Born to burn

5. THE HIDDEN SHADOWS II. _____________________

CHILDREN OF THE DOOMED

•

Edge of Seattle. Parking lot just beyond the Lavender Lodge Motel. Rain. Midnight.

•

„Damn, I missed you, brother.” Kaito said with a nostalgic smile.

„F.uck… I think I’m gonna cry. So touching Paps.” The voice dropped from the tree above like sarcasm in stereo. Then a thud, and Yoshiro Fujiwara hit the ground with his usual dramatic flair, lava-slick boots crunching gravel. He leaned against the trunk like he owned the storm. Haruto’s head turned slowly. He didn’t need to look to know.

„S.hut your mouth, Yoshi…” He didn’t even bother with volume. Just a quiet warning stitched with exhaustion before he appeared. Raiken. From the shadows, movement. A ripple of air. A twist in time. He stepped out, cut from dusk and silence, his coat heavy with gravity and precision.

„Wouldn’t think you’d be interested in your cousin enough to crawl out of the dark.” Haruto’s voice was soft, but it carried like frost down bone. No judgment. Just a fact. Another spark shimmered near the streetlamp. A girl leaned lazily against the post, arms crossed, earrings humming faintly. Akari stepped forward, the streetlight bending slightly above her, as if the current feared her mood. She didn’t speak right away, just arched a brow, silver chain glinting against her throat like a drawn whisper. The wind danced around her fingers.

„Tch. Drama queens.” It was dry, unimpressed, and laced with that razor-smooth arrogance only Akari could carry. She stepped out from the glow like it bored her, one boot crushing glass that hadn’t dared sparkle under her. Lightning flickered briefly in the chain around her neck. Her gaze swept across them like a storm looking for somewhere to land.

„You all act like it’s the end of the world.” She said, popping her gum.

„But it’s just Saturday.” She flashed a crooked grin. Raiken didn’t even blink. Yoshiro grinned. Haruto exhaled slowly. He had a headache now. He knew it.

„I told Himari we shouldn’t have let them play together.” Kaito muttered under his breath. The puddle by the parking lot stirred, not with ripples, but with resonance. Water didn’t ripple when it was claimed. It bowed. Hinata emerged from it like dusk pulled through a wave. No splash. No warning. Just rising. Her eyes were unreadable. Her voice is soft.

„You have a lot of explaining to do… Father.” She tilted her head at Haruto, hair gleaming wet where it hadn’t dried yet. Her tail flicked once, translucent in the dim motel light. Haruto exhaled, sharply. Not fear. Not guilt. But recognition. He wasn’t facing children. He was facing blood. And it remembered itself.

„Well, well…” Yoshiro grinned widely, arms spread like a devil before a family portrait.

„Almost the whole damn lineup. If we weren’t all so f.ucked up, I might actually cry.” His mocking remark sank into silence. Then Raiken spoke.

„That’s enough, Yoshi.” Raiken didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. His words landed like a dropped star, and the silence that followed bowed to him instinctively. And then…

„Duh. We came for our cousin, Papa.” Her voice was sing-song, electric. A flash crackled from the motel’s sign and blew out a bulb. Akari stood there, sparking at the edges, licking a lollipop and batting her lashes.

„She’s ours. You didn’t think we’d just sit this one out, did you?” She giggled, and the air buzzed faintly in response.

Haruto’s eye twitched.

„For the record, I told them to stay the h.ell out of this.” Kaito pinched the bridge of his nose.

„Yeah, you also told me to stop sleeping with bounty hunters.” Akari said brightly.

„Look how that turned out.” She rolled her eyes and smirked. Hinata blinked slowly. Yoshiro was laughing so hard he choked. Raiken just closed his eyes like he was recalculating reality. Haruto looked like he was about to fold the entire parking lot into a singularity.

„We are so f.ucked.” Kaito finally muttered. And still, in the motel window above them, Phoenix slept. Unaware that her bloodline, her family had just arrived in full force. The Fujiwaras weren’t quiet anymore. Nor had they ever been. They just waited in the shadows. Waited for the fire that would bring them together again. Now? They’d come. Not as strangers. But as legacy. And the world? The world would never be ready. Not for them.

Not for what was coming next. Not for the family whose name still echoed like a curse behind every Council ward and shattered prophecy. The Fujiwara had gathered and Gods help anyone who tried to touch what was theirs.

•

Moments later Raiken’s penthouse in the time crack above Silverton.

