A Brief History of the World That Burned
The year 2197 marked not a beginning, but a continuation—a perpetuation of humanity's oldest sin: the belief that power justifies everything.
In the 21st century, the world burned for oil. In the 22nd century, it burned for something far more valuable. Energy cores.
The discovery happened in 2089, deep beneath the Arctic. Geologists called them "Residual Matrices"—pockets of an unknown substance that emitted pure, weaponizable energy. One core the size of a fist could power a city for a year. A core the size of a building could level a continent.
The corporations saw profit. The governments saw power. And within two decades, wars were fought not with guns, but with energy weapons powered by cores extracted from the planet's dying heart.
By 2150, the world had been carved into corporate territories. Nations ceased to exist. Borders were drawn by megacorporations, defended by private armies, maintained by fear and control. Democracy became a concept taught in history classes that nobody believed anymore.
Kiyohara was one such city. Built in what was once Japan, it sprawled across three vertical levels—a monument to inequality so profound that the word itself seemed inadequate.
The Three Levels of Kiyohara
The Upper Sanctum (Level 3)
Here, the air was always clean. The temperature always perfect. The wealthy elite—CEOs of megacorporations, government administrators, military commanders—lived in towers of smart glass and synthetic marble. Their children attended schools that taught them to think of humanity as a resource, not a community.
They had names like Reina Frost, daughter of the Director of Energy Security. Children born into power, trained from birth to maintain that power, armed with abilities derived from experimental core technology.
In the Upper Sanctum, a single family could accumulate more wealth than a million workers would earn in their lifetimes. A single decision could determine the fate of thousands. And nobody questioned it, because the system had been designed so that nobody could.
The Middle Tiers (Level 2)
The machinery of civilization operated here. Office workers, engineers, technicians—the class of people who weren't quite wealthy enough to live above, but skilled enough to be worth keeping alive. They managed the systems that kept the city running. They maintained the illusion that progress was being made.
They were comfortable enough to be compliant. Just desperate enough to be controllable.
The Lower Depths (Level 1)
This was where the real work happened. Where people like Enjiro Aketsu spent their lives. The lower depths were the engine room of Kiyohara, and the workers were fuel.
Here, in tunnels carved from bedrock, massive reactors extracted power from illegally obtained energy cores. The work was dangerous. The pay was minimal. The life expectancy was measured in decades, not centuries.
Workers came to the lower depths because they had no choice. Families had debts. Children needed medicine. Mothers lay in hospitals with cancers caused by the radiation that seeping through inadequate protective gear was a known factor. The corporations acknowledged it. They simply didn't care.
To management, workers were inputs in an equation. Expendable. Replaceable. Infinitely disposable.
The Fire Core Incident
What happened at Reactor Three on the day Enjiro Aketsu was reborn was, according to the official report that would never be made public, a "catastrophic containment failure due to inadequate maintenance protocols."
The truth was more complex.
Energy cores, when destabilized, don't simply explode. They evolve. They transform. They sometimes—rarely, impossibly—respond to human consciousness in ways that modern science couldn't explain and therefore dismissed entirely.
Deep beneath Reactor Three, in a sealed chamber that even management didn't know existed, lay something extraordinary. An experimental core. Not extracted from the earth, but created. Synthesized. An attempt to artificially generate the power that nature had buried and which humanity was so desperately trying to consume.
The core had been called "The Flame of Mercy" by the scientist who created it—Dr. Kaen, a researcher who believed that power without compassion was merely another word for evil.
Dr. Kaen had been removed from his position five years ago. Deemed unstable. Dismissed. Forgotten by a system that had no use for idealists.
But the core remained.
When the reactor's containment began to fail, when the pressure built beyond safe limits, the Flame of Mercy responded to the only pure-hearted action within its sphere of influence—Enjiro Aketsu's choice to sacrifice himself to save his brother.
The core didn't just react. It chose. It bonded with Enjiro's consciousness, merged with his biology, transformed him into something that wasn't entirely human anymore. A bridge between the mechanical and the organic. Between the destructive and the merciful.
A guardian.
Why This Matters
The corporation doesn't understand what happened at Reactor Three, and that terrifies them.
To them, Enjiro Aketsu is an anomaly. A malfunction. An error in their carefully controlled system. He represents something that their equations can't quantify—the possibility that humanity isn't just an input that can be balanced and discarded, but something with inherent value.
That possibility is a threat.
The corporation will hunt him. Not because he's dangerous to them—though he is—but because he represents the potential for change. He's proof that their system isn't as absolute as they believe. That their rules can be broken. That their workers can become something more than workers.
And if one person can become more, then anyone can.
The Flame of Mercy—Explained
The power that now flows through Enjiro isn't simply destructive energy. It's guided by the consciousness of the core that chose him, and it carries the philosophical imprint of Dr. Kaen's belief—that true strength lies not in the ability to destroy, but in the ability to protect without destroying.
The flames Enjiro wields are technically plasma—ionized matter at extreme temperatures. But they're controlled plasma. Conscious plasma. Energy that responds to intention rather than mere physical input.
Against a drone, it's a weapon.
Against an innocent, it becomes a shield.
This is why the corporation fears him more than a conventional soldier. Conventional soldiers follow orders. They destroy what they're told to destroy. Enjiro, bonded with the Flame of Mercy, will only destroy when necessary to protect. He's unpredictable by corporate logic because he operates under an ethical framework that the corporation literally cannot compute.
What Comes Next
In the tunnels beneath Kiyohara, a legend is forming. A boy who survived the unsurvivable. A worker who became something more. The first crack in the facade of absolute corporate control.
The corporation will respond with force, with drones, with soldiers. They'll hunt him through the lower depths and beyond. They'll hunt his brother, anyone connected to him, anyone who might help him.
But they're not hunting a criminal. They're hunting a possibility.
And possibilities, once loose in the world, are nearly impossible to contain.
Key Concepts to Remember
Energy Cores: Naturally occurring pockets of exotic matter that emit pure energy. The foundation of modern civilization. Extracted, refined, and weaponized by megacorporations.
The Flame of Mercy: An artificially created experimental core with the unique property of responding to compassion and human consciousness. Bonded with Enjiro, it grants him power but also purpose.
Dr. Kaen: A visionary scientist who believed power should serve mercy, not domination. Removed from his position for his beliefs. His legacy lives through the creation that now guides Enjiro.
The Three Levels: A rigid caste system enforced through economic control and military might. The wealthy above, the comfortable middle, the desperate below.
Corporate Control: Governments replaced by profit-driven megacorporations that treat workers as resources. Law, order, and morality are whatever serves the bottom line.
Enjiro's Journey: From expendable worker to something unprecedented. From victim of a system to potential agent of its transformation.
End of Interlude: The World of Kiyohara