Ashen World

Chapter One – Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

This world is dying.

Imagine a world with no sun. Imagine, what it would be like to live in such a world, where the sun hasn't been shining for several centuries. A world in which the sky is always filled with clouds that don't let a single ray of sunlight through. Every day is grey, flora and fauna are nearly extinct and every place looks like a vast and endless grey desert. The soil is dry and neither rain nor storm is able to humid it for longer than a few hours. The blanket of clouds act like a glasshouse, letting heat in, but not out; like an eternal nuclear winter.

But this ashen world wasn't always like this. Centuries ago it looked just like you know it. There were forests, lakes, rivers, animals were living everywhere; the world itself was living. But in that living world there was one person that wished to change it, wished to kill that world. And that one person was 'The Millennium Earl'. The Earl created weapons to mercilessly kill every human of the world. Weapons called 'Akuma' made of human souls were used to rid the world of every living being. But to The Earl's disliking there was an organization called 'The Black Order' that made it their duty to fight The Earl and save the world. Their conflict continued for several decades, but in the end the Earl and his lackeys should remain victorious and The Black Order, humanity's last hope, was utterly crushed in their final offensive against The Earl. He continued killing people all over the world and simultaneously turning them into Akuma to quicken the world's destruction. Even now Akuma still continue to hunt down the remaining human villages, trying to eradicate every single human being.

As it happens, this story starts off in a small nomadic village in the middle of nowhere. States were a thing of the past, countries didn't exist anymore. It was all one huge land of nothingness that slowly started falling apart. The ground was literally falling apart, the world was crumbling. More and more bottomless seeming canyons opened and no one knew the cause of it. In that small nomadic village a new hole in the ground had opened one day and Akuma coming out of it started shooting at the people living in the village. Everyone had fallen victim to the Akuma, except one single family that somehow managed to escape and was now running for their lives.

"Quick, Anaïs. There's no time to waste, we have to run!" the father said as he pulled his daughter by the hand.

"We have to make it to the next village, they say there is a small underground dome, maybe there's still space left for us!" the mother running with a child in her arms yelled, her eyes were full of tears. Underground domes were the last defensive line humanity had come up with against Akuma attacks. An underground dome is as the name suggests a dome which is built underground. It's made of a special material, harder than diamond and more resistant than anything ever created. And strangely enough, Akuma attacks couldn't seem to harm them. But with the danger of the world crumbling, they weren't the best places to spend one's life, but probably better than becoming an Akuma.

"Dear, you need to run faster. It's coming after us!" the father yelled desperately, increasing his running speed.

"I… I can't. I can't run faster, I'm… I'm tired." the mother answered whiningly.

"D-daddy, my feet hurt." the little girl was crying.

"Anaïs, you have to be strong now. We have to run, we have no other choice!"

"B-but, I… I j-just wanna…" the girl sobbed and cried even more.

"Dear, I-" but before the father could continue, he suddenly stopped running and fell down. Because he was holding his daughter by the hand she was pulled to the ground as well. The mother stopped running and turned back to see what happened. Just as she wanted to ask her husband, her eyes widened in despair and she started screaming in fear. Her husband was lying on the ground, blood spilling from where his head was supposed to be, but he was shot.

"cAughT yOU!" a shrieking voice said. It was an Akuma that had caught up to the escaping family.

"D-daddy?" the girl stood up.

"Quick, Anaïs. W-we… have to run!" the mother couldn't stop crying over the loss of her husband, but she knew she had no other choice than continue running. Even though the chances of surviving weren't high, they were at least slightly higher than if they'd just remain there and waited to be killed. She grabbed her daughter by the arm and resumed running.

"NOt so fASt, I wiLL CATch you anywaY!" the Akuma said.

"Please, please! Leave us alone! P-please!" the mother was sobbing, she was desperate. But the Akuma only grinned and shot once again. It pierced right through the mother's heart, taking the life of the child she was carrying as well. They both fell to the ground, and only the little girl remained alive. She was standing in front of the Akuma, crying, screaming, waiting for her life to end. The Akuma came closer until standing right in front of her. It was enjoying the girl's fear, it liked hearing people's screams of despair and lost hope. It grinned eerily one last time before it bowed down to her and was ready to shoot.

"GooD NighT, LittLe GiR-" a split second before the Akuma pulled the trigger, someone else had already pulled another trigger and hit the Akuma's head. The Akuma fell to the ground next to the scared girl and was instantly dead.

"Last one down." a young man that was looking through the visor of his sniper rifle said. He had positioned himself some hundreds of meters away from the village and happened to be looking at the village. He had intended to save as many people as possible, but while he was busy shooting down the other Akuma in the village, one of them escaped and hunted down the family that was trying to flee. And in the end he was only able to save one little girl. He was still looking through the visor and saw how the girl was kneeling next to her dead mother, crying and not knowing what to do