Uriel wakes up. The metallic scent of blood and ozone filled the room before Uri even reached the door. When he slid it open, the sight froze the magma in his veins. Daigo-san was pinned to his futon, not by steel, but by a spear of pressurized water that branched out like a jagged blue vein, pulsing with a rhythmic, cruel precision.
Michiru didn't even look up. "He was always too weak to hold back the tide," the intruder whispered.
"Let him go!" Uri roared. He lunged, his hand igniting with the molten serpent he'd spent weeks perfecting. But as he swung, he slammed into an invisible barrier—a wall of pressurized water so dense it felt like striking a mountain of diamond.
Michiru flicked a finger. The water wall surged forward, a blunt-force wave that sent Uri crashing through the shoji screens and into the dirt courtyard. Uri scrambled up, coughing blood, only to see Michiru stepping over Daigo's unconscious form to grab Amy-chan by her hair.
"Stop... please, stop!" Uri screamed, his voice cracking. He tried to manifest his magma, but his focus was shattered. He was being beaten, thrown like a ragdoll against the stone lanterns as Michiru moved with a terrifying, liquid grace.
"Levi thought he could hide the darkness by drowning it in peace," Michiru said, his eyes gleaming with a sick hunger. "But I'm going to unleash what he feared. I'm going to steal the legacy of the Black Sun."
With a brutal kick, Michiru sent Uri flying out of the building. In the same motion, he tossed Amy-chan high into the midnight sky. As she reached the apex of her fall, her eyes met Uri's. There was no terror there—only a small, heartbreaking smile, a silent goodbye that burned hotter than any magma.
She hit the ground, and before Uri could reach her, Michiru materialized a blade of water and drove it through her chest.
A massive explosion of dust and debris erupted, obscuring the scene. Silence fell over the mountain, heavy and suffocating. Then, the ground began to vibrate with a frequency that shattered the nearby shrine stones.
Out of the dust, a silhouette emerged that was no longer human. Uri's skin had turned pitch black, a void that seemed to swallow the moonlight. Two jagged horns tore through his forehead, and his eyes were no longer crimson—they were white-hot abysses of pure, unadulterated rage. This was the Kekkei Jutsu Levi had desperately tried to suppress: the Devoured Soul.
The village began to burn, the heat from Uri's new form igniting the wooden huts instantly.
Uri moved. He didn't run; he vanished. Michiru barely had time to raise his water wall before a black fist slammed into it, the pressure causing the "unbreakable" barrier to spiderweb.
"Yes!" Michiru laughed maniacally, his face contorted in greed. "This is it! The power of the end... it's mine!"
The battle turned into a blur of black and blue. Uri, in a total berserk state, began to overpower the water master. His movements were jagged, instinctive, and impossibly fast. Michiru scrambled, pulling out a glowing, ancient sealing weapon—a series of chains designed to bind the soul. He strategically pinned Uri down, the chains glowing with a holy light.
Snap.
The seal shattered like glass against the sheer intensity of Uri's darkness. Michiru froze, his eyes widening. He blinked, and in that split second, the world slowed down.
When his eyes opened, Uri's black palm was already pressed firmly against his face.
The mountain screamed as Uri began his rampage, dragging Michiru through the stone and forest, a dark god reclaiming the land with every thunderous step.The black-armoured nightmare that was Uri did not simply strike; he erased the space between him and his prey. Each blow from his pitch-black fists shattered Michiru's water walls like fragile glass. The pressure was no longer just physical; it was a conceptual weight that made the very atmosphere of the mountain scream.
What... what is this boy? Michiru's mind raced even as his ribs turned to powder under a barrage of obsidian strikes. He stared into the white-hot voids of Uri's eyes, and a primal, ancestral terror took root in his soul. This isn't just a shadow. This bottomless gravity... it's the heritage of the Founding Father, Aizen. The ancient bloodline that was supposed to have been extinguished eras ago...
The thought was his last moment of clarity before Uri's hand clamped onto his throat, dragging him through the burning remains of the village square.
Suddenly, the world shifted. The roaring fire and the smell of blood vanished, replaced by an infinite, silent red abyss. Uri stood in the center of the crimson void, his hands no longer black, his skin clear. He looked around at the stillness, the silence ringing in his ears like a funeral bell.
Then, he blinked.
Uri awoke standing over a pile of broken meat and tattered charcoal cloth. The black shroud was retreating from his skin like drying ink, leaving him shivering in the cold morning air. Michiru lay at his feet, beaten to a pulp, his breathing a shallow, wet rattle. The man who had been a god of the mountain was now just a broken insect.
Uri looked down at him. There was no rage left—only a hollow, freezing void where his heart used to be. Without a word, he manifested a single, small spark of his Magma Technique. With a cold, detached look on his face, he pressed it into the center of Michiru's forehead. A final, quiet hiss, and the man went still forever.
Uri didn't cry. He didn't scream for Amy-chan or Daigo-san. He walked past the smoldering ruins of his childhood home, stepping over the charred beams of the shrine. He entered the remains of his room, his movements mechanical. He packed a small rucksack—spare clothes, a few ration crackers, and a small, scorched ribbon that had belonged to Amy.
His countenance never wavered. His eyes remained fixed on the horizon as he walked away from the mountain. Behind him, the village he had grown up in was nothing but a funeral pyre, the smoke rising to meet the gray morning sky.
The boy who played in the mountains died that night. The one walking toward the city was something else entirely. The seeds of trauma had been planted deep, watered by the blood of the only people he had ever loved.