Takamura jumped from tree to tree. His mind oscillated between the past and the present. "The other day, I hoped that life would bring me the evolution of ebony skin... and today I run to him like a servant, like a child," he thought. "Tara! I'm on my way!"
For the first time in his life, he avoided the chaos of the festival instead of seeking it out. His body was collapsing. The vitality that the swamp man had sucked out of him was unlike any previous injury. His ability to regenerate had stalled. Takamura suspected that the successive ingestion of cores had poisoned his system, preventing his biology from closing the wounds. He survived only on the remnants of energy from the core he had used to escape Zephyr.
Finally, he approached the base of the mountain. He used the maximum of his current strength in a single leap to gain height. He looked around, searching for Afro, Kael, or Tara, but saw no trace of their battles.
Still in the air, Takamura realized he needed organic fuel. The side effect of the cores was about to paralyze him. He surveyed the battlefield and chose the most distracted and inexperienced target: a human soldier.
With his only remaining arm, Takamura threw the box containing Afro's sword and book. The object flew like a bullet, hitting the soldier's back with such force that it instantly broke his spine. The human fell to the ground, convulsing.
A lesser demon nearby growled, indignant at the scene. Takamura landed heavily, ignoring the growl. He lunged at the demon, grabbed its head, and smashed it against a rock. Without hesitation, Takamura pulled the still-convulsing human and began to devour him. Soon after, he committed his first act of demonic cannibalism, consuming the lower demon's body.
Even so, regeneration did not come. His body only stabilized enough for him not to die.
A scout appeared from behind, trying to cut Takamura down as he ate the entrails like a hungry dog. Takamura's horns vibrated, detecting the movement. He rolled forward, turned quickly, and lunged at the attacker, stabbing his horns into the creature's abdomen. After killing it, he consumed it as well.
"I have to get stronger down here, where the weakest are," Takamura thought, wiping the blood from his mouth. "Then I'll go up. I need to warn the master about Zephyr. I need to save my brothers."
On the other side, in a random inn
"I used to cry when I saw the differences in the air..." thought Kira. She could never bear the weight of her own gift; her visual ability showed her the flaws in everything, and it made her emotionally unstable. In her clan, being useless was a profanity. Without parents, raised in an orphanage, she was just a burden waiting to be discarded before she sank the prestige of the Renzu.
While the Blue Festival was happening outside, Kira was curled up in a fetal position, alone in a random inn. She tried to compensate for the betrayal she had committed against the captain by diving into the only memory that gave her structure.
That afternoon years ago, Draezen had appeared in the orphanage courtyard.
"What about that one, isolated?" he asked, pointing to the girl.
The elder replied dismissively, "She's weak. Good eyes, but she can't handle the pressure. Let's leave her to the demons or sell her as a cheap assistant."
Draezen walked among the playing children, but his focus was on Kira, who was drawing meaningless shapes on the ground. He looked at the old man, then at the girl, and uttered his classic line:
"Fuck it. I'll take this one, fuck the rest. Only the big shots are born strong in this shitty world."
He crouched down. Kira, indignant and confused, looked at the old man, who looked away in shame. Then she stared into Draezen's eyes.
"What's your name, little one?"
"K... Kira..." she replied, her voice trembling with indignation.
"Kira is a good name... Come on, you're going to work with me until you die. Don't fuck up, you understand?"
Kira took a moment to process what was happening. It didn't make sense, but the confidence in his voice was absolute. Without hesitation, she replied:
"Yes... sir. I understand."
The elders tried to protest, but Draezen ignored them completely and turned his back on Kira.
"Get on my back, damn it!"
Kira climbed on, and Draezen felt her weight, or lack thereof. She was light as a feather. Ignoring the stares, he stood up and started to leave.
"You'll regret it," murmured the elders. "She's defective."
Draezen didn't stop, didn't even look back. "Defective is anyone who sees no use in weakness... sons of bitches!"
The elder, outraged, followed them for a few meters, shouting about how Draezen was insulting the clan that had given him the privilege of being there. The captain kept walking, the smoke from his cigarette leaving a gray trail in the air. With Kira clinging to his back, he muttered to her:
"My first rule is this: tell everyone to fuck off. Even yourself. And, of course, you can tell me to fuck off in the future too."
"What?" asked Kira, her eyes wide, not understanding the profanity.
"Fuck it, just memorize it," he cut her off. "You'll understand in a few years."
That day, the doors of the Renzu clan closed forever to the Captain of Smoke. He was banished, but he took with him what they considered trash and what he saw as pure potential.
Kira got up from the bed in the inn. "Shit... what am I doing?" she said to the empty room. "Fuck the farewell!"
The thought of Draezen alone against the white-haired monster was unbearable.
"That damn smoker would die early if he had no one to show him where reality is cracking. I was always the only one who understood him, the only one who could see what his eye couldn't capture."
"What am I doing?" she repeated, this time with fury.
She dressed hastily with automatic movements. She tightened her belt, adjusted her cloak, and checked her eyes in the reflection of a basin of water.
"I'm coming, Captain," she said, climbing out the window and jumping onto the rooftops. "I will be useful to you! As I always have been."