Its pained growls rasped from its strong maw, but no words came, only primitive sounds of suffering. Akami frowned, his grip loosening as he studied it.
"You are definitely not from there," he muttered, his voice a mix of curiosity and disdain. "So what are you?" He released the creature, stepping back, and like a rabid dog unshackled, it lunged at him, claws slashing through the air.
Akami dodged effortlessly, his movements fluid and precise. With a flick of his wrist, the air itself bent to his will, compressing into an invisible blade so thin and swift it severed the creature's left arm before it could react. The limb fell with a wet thud, black blood gushing from the stump as the creature roared in agony, its single eye wide with shock. Akami's face remained impassive, ready to end it, until he froze, his nostrils flaring. His eyes widened as a faint, unmistakable scent hit him: his own blood, woven into the creature's stench. It was subtle, a whisper of familiarity, but it was there.
His gaze turned frigid, a dawning realization chilling his bones. "Those bastards," he snarled, his voice trembling with rage as the air around him quivered. With a furious swing of his arm, he unleashed another wind blade, this one slicing clean through the creature's neck. Its head rolled free, black blood pooling beneath it, and its body slumped lifeless to the ground. Akami's fists clenched, the load of what he'd sensed sinking in his mind, his essence, twisted into this abomination. The Orisa, he thought.
Before he could dwell further, a voice broke through the haze of his anger, gentle and soft, almost fragile. "You are strong." Akami turned, his rage softening as his eyes fell on a small figure standing amid the ruins. It was a boy, his skin, several shades lighter than Akami. No more than ten, he was bare-chested with a strip of sheep fur tied around his waist. An anklet of cowries, crafted from seashells, jingled faintly around his ankle as he stood there, unscathed amid the slaughter. Akami recognized him. One of the children who'd sat at Ajike's feet, drinking in her moonlight tales.
Surprise flickered through him. He'd thought no one survived. He squatted to the boy's level, his towering frame folding down, his cold eyes warming with concern. "Are you okay, boy?" he asked, his voice steady now, gentle as the stream he'd left behind. "Are you hurt?" He scanned the child for wounds, the fury of moments ago giving way to a protective instinct older than the village itself.
"I am fine," the boy answered, his voice steady, almost too calm for the scene around him. Akami nodded, his sharp eyes confirming the truth, no cuts, no bruises marred the boy's small frame. "What was that?" the boy asked, his head tilting toward the fallen creature.
Akami turned to glance at the decapitated monster, "I would like to find out as well," he said, his tone low, laced with unease.
He faced the boy again. "Are there other survivors?"
The boy shook his head. "Just me." He pointed toward two corpses sprawled in the distance, their forms crumpled near a shattered hut. "Mother and Father tried to fight it. Father was a hunter, and Mother tried to help him. I used to think Father was strong, but I was wrong. It killed them." His words were flat, devoid of tears or tremor, more curious than broken.
Akami's brow furrowed, surprised by the boy's composure. A child who'd watched his world unravel should be shattered, yet this one stood with an odd clarity. "Your father was strong," Akami said, his voice firm but gentle. "This monster was just different from the beasts in the forest." It was a small comfort, a truth to honor the fallen, though he knew it barely scratched the surface of what this creature represented.
The boy looked up at him and nodded, accepting the words without argument. Akami's curiosity sharpened. "Tell me, how did you go unnoticed by the monster?"
"I hid," the boy replied simply.
"Hid?" Akami tilted his head, puzzled.
"In the shadows," the boy said, as if it were the most natural thing.
Akami frowned, not grasping the meaning. Sensing his confusion, the boy turned and walked toward a shadow cast by a broken wall under the moonlight. He stepped into it, and to Akami's astonishment, his small form sank into the darkness like it was a pool of water. A heartbeat later, he emerged from another shadow a few meters away, stepping out as effortlessly as he'd vanished.
Nature's Blessed, as Akami had come to call them, were humans gifted with abilities beyond the ordinary. He'd first noticed them two hundred years ago, when he'd awakened from a century-long slumber beneath the earth, his soul fragmented but his essence enduring. The world he'd known had shifted in his absence, reshaped by time and the hands of those who'd inherited it. It was then, in the wake of his awakening, that he'd met Tiyan.
