werewolf,” Kuro said with a smirk. “How vicious.”
“Run,” Keimaro said to Yuri. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Yuri looked at Keimaro for a moment with glistening eyes and grunted. He turned and dropped to all fours, looking at Aika and nodding. “Get on,” he growled.
Keimaro met Aika’s worried eyes and nodded, turning to face Kuro as the princess mounted the werewolf. They scampered out of the ballroom toward the courtyard where nobles and guards were yelling in confusion.
“So, speak your name. It is common curtsy. I gave you mine. It’s your turn.” Kuro called to Keimaro.
“Keimaro Hayashi.”
“Ah,” Kuro said with a smile, “and you are able to control fire, correct? How interesting. From the looks of your power, I would say that you received natural magic, like me. I didn’t think that there was anyone in the world who was like me, yet I sense that I’ve come across someone with only a third of the power that I have. Say, where is the rest of the power? It must’ve been distributed through two others, correct?” Kuro raised his eyebrow and then laughed. “Oh, my. Don’t tell me! That girl … the one who just scampered away with the dog. She has a third of the meteor’s power, doesn’t she? You know, I could use that power to take on the gods. Perhaps I should—”
“Don’t you touch her!” Keimaro yelled, flames roaring in response and smashing against the outer walls of the room, shaking the entire structure. More rubble dropped from the ceiling, and Kuro clicked his tongue as he looked up at his dragon.
“Looks like you do have a soft spot for her then? Young love!” Kuro said, shaking his head with a sigh. “You see, that is where one finds an easy weakness. The heart is what weakens a human. Perhaps you’ve heard of this theory as well. I cut out my own heart so that I wouldn’t have to deal with that particular weakness.” He pointed to his chest where his heart would normally be as he began to walk around Keimaro slowly, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor. “What makes demons stronger than humans? It is their lack of compassion, their absence of social connection. What makes humans stronger than demons? It is their intelligence. Thus, I took two of the greatest weaknesses in humanity and demons and cast them away. I created a clan that derived from only the strengths of both demons and humans. But it seems that even you managed to use the human part of yourself to grasp at the weakness of love.
“Why would you welcome such a simplistic concept of attraction when it will bring you nothing?” Kuro boomed, his eyes suddenly flashing a demonic red. He circled Keimaro, who kept his head forward as he listened. “You believe that loving this woman will bring you happiness? You think that a simple idea such as love will change anything? Do you think it’ll take away your loneliness? No, it will enhance it. But you know this already, don’t you?” He grinned. “When she is gone, you will feel pain. All of your love will be transformed into hate, regret, and guilt. And you will be cast into the shadows of solitude once more, even deeper into the abyss than you were before. Love is a single path with no benefits at its end. There is only agony and solitude,” Kuro said, stopping in front of Keimaro. “So, why risk it? Why form bonds with other humans when you are only going to be hurt in the end?”
“I don’t know,” Keimaro said with a straight face, as he looked Kuro solidly in the eye. “For me, it’s because she reminds me of the past before my village was destroyed and my family was killed. She reminds me of the happiness that I used to feel four years ago before all of this. She makes me stronger and she gives me meaning. She gives me a reason to continue forward on this path.”
“On what path? Revenge?”
“No. No, not revenge. The path to stopping evil. To stopping you,” Keimaro said. “You said that love is a simple emotion. Well, Kuro, if you’re such a perfect being, then how would you not understand that love is the most complex and inexplicable emotion that any human can feel?”
He paused, watching Kuro’s eyes narrow before he continued, “When I first saw the princess, I didn’t even know what attracted me to her. I didn’t know why the flow of her silky brunette hair appealed to me or why my heart thumped whenever I looked into her royal blue eyes. I can’t explain the feelings that churn up within my stomach when I spend time with her every day. And I regret nothing. Aika makes me happy, and she has changed me for the better.”
“You will end up in pain, and you will be alone when your bond is severed.”
