Born to burn

8. WHAT WAS BURIED II. _________________________

FEZ’S PLACE – 3:45 A.M. TUESDAY.

•

„That’s Fujiwara.” Ash scrolled.

„Haruto. Windborn. First son. Prodigy. Designed silence wards before he turned five. Could blindside an Oracle by seven. He never questioned. Never faltered. Until Himari died.” Fez’s jaw clenched.

„Council listed him as dead, two days after Himari’s car crash. Internal tag: Final Silence.” Ash shook his head.

„No body?” Fez asked, already knowing the answer.

„None.” Ash said.

„Which means he chose it. He vanished himself.” Kimi narrowed her eyes.

„That’s not disappearance. That’s shadowing. You don’t vanish like that unless you’re watching something. Or someone.” Fez’s voice was low.

„He was shielding Phoenix. Masking her aura. He suppressed her magic and power since that day...” Fez said it like a revelation he’d been choking on for hours.

„That’s why we couldn’t read her. He buried her in shadow. His shadow.” Ash sat back, jaw slack, overwhelmed.

„So we’ve got Himari. Haruto. Kaito. But that’s not the end of the tree. There are more.” Kimi’s head snapped toward him, eyes sharp enough to bleed stone.

„What the f***k?! Really?” Her voice cracked across the table. Ash pointed to the open record.

„Haruto had a daughter. Hinata.” Ash’s voice dropped as he read.

„Her mother was a Siren. That’s water and wind. A double affinity… air and ocean, storm and undertow.” He looked up, eyes wide.

„She’s known for mind-siphoning and voicecraft. Codename: Hollow Hymn.” Fez stiffened like someone had just walked over his grave.

„That’s not just a hybrid.” He said slowly.

„That’s weaponised seduction. Siren blood doesn’t whisper. It drowns. Wind doesn’t bend. It breaks.” Ash kept reading, voice lower now.

„She can thread thoughts out of your skull like silk. Pull memories through a song. Force you to remember pain you never lived. Or make you crave her like she’s oxygen.” Kimi’s lips parted like she forgot how to breathe.

„Her voice doesn’t echo. It devours sound. A scream inside your mind that never stops repeating. You don’t just hear her. You feel her. In your spine.” Fez muttered.

„Codename makes sense.” Ash added, almost reverently…

„They tried to collar her when she was nine. Tried to bind her throat with black-iron chains. One handler drowned in a hallway. Another went mute. Permanently. And after that, they stopped trying.” Kimi hissed, like the words tasted of blood.

„S.hit. That’s not magic. That’s a curse.” Fez nodded once.

„That’s Hinata Fujiwara. Beautiful. Lethal.” Ash tapped again.

„Then there’s Kaito’s line. Three kids. All alive. All off-grid. All f.ucking nightmares in the making.”

„Raiken…” Ash muttered, flipping a scorched page with care.

„Eldest. Mageborn. Gravity and space-time. The Riftborn Prince.” Ash almost whispers as he's looking through the scripts.

„He was born during an eclipse.” Ash went on, voice dipping low.

„The clock broke the second he took his first breath. No cry. No scream. Just blinked and time cracked.” Kimi stiffened.

„He’s the one they called 'Eventide.' Gravity’s pulse. The black star.” Fez sat back, exhaling.

„Gravity doesn’t bend around him.” Ash added.

„It obeys.”

„And his magic?” Kimi asked. Fez nodded slowly.

„The boy who made a battlefield kneel without lifting a sword.”

„Time magic. Aetherborn Entropy. Space and time fused. It says he doesn’t fight fast, he slows the world down. Freezes seconds like breath.” Kimi crossed her arms.

„And when he does move? It’s not teleportation. It’s rewriting. Like the universe apologising for placing him too far away.” Ash nodded.

„Voidstep. Graviton distortion. Doesn’t break you with force. Breaks you with gravity that forgets you’re allowed to stand.” Fez’s voice dipped.

„His glamour doesn’t lure. It fractures. You see futures that hurt. You forget what was real. And if you try to strike him? You’ll realise you already did and lost.” Silence pressed in.

