Woo, only took me what, over half a year? Yeah, a mixture of schoolwork, problems with creative process, and procrastination on my part halted lots of work getting done for a while. This one chapter has been written and rewritten on my computer for a while and well probably won't come out the way I want to a tee, but I gotta focus less on that and more on enjoying on what I'm writing. The two previous stories "Slave to the Misery" and "Fire in the Sky" will be deleted either before or after this is uploaded, just for a heads-up.

Prologue

Fire was all around, it was so high that it looked like Hell itself was rising up to the human world. The night sky had a dark red tint to it and the smoke hid the stars from the view of anyone who would look up. People were running left and right, screaming out for some sort of salvation. The fire crawled from building to building, slowly making its way through the southern of the village.

Through all of this a small blond-haired child of only a handfull of years old could be seen running from the scene carrying a younger and smaller blond-haired child. Blood stained the child's clothes. The older child ran into an adjacent forest and hid amongst the brush. These two kids were the sons of a man named Damir Zhivago, a small-time merchant of this small human village. The older child who was holding his brother was Casimir, and the one being held was Cyril. Under any other circumstance, these two children would be victims of the fire, but they are actually the source of all of this destruction. They had been attacked while walking back home with their father, attacked by a lone wolf that had come into the village scavenging for food. The wolf attacked and bit down on the small and fragile arm of Cyril, breaking the bone.

To save his brother, Casimir had to do something that would put entire family's existence in the village in jeopardy. He conjured up fire from thin air, and sent it at the wolf, catching it aflame. Unfortunately after being caught on fire the animal seemingly tried to catch as many buildings as it could on fire as well. Resulting in a fourth of the building turned into smoldering ash by the end of the incident. During the hysteria Casimir picked up his brother and ran, being seperated by his father in the process.

Casimir was running through the center of the village when he bumped into the village's elder and leader, Kenshin Yukimura, as he came out of his house going on his afternoon stroll, oblivious to the actions that were transpiring. He was fairly tall man with graying hair and a long, aging face. He wore a black robe and carried in his left hand a long, thin walking stick.

'That was Casimir's boy, I wonder what he's doing out so late... eh, he's probably running an errand.'

But soon Yukimura found out exactly what happened just by smelling the air.

'Wait, is that smoke? And that was Casimir running away... oh no...'

Kenshin Yukimura knew exactly what had happened, because he was one of the handful of people who knew Damir's secret. The mother of the two children was a youkai magician. Casimir, and to a certain extent Cyril, had inherited their mother's magical capabilities, however neither of them were able to control it and there's no one there to teach them how to control it. Damir had told Yukimura of it when they had first came to this village, and the elder had agreed to only have him and a select few people of the village council to know of it to keep it all a secret.

Yukimura ran as fast as he could to where the source of where the fire was to find Damir, and hopefully find that he was wrong. When he got to the center of the village he could see the growing fire in size. There were villagers rushing from their houses and getting away from the fire, while others futility tried to put it out. Through te crowd Yukimura saw Damir by his out of place blonde hair. He made his way through the crowd, reached Damir, and grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Wha- Oh, it's you Yukimura."

"Damir, what happened here?!"

"It all happened so fast Yukimura, there was a wolf. It attacked Cyril and broke his arm, and Casimir, he started the fire... I'm sorry, I should have been more careful."

"It wasn't your fault Damir, I know you didn't mean for this to happen. For now let's just go try to find your sons."

"But what are we to do after? We can't live here anymore, not after this."

"We'll worry about that later for now just follow me, I saw the direction they were going in, we might be able to find them if we're quick."

In a stretch of forest north of the forest, Casimir was running amongst the brush with his younger brother in his arms with no destination other than away from the village. He doesn't know where his father was, he doesn't know what to do about his unconcious brother's arm, and he doesn't know what to do. Casimir came upon a small clearing and stopped to rest. He put Cyril down gently.

'I should've been quicker, I should've been more accurate, if I had done better none of this would've happened...'

Casimir slowly pulled up Cyril's sleeve over his right arm. The sight was ghastly. The bone was clearly snapped, one couldn't see the bone itself, but the fracture was evident and there was blood, and lots of it. If nothing was done soon Cyril would likely bleed out, or the infection itself would do the damage. Casimir shuddered at the sight of it.

'There's wolf teeth stuck in his arm...'

Being reminded of the animal that attacked his brother caused Casimir to become livid.

