Shourai – Chapter 3: The Crest Devours
Renji hit the ground on his knees, clutching his arm as the Crest seared up through his veins. His skin split in thin cracks, glowing veins of light and shadow crawling across his flesh. Blood seeped out, only to sizzle into smoke as if his body was rejecting its own humanity.
His scream wasn't human anymore. It was layered, warped, as though a chorus of a hundred voices shrieked from his throat.
Hikari stumbled toward him, blood streaming from the corner of her mouth.
"Renji! You have to resist it!"
But he couldn't hear her. Or maybe he did, and the Crest drowned her voice in its hunger. His vision flickered between white and black, every blink showing him a different world—one a burning heaven, the other a rotting abyss. Both wanted him. Both called him the vessel.
Kurohane laughed, his voice thick with delight. "Yes… let it in. Do you feel it? The tearing, the breaking? That is truth. That is power."
He spread his wings, feathers ripping free, each one a dagger of shadow that embedded in the floor. They twitched like insects, wriggling deeper, splitting wood and stone.
Renji's stomach lurched. He vomited onto the floor, but the liquid wasn't normal—it was black and red, a foul mixture of blood and something thicker, something alive. It writhed briefly before hissing into smoke. His own body disgusted him.
"Stop!" he begged, clawing at his chest, as if he could rip the Crest out. His nails tore his skin, blood pouring, but the mark burned through it, glowing brighter, feeding.
Hikari moved, her naginata igniting with a blinding flare. She slashed down at Kurohane, cutting the air itself. The strike tore a gash across his chest—flesh, muscle, and bone splitting.
For a moment, Renji thought the fight was over. But instead of collapsing, Kurohane grinned wider. He dropped his sword and dug his clawed fingers into the wound, tearing it open with a wet, ripping sound. Black fire erupted from inside, sealing the injury as his flesh reknit itself grotesquely.
"Do you see, boy?" Kurohane sneered, licking blood from his hand. "Pain is nothing. Death is nothing. The Crest can give you more than this pitiful angel's mercy."
Renji's hand convulsed. His glowing veins pulsed, and suddenly, his arm twisted—bones snapping out of place with sharp cracks. His scream ripped through the air. Fingers elongated unnaturally, skin peeling in strips as something half-weapon, half-organ clawed its way out of him.
Hikari froze, eyes wide. "No… it's already trying to consume him."
Renji staggered to his feet, his arm grotesque, bleeding light and shadow. His breath was ragged, his vision swimming, but in his hand now formed a blade. Not metal—something alive. It pulsed with veins, dripping with black ichor that hissed as it hit the floor.
"No…" he gasped, trembling. "This isn't me…!"
Kurohane roared with laughter. "Oh, but it is! The Crest has chosen its path—between light and dark lies only ruin. You are neither angel nor devil. You are prey that will devour itself."
Renji's knees buckled. His mind tore at the seams, voices screaming in unison inside his skull.
Kill. Tear. Burn. Save. Protect. Destroy.
The warehouse couldn't withstand it. Walls cracked, beams collapsed, corpses of fox statues crumbled into ash. The smell of blood, smoke, and rot filled the air, suffocating.
And Renji… Renji realized something worse than death:
It wasn't that he had been chosen.
It was that he had been cursed.