PROLOGUE ( When a flame is born )
Pain, war ,despair.
There is a kind of pain that leaves no wound behind, it doesn't need blood or even scars.
A wise man once told me once that unless you go through the same pain you cannot truly understand someone else and even you understand them you cannot truly fully agree with them
But right now nothing the world can point to and say yes this is my pain or where it's fixed
And yet it remains
It settles quietly in the deepest chambers of my heart, where silence is loudest. It lingers in empty chairs and In laughter that no longer echoes.
It lingers in warmth that has long since faded from your hands or mine
This pain does not scream no it endures.
Like embers buried beneath ash, it waits
And war?
War does not begin with banners or blades No war begins the moment something irreplaceable is taken from you
A smile, a promise or even a person
The instant your world tilts off its axis and the universe offers no explanation now that is where war is born
My name is Renji Kurogane.
I was not born a hero and neither did I seek power I did not dream of glory , no I only wanted peace.
But peace never wanted me
And in my suffocating silence that followed loss…
Something stirred almost like a spark but it was small , fragile almost feeling like nothing.
But even the smallest flame, when denied the right to die
When cornered, or when forced to survive
That flame can become a fire that devours the heavens.
And this ....
........
........
.......
This is the story of the fire I became.
CHAPTER ONE
Clang! Clang!
The sky split open as steel screamed against steel
Lightning carved veins of white across a world that was already breaking apart
Renji hung in the air, suspended within a storm of his own making. Golden light flickered along his skin like living flame, tracing patterns that pulsed beneath scarred flesh. His chest rose and fell in ragged breaths.
Across from him, the clouds churned.
And from within them.....
A figure descended.
Silver hair whipped violently in the wind a crimson aura burned around him, warping the air with heat and distortion. His eyes glowed the color of fresh blood.
Choji
"What do you think are you doing renji?" Choji's voice rolled like distant thunder. "If you keep holding back… you'll die."
The voice inside Renji's mind answered before he could.
he's right, he's not your friend anymore.
Renji clenched his jaw. "Shut up."
The storm trembled.
"I can still reach him."
You're lying to yourself.
Choji's lips curled into something that used to resemble a smile. "Reach me? Renji… you never understood me."
Flames spiraled upward from the ruined earth below. Cities burned in the distance. The ocean itself churned unnaturally, pulled by forces no longer obeying reason.
"Stop this," Renji pleaded. "That power please it's tearing you apart!"
Choji laughed sarcastically
It wasn't madness it felt like conviction.
"This?" he said softly, spreading his arms as the red aura surged. "This is freedom."
For a moment, silence passed between them.
Then Choji's gaze sharpened.
"If you don't fight me seriously," he said, "I'll erase everything you're trying to protect."
Something in Renji's chest cracked.
The scar over his right eye flared faintly blue light pulsing beneath the skin like a heartbeat.
"…Fine."
Golden radiance burst outward.
A staff of condensed light formed in his grasp, humming with restrained power. The air grew heavy, as if the world itself recognized what was about to happen.
Choji grinned.
"Finally."
Whoosh !!!
They moved at the same time, their resulting collision did not shatter the planet but it silenced it
Clang!
The clouds above split cleanly in two The ocean below flattened for a breathless instant before crashing back in a roaring surge.
Renji reappeared behind Choji in a streak of gold.
"You think this is strength?" Renji's voice was steady now. "Despair isn't strength."
Choji twisted midair, blocking with a blade of condensed crimson energy.
" you're wrong shut up despair is clarity."
Their weapons met again, light devouring red, red swallowing light.
Far beyond them....
Shapes stirred.
Colossal silhouettes pressed against the edges of the sky lingering and waiting
The world trembled under their presence.
"They're coming renji," the voice inside Renji warned.
But renji ignored it.
His eyes never left Choji.
"Why?" he demanded quietly.
Choji's smile faltered.
Just slightly.
"You'll understand," he said. "When you lose the last thing you have."
The words hit deeper than any blade.
For a fraction of a second ....
Renji hesitated.
And in that hesitation....
The sky fractured.
As darkness swallowed everything.
—
—
"Remember this moment," Renji's voice echoed into the void.
"Because this is where everything began."
Seventeen Years Earlier
The first gate opened without warning , the sky did not crack but it rotted
A feel wound spread across the heavens, bleeding unnatural light into the world below. From that wound poured creatures that defied language jagged limbs, hollow eyes, bodies stitched from shadow and bone.
Screams had already filled the streets.
Buildings burned
And then the world's protectors
...........
The Hunters
...........
The hunters fought and fell beneath a crimson sky that offered no mercyb
Hmm but renji was ten and lily was only four
Gasp Gasp Gasp
Sounds of running footsteps that echoed through the chaos that was unfolding
Their mother ran through smoke-choked hallways with both children clutched to her chest.
"Don't look back!" their father Daichi kurogane shouted
Daichi Kurogane had no magic or blessing, he was an architect he didn't have a weapon but he had something else...
RESOLVE
The ceiling groaned above them.
A support beam snapped.
"Rachel.....
He shoved her forward.
The world erupted in flame because when Renji turned
Father!!!
He saw his father's silhouette standing tall within the inferno.
Then the fire consumed him..
The image never left.
The years that followed were quieter and more cruel , although rachel had survived something inside her did not.
Grief hollowed her out slowly. The bottle filled what the world had taken.
Renji grew up before he understood what growing up meant.
He worked and lied about his age, taking dangerous cleanup jobs near low-rank gates.
He smiled when he was hungry and he told Lily stories at night so she wouldn't hear their mother crying.
And when the rain tapped softly against cracked windows, he would stare at his reflection and see the fire that consumed his father still burning behind his eyes.
And one night, Rachel's trembling fingers slipped from his grasp.
Her selfish act had finally caught up with her
"Protect her," she whispered weakly. "No matter the cost."
Her breathing slowed.
Gasp !! Gasp!!!
And then It stopped
Mother ooi wake up mother!
Please don't be this selfish wake up please!
Renji didn't cry at first he simply sat there.
Listening to the silence.
Then Lily's small voice drifted from the hallway.
"Big brother…? Where's Mom?"
Please wake up her up big brother
He stared Then walked slowly to her..
Knelt and wrapped her in his arms as thunder rolled across the sky.
"I'm here," he whispered.
And this time...
He did cry.....
And both cried because again they had felt pain once again
And with that pain renji made a promise
"I'll protect you," he vowed into the storm.
"Even if it burns me alive."