"If that vile creature had just not come near, if it hadn't have attacked my brother, I wouldn't had to do what I did! And none of this would have happened!"

As Casimir grew more angry, the ground underneath him started to smoke, and burn up. He looked down at the ground, and saw that a nearby flower had caught on fire due to his rage.

"...If the world wasn't so cruel, nothing would burn..."

There was a rustling in the brush behind Casimir, it caused him to whip around and stare at the area where the sound came from. But before he could get ready to do something he might regret, he heard the familiar voice of his father call out to him.

"Casimir, my son!" Damir came out from the thicket and ran to his son, and picked him up in an embrace. "There you are, are you alright?"

"I am, but Cyril he's-" Casimir stopped in the middle of his sentence when he saw the figure of Yukimura walking up behind Damir. "What is he doing here!?" Casimir said while backing up away from his father.

"Don't be scared Casimir." Damir said. "He's here to help us."

"How can you be so sure, he could be a liar, just like the others!" Casimir said. "It wouldn't be the first time someone's made a false promise to help us..."

"Casimir, this man is different."

"How so? Did he say he'd always be there!? Just like every other head of every other village we had to run from..." Casimir started to shake while looking at the ground. "Or did he say he'd help with mine and Cyril's 'problem', just like Mom said she would... They're all liars, just like her!"

"Casimir, that is enough! We can't keep running away from this, if we don't put that behind us and trust anyone we'll never find somewhere to live in peace."

"There is no peace in this world father, just catastrophe after catastrophe and the short amount of down time inbetween."

Before Damir could talk again, Yukimura grabbed his shoulder. "Allow me, I may be able to talk to him." Damir nodded and Yukimura stepped forward.

"Casimir, I'm sorry for causing you such distress, but I'm telling you, I'm not here for any nefarious reasons. Your father has told me of your family's plight and I don't wish to do anything but help."

Casimir eyed the old man suspiciously. "Help us? I'm sure you do. Everybody wants to help, don't they? Strangely enough though I feel like I've gotten more than enough help in my life than I can stomach. People always claim to know the answer when they know nothing!"

Well, this kid is a little more venomous than I thought he would be.' Yukimura thought. "Casimir, don't let yourself be blinded by the past. If you do, you will never find the better future you desperately seek."

"He's right son, just let him help. He could be the answer to our problems, calm down and-"

"I won't calm down! Everytime this happens father, you're just blind to it al. I'm not going with him. And if that means not going with you too, well, I'll just have to deal with that later."

Damir went to say something, but Yukimura stopped him. "If you're going to leave, at least let us help Cyril. He needs it." Yukimura said.

"No, you won't take my brother way!" Casimir said as he started to step back to his brother. "If I'm going, he's going too!" Slowly smoke started to rise from the ground where Casimir stood. Damir noticed this and reacted quickly.

"Alright son, please don't do anything hasty. At least let us help him, he won't last long without it." Damir tried to step forward but stopped when he saw little flames start to form on the ground around Casimir.

"Don't move another step, or I'll do something we'll all regret." Casimir growled.

For a moment nearly everything was still, the only thing moving being the flames that had grew at Casimir's feet. Damir looked at his son forlornly, while Yukimura stood there trying to think of a way to diffuse the situation. If nothing were done someone would get hurt, namely himself or Damir.

Again Damir reached out for his son, but this time Casimir retailated. "Stop right there!" From his hands a wall of flame dispersed, hitting his father in the face who fell down with a scream of pain, clutching his eyes with one arm. Several nearby trees were also lit during the attack. Casimir quickly made his move, scooping up his brother and running towards the end of the clearing. Yukimura rushed to Damir's side, but he stopped him with his free arm.

"D-Don't worry over me, just please get my son before I lose him!" Damir yelled.

Yukimura swiftly got to his feet and was able to see Casimir disappear into the trees with his brother in his arms. The elder went to chase after the boy, but didn't get even halfway to the end of the clearing before he was stopped when the whole line of trees suddenly blew up in smoke and fire. He watched as the fire grew rapidly as a wall, keeping him from following. He stood there, as the wall grew higher and higher, unable to do anything to stop the flames.

"Something terrible has been born here, I just hope that maybe something... anything... will be able to stop it..." Yukimura whispered to himself.

There it is, finally after all this time I got this out. I'm going to try to not let something like this happen again where I don't upload anything for a LONG while. I just wasn't very motivated and kept changing ideas and styles with this. I might've switched ideas like 3 times and perspectives around 5 and this was the end result.