„He’s not loud. Not poetic. Just inevitable. Loyalty to him is permanent.” Fez answered.

„He’s not heir. He’s the anomaly. The timeline breaker. The one who made the future obey.” Fez’s voice was glass-sharp.

„If anyone touches what’s his? He won’t kill them. He’ll erase the version of reality that allowed them to live.” Ash’s finger slid to the next line.

„Then…Yoshiro. Middle son. Unseelie Fae mother. Shadows and soulflame.” Ash scanned the screen, eyes widening.

„Yeah...” Ash swallowed.

„They call him the Ash Lion. His soul was born burning. He didn’t cry when he was born, he cracked the tile. First breath and the floor smoked.”

„He’s the one who marked a Warden with fae fire in broad daylight.” Kimi added, stunned.

„Fae-born hybrids aren’t supposed to survive puberty without imploding.”

„Yea, but he didn’t just survive. He thrived. Walked into the Unseelie trials and demanded exile. Won. By choice.” Ash said, voice thick with awe. They looked with open mouths. The fates which were unravelling beneath their fingers and their screens? They were all written in blood.

„They also call him the Hound of Mirrors.” Fez whispered.

„Because nothing reflects what he is. Nothing survives.” Ash tapped the file again, breath catching.

„His magic… It’s called Vulcan Pulse. Magmatic. Earth and Fire fused at the marrow. He doesn’t summon magma. He is magma. His skin cracks with it. His blood hisses with it. Every time he gets angry, the room swells with heat.” Ash continued amazed by the powers and the strengths which Fujiwara created just by mixing species and creating f.ucking walking atomic bombs infused by their Kekkei Genkai…innate ability of elemental origin.

„He creates lava creatures from his rage.” Kimi added, eyes narrowing.

„Snakes, lions, f.ucking bears… all made of fire and stone. And they fight like pieces of his soul broke off and are hunting.” Fez’s jaw flexed.

„Coreform. That’s what they call it. His entire body goes obsidian and fire. He stops being a boy. Starts being an eruption. F.ucking walking Volcano…” Kimi exhaled, slowly.

„He fights like it and laughs while cities fall. And his final move? They call it Core Detonation. Turns miles of ground into f.ucking glass.” Fez read and his eyes were frozen. Stunned.

„He’s Kaito’s son alright.” Fez muttered, jaw clenched with admiration and fear.

„Chaos incarnate. Fire and stone wrapped in skin. The one who doesn’t flinch when the world burns, he starts it.” Ash smirked.

„And Phoenix is his cousin...their cousin…” The room held still, the air crackling with unspoken possibilities. Because if that bloodline was awakening again? The world wasn’t nearly f.ucking ready.

„And then… there’s the youngest. Akari.” Ash said, tapping a screen with a flick of his finger.

„Daughter of Kaito and a demoness from the southern bloodlines.” Kimi blinked.

„Wait. A double Demon?” She was taken aback by it.

„Yup. Codename: Blightblessed.” Ash replied, voice dipped in awe.

„Her magic eats spells. Unravels wards. Turns blessings into hexes.” Kimi hissed through her teeth.

„She was born in a blackout. Hospitals fried. Cities blinked out. She didn’t cry, she short-circuited a prefecture. Came into the world giggling with lightning in her veins.” Kimi read it like a prophecy, and maybe it was.

„Stormpulse.” Ash muttered.

„A very rare fusion, electricity and light. But hers is corrupted. Weaponized. Sentient. The Council didn’t even try to classify her. They just marked her Uncontainable.” Ash chuckled, cause it's so typical.

„Her aura’s all pop rocks and war warnings.” Kimi added, breathless. „Like sugar-laced chaos wrapped in a stun grenade.” Ash couldn’t help but grin.

„She doesn’t summon storms. She is one. Doesn’t fly. She flashes. Doesn’t glow. She shorts out circuits.” Fez looked grim now.