•

Only those marked in blood and memory could find it. And tonight? It was full. The penthouse above Silverton wasn’t anchored in the sky. It floated in a wound, where time cracked sideways and space forgot its math. The windows showed no skyline, just echoes. City lights flickered like ghosts across invisible water. The room breathed distortion, slow and heavy, as if sound itself bowed before entering. Raiken stood near the edge, back to the room, sleeves rolled to his forearms, hands folded behind his back. The floor beneath him shimmered slightly, gravity obeying his stillness like a held breath. Behind him, chaos was arriving.

„You want to tell us now?” Yoshiro’s voice cracked through the air like a bottle thrown at the wall.

„You both knew about her. Knew she existed. And we’re just finding out now?!” His boots slammed the floor with every step. The marble hissed under the heat bleeding from his aura. Haruto didn’t flinch. He stood near the drinks cabinet, arms crossed, robe undisturbed.

„She was hidden for her protection.” His voice was calm. Ancient. Iron-wrapped velvet.

„No, she was abandoned.” Akari stepped in from the left, sparks skipping off her shoulders like impatient fireflies.

„You hid her, you lied to us, and now you’re shocked she’s lighting up the Council’s radar like a d.amn flare?” She snapped, eyes flashing with electric betrayal.

„Language.” Raiken murmured, still not turning. His voice folded space around it.

„Oh, f***k you, shadow-boy.” Akari snapped, electricity dancing across her knuckles.

„You knew too, didn’t you? Mister 'I-see-all-in-my-gravity-bubble.' Don’t act like you didn’t sniff this coming for miles.” She hissed the words like lightning threatening to arc. Raiken turned, slowly. No emotion. Just that pressure, like the whole room tilted in his favour.

„I knew…yes, but knowing is not interfering and you are shouting into a space that folds noise into knives. Control yourselves.” His eyes pulsed with subtle starlight, the galaxy behind them briefly visible.

„Control?!” Yoshiro laughed, arms wide, lava cracking across his collarbones like veins of fury.

„She’s one of us! A Fujiwara! And you wanted to let the Council erase her? Again?!” Akari leaned against the black-glass piano, voice like snowfall, soft but impossible to ignore.

„You both made that choice for us. For her. You don’t get to act noble now.” Her words cut like deep water. Cold. Slow. Final. Hinata? She was silent, hood up, blade strapped to her back, fingers twitching in rhythm against her thigh. But her silence said more than any shout. She hadn’t sat down. She didn’t intend to. Kaito finally threw up his hands.

„Everyone breathe. D.amn. This is why we don’t do reunions. No one here ever had an inside voice.” He muttered, grabbing a drink off the table like it might help.

„You’re the reason we need therapy.” Akari shot back, eyes sparking.

„You are therapy…” Kaito muttered.

„Look. We didn’t tell you because she’d be hunted. Himari died for her and we somehow managed to hide her from the Council. We planted another child there. They thought Phoenix was dead. Therefore, if any of you got near her, the Council might find her sooner.” His voice dropped, low with weight. With memory.

„Well, they know now, Father.” Raiken said. His tone didn’t rise, but the gravity around his feet did.

„And they will come in force.” Hinata’s voice cut across the tension. Quiet. Unforgiving.

„So what’s your plan? Enlighten us, Father.” She asked, eyes fixed on Haruto like he owed her blood. Everyone stilled. Even the air. Raiken turned his gaze toward her. Then toward Haruto.

„We protect her, and we fight.” Haruto said. Simple. Final. Like stone refusing to crack. Yoshiro grinned. Not his usual manic one, this one had weight. Like he’d been waiting for someone to say it for sixteen years.

„Finally.” He whispered, lava pulsing brighter across his forearms. Akari’s hands sparked.

„About d.amn time.” She said, twisting the chain around her fingers like she wanted it to snap. Raiken stepped forward, coat shifting like gravity realigned.

„Then we begin preparations. Because when the Council moves…”

„They won’t move, not yet.” Haruto said, voice low, cut from steel and shadow. They all turned.

„They’re gonna call up the Twelve and decide her fate.” He continued, and even his voice carried a flinch beneath the conviction.

„That’s f.ucking b.ullshit and you know it!” Yoshiro screamed, magma flaring up the wall behind him.

„They’ll send Gravesingers for her just like they did for Himari!” He spat.

„You’ll let her die again. But we won’t let that happen!” Akari snapped, stepping forward with enough voltage in her aura to short the lights. And that’s when Haruto lost his calm. Brutally.

