Magnus Sekai

Chapter 1 Memories - Cold Plate, Hot Blood

One month ago.

Haruno Clan Village, located in Shirakawa, Gifu, Japan.

"Haah... Haah..."

I remember running as if my legs had a mind of its own. There wasn't any other feeling but mine of desperation around me, and I couldn't feel my fatigue in the slightest. Dad had transferred me, while asleep, so, but so far away, and all he had left me was a letter. And that letter is what got me here so desperately.

Among the way I travelled, I faintly recall the trees of the forest suffocating me, and I thought it was just natural warmth, for the leaves turn to walls when you're beneath them. I had constant visions of that beautiful village I was a part of, knowing very well I was walking head-first into catastrophe.

And even now I see these moments flashing before my eyes.

That titanic arch, those wooden buildings and diagonal rooftops, the large dojo dead center of the village, that nationalistic pride ingrained in the Haruno family. The circular windows, the smaller shrines, the statues of our god and spirit Raifujin at every other block, and the striking color of the tiny stalls and their plentiful services. That was my everything.

And it was all gone.

Before I even ran atop the hill I realized the source of my heat wasn't the sun, but the flames of my village, and that was evident the second I stood ahead of that same arch who welcomed all. Perhaps the only thing the flames didn't corrupt.

There was no wind moving me that moment. Nothing could, nothing would. So surreal my body went numb.

"Hello, anyone!" I shouted, amongst other things. That numbness slowly dragged me deeper and deeper into the village with cautious steps, and I felt heavy. That imaginary weight that misery places above you, that unfocused stare into a million directions when you're just not quite sure how to live. But, foolishly we hang onto the smallest fragments of hope, and I had let my numbness continue driving me forward.

At every single step of the way, underneath, surrounded, flesh decaying bodies were present, and every single vision a sharp sting in my chest, to the point where I couldn't even be bothered to push away the smoke from my eyes. The more I walked, more I recalled who died, and the less numb I felt.

And I thought I was lucky that smoke made my sight blurry.

Those houses and shrines, demolished, the stalls turned over, the windows broken, the statues fallen, and our pride diminished. And behind my fading courage and cracking yelps for mercy, I headed towards the dojo.

My house.

...

There the warmth gave its way to the expected winds and rain of that eventful saturday, but the flames were surely, quickly creeping in when I got there. The dojo was my home, and to my surprise it stood, temporarily intact. The shut doors felt ominous and the surviving droplets of water that hit my shoulders froze me over for a few seconds, before I gained the courage to go inside.

Then, that numbness faded. Along with all my hope.

Ahead of those same doors welcomed me the corpses of my family, of father, mother and grandparents, piled up in a stack like a tower, with their missing limbs as part of the game. The participant played them enough to decapitate few, and even split some in half. Like carefully removed wooden blocks.

But that wasn't a game, it was my bloodline.

That day I learnt how to shriek. Their pain was in my body within each missing limb to the point my neck ached from a ghostly blade I felt swing.