“No one lives forever,” Keimaro said. “I know that you’d like to contradict that statement, but no one does. The bond will be severed eventually, but it will be worth it in the end. I would rather have formed the bond than never have made it at all. No bond lasts forever because no one lives forever. Not even you,” he said, grasping the hilt of his sword and sliding it from his sheath with a loud scrape. Gleaming steel flashed into the midnight air. He whirled the blade and pointed it at Kuro.
“Go after the werewolf and the princess,” Kuro said to Junko as he stepped forward with a chuckle. “Now this truly is something. I can see the fire in your eyes, Keimaro. I respect you. Your bravery is admirable, and your confidence is commendable. However, you made a single mistake. You threatened me,” he said, clicking his fingers. His dragon snarled, taking position over Kuro. “Have you ever taken into consideration your own power? You continue to blabber on and on about how you will be able to defeat me and destroy evil. But do you really think you’re strong enough to dream so big? I, the one who dominated the strongest dragon in this world. I, the first human being to slay the beast that left humans quaking in their boots. You believe you can threaten me, the strongest being in existence!” He pointed at Keimaro and grinned. “A god has been awakened. I will rule this world and make the Hayashi clan the dominant race that walks upon this earth. And no one will stop me, especially not a commoner boy created by my genes.”
Keimaro’s teeth gritted as Junko vanished to go after his friends. Aika wouldn’t be able to defend herself, and Yuri couldn’t take Junko on alone while defending Aika. He had to go after them. From the looks of things, something must’ve happened at Z’s mansion as well. There was no backup coming, despite the fact that a giant dragon had just awoken from underneath the Forbidden Forest. He took several steps backward, ready to attempt his escape. This doesn’t look good, he thought, his eyes on the dragon.
“Burn him,” Kuro commanded.
Keimaro’s eyes widened as the dragon roared, releasing a jet of golden flames at him. The radius covered the entire room in a sphere of fire that blazed before Kuro. Keimaro grunted, swinging his arms outward. The flames slid around him, leaving an air pocket of safety. As the flames died down, Keimaro had already begun to run, sprinting through the door.
The boy’s heart pounded furiously as
he released a jet of flame to increase his speed, forcing his legs to slam against the ground as he heard the roar of the dragon behind him. The castle shook furiously as the beast slammed its heavy claws down onto the structure, attempting to grasp the boy as he sprinted through the empty hallways. Keimaro finally broke out into the courtyard and couldn’t help but stare as he saw absolute chaos.
Guards were slamming nobles to the ground in order to subdue them. They were beating them for discipline. Perhaps it was discipline—or perhaps it was simply revenge for the many times the nobles had undermined the guards. Now, in the absence of authority, the guards were simply seeking to ensure that everyone followed the rule of the new king, from the looks of it. That was Faar law. The subordinates of the king had to bow down to a new king even if they didn’t agree with their leadership. The new king would be Kuro, without a doubt.
Keimaro stared in disbelief at the scorched grass and obliterated structures that resembled ruins of what had been mansions of the rich only that morning. Now there was simply flames and debris. The apple tree Keimaro had seen coming to the castle for the first time was now burning, its branches crumbling into ashes. Keimaro dashed past the tree as hot flames ate away at the bark. Corpses began to coat the ground as the nobles and guards fought each other in a chaotic brawl for dominance, but the boy knew that he had no time to deal with a troubled kingdom. He had to save his friends. That was when he remembered Lena, still suffering and locked up in her cell. Waiting for a savior.
The assassin ran to the side of the castle and sprinted through the open royal jail, dashing into complete darkness. The guards had left the criminals to rot in their cells. These men and women beat on their iron bars like madmen, screaming and yelling for Keimaro to release them as he ran past their cells. He didn’t have time to save them all. Every time the earth shook, he knew that they were a moment closer to the castle collapsing on top of them. He couldn’t leave Lena in such a dangerous place.
