Ice Bloom

The blast echoed like thunder trapped

in a coffin.

A shockwave rippled outward,

flattening nearby foliage and blowing out the windows of two apartments above the alleyway. Glass rained down in a glimmering halo, the brief silence that followed broken only by a metallic thump as a garbage bin slammed against the far wall.

Marek's voice vanished from comms.

"Flare!" Marcos shouted, pivoting

mid-swing as his blade lodged deep in the bear-Ashen's clavicle. "Marek—status

check, now!"

Radio silence

The bear shrieked, one massive claw

slashing toward him blindly. Marcos ducked, muscles coiling, dragging both kukris free with a spray of corrupted blood and a grunt.

Claire spun midair behind him,

flipping over the bear's back. "Was that—?" she started.

"QT just took a hit!" Caim shouted from behind cover, shielding his head as more glass crashed down. "That was Flare's alley!"

Maria's kusarigama chain whipped wide,

wrapping around the bear's maw as the steel weight smashed into its snout with a crack. "Then finish this now!" she screamed, eyes wild.

"No pressure!" Claire chirped — voice

unsteady this time — before she dove low and swept under the beast's left leg,

one blade slicing the hamstring, the other jamming into the tendon of its knee.

The Ashen howled, staggering as it tried to rear up. Caim dashed forward.

"Explosion!" he roared.

His greatsword ignited in a blaze of orange and white as he brought it down, carving through the regenerating wound his father had opened just moments ago. Flame flared against the rain, steam exploding off the wound in a hiss. The blade lodged deep.

The creature faltered.

Marcos leapt, both kukris reversed in

his fists, and landed like an avalanche——the twin blades driving into the beast's exposed spine with a meaty thunk.

The Ashen dropped.

Shoulders first. Then limbs. Then silence.

No one spoke for two full seconds.

Then Claire whispered, "I used to think bears were cute. Y'know. Like teddy bears. That one? Not so much."

"You're adorable when you're covered

in blood," Maria muttered, reeling her chain in with a spin. She turned to Marcos. "Flare—"

"Move," he ordered, already sprinting.

Kai heard the blast before he saw it.

The green flare. The unnatural silence after.

Then the Komodo Ashen lunged.

The beast was sleek but wide-shouldered, all muscle and tail. It came at him low, skimming across the wet ground like it was sliding on rails, jaws opening into a snarl filled with

spiraling teeth.

"You cannot reach me," Kai whispered,

stepping sideways into a fluid stance. The rain flowed over him. "This rain… will be your demise, I have a special treat in mind for you that I've been dying to try out."

He sheathed his chain Katana, opting instead for his Nodachi.

He gripped the hilt of his nodachi, long and sheathed diagonally across his back. As his right hand closed around the ray skin-wrapped grip, he pulled it over his shoulder like a wave cutting through ocean current.

Water bent to him.

Rain gathered along the blade the moment it cleared the sheath — not just droplets but streams, curling around the steel like living things. They fused, clung, then began to freeze.

Kai drew in a breath, steady and slow.

The others — Marcos, Claire, Maria, Caim — emerged from the side street and froze in their tracks. The Komodo Ashen paused mid-charge, sensing something.

Kai dropped into a low stance, sword

raised at shoulder height, tip angled outward.

"Ice Bloom."

He swung.

The condensed water along the blade flashed to life as ice, bursting into a fan of crystalline shards. Each fragment launched with the speed of a railgun — thin, precise, and blinding. The Komodo shrieked mid-leap as the shards pierced its limbs, face, and underbelly. Its forward momentum carried it through the slicing flurry until it collapsed at

Kai's feet in a broken sprawl.

The Ashen twitched once. Then stilled.

Kai exhaled slowly, shook the blade

once to scatter the ice, and sheathed it.

He bowed toward the beast — respectful, solemn — before turning toward the team.

"I'm not your enemy," he said, voice

calm despite the blood rain now soaking his jacket.

Marcos didn't answer. He was already

gone.

Flare was buried.

Not in a metaphorical sense.

Literally crushed under half a retaining

wall, his body hidden by steel beams and scorched brick. Smoke curled upward,

mixing with rain steam, and the scent of blood and burnt cloth lingered in the

air.

Claire was the first to scream when

they reached the alley.

"Dad! It's Flare!—?!"

Caim and Marcos darted forward, moving rubble in frantic bursts, ignoring the cuts and bruises from the debris. Marcos shoved a

concrete slab aside like it weighed nothing, a vein pulsing in his temple.

"Maria!"

"I'm on it!" she called, snapping her medical scanner out of her pouch.

She crouched low, fingers trembling as she brought it near the exposed portion of Flare's wrist. The pulse was faint — too faint — but still there. His breathing was shallow. Internal bleeding was almost guaranteed. No signs of Ashen corruption, yet. No transformation, can't always rely on heartbeats, brain death is when it comes.

Thank God.

Claire was crying.

Not a sob. Not hysteria. Just silent tears, streaming down her cheeks as she stared at Flare's crumpled, half-buried frame. "He's… he's my godfather," she whispered, wiping her face. "He promised me he'd be at my wedding one day."

Caim grit his teeth, biting down so hard his molars ached and growling through clenched teeth "Don't talk like that!"

Marcos didn't speak.

He just kept digging.

Elsewhere…

Flare floated.

Not in air. Not in water. In something else entirely.

It was blackness, but not empty. The void had weight — like the vastness of space pressing in on his skin, like drowning without water, like fire that didn't burn. Stars shimmered in the distance, pulsing in green and violet rhythms.

His breath came slower here. Calmer.

Unburdened.

And then a voice.

Are you ready, Flare?

Will you accept… your strength?

He tried to answer — but his voice caught.

He didn't know what strength the voice

meant.

But somehow, some part of him had been

waiting for this question his entire life.

He gasped awake.

White ceiling. Soft whirr of machines. A dull ache in his side, wrapped in bandages.

Jessael was curled up in the visitor sofa with Anira nestled against her, the two of them asleep. Anira had one hand loosely hanging off the edge, fingers twitching with a dream.

Flare blinked, throat dry.

"…Home?" he rasped.

Neither stirred. Not yet. He let the silence hold them for a moment longer, and the fell back into rest.