VoidVerseWriter

Ashes of the Black Blade

Born under a cursed moon, Rai Tsuki was never given a chance at peace. Branded an "Ash spawn" by the very village he called home, Rai grew up beneath whispers, glares, and silence. But at the age of seven, silence turned to screams. When the villagers could no longer contain their hatred, they turned on the one person Rai loved most — his mother, Aria Tsuki — and made him watch as they tore her apart, piece by piece, across seven days of torment.

They broke her body, but she never stopped smiling for him.
They broke his heart, and with it, awakened something ancient.

From the ashes of that horror, Rai Tsuki is reborn — not as a boy, but as a vessel of wrath. Marked by tragedy and driven by vengeance, Rai begins a journey across a god-forsaken world, haunted by the screams of the innocent and hunted by powers that fear what he might become.

But Rai does not seek mercy.
He seeks understanding — through pain, through fire, through blood.
He will make the gods kneel. He will make the world remember.

This is not a story of a hero.
This is the tale of a weapon — forged in grief, sharpened by betrayal, and set loose upon a world that made him watch love die.

Ashes of the Black Blade

The floor beneath him wasn't wood anymore.It was stone.Cold. Wet. Blackened by something… burnt.

He was no longer in the dojo.He was alone.A field of ash stretched out before him endless and silent, the wind howling like distant screams.

Clinking. Dragging.Somewhere behind him.

A tall figure.Shrouded in shadow.No face. No eyes.But wearing a robe… soaked in blood.

Then, in a thousand voices all speaking at once:

The ash beneath him cracked like glass.

The screams returned his mother's voice.His name.Over and over.

He fell to his knees, choking, sobbing, clawing at his head.

"I'm sorry , I'm sorry , I couldn't , I"

And from the sky…a sound that shattered the world.

Low.Ancient.Not angry… but full of grief.

The clouds ripped open above him.And Rai looked up to see…

Vast. Endless.Its wings blotting out the stars.Its eyes glowing with a light too deep to be any colour.

It didn't speak words.But Rai felt something inside him answer back.

"Why do you run from what you are?"

Rai backed away, falling into the ash.

"The fire in your blood is not a curse.It is a wound left behind by gods who feared your soul."

The shadow behind him tried to grab him again.

The shadow shrieked.The chains reached for his throat

The candlelight flickered against the wooden walls.

Kaen was snoring beside a mountain of pillows.

Renji lay half-wrapped in a blanket with one sock on his head.

Jin Shōra sat in the corner, meditating with his back against the wall calm, silent, watching over them all.

He wiped his face, breathing in the cool morning air, trying to steady his heart.

"You're still watching me… aren't you?"

Outside the dojo, clouds gathered low on the horizon.

…a black spire cracked through the earth like a fang.

The world was shifting.And somewhere in its depths, something ancient had just felt Rai awaken.

Dream Beyond the Ashes