„They call her Hexline in the underground. A system myth. When she enters a room, retinal scans twitch, data leaks start singing, and reality rewrites itself like it’s obeying her heartbeat.” Ash chuckled darkly. „And her favourite trick? Neuroflash. She hijacks the neural signals of your brain. Mid-conversation. Mid-fight. Mid-kiss. You forget your name before you even blink.” Kimi shook her head.

„F.uckin’ hell. That’s not magic. That’s a system breach in girl form.” Fez muttered, almost reverently.

„She doesn’t control electricity. She commands it. And it doesn’t resist. It obeys.” Ash leaned back with a wild grin.

•

FEZ’S PLACE – 6:03 A.M. TUESDAY

•

„And the worst part? She makes it look h.ella cute.” Fez stood slowly, eyes locked on the centre of the table like he could see through time.

„And still… none of them compare to Himari.” The air changed. Not just silent, held. Ash blinked and his voice came quietly.

„She was a synthesis. Four bloodlines wrapped in one body, but she was different from her brothers…” Kimi sat down hard, her breath caught.

„She didn’t cast spells. She was one.” Ash stared ahead, but his words curled like memory.

„Her Kekkei Genkai… it wasn’t a single element. It was multiple…fire and water…ice… They call it Frostfire. An elemental paradox. Fire that forces. Ice that cancels. A living contradiction.” Fez’s voice dropped further.

„She was war.” Fez nodded.

„The Burnt Oath. The exile who lived. A mother who believed in one thing, her daughter.” Ash’s eyes flicked toward the window, as if even outside had started listening.

„And Phoenix?” Fez didn’t answer right away. His gaze drifted past them, past the table, past the walls. Like he wasn’t looking at the room, but at what came after it.

„Phoenix… probably carries all of it. The four bloods. Mage. Siren. Demon. Unseelie Fae. But… her father is an Alpha Lycan, so… she was also born Lycan.” Ash stiffened. Kimi’s jaw clenched.

„That’s f.ucking five!” She squeaked flatly.

„That’s not a hybrid. That’s a…” Her words died in her throat.

„Singularity.” Fez whispered.

„Her blood doesn’t run parallel. It converges. Not in parts. In synthesis. Like Himari… but more. Deeper. More animalistic and feral.” He continued as if he didn't understand his words.

„So what’s her Kekkei Genkai?” Ash asked, eyes flicking to the files.

„What’s her magic?” Fez shook his head once.

„There isn’t one. Not that we can track. Her readings don’t register. Her aura is warped. No pulse. No echo. Just… interference. As if she doesn’t follow the rules of magic at all.” Kimi narrowed her eyes.

„She warped the arcane system.” Ash’s voice came slower this time.

„She didn’t warp it. She has no idea of anything and yet, she broke it.” Fez shook his head.

„Unhinged, even when someone made sure to make her powerless.” Kimi blinked.

„Haruto.” She whispered.

„Of course, it's him…He cloaked her from the moment her mother died...” Fez said.

„Shrouded her with spells so old they rewrote her aura into human frequency. Made her pass beneath every scanner, every blood-check, every seer. She was raised without access to her power. Not just hidden from the Council, but from herself.” Ash swallowed.

„She thinks she’s human.”

„She is human…” Fez said.

“Not by nature. By design.” Kimi’s eyes went cold.

„Why?”

„I don't know. Maybe cause of the Council? Maybe cause of herself? Or maybe, because even Haruto feared what she might become.” Silence cracked across the table.

„So she grew up in the dark.” Fez continued.

„Power sealed. Lineage erased. Abilities locked behind blood-wards even she can’t feel. But she’s not dormant. Just buried.” Ash’s fingers tapped once.

„She doesn’t know what she is.” Kimi frowned.

„Not yet at least…“ Fez said.

„And her father?“ That question sank deep.

„Corbin Blackwood… Earth-born. The one they call Mayhem. Council-feared. Born of old blood and bound to no leash. If Himari was spell-forged… he's gravity in wolf shape. Their bond shouldn’t have been possible, but it wasn’t crafted. It was fate. Something purer. Raw. The old kind. Real.“ Ash cursed under his breath.

„Destined…” Kimi said slowly, voice jagged.

