Kiyoshi sat on the edge of the limestone cliff outside the village, his legs dangling as he stared at the constellations.
This had always been his sanctuary, his mother had brought him here once when he was nine. Kiyoshi was the inheritor of the Heavenly Blessing, a mythic surge in the ancient scrolls of the Yamada clan whispered that once every few centuries a child is born with a soul tuned to the frequency of the heavens but... the last head of the Yamada to hold the blessing had died centuries ago, taking the secrets of its mastery to the grave.
And the day the blessing was discovered on him, he nearly sent a seasoned Yamada guardsman to his grave during a routine sparring match. Since that day, the blessing felt like a curse to him and had spent the last thirteen years trying to be normal.
"Yeah, I need to go back now before Mika starts worrying about my whereabouts."
Kiyoshi said to himself and stood up. He began the descent, taking the winding mountain path that led back to the village gates but as he rounded the final bend the smell of smoke hit him. He lifted his head and the sky above Sakuragaoka glowed orange.
Kiyoshi instantly broke into a sprint and world became a blur as he pushed off the earth, each stride covering twenty feet. He reached the main gate and skidded to a stop, his heart freezing. The village was a landscape of nightmares.
Civilians were screaming, their shadows dancing grotesquely against the walls of burning houses but it was the things hunting them that stopped Kiyoshi's breath. He had never seen beings like this before. The village guards fought desperately, blades flashing and their formations breaking as they were cut down one by one.
"Mika... Riku?"
Kiyoshi ignored the carnage around him, his body moving with intense speed toward the family estate. The path near the house was paved with corpses of guards, they had died defending a home that was already lost.
Kiyoshi burst through the front doors and inside the house was saturated with the tang of fresh blood but above it was something worse, a suffocating stench of bloodlust.
He heard a woman scream and without mistaking it, that was his wife. Kiyoshi followed the sound upstairs and threw open the door to her chambers, his eyes landing on a man feeding on his wife's neck.
Mika gasped weakly, her hands reaching out with trembling hand as she saw him. Blood stained her clothes and her skin was pale.
The man felt Kiyoshi's presence and spring backward. He wiped a smear of blood from his lips, his eyes darting nervously.
Wait, wait. What is this guy?
Kiyoshi stood motionless on the doorway, with his head bowed and tears dripping silently to the floor.
"Mika...?"
His voice was barely audible. Mika coughed, a spray of blood flecking her lips and rasped. "Go... save... our son..."
Huh?
"Shut up, woman!"
The yelled, man raising his foot to crush Mika's face into the floor but the sudden pressure of the terrifying killing intent he felt radiating from Kiyoshi made him abort his strike.
I need to run. If I stay here any longer this... this human is going to–
He never finished the thought, the distance between him and Kiyoshi ceased to exist within a split second. Kiyoshi reached out and tore the man's neck's neck, ripping his head from the shoulders with the ease.
Kiyoshi didn't stop to look at the headless corpse, he leapt through the shattered window and flipped onto the roof of the estate. From above, the destruction was clearer and through the smoke he caught a glimpse of movement near the village perimeter. A woman was sprinting away from the village, carrying a bundle wrapped in white.
Kiyoshi's body shifted into a low stance and launched himself, crossing rooftops in a blur. He caught up to her within seconds and came down from above, driving a kick toward her. She twisted midair, barely avoiding the impact. His kick shattered the ground where she had been, rocks exploding outward.
The woman landed gracefully, her eyes still glowing pink as she stared at Kiyoshi. An Exorcist? No... he doesn't seem like one of them but that amount of spiritual energy... it's almost the same as of that white haired man that killed all four of my sisters. If I fight him now, I'm going to die.
She flicked her wrist and an a obese monstrosity dropped from the canopy. It was a mountain of green flesh with arms that dragged on the ground like fleshy whips.
"Kill him!"
She yelled out, turning to vanish into the trees. Kiyoshi reached down and picked up a discarded katana from a fallen guard. He then began to walk toward the beast.
The monster swung its massive arms, whipping them and they demolished the surrounding buildings. The hands were blindingly fast but to Kiyoshi now, the world had slowed to a crawl.
The first hand came whipping toward his head. He jumped and landed slightly on the monster's own forearm, his feet sticking as he sprinted up to its neck.
The monster whipped that arm again, flinging him skyward. Then it lashed out with both arms simultaneously to crush him but Kiyoshi twisted midair, planting his feet against them and launched himself forward.
He moved the katana in a flash during that momentum and the monster's arms fell apart in pieces. It roared and reinforced it's neck, turning its skin into iron but Kiyoshi only flashed the blade once and reinforced neck was severed without struggle.
Kiyoshi hit the dirt running. He reached the forest edge, searching the darkness for the pink-eyed woman but she was gone. His grip on the katana tightened so hard the hilt began to crack and then he turned back toward the house.
He returned to the room upstairs. The headless body of the man he had killed was gone but Mika was still there and she was clinging to life by a thread.
Kiyoshi knelt beside his wife, lifting her head gently. He brushed a lock of matted hair from her forehead, his tears falling onto her cheeks.
"Where is he? Where is Riku?" Her voice was barely audible.
"I couldn't... I couldn't reach him in time, Mika. I'm so sorry." Kiyoshi sobbed, his voice breaking.
Mika's hand trembling touched his face. "But you're still okay, Kiyoshi and that means there is a tomorrow to save him. Promise me..."
She coughed, more blood staining her teeth. "Promise me you won't rest until you saved him."
"I can't, Mika. I couldn't save you."
"I always told you that I don't need saving but now our son does. And I saw... what you did to that man, I know that you can–"
Her hand slipped and her eyes closed.
"Mika?"
She didn't respond and Kiyoshi pulled her body into his chest, letting out a shattering scream.
As his cry died out, he felt a new presence that overwhelmed the room but not much to scare him. He let Mika go, grabbed the katana and spun around.
Standing in the doorway was Koichi, he felt different. His eyes were also blood-red and he was cradling a limp body in his arms – his three-year-old daughter. Koichi was weeping, his body shaking with tremors.
"I didn't mean for this... it wasn't supposed to go like this."
Kiyoshi's mind pushed past the point of sanity, latched onto those words. "What do you mean it wasn't supposed to go like this? Are telling me… this is your doing?"
"I'm sorry."
Koichi sobbed and in that instant he felt his little brother's killing intent radiating. Kiyoshi flashed forward, violently that the floorboards disintegrated behind him.
Koichi's eyes widened and he threw his hand out. Dark and massive vines erupted from the floor, weaving together into a protective sphere around Koichi. Kiyoshi swung but couldn't catch him and the vines punched through the ceiling, lifting Koichi up toward the roof.
And as they opened to allow Koichi to flee across the rooftops, the left side of his face and his left hand tumbled down through the hole in the roof, blood pouring down as well. But still Koichi ran, clutching his daughter.
Kiyoshi in the ruined room, dropped the broken katana and he sat down amidst the wreckage of his life, staring blankly at his wife's body as the sun rose over the smoking ruins of Sakuragaoka.