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SCENE 1: THE LAST SUNSET
(10-year-old Ryo clutches his mother's IV pole like a sword as she whispers: "Don't let them see you cry."
SCENE 2: WOUNDED PRIDE
(Rain drips from Ryo's hair as he struggles with the beast within—the echo of his mother's last words twisted into Shiren's laugh. "Weak." The word reverberates, a blade meant to break him.)
SCENE 3: LOST MEMORIES (PAST)
(A child's-eye view through rain-streaked glass of a grave marker. Ryo's fingers trace the engraved "Loving Mother" as he whispers: "Are you proud, mom? Did I keep my promise?" His tears mingle with the rain.)
SCENE 4: BLIND RAGE
(Ryo's world narrows to the clash of blade and fang. He roars, a sound that shakes the foundation of the realm itself. He lashes out, but he's fighting blind, and Shiren vanishes in the shadows, his last words echoing: "You're not even ready to protect yourself—let alone the world." Ryo drops, spent, staring at his bleeding hands.)
**SCENE 5: FAMILY REUNION — SHATTERED SILENCE**
*(The door bursts open—***KUJURO KENZAKI*** (Ryo's father, a mountain of a man with scars across his knuckles) and ***RUMI KENZAKI*** (his younger sister, eyes wide with disbelief) freeze at the sight. Blood on the floor. Ryo kneeling amidst the wreckage of his own fury.)*
Kujuro: "...What the hell happened here?!" (His voice isn't just anger—it's fear. The kind only a parent knows.)
Rumi: "Nii-san...?" (Her small hands clutch her father's sleeve, but her gaze locks onto Ryo like she barely recognizes him.)
SCENE 6: THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH
(A memory flickers—Ryo's mother, weak but smiling, gripping young Ryo's hand as the machines beep erratically around them.) "Protect them... even if they never understand why." (Her voice cracks. It's an order. A curse. A legacy.)
---
SCENE 7: PRESENT COLLISION
(Ryo staggers to his feet—his Eclipseborn energy still crackling at his fingertips, eyes flashing between gold and void-black.)
Kujuro steps forward, fists clenched. "You promised us you were done with this!" (His roar shakes the room. The accusation hangs thick in the air—but beneath it? (Terror).
The terror of a man watching his son vanish into something monstrous right before him.)
SCENE 8: THE SISTER'S PLEA
(Rumi breaks away—sprinting toward Ryo before anyone can stop her. She slaps him. Not hard. Just enough to sting.)
"Wake up!" (Tears streak down her face as she fists his shirt.) "You keep leaving us behind!"
(Silence. Then—)
RYO's energy flickers out like a dying star. (He stares at his sister's trembling hands, and for the first time in years... he feels small again.)
SCENE 9: THE MOTHER'S GHOST
(In the silence, a whisper—)
"Did I fail you?" (Not Shiren's voice. His mother's. Faint. Fragile. Gone before he can grasp it.)
---
[SCENE 10 - HIS TRUE PURPOSE]
(Ryo looks up at his family—his father's grief, his sister's rage—and something in him breaks open. Not weakness. Clarity.)
RYO: "...I lied." (A pause that feels like an eternity.) "I never stopped fighting. Because if I did..." (His voice cracks under the weight of the truth.) "...who would protect you from what's coming?"
(KUJURO'S face goes pale. He knows exactly what Ryo means. The camera pulls back as thunder rolls outside—framing the fractured family in a single lightning flash...)
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SCENE 11: RUINS OF A HOME
(Flashback: Ryo's mother, pale in the dying hospital light, presses a faded notebook into his hands— "The Kenzaki bloodline carries more than just flesh and bone." On the pages? A crest of wings eclipsing a sun.)
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[SCENE 12 - REVELATION]
(PRESENT. The camera cuts to KUJURO's eyes widening as Ryo pulls back his sleeve—revealing that same mark now glowing faintly under his skin. An Eclipseborn.)
KUJURO: "...You inherited it?" (Horror. Guilt. He steps back like he's seeing a ghost.) "Dammit... I prayed you wouldn't."
(And with those words—the foundation of everything Ryo believed crumbles.)
SCENE 13: FATHER'S EYES — A MIRROR'S EDGE
(As Ryo's world shatters, he sees the truth in his father's eyes—that flicker of recognition he'd longed for, now tinged with fear. It hits him like a blow: His dad knew.)
"Why... didn't you tell me?" (Ryo's whisper cuts through the silence. It's not a question. It's a plea for the truth. For a lifeline. For something to keep him from drowning in betrayal.)
SCENE 14: THE TRUTH IN SILENCE
(Kujuro turns away, a man too strong to break—but beneath that stoic facade, a war rages in his chest. The silence, the lies— all to protect his son.)