Tiyan had been the second son of King Adewumi of Kokodi kingdom, a land locked in a decades-long war with its rival, Akoka kingdom. Born with a mark tracing from the base of his neck to the small of his back, an anomaly that marked him as special, Tiyan discovered as a boy that he could move with a speed the human eye could barely track. By his teenage years, he'd joined the war, his name spreading like wildfire among friend and foe alike. They called him Tiyan, the Bird. He was so swift and relentless that he single-handedly ended the conflict that had bled Kokodi dry for generations.
Akami had encountered him mere days after emerging from a cave between Kokodi and Asejire forest, his body still adjusting to the light of a changed world. Tiyan, out hunting, had mistaken Akami for an enemy trespassing on royal land and attacked without hesitation. But for the first time, Tiyan's speed failed him. Akami had disarmed and pinned him effortlessly. Yet instead of anger, curiosity had stayed Akami's hand. A human moving like that had intrigued him. After a barrage of questions, he'd spared Tiyan, recognizing him as something new.
In the years that followed, Akami had met others, men and women touched by powers born of their souls, each unique and a marvel. Ajike had been one of them, her sight piercing the blanket of his immortality. And now, here stood another, a boy who slipped through shadows like water through fingers, unscathed amid a massacre.
Akami's gaze softened, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he squatted once more to the boy's level, his dreads swaying gently. "What's your name, boy?" he asked.
"Adigun," the boy answered, his voice small but steady. Akami nodded, his eyes softening as he regarded the child.
"Adigun, you are a special boy," he said, his tone gentle. Adigun looked down, squeezing his tiny toes into the bloodied ground, a faint flicker of emotion crossing his face.
"You sound like my mother," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "She said I was special, but she made me never tell anyone about what I can do."
Akami shifted his shoulders slightly, his gaze steady on the boy. "What about your father?" he asked.
"Mother never told him," Adigun replied plainly, his words flat, as if reciting a fact long accepted. "Are you like me?"
Akami smiled, his eyes gentle. "More or less," he replied. Adigun, for the first time let out a smile. He had felt alone for a long while. Having to hide his secret had been too much of a burden for such a young child. However, it felt different now. He had seen Akami kill that monster. Even though he was just a child, he still could tell there are certain things that normal humans cannot do.
Akami said nothing more. He turned to face the shattered village. His eyes lingered on Ajike's still form, slumped against the red hut's ruins, her grey hair stained dark with blood. A pang of pain rippled through his fractured soul, a wound no blade could inflict. He'd never cried. Tears were a mortal luxury he'd envied across centuries, a release denied to a god who'd seen too much death to count. Instead, he began to sing.
His voice rose, a dirge both haunting and soothing, weaving through the night like a thread of light in the dark. It was an ancient song, one he'd sung in the days before the Primordials, when he'd bathed the earth in the blood of spirits to protect humanity. The melody mourned the fallen. Ajike, Alade, Omotola, Adigun's parents, and the others. It carried their souls to rest, a balm for the violence that had torn them away. The world grew quiet, the wind itself pausing to listen.
Adigun, who'd shed no tears despite the slaughter of his parents, froze as his eyes welled up. Tears streamed down his cheeks, unbidden, and he touched them in surprise, staring at Akami with wide, wondering eyes. The song had pierced the boy's calm, drawing out what he'd held within. Akami's soulful voice rang on, resonant and unbroken, as he knelt and pressed a hand to the ground. Blue flames sparked from his fingertips, flickering to life before racing outward, spreading through the village like a tide.
In less than a hundred heart beats, Ileigi blazed, a funeral pyre consuming the huts, the bodies, the memories of what had been.
Two figures stood witness to the inferno. A god and a boy, the reflection of flames dancing in their eyes. Akami's face was solemn, his dreads swaying faintly in the heat, while Adigun watched in silence, tears drying on his cheeks. The fire roared, a cleansing force guided by Akami's will, erasing the village's scars and sending its souls skyward