After departing Akira’s makeshift secret base, the two groups headed in opposite directions. I followed behind Akira, and Raza trailed behind the two of us. The sun was starting to set by the time we arrived in the shopping district. Most of the local stores were still open, as it wasn’t even dark yet.

Akira stopped in front of a locally owned candy store. A young couple had taken over the place after the previous owner had passed away a few months ago, I remember seeing them moving in when it had happened. I got a bad feeling about this, they had a young son, only five or six years old.

“Akira…” I started to speak, but he raised his hand for me to stop. He nodded to himself, and walked up to the store. The owner’s son was playing by the store entrance, and the young boy froze in fear when he saw the imposing size of the full grown man.

“Yo! You look like the boss around here, so can you help my friends and I pick out some candy?” Akira squatted down to be closer to eye level with him, pointed over his shoulder at us when he talked. The boy’s expression softened immediately, and he went from being scared to excited. “Keep an eye out, Takeru, I’ll be right back.”

Raza and I stood outside, leaving me with just the sour mood of the Daeva. The awkward silence was palpable. I wasn’t sure what to say to her, I knew something was bothering her, but what?

“Hey, Raza…” I started to speak, but she interrupted me almost immediately. Finally, I learned what was bothering her.

“You called her chan, what was that about?!” her voice trembling, she raised it a bit more than she probably intended. “Sara-chan… since when did your relationship progress that far?!”

“T-There’s nothing going on between us, we just got into a fistfight the other day, and… and…” my face flushed redder than a tomato as I remembered the events of that day. This unfortunate, automatic response, made Raza flare up with rage.

“Something did happen, I knew it!”

“Oops, looks like I walked into a lover’s quarrel.” Akira jumped into the conversation, and our attention snapped to him. In his hand was a plastic bag filled with various sweets, and the young boy waved happily to him from the doorway, telling us to come back soon. The older man leaned in and whispered to the two of us, a solemn expression on his face. “Yeah, that kid is definitely the Shardbarer, man… this is a problem.”

“We can’t just take him with us, that’s a crime…” I replied, and my companions nodded. “And we can’t guard him every hour of the day, either. The Light will send soldiers, but even if we defeat them, it’s not like they’ll just stop.”

Akira sighed, standing back a step and scratching his chin. “It’s a real pickle, I’ve been faced with situations like this before… lost a lot of shards because protecting them isn’t feasible… we should regroup with the others.”

My mind froze, the pulse of dark energy I had felt before washing over me again, but even strong this time. From the sweat drop forming on Akira’s forehead, he had felt it just as strongly. We looked back to the shop, and I felt like a vice had squeezed my heart. The young boy doubled over, coughing violently. His parents rushed to his side, but they couldn’t do anything about what he was suffering.

“Aniki…” I started to speak, the older man nodding before I could finish my thought out loud. He knew what was going on, and so did I. the power within the boy spiked even stronger, a monstrous amount of Ahriman’s energy flowing out of such a small body.

“This is really bad, Takeru-chan… he’s too young to handle this kind of awakening… he’ll lose himself!” Akira started sprinting towards the couple and the suffering child. They looked confused when he came back, and he quickly gave a fake answer. “I’m a doctor, let me see him.”

I stared at the scene, unsure of what to do. My body was frozen with terror. The primal fear of Ahriman’s soul emanated from this child, soaking down to my bones. I shuddered, hugging my arms against my body.

The boy screamed, his shirt tearing apart as two black feathered wings burst from his shoulder blades. The size of his body rapidly began to change, his limbs twisting into clawed, monstrous appendages. A shockwave threw Akira back, and the body trashed around. In horror, his parents stood motionless as their sun transformed into a monster before their eyes.

“Stop it, don’t give in to those invading thoughts, you have to hold them back!” Akira shouted, trying to stand up against the whirlwind of dark energy swirling around us. But it was too late. With an inhuman cry, the rampaging Shard of Ahriman lashed out with its claws, scattering blood across the pavement. His parent’s bodies fell with a thud against the ground, a sickening squelching sound following as his clawed foot stomped against his mother’s dying body. He couldn’t recognize the people around him, he was being driven by pure instinct, pure terror.

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The boy screeched like a wild animal, his hands clawing at his own face. With every second he became less recognizable as a human being, his transformation was even more violent than my classmate’s had been.

“What a shame, if he had awakened at an older age, he would have been a powerful ally to have.” Akira sighed and turned away, beginning to walk down the street.

