Awakening

Awakening, the sign that an individual is ready for the rigors and dangers that come with advancing a path. Without fail, everyone awakens at the tender age of thirteen, their source, the very manifestation of their soul's ability to do magic and affect the world around them. Over the years, it was discovered that there were three paths to reclaiming the full essence of the high god, to climb this erstwhile ladder of bloodshed and agony, at the end of which lies the domain and mantle of the high god. But the high god was lost because his very essence was distilled into all his creations. How then can one advance after their awakening? And this is where the most fundamental rule of our reality comes to play. To become the high god, you will have to gather all the pieces of him scattered and hidden within each individual source of an awakened. To become God, you must kill. To become God, you must take the souls of the brother and sister that stand beside you. Their power becomes yours, their soul becomes a nourishment to your source.

But not everyone can awaken. Some never develop a source strong enough to bend the rules of reality and master magic in any shape or form. The mortals... I dare say, are the luckiest of us all. Able to live their blissfully short lives without worry, no need to strive for the pinnacle of existence and power when the only way for you to do so is to leave a pile of corpses behind you. To be strong is to break dreams and families, end hopes and love... Ours is a society of death and blood... and I fear that someday, there will be no one left to kill, and the Path-walkers will fade into obscurity and oblivion, and this world, as it has always been... will belong to the un-awakened. I fear that time...is closer than ever.

Anonymous Article from six thousand years ago

Azrael sat down in his room, the lights off as the darkness swallowed him. His gaze rested on the computer in front of him. Owning a grimoire has never been at the top of his list of priorities, but now that Thomas was dead, those priorities would have no other choice but to change. He needed to find a way to protect himself, and, much more importantly, he needed a way to keep his sister safe. With Thomas dead, he doubted Emilia would be able to think straight, and neither would there be anyone present to tamper her wild tendencies. He needed to think, he needed the darkness to give him the answers he so desperately needed...but it was silent, empty...it was different.

Azrael could not tell what was wrong with him, but things had been different since he laid eyes on Thomas's lifeless body. Those eyes closed for all eternity had rippled the Veil over his subdued emotions. But much more than that, his body felt different. Broken his heart might be. Unsettled, his mind might cry out...but none of that could compare to the fact that Azrael felt sick in his stomach. And that was the problem. He has never been sick, injured? Yes. But never sick, not in all the years he has been alive, or when he was subjected to so many experiments, it felt as if his very veins would liquify within his body... even then, he had never been sick.

A knock sounded at his door, yet Azrael did not reply. For some reason, his voice remained stuck in his throat as his eyes remained locked on the computer screen in front of him. "Azrael, are you okay? The sensors are picking up a spike of magical activity, and it's coming from your room. Are you okay?" he could hear the worry in her voice, feel it from where he was sitting, but it was as if his own body was not within his control. He felt his heart skip a beat, and then a couple more as anxiety settled into his chest. He felt sweat sliding down his back as his brown hair was plastered onto his forehead. 'How am I sweating?' It's cold,' he asked himself, baffled when the air conditioning was working at full power.

"Azrael! " If you don't say anything, then so help me. By the favor of the high god I am coming in!" she paused, giving him a chance to answer or at least get decent if he was naked. But when she did not hear him respond, Emilia threw all caution to the wind as Azrael's door was blasted into his room. Frozen wood chips blasted into the room, covering a lot of ground. A couple of which traveled far enough to cut into his bare upper body. Emilia stepped into his room, her grimoire, a silver and icy blue gauntlet around her wrist, that Thomas and Azrael had laboriously built for her when she was accepted into the police academy. It was primed and ready, with every intent to cause as much damage to an unwelcome element within their domicile. A chill crossed into the room as Azrael shivered, his tongue heavy in his mouth. The room was already cold, but with Emilia using her grimoire, the temperature dropped even more.

Emilia was Thomas's pride and joy. She was something rare, a dual affinity Path-Walker. She had a basic ice affinity with no aspects to it, and then her tech affinity with the networking aspect. When she had awakened, details of her affinities were kept mostly under wraps until she graduated high-school and went straight for the police academy. This was a modern age and someone who could interface with networks was extremely valuable. Finding information from the internet was not a problem for her, but much more than that, her ability to network made it possible for her to control multiple machines at once. It has been incredibly difficult to create a synergy for her with her ice affinity, but it at least meant she had a means of defending herself. Most people with the tech affinity usually end up behind a desk or slaving away as some sort of data center in a covenant.

"Shit! Azrael are you okay?" she asked as she quickly crossed the room, coming over to place a palm on his hand. She hissed in pain as the smell of burnt flesh reached both their noses, and she pulled her hand back. Emilia stood wide-eyed for a few seconds, looking at her burnt palm, which was now an angry shade of red, and the endless beads of sweat pouring out of Azrael's body. It looked as if his entire body was burning and evaporating every form of liquid within. Not even the blood in his veins was not spared either. As soon enough, Azrael's sweat was tinged red from the blood in his body. "What the hell?" Emilia asked in shock as she looked him in the eye, yet Azrael could not say anything. Whatever she could see was happening to him, it was ten times worse than she could possibly have imagined. Right in front of her eyes she could see that Azrael's body was slowly becoming desiccated, both blood and water being wrung out as he looked more and more like a corpse as the seconds passed.