"I..." (His voice breaks as his gaze lands on the crest on Ryo's arm. His wife's legacy. His greatest fear made flesh.) "...I couldn't risk losing you to it."
(Ryo asks his father if his mother was also a Hunter.)
SCENE 15: THE SHATTERED MIRROR
(KUJURO nods, his silence heavier than any words. The truth hangs in the air. In that moment, Ryo isn't just facing his father—he's facing a lifetime of hidden truths.)
"She was the strongest Hunter I ever knew." (A beat of memory. A mother's laughter. Gone in a heartbeat.)
SCENE 16: THE BURDEN OF A LEGACY
(The image of his mother—alive, radiant, a force of nature—fades away. Her legacy, her sacrifice, the lies left in her wake—Ryo feels it all like a weight chained to his soul.)
RYO: "Then why did she have to die?! Why did you hide this from me?!"
"To save you!" (For the first time, Kujuro turns to face him. His eyes flicker with pain.) "To prevent this very moment."
SCENE 17: THE TRAGIC TRUTH
(Ryo's breath stutters as Kujuro speaks of his mother's legacy—her strength, her courage, her downfall. Shadows darken his face, a reflection of the past that haunts both of them.)
"She was hunted... hunted by her own team..." (Kujuro's voice trembles on the memories like they might break him even now.) "She never had a chance."
SCENE 18: BETRAYAL BY BLOOD
(Kujuro's hands shake as he reveals the memory—
A younger Kujuro bursts into their home to find Ryo's mother slumped against the wall, her blade embedded in her own abdomen. "It... was the only way," she chokes out. "The Eclipseborn curse... it wasn't just in our blood..." Her eyes glow gold one final time as she grips his collar. "They'll come for Ryo next. Promise me— hide him from our world.")
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[SCENE 19: THE ECLIPSEBORN CURSE]
(Present day. The room feels airless. Ryo stumbles back, clutching his arm where the crest burns.)
KUJURO: "She sacrificed herself to sever your connection to the Hunting Realm's energy... but it seems fate had other plans."* (He looks at Ryo's Eclipseborn mark with devastated understanding.) "That night Yua came? That wasn't coincidence. Your power was waking up."
(Rumi whimpers in the corner—
SCENE 20: THE FINAL CURSE
(Kujuro steps forward, a man facing his own worst fears. Every step echoes in the silence, a father's plea like a lifeline through a storm of revelations.)
"I tried to keep our world from touching yours. I failed." (His voice breaks, each word like glass. A confession he's carried for far too long.).
RYO: "No... no... no..." (This isn't the way it was supposed to go. This wasn't his father—the man who tucked him in.)
SCENE 21: THE BOY WHO LOST HIS WAY
(Ryo's knees hit the floor with a dull thud, his hands shaking violently—his mother's face in his mind, her dying smile seared into his soul. The man who told him monsters weren't real had been lying all along... because she was one of them.)
"I thought..." (His voice cracks.) "...I thought I was protecting everyone. But you—you were protecting me."
(Kujuro steps forward, hesitating before placing a calloused hand on Ryo's shoulder—a father's touch after years of distance. "We both were.")
SCENE 22: RUMI'S WARNING*
(Before anyone can react, Rumi bolts for the door, eyes wild with fear. "Something's wrong!")
RYO: "What?". (Cold dread washes over him. That spike of Seishu energy—it wasn't any ordinary beast.)
KUJURO: "Go."(His gaze snaps to Ryo, a father's command and his son's determination colliding.)
SCENE 23: SPLIT FATE — BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE
PANEL 1 (RYO'S CHARGE)
(Rain lashes at Ryo's face as he (shatters) through the streets, his Eclipseborn mark burning through his sleeve. Buildings blur. His heartbeat drowns out everything but one thought—)
"Not again." (The same vow that forged him. The same fear that haunts him.)
---
PANEL 2 (REN & YUA — LAST STAND)
(Yua spins her blade—blood already streaking her cheek from the Starfall Girl's opening strike. Ren stands beside her, teeth bared in a grin with no joy left in it.)
REN: "Well... guess we're the sacrificial lambs today." (His fists raised—useless against what looms before them.)
STARGIRL (giggling): "Oh no... you're just the kindling."
SCENE 24 - A TWISTED CONSTELLATION
(The Starfall Girl stands in full view now. A cold, beautiful figure in a blood-soaked gown—a hunter of worlds.)
STARGIRL: "My purpose is to prune the weak from the multiverse... to prepare the way for a new universe born from the ashes of this one." (She lifts a hand, and the shadows twist behind her, taking the form of countless Hunters, twisted into shadows of themselves.) "This... is the path to the future," they whisper together with sickening smiles.
🌀 End of Chapter Sixteen