„Enough!!!” He shouted like a tornado coming at you with vengeance.

„That’s enough!” The wind twisted inside the penthouse. The walls breathed inward. Every flickering light stilled.

„We’ve protected her for sixteen years! I’ve died for her in the eyes of the Council just to be able to watch and hide in the shadow!” His words were not just loud, they were heavy. Runes shimmered down his sleeves like restrained wrath.

„I won’t let you disrespect us any longer!” His voice cracked the floor beneath him. The piano trembled. Even the ghost-lights in the corners dimmed.

„She’s Fujiwara. She’s one of us. And she will remain just that!” He ended, breath torn between grief and fury, gaze burning straight through them.

Silence followed. But not peace. The kind of silence that only comes after lightning hits bone. Yoshiro’s chest heaved. Sparks still crawled up his arms, but he looked down now, jaw clenched. Akari turned away first. Her eyes were bright, but not from voltage anymore. Raiken stepped forward, slow, deliberate. The gravity eased with him.

„We weren’t trying to disrespect you.” He said, his voice quiet but clear, the tone more correction than retreat.

„We just didn’t know.” Yoshiro rubbed a hand over his face.

„Sh.it…” He muttered. Then, after a pause, he turned back to Haruto.

„I’m sorry, uncle.” The words were rough, but real.

„We just…she’s one of us. You should’ve told us.” Haruto didn’t move at first. But then he gave a slow nod.

„I know. We should have.” His voice dropped, a worn edge of regret in it.

„But I didn’t because if they’d found out… they’d have come for all of you too.” His voice filled with concern and yes, he loved all of them. They were his family. His blood.

„Pfft.” Kaito snorted. He stepped toward the bar again and poured himself another drink.

„Still got it.” He muttered with a smirk.

„You always were the scary one.” Haruto arched a brow, unimpressed.

Kaito raised his glass.

„I mean that with love.” Akari stepped back into the centre of the room, folding her arms.

„So what… she just… grew up human?” She looked stunned. Like the word tasted foreign. Hinata spoke softly from the corner.

„No magic? No power? No training?” She asked, the disbelief barely restrained. Haruto’s jaw tightened.

„I had cloaked her magic and her power…enough to mask her from the Council’s scryers. Yes, she lives like a human. She believes she is one.” Haruto lowers his head.

„F.uck.” Yoshiro muttered, running both hands through his hair.

„That’s… cruel Uncle.” He added.

„Necessary.” Haruto said. But the word hurt. Raiken exhaled slowly.

„No training. No knowledge. No idea who she is.” He glanced toward the window, where the rain streaked sideways across time-distorted glass.

„And now her powers are bleeding through the seams.” Akari shook her head.

„That's very dangerous…” She murmured, playing with a lightbulb.

„We’re not angry that you hid her. Not anymore.” She looked straight at Haruto.

„We’re angry that she had to suffer alone.” She tilted her head deep in her thoughts.

„She won’t anymore.” Hinata added, stepping forward. Her voice was soft, but absolute. Akari nodded.

„That’s right.” She crossed her arms. Sparks curled around her fingers like a vow.

„From now on? She’s not going through any of this sh.it alone.” Yoshiro stood up.

„We’ll all watch over her.” Raiken said, like a command disguised as a promise.

„Each of us.” Yoshiro cracked his knuckles.

„Anyone tries to come for her…Gravesingers, Council dogs, cursed gods or f.ucking moon priestesses?” He grinned widely.

„They’ll have to go through us and they’ll regret it.” Akari shouted too, voice like a lightning blade being drawn from the sky. Haruto looked at them, truly looked. His gaze passed from Raiken to Hinata, to Akari, to Yoshiro, and for the first time in a long time, his silence didn’t feel like retreat. It felt like trust.

„She’s still sleeping.” He said, quietly.

„She doesn’t know who she is yet.”

„Then we keep it that way.” Kaito said, raising his glass again.

„Until she’s ready. Until her blood wakes up for real. We hold the line.” Akari smirked, lightning kissing her shoulder.

„Fujiwaras don’t run.” Yoshiro grinned.

„Fujiwaras burn.” Raiken looked toward the fractured skyline outside the window. The city echoed faintly in the time crack’s distortion, shimmering in war-light and omen.

„Fujiwaras fight.” Haruto exhaled. Slowly.

„No...” He corrected, voice like wind through temple bells.

„Fujiwaras just returned.”