Thorns And Thunder: Volume 1

Seventeen-year-old Rei Asano hears war drums in his chest when he's angry, and lately, they're always beating. Ever since a lightning storm cracked open the Tokyo skyline and nearly leveled his school, Rei's life has been unraveling: blackouts, hallucinations, bursts of electrical force he can't control.

The truth? He's become the vessel of Raijin, the ancient Japanese god of thunder and destruction. And Raijin isn't just waking up. He's taking over.

Then there's Kaori Tsukimura: sharp-tongued, tightly guarded, and hiding a quiet grief that runs deeper than anyone knows. She keeps her emotions locked away, until a whisper in the dark calls her by a name no one remembers-Inome, the goddess of love... and vengeance, erased from the divine pantheon centuries ago.

When their paths collide, Rei and Kaori discover that their bond is more than coincidence-it's myth repeating itself. Raijin and Inome were once divine opposites: passion and restraint, war and yearning. Now, as their hosts grow closer, those ancient desires threaten to reignite with catastrophic force.

Across the city, other teens are awakening as hosts to gods: some long-forgotten, some desperate to remain in control. Factions rise-one fighting to resurrect the erased, another determined to destroy them before the world tears open. With divine war on the horizon, Rei and Kaori must decide what's more dangerous: the gods within them, or the feelings pulling them together.

But every time they touch, the Veil thins. Memories blur. The line between self and god fractures.

And love, if it still belongs to them at all, might be the thing that ends everything.