Hiragi: Void Slayer of the Silent BloodChapter 1: The Void That Watches Me
The bell rang.
It was just another day at Shirogane High.
Students chatted, laughed, passed notes, and existed in their own fleeting worlds.
But I—Hiragi—stood apart.
Not because I wanted to, but because something else stood with me.
Something no one else could see.
A presence. A whisper.
A void that watched me from the corners of my vision.
They called me quiet. Cold. Broken.
But they didn't understand.
You can't be normal when your shadow isn't yours.
"Hiragi."
A voice pierced the silence of my mind.
It was Nolan—the man who called himself the Void Walker.
He appeared before me a year ago, the night my family disappeared.
His form always flickered between light and dark, as if he belonged nowhere—and everywhere.
"Your power is stirring again," he said, stepping out from the mirror in the empty science lab.
"The seal's weakening."
I didn't reply.
There was no point. He'd speak whether I listened or not.
"They're coming for you. The Echoes of Formless Night. You'll need to fight, or die."
I turned my gaze back to the cracked mirror. My reflection stared back with dead eyes.
Empty. Like me.
That night, I walked home under the blood moon.
Tokyo looked beautiful in red—but I saw through it.
Illusions. Everything was a lie.
And then... it came.
A shriek, inhuman and hollow, tore through the sky.
The street lights flickered.
Time slowed.
The void opened.
A beast stepped out. Not of flesh, but of memories lost—
a Voidspawn.
Its form shifted between a thousand forgotten faces, mouths whispering secrets I was never meant to hear.
"Hiragi... Void Slayer... chosen of the Endless Silence..."
I clenched my fist.
The mark on my palm burned—the symbol Nolan carved into me the night I awoke from the massacre.
[Release Restraint: Level One — Obsidian Vein]
Dark tendrils erupted from my back, wrapping around my arm like serpents of ink.
My eye turned black. The world bent.
And I moved.
One strike.
The creature wailed, unraveling into nothing.
Silence returned.
But it was never peaceful—just waiting to break again.
Back in my room, I sat alone.
Staring at the ceiling, wondering if I'd even make it through this school year alive.
"You don't belong here, Hiragi," Nolan's voice echoed from the shadows.
"This world isn't your home. The Void calls you back."
I didn't answer.
Because deep down...
I was starting to believe him.
To be continued…