„And what about the Purity Codex?“

„It would see it as what?“ Fez didn’t hesitate.

„Legacy violation. Abomination, threat.“ Ash paled.

„And the Council would see Phoenix as…” Kimi whispered.

„Contamination… of purity…” Ash spoke his thoughts out loud.

„Clear termination order.“ Fez reacted.

„But… she’s not contaminated.” Kimi snapped.

„She’s… she’s a f.ucking legacy unfulfilled.“ She squeaked knuckles white as she felt Phoenix's life being stolen right in front of her eyes without her ever even knowing it.

„No. She’s rejected by her own family…” Fez said coldly.

„Noone wanted her born. She was the error they couldn’t predict. The price of a mother’s love and a father’s defiance. She is what happens when bloodlines cheat extinction. She’s f.ucking fated child left to rot in human world.” Ash stared down at the files.

„Motherf.ucker…“ Kimi exhaled and Fez hesitated.

„…Not for long.“ They both turned sharply. Ash’s hands had dropped from the table.

„What the f***k do you mean by that?!” She spat, but silence again.

„I said what the f***k does that suppose to mean Ash?!” Kimi jumped at him with eye twitch.

„Umn… I mean, the Council? They had no idea she is alive, but…” Her smile was grim.

„But, what?!!” Kimi stepped forward, voice edged with adrenaline.

„Correction…didn’t know.” Ash blinked.

„Four days ago. Friday, south Rainier. House fire. No accelerants. No cause. Just ignition. Magical heat signature hit three independent archives. Arcane map flaring like a bomb. Guess whose name flagged?” Ash exhaled. Low.

„Phoenix.” Kimi nodded.

„The seals are cracking. Her magic’s clawing through… too old, too wild to stay buried.” Ash glanced up, tension in his shoulders.

„And the Council felt it?” Fez’s jaw was already tight.

„Yeah. Now they’re watching and "dealing" with it probably as we speak.” Kimi muttered.

„A clueless girl born of destined bond, which broke all the “rules” our world has. Raised in pain and blood. Hidden by family. Hunted by her power.” The storm hadn’t broken yet, but the pressure was rising.

„F.ucking hell… He doesn’t know.” Ash nodded screamed.

„Who the f***k now?!” Kimi screamed again.

„No bond. No trail. Corbin’s been searching blind for her for sixteen years.” Kimi’s voice softened.

„And still… he never stopped.” Fez looked down, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. Care, compassion… protection…

„She was never meant to be found.” Fez’s voice was the last to break the silence. And for a breathless moment, the weight of that truth settled.

„Why?” Ash's misguided question cut through the stillness like a ghost stepping back into the room.

„But, she was…so, the real question is… how the f***k do we protect her if she doesn’t even know she’s in danger?” Kimi’s voice cracked. Ash rubbed his temples.

„And it won't be just the Council now. You know what happens when a hybrid that strong goes off-radar for this long and the word gets out...” Kimi muttered.

„Packs. Covens. Clans. Old Blood sects. Everyone who remembers the bans on crossbreeds. They’re gonna come crawling out of the f.ucking cracks.” Fez stood and walked to the window, as smoke curled from his fingertips.

„The Council exterminated hybrids for centuries. Said they were unstable. Unfit. Said their blood was poison to the balance.” He turned back to them.

„But the truth? They were scared.” Ash nodded slowly.

„Because hybrids didn’t follow the rules, like good little purebloods did.” Fez’s voice was quiet now.

„They tried to rewrite them.” The room went still.

„And now there is her.” Kimi’s voice trembled, not from fear, but something deeper. Awe. Fury. Grief.

„Phoenix f.ucking Blackwood. Daughter of a Fujiwara and the Moonblade Alpha. Mage, Siren, Unseelie fae, Demon… Elemental… and Lycan.” Fez’s mouth curled into something between reverence and threat. Ash blinked.

„She’s a f.ucking ticking bomb. She thinks she’s human!!! No training. No memory. No family. No nothing…” Fez closes the folder. Sets it down like it might detonate. Then he looks at both of them, voice low. Final.

„Are you in?”