“What the hell are you doing, Aniki?! We can’t leave him like this, we need to do something to help him!” I was shocked at the callous actions of Akira, who had evidently decided to abandon him the moment things went wrong.

“It’s too late, Takeru!” he cried out, his fist shaking at his side. The older man struggled not to break down, emotion overwhelming it. “Once you’re this lost, your human soul has been devoured! There’s nothing left of him to save, and if we stay here we’ll just get into an unnecessary fight with the angel dispatched to execute him!”

The berserk Heir of Ahriman lunged forward, attacking Akira. Those Shards that go berserk turn irrational towards the other Shards, attempting to kill them to become whole again. That’s what happened with my classmate, Kouta, and it was repeated here.

Akira caught the devil’s attack with two fingers, then, with a single punch, silenced his cries. His untransformed fist shattered the body of the berserk Shard, punching clean through him. He was unbelievably strong, I realized how foolish I had been to try and fight him before, I stood no chance.

As the body of the monster landed on the ground, Akira sighed deeply. He looked up to the sky, his eyes closed. A single tear ran down his face, which he seemed to ignore. And then he spoke, a weary tone escaping his lips. “Damn… we’re too late… they’re here.”

Unlike the mechanical wings of Saraviael, the two holy warriors that descended before us sported natural, feathered wings, six sets each on the two male angels. They landed at the smoldering corpse of the berserk shard, watching as their prey vanished before their eyes just as they had arrived.

One wore white robes and golden armor, a massive spear in their right hand. The other wore dark gray robes and was adorned in silver armor, he too held a spear. They turned their attention to the three of us, having noticed the presence of other citizens of darkness.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Akira gritted his teeth. He pushed me aside roughly to stand between the angels and Raza and I, his body shaking in… fear? “You should get out of here, Takeru-chan, things just got more dangerous than I anticipated.”

“I’m not running away from a fight and leaving you in a disadvantaged position, you’re outnumbered!” I replied, but he refused to listen to me. He was already prepared with his response, which he shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Those are Seraphim, Takeru! They’re not like that angel you protected from me before, these are the real deal!”

“The awakened Shard has perished… but it appears there are two more, and a Daeva.” The golden Seraphim looked up from the corpse, his emotionless eyes passing between the three of us. “Let us clean up before we return.”

“And here I thought I wouldn’t get to play, looks like my lucky day!” the second, more jovial angel replied, twirling his golden spear lightly in his hand.

“Sorry, you’re right.” Akira said, a wave of power surging from within him. It was so much stronger than when he had attacked Sara, just how strong was he? “I just wanted to protect you, but you can take care of yourself.”

“Hmm, this one is familiar…” the golden angel looked up and down Akira, his blank face unchanging. “So you’re the one responsible for slaying so many of our kin, To think we’d find you here, most fortunate of us.”

“Oh? Am I really that famous on the other side?” Akira smirked, his body beginning to change. “Then we can skip the introduction and go straight to me stamping out those stupid faces of yours!” His muscles bulged, his skin slowly darkened into a charcoal gray. Three horns extended out from his forehead, curving backwards over his head. Around his body formed crimson armor, two additional mechanical arms bursting out of the back of his shoulder blades. It was a full transformation, completely unlike my own. He was no longer just Akira, but a reincarnation of Ahriman.

“He’s on another level… damn, he was going easy on me before.” I gasped, stunned by the brilliance of his transformation. “It’s nothing like when I use my power.”

“Nah, you idiots have something in common.” Raza spoke for the first time in close to an hour. “Look, see anything missing?”

“He didn’t summon… a weapon?” I looked back at her to confirm, and she nodded that I was correct. The Suura, the weapons formed from our soul energy, had manifested as spiked gauntlets on his fists, rather than a sword or a spear.

“Takeru, you take the silver one, he might be a Seraphim, but he’s pretty young compared to goldy over here.” Akira clinked his armored fists together, stepping towards the gilded angel. “Show me the power of your soul, unleash your Saocant Urvan if you want to survive… because I’m not gonna pull any punches, you bozo.”

Akira flew into the air, A burst of orange energy erupting from his body and propelling him miles into the sky. The golden angel accepted his challenge and launched himself into the air, his golden spear trailing behind him.

“A newly awakened Shard and a third rate Daeva… Why do I always get the boring fights?” the silver angel complained, his shoulders slumping in defeat. I could feel the power difference between us, but I wasn’t scared. With Raza at my side, I confidently stepped forward, forming the Suura around my left arm.

“I’ll try not to bore you, featherface!”

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