"Hmph... to think I'd see him here once again..."
THE SUN MANSION, LATE AFTERNOON...
Standing before the mansion gates were those in pursuit of power: Giyo and Pan. And there, right at the threshold, stood the very person they had dreaded meeting so soon.
"It has been a long time, Brother Akio," Pan said. Her voice wavered slightly, yet she remained steady. "The one beside me is—" "I know. Giyo... our youngest brother," Akio interjected. "To think the day would come when we'd cross paths again." "Don't misunderstand, I only wanted to—" Pan started, but she was cut off once more. "Silence!" Akio barked, turning away to walk up the stone path. "Follow me. I will take you to the one you seek."
Without another word, Giyo and Pan followed their brother into the heart of the estate.
As they stepped further into the mansion, the sheer emptiness of the place was deafening.
"Where are the guards? And the furniture? What happened here?" Pan asked, her eyes darting around. "Our mother... she stated her intention to leave this kingdom as soon as possible," Akio explained. "She sold off the furnishings and dismissed most of the guards and staff. Now, it's nothing more than a hollow shell of a mansion."
"Mother plans to leave the kingdom? But why?" Giyo finally spoke up. "Well, look at that... I thought you'd gone mute," Akio mocked his brother, though his voice quickly sharpened again. "After our father's death, she decided to seek out something greater. I assumed it was power, or wealth—the usual vanities of the elite—but I was wrong. What she's actually hunting for... are answers."
"Answers?" Pan muttered. "This wouldn't happen to be about Father's journals, would it?" "Precisely," Akio replied. "Our father left behind three journals, each written in a completely different language. Even Mother doesn't fully understand what they contain..."
With every step, the strange sound echoing through the hallway grew louder. Giyo's eyes widened as they approached the only room he still felt a connection to.
"It can't be... She's in the..." Giyo stammered. "Our mother is in Father's meeting room. It seems she's plotting something..." Akio stopped dead in his tracks, spinning around to grab his brother's arm with a crushing grip. "Listen to me, boy! Don't think for a second I'm just letting you walk in there like nothing ever happened!"
Giyo tried to wrench his arm away, but Akio pressed on, his voice thick with desperation: "Our mother has lost control. She's obsessed with seizing this kingdom by birthright! I didn't want to say this, but... Giyo, we need your help!"
In that moment, something thudded hard in Giyo's chest. It felt like the single strike of a war drum, like a thunderous clap of hands, like a dying ember suddenly roaring back to life. Even Pan couldn't believe her ears; she held her breath, as if her body had forgotten its own instinct to breathe.
"A-alright..." Giyo managed to say, finding his footing. "I don't know exactly what I can do, but I'll help."
"Fine..." Akio's voice was still shaky. He turned around, leading the way until he stopped before the massive doors of the meeting room. "This is it. Get ready."
As the doors swung open, the sound of a fist slamming against the table in pure frustration filled the air. "DAMN IT!" the woman shouted. "You're just leading me in circles! I keep ending up at the same dead end... this is like a godforsaken labyrinth!"
As they entered, the woman's attention shifted. Her smile widened upon seeing Akio... but the moment she laid eyes on the other one—the child she blamed for ruining her life—her joy vanished instantly.
"Mother, I brought Pan and... him," Akio said, his voice trailing off. "What is this, Akio? Is this some kind of sick joke?" she hissed.
She stepped closer, her stride becoming firmer and heavier with every second, fueled by the bitter memories of the years spent with that boy. "Don't think for a second that I'm happy to see you... I only came here for answers," Giyo barked, cutting through the tension.
"Answers?" she mocked. "What answers, exactly? Are you looking for support? A hug? I thought you were dead! How did you even survive in the filth of the slums?!"
"My body reacts differently, Mother..." Giyo stepped forward, his gaze unwavering. "Since I was seven, I felt hunger, thirst, and hatred... but it slowly faded, almost as if I were already fed. My body grew every day without me even training; my strength surged without a single day of combat; and my power... it manifested before I even believed I had any."
As if to prove it, Giyo opened his hands. A faint but intense ember flickered between his fingers—as if he possessed total mastery over something that should have been untamable.
"Impossible... You... you've awakened..." The woman stammered, gripping the edge of the massive table for support. "But how? Your father said you were..." "He lied, Mother," Pan interrupted. "Giyo carries more than just that black flame. Inside his body, there is something beyond our understanding. Father knew something... and that 'thing' inside him is sealed."
Giyo snapped his head toward his sister. "How did you know that?!" "Hiro told me," Pan replied, her voice steady despite the tension. "He knew I was the only one who would take this situation seriously..."
Suddenly, the woman pulled herself together. Her eyes darted across the journals on the table, finally spotting a hidden pattern within the text. "Ha... haha... HAHAHAHAHA!" Her laughter rang out, manic, as if she had finally grasped the punchline of a cruel joke. "I see it now! He didn't write these for me... he wrote them for you! You filthy brat!"
