The day after the Initiation, I was alone. My mother was away at work, my father was never coming back, and I was alone at home with the wooden effigy, constantly hearing a voice coming from it. I got out of bed, almost mesmerized, and headed towards it.
I saw it emitting an incredible aura. My gaze was lost and fixated; I took it in my hand to examine it, but then I noticed something strange. The aura wasn't just moving—it was searching. As if trying to recognize something.
It wasn't that the aura was touching Hitomi's bracelet. It was the lava crystal bracelet that was reacting. The carvings on it began to phosphoresce faintly, as if responding to my energy. But it didn't break. It didn't bend. It was an object of almost legendary level, resistant even to my power.
"Hitomi... what the hell did you create?" I whispered while wearing the bracelet on my left hand.
I started to feel a flame, a warmth, throughout my whole body. I felt that I could use this power that was surging through me. I began to focus on the feeling of the flame... and then it came. Like someone was embracing me from within. An inexplicable heat flooded my chest, as if something primal had sprung forth from my very soul.
Suddenly, I wasn't alone.
For a moment, behind the flickering flame, I saw something—a vast form, red like molten metal, a woman with eyes like volcanoes, who was practically screaming. I couldn't hear her voice, but the pressure around me became unbearable. A name formed in my mind, but before I could utter it, the vision vanished.
And then, the fire enveloped me. It didn't burn—it was me. The flame began to wrap around my feet and move up my right arm. Then it started rising from the right side to my head, licking the air with that momentum that drives you to do the impossible. My hair, too, was consumed by this flame...
This flame... was it real? It wasn't burning me, it wasn't hurting me. It was a part of me. The flame was not just warmth, not just light. It was something primal, something that wanted to be set free. I felt like it belonged neither to me nor to this world. It was an entity on its own, and I... I was simply its medium.
The flame still danced on my skin, but before I could try anything more, my body felt heavy. As if the energy had drained out of me.
"What the hell...?" I whispered. It was terrifying and thrilling at the same time.
Then, a moment of doubt. My legs slightly buckled. If I didn't concentrate, this power would swallow me. My skin was burning – not like I was being incinerated, but like I had a core of lava inside me. My hands trembled momentarily.
And then I saw... my hair. The reflection showed me flames dancing among the strands.
"What the hell happened to me...?" I muttered. For a moment, my heart froze. The wooden effigy was still glowing faintly. Had it... summoned someone? Something?
Then a loud BANG! was heard. A loud knock on the door.
I raised my right hand towards the door. The fire returned with violence. I seized the flame again, and all I heard was a cold, dark whisper: "Do it, eliminate them." A wide smile appeared, just as I was ready to unleash a fiery attack.