Emilia did not waste time; her gauntlet flashed an icy blue. She cast no spell but used the grimoire to coat her entire body in ice mana before grabbing hold of her brother. Since she had already awakened, even if she was just at the first mortal stage, she still had a stronger body than normal people. Lifting Azrael up and dragging him in the direction of his bathroom was not a problem for her. As she moved with him, sizzling sounds and the scent of burning flesh filled the air. The heat in his body was intense to the point that Azrael's body felt like carrying hot coal. Emilia let out a gasp of pain, but she kept her focus, kicking the door in and dumping Azrael in his bathtub. She screamed out in pain, tears glistening at the side of her eyes as she shook, her hands all the way up to her biceps were an angry red with some parts already charred black.

She pushed through the pain and set the shower at full blast to pour over her brother. Steam filled the bathroom almost immediately, his body sizzling in anger as the surrounding lights seemed to darken. Emilia moved her eyes to bulbs, and realized that they were still shining brightly, yet for some reason it seemed as if darkness was encroaching. Shadows were getting longer and more pronounced, and they moved as if alive. She shifted her gaze to Azrael. By this point, he had his eyes tightly shut as he tried to catch his breath from the assault the deluge of shower water gave him. Emilia frowned. She could see that he was still burning up. She wasted no time tapping into her source one more, as her gauntlet started glowing, a copious amount of icy fog spread out from her hands as she finally decided to cast a spell.

Emilia wanted to be a detective, no matter how much those old fogies at the precinct wanted to stick her behind a desk as an analyst. Her first spell made it so she could create an area of extreme cold that she could manipulate freely. Of course, she was still working on the manipulation aspect of it. But the spell was exactly what she needed right now. Almost immediately, the tub that was almost half full of water started to freeze, and at that moment, she could see Azrael letting loose a sigh of relief, the intensity of whatever was happening to him reduced to a somewhat manageable state. She let lose a tired breath as she leaned back against the bathroom wall, sliding to the ground as she kept her eyes on her brother. Her body shook, small tremors wracking her form as fear kept a tight grip on her heart. His breathing was erratic, and even if the cold was helping, whatever it was, Azrael was going through, he was not done with it yet.

"I can't lose you either, please be okay."

The shadows! Emilia jumped up in shock as literal darkness and shadow rushed towards the tub. Her mind screamed in alarm and shock before a stray thought manifested itself. Almost immediately she understood that whatever was happening, she needed to let it run its course. She looked at Azrael, noticing he was looking right at her. But she let out a startled yelp when she realized that his eyes were pitch black. The whites of his eyes had been completely taken over by the darkness, as he opened his mouth to try and speak, but even that proved to be an insurmountable task. In fact, the moment he opened his mouth, all the shadows and darkness that had been encroaching and seemed to have a life of their own rushed in. It was a scene Emilia found extremely chilling as Azrael arched his back in pain, his body thrashing within the confines of the bathtub. Hoping her words could reach him, Emilia called out to him.

"Stop fighting it Azrael, you are experiencing an awakening! You must let it run its course! The more you fight it, the harder and more painful it becomes. Surrender yourself to it. This is your power brother! You must claim it!"

If her words reached him, she couldn't tell. His mouth was still open, and the shadows kept pouring in. His back still arched within the freezing water. It was a constant cycle of freezing and melting as the heat in his body kept rising, but Emilia's spell kept trying to freeze the water. Lowering his temperature and making his awakening more manageable.

Emilia was baffled. This was an awakening, but not a normal one. She has seen enough humans awaken to know that you just felt a little sick for a day, and by the next morning you unlock your affinity for magic. But that was just for humans. Azrael's awakening was incredibly violent; his affinity seemed intent on killing him. It raised her suspicions about his origins. All she knew was that he had an abusive father, and Thomas had saved him from very extreme conditions. But this? It was incredibly suspicious as she wondered just who his real parents were. Azrael's awakening was raising all sorts of red flags, and as if to prove that she wasn't going crazy, spiraling tattoos of black and gray appeared on his arms, stretching out in esoteric patterns that anyone alive could recognize as demon script.

"Fuck!"

Azrael's startled curse shocked Emilia out of her thoughts as she noticed him looking back at her. The tattoos faded back into his body, almost as if they were never there in the first place. Black blood dribbled out of the side of Azrael's mouth, as he glared back at her with a tired look on his face. Emilia blanched as she asked defensively. "What did I do? " I just saved your life, you stupid punk!" Azrael narrowed his eyes as he pointed at a welt that was slowly vanishing from his head. "You banged my head on the tub, did you have to drop me like that?"

"Y-you. You... You asshole! " I thought you were dying! You bastard! " Ungrateful son of a bitch!" Emilia got up and left the bathroom, leaving Azrael behind with a tired smile on his face. He leaned back into the tub with a groan, he was spent. Not to mention, he just lost about 70% of his total body weight. He was literally just skin and bones right now. In all honesty, he had no idea what had just happened to him, but he could tell he was different, something had changed within him. But most importantly, he could feel it at the base of his stomach, a ball of warm energy that roiled and danced within him like a nebulous cloud of unending potential. It was tiny, but it was his...his source. He smiled to himself.

"I have awakened!"