With a snap of her fingers, the trap was sprung. In one fluid motion, Akio pinned Giyo to the floor, wrenching his arms back and driving his knees into the boy's neck.
Pan gasped in terror, but from the shadows, the one who had been watching it all emerged. Law grabbed the young girl by her hair, yanking her head back with enough force to tear it from her scalp.
"LET HER GO!" the boy roared, struggling against Akio's crushing weight. "What is happening? Why this, all of a sudden?!"
"It turns out I've discovered a pattern..." the woman said, her voice chillingly calm. "Your father loved you far too much, almost as if you were the only 'special' child. Therefore, I've decided to take drastic measures."
She spun around, thrusting one of the journals toward Giyo's face. "Do you know what is written here?"
As his eyes scanned the pages, a shiver ran down Giyo's spine. That pattern was familiar... those runes, those symbols... "It can't be... Old Norse? But how!?" Giyo gasped, stunned.
"I see... so it's called Old Norse," the woman mocked, her expression darkening. "It seems you had quite a bit of fun living your pathetic life at that school while I rotted away trying to decipher this."
"You're getting it all wrong! You don't have to do any of this!" Giyo pleaded, desperation clawing at his throat. "Let Pan go! She has nothing to do with this!"
"Oh... your sister?" A faint, cruel smile played on her lips. "Don't worry. She will be punished for bringing strangers into our home. Law... do me a favor. Give her the punishment she deserves."
Without a second's thought, Law yanked Pan's hair even more aggressively, slamming her hard onto the floor. He extended his fingers, and a hissing electrical discharge surged into the girl's body.
"AHHHHHH!" Pan's scream of agony tore through the hollow room. She writhed in pain, her body trembling violently under the relentless shock.
"Enough... stop... let her go..." Giyo muttered, his voice breaking under Akio's weight.
"Look at that, the little brother is worried about her now," Law mocked, a sadistic glint in his eyes. "What if I do this instead?"
Law surged the electricity once more, intensifying the shock. Pan's scream ripped through the mansion's silence yet again. "STOP IT! I said stop!" Giyo growled, rage beginning to blur his vision.
"You don't get it, do you? Look at our mother. She doesn't care if you speak, if you eat, or if you even stay alive," Law hissed, leaning in close. "Just accept your fate. Die for what you did to our father."
"I didn't do anything! He just slipped up in combat!" Giyo shouted in desperation. "I had nothing to do with what happened at sea!"
Law ignored him and pressed on with the torture. The "punishment," as they called it, was a slow agony. Pan wept, reaching out a trembling hand toward her brother, trying to reach the only one who still held onto his senses in that house of horrors. "Brother... ru... n..." Pan's whisper was barely audible.
Then, after one final jolt, Pan's body went limp. She had passed out. "Oops... she's not as tough as I thought," Law remarked, nudging the floor near her with his boot.
"Your sister's bloodline is too much like your father's," the woman declared, looking down at Pan's unconscious form with nothing but disdain. "She is not worthy of the Thunder name."
Slowly, Akio released the boy, who remained collapsed on the floor—devoid of strength, stripped of will. The only member of his family who had ever truly cared for him lay there, broken, with no one left to protect her.
The sounds around him faded into a high-pitched ring; the voices of the others became muffled echoes in his mind. They all laughed, they all mocked... but in that precise moment, something was about to shift.
"My, my... to think this would lead to such exquisite torture."
A strange, haunting voice echoed through the room. As Giyo lifted his head, he saw the familiar silhouette manifest. Those four arms, the towering horns, and a presence that commanded the very air.
"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" "You... help me... they..." Giyo stammered, his voice barely a whisper.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The entity raised a hand, cutting him off. "I'm not here to help you. I'm here to mock you. Did you see what they did to your family? Did you see how they showed her absolutely no empathy? Look at yourself, boy... you are weak, useless. Now, what are you going to do?"
Tears were Giyo's only sanctuary. They fell heavily, splashing onto his sister's unconscious face.
"Hahaha! ARE YOU GOING TO CRY? Incredible... humans truly are pathetic creatures!"
"NO... no, no, no, no, no, no... NO!" Giyo screamed, his voice cracking.
The others heard his cries and looked back, watching him wail in desperation as he clutched his sister's lifeless arms. "Oh, come on, boy..." the demon approached, covering one of its eyes as it grinned sadistically before the little girl's body. "Are you just going to let this slide? FIGHT! This is why I hate pathetic humans like you..."
"NO..."
The voice echoed in a completely different tone. The one roaring in rage was no longer Giyo. Consumed by blind fury, unbearable pain, and profound sorrow, his eyes overflowed with tears, but his strength surged by the second, defying all logic.
Law and Akio froze, paralyzed by the overwhelming pressure emanating from him. The room became heavy, suffocating, as if the very air were forcing them to their knees before that figure.
With a single, slow turn of his head, Giyo revealed his eyes. Those eyes that had once shone with the vibrant soul of his humanity... were now dull. Empty. Dead.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The boy unleashed a primal scream, a sound that wasn't human, echoing like the roar of a wounded beast.
As Giyo's scream intensified, the pitch became an unbearable frequency, forcing everyone present to claw at their ears in agony. The boy screamed and screamed until blood began to spray, mingling with his saliva.
Oozing, stinging, and burning—there it stood: a presence of pure, unadulterated hatred. It was something even the strongest in that room had reason to fear. Flames erupted from his throat, setting the entire chamber ablaze. The fire raced up the walls and across the ceiling, converging into a single line of absolute heat that suddenly coiled around the boy's head like a burning crown.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" the mother shrieked, terror finally shattering her arrogance. "I have no idea! We need to get out of here, now!" Law barked.
Swiftly, they grabbed Pan's unconscious body and retreated, sprinting through the mansion's hallways. "I cannot believe your father sealed something of this magnitude inside him..." the woman gasped as they fled.
"Mother, you must get away from here..." Law said, stopping dead in his tracks. "Akio and I will face him." With a firm nod, Akio showed his silent resolve. Without a second thought, their mother abandoned them, disappearing into the shadows of the estate.
A thunderous crash against the meeting room door echoed through the halls—a violent, metallic boom that signaled one thing: that creature was coming to hunt.
"Law, get one thing straight: if we die here and now, I want you to know I've always hated you for how you treated our siblings," Akio said, dropping into his combat stance, his feet bracing against the floor.
"Oh, for God's sake! I couldn't care less what you think. I was simply following Mother's orders," Law retorted with a sneer. "Besides, if I do die here, I'll make sure to spit on your corpse before we head to the spirit world."
THOOM... THOOM... THOOM...
The sound echoed like the beat of war drums. Suddenly, the door began to splinter, and flames devoured the heavy wood.
BANG!
The panels shattered violently. The fire consuming the room surged into the hallway almost instantly. And from the heart of the inferno, the being consumed by fury emerged.
"KIL-L!" the entity roared.
The sight was unlike anything they had ever seen: his body was wreathed in black flames that molded into jagged talons at his fingertips. His hair, elongated and steeped in fire, stood defiant toward the ceiling, while his eyes were mere orbs of white—blazing with an unsettling light.
In that moment, they stared each other down.
THUMP-THUMP... THUMP-THUMP... THUMP-THUMP...
The frantic rhythmic pounding of their hearts was the only sound left in that hallway of death.
"LIGHTNING MAGIC: Raijū Claws!" Law declared his strike. Lightning sparked around his arms, manifesting into bestial gauntlets of pure electricity. "MAGMA MAGIC: Salamander Fists!" Akio barked. His arms were instantly submerged in a surge of molten rock, dripping and searing the floor beneath him.
Everyone was braced... the battle had begun!
Law lunged toward Giyo with staggering speed, driving a lightning-fast punch into the entity's stomach. Before the creature could react, Akio was there, slamming his open palms down upon its head, attempting to drown the beast in a torrent of magma.
"INSUFFICIENT!" the entity's voice boomed, chilling and absolute.
Giyo thrust his arms toward them both. Law and Akio tried to break away, but they were caught by something utterly alien. Black whips erupted from the entity's limbs, lashing onto their chests and snagging their clothes. With a violent, high-speed spin, Giyo whipped them away, sending Akio and Law hurtling down the hallway at terminal velocity.
"We can't hold back..." Law wheezed, his breaths heavy with exhaustion. "You look tired, brother. Softening up already?" Akio mocked as he found his footing. "Hmph..." Law brushed the debris from his suit, his arrogance unwavering. "Consider that nothing more than a warm-up."
Once more, the two lunged in tandem, sticking to their strategy: hit from the front, strike from behind. But the entity was starting to learn; it was adapting to the flow of the battle.
Clenching his fists and shaping his hands into a blade, Law infused his palms and fingers with concentrated lightning. "Sorry, but I'm going to have to use this!" he shouted, piercing the entity's stomach with blinding speed, driving through as if he were a great sword impaling his target. "LIGHTNING MAGIC: Thunder Storm!"
Akio backed away from the fatal blow, watching as violent sparks engulfed the point of impact. Almost instantly, Law ripped his arm out of the creature's gut, wheezing with exhaustion. "Huff..." he gasped. "This time, you cost me a move I've been practicing for weeks, you pathetic brat."
"FAILURE... FIGHT... CONTINUES!" the entity roared.
Despite the gaping hole in its stomach, the lack of blood proved the attack's futility. The entity's hands moved to the wound, and with minimal effort, the flesh knit back together as if it were nothing.
"OH, GREAT! This bastard has a healing factor now?!" Law snapped, his composure slipping. "I suppose if I rip an arm off, you'll just grow that back too, right?!"
"Brother, watch out! He seems to be getting stron—"
POP.
The sound of something snapping echoed between them. It wasn't a roar, nor a fatal explosion; it was a dry, almost pathetic sound, like a bubble bursting. Standing right in front of Law, the entity stared intently at the face of the one who had once called him brother.
"Why... why... why do you do this?" the entity asked, its voice dragged out, heavy with deep-seated sorrow.
Startled by the sudden proximity, Law threw a desperate punch straight into Giyo's face. It was a knee-jerk reaction born of pure terror. "AKIO! GRAB PAN AND GET OUT OF HERE!" Law roared. "I'll handle this bastard!"
Law began to shape another lightning blade in his palm, but the toll was evident: blood streamed from his nose, a clear sign that he was losing control and pushing his mana past the breaking point. With no other choice and seeing the suicidal resolve in Law's eyes, Akio simply nodded. He snatched Pan up and fled down the hallway almost instantly.
"So, this is how you play? I see... I shall do the same," the entity declared.
Raising his palm, Giyo began to channel all the black energy radiating from his burning body, condensing it into a single, infinitesimal point. It held a different aura—a gravitational presence that seemed to pull everything toward it, warping light and sound alike.
Leveling his fingers, the entity spoke: "DEMONIC TECHNIQUE: VOID!"
As the shot fired, Law threw himself to the floor in pure, unadulterated terror. The sphere tore through the hallway in a fraction of a second. In an eyeblink, the mansion's grand entrance and the sprawling gardens were... utterly erased.
The shockwave rolled across the entire kingdom, sounding as if a meteor had struck the earth. Without even realizing it, the entity had sounded an alarm that would reach the furthest corners of the continent.
"Hm?" The entity looked down at its hands, sensing a sudden, profound weakness. "Even with all this hatred, you lasted so little... Heh. Next time, make sure you evolve properly... brat."
Giyo collapsed backward, hitting the floor with a dull thud. He lost consciousness the very second the black flames flickered out.
COMBAT OUTCOME: DRAW BY EXHAUSTION.
MOMENTS LATER...
"Giyo... Giyo... Giyo..."
A woman's voice drifted through his mind, floating over the dark sea of his soul. Powerless to fight the void, the boy could do nothing but open his eyes to see the familiar silhouette of his teacher.
"I'M HERE! I'M OKAY!" Giyo shouted, but no one answered. His voice was swallowed by the abyss.
"It's no use. You are in a slow process of regaining consciousness. You burned through far too much mana in that last attack," a deep, haunting voice declared.
Giyo flinched at the gravelly, terrifying tone. Turning around, he came face-to-face with the demon once more.
"Tell me... what do you want?! Why did you do this to me?!" Giyo demanded, his voice trembling.
"If I hadn't ignited your hatred, you would have slipped into a state of shock, boy." The demon rested its chin on the palm of its dominant hand, its grin widening predatorily. "Don't misunderstand me. I didn't do this to help a mere human... I simply despise seeing weaklings being ridiculed."
"What are you, exactly?" Giyo asked, trying to keep his voice steady in the face of such an overwhelming presence.
"Oh, ho! You still don't see it?" The entity gestured, pointing to every familiar trait that defined its existence. "Four arms, strange markings identical to yours, jagged horns, razor-sharp claws, and teeth... Do I really need to tell you I'm a demon? Or do you still believe in fairy tales?"
"I get it, you're a demon... we've talked about this before... but why act now?" the boy pressed.
"The seal connecting us is beginning to crack. Our 'power junction' is becoming more unstable by the day... but it's not guaranteed I'll be out in just a few days." The demon let out a heavy sigh, a sound thick with boredom and the exhaustion of eternal imprisonment. "It will take years for the seal to break completely. Still, it's better than when I was locked away for centuries, until that mediocre father of yours stuffed me inside you. At least here, I get some entertainment."
"GIYO! WAKE UP!" His teacher's voice was now booming with deafening urgency, shattering the darkness of his subconscious.
"I see you're about to wake. Fine... just get out of here and pretend I was never here," the demon commanded, its silhouette beginning to fade into the mist of Giyo's mind.
Giyo followed his teacher's voices; his steps were light, yet heavy with a profound sense of worry. Before crossing the threshold of consciousness, he paused. He turned back toward the darkness and asked a single question, timed to the frantic thumping of his heart:
"Hey... what is your name?"
"A name?" the demon repeated. Its eyes widened in genuine surprise at such an innocent, almost childlike question. A slow grin spread across its face—not out of pity, but from the realization that no one recognized it in this new era that was destined to be conquered.
"Call me... GIYAKO, THE DEMON OF CHAOS."