Chapter 12: Red Letter
804 Words
Chapter 12: Red Letter
Aric Blackthorn’s days bled into one another with a numb and gnawing difficulty. Though Lucien Blackthorn acknowledged him as a direct bloodline, he made no illusions about favoritism. In the halls of Clan Blackthorn, mercy was a forgotten dialect, and Aric was expected to survive it all alone: a lamb cast among wolves armed with obsidian teeth.
When he failed to evolve at twelve, the cold got colder.
Lucien had once glimpsed a flicker of potential in Aric, hoping that perhaps, just perhaps, the boy might awaken a spark from the ash of his father’s legend. But Aric’s failure to evolve was a scar on the clan’s pride, one Lucien could not let fester. So he threw Aric at the abyss, again and again, hurling him into encounters with the darkness beasts that festered in the outskirts—hoping violence might awaken virtue.
After two years of silence and failure, even hope gave up.
And now, the latest mission was not a test, but an execution dressed as duty.
High above the courtyard, Corvin clenched his fists, his figure ghosting from view like a shadow ashamed of its own pity.
…
Pain was the world.
It seared through Aric’s nerves in rhythmic waves, stabbing his spine and threading white heat through his vision. His blood left a trail on the stone floor, stark against obsidian tiles.
Still, Aric walked. Measured, resolute, cruelly straight-backed—like a corpse too proud to fall.
His eyes, twin embers of diluted rage, burned forward.
The verses of the Blackthorn Creed echoed in his skull:
Only pain proves purpose.
Each step was a declaration, his silence a hymn to defiance.
He reached his room, shoved the door closed with the heel of a boot, then staggered to the tray beside his bed.
Devil’s Fruit. Pale, thorn-veined, and humming with wrongness.
He stepped forward—then froze.
His legs buckled. A scream of tendons. A loss of pride.
Aric collapsed like a marionette with cut strings, his cheek slamming into cold stone.
Groaning, his breath came in short, wet bursts. Bulging veins throbbed across his arms and neck, grotesque and electric. One shaking hand reached for the tray.
The hallway swam. His lungs screamed.
“Move,” he rasped.
His fingers clawed forward inch by inch, nails splitting. The fruit gleamed like salvation behind glass.
Closer.
But the world tilted again, black and spinning, and his hand dropped limp.
The green glow of his life monitor flared orange, pulsing like a warning heartbeat.
Then: motion. A whisper. The door clicked open.
Something placed the fruit into his palm.
His hand spasmed. He didn’t question. He bit.
Sharp rind, sour-sweet flesh, nectar of monsters. Devil’s Fruit poured into him like fire and oil.
He chewed, swallowed, devoured. Another fruit appeared. He consumed it without memory.
Relief came as a waterfall: flushing out pain, patching torn muscles, quieting the rebellion of nerves.
His eyelids drooped. His vision caught a silhouette—Seris. Watching, wordless. A quiet sentinel beneath his storm.
Sleep caught him in its talons.
…
Dreams turned into nightmares, as they always did.
When Aric awoke, pain welcomed him with open arms. The sun cast knives of gold through his window.
He wiped tear tracks from his cheeks with trembling fingers and rose from the sheets.
Each joint rebelled.
He stumbled to the mirror. Breathing shallow. Shirtless. Bloodied.
Scars like constellations danced across his torso.
Some wounds still wept.
“Still no Vita retention,” he muttered bitterly.
Any other Blackthorn would have healed overnight, but not Aric. His body rejected even stolen life.
He returned to his bedside and tore into more Devil’s Fruit, desperation masquerading as routine.
Minutes passed. His wounds closed. But the scars remained.
More now.
He lost count of them months ago.
And yet, one thing pulsed louder than the pain:
Someone had saved him.
Seris.
He remembered her face. He always did.
A knock at the door.
He turned. “Come in.”
Seris stepped in, head bowed, shadow long.
“Ninth Vein,” she said softly.
He stared at her. “You helped me?”
She said nothing, but the bow deepened.
“Thank you.”
Genuine. Flat. A kindness shaped like a dagger.
Her fingers clenched. He saw it.
“What is it?”
He noticed the envelope. Red wax. Black seal.
His heart dropped. He already knew.
Seris hesitated, then offered the letter.
“From the Blood Sovereign, Ninth Vein.”
Aric took it. Hands steady.
He read.
Then read it again.
His vision flickered.
His throat clenched.
He lowered the letter slowly, breath shallow.
“He’s sending me to the Pits.”
The words barely escaped his lips.
He sat down, dazed.
And the silence that followed pressed against the walls like a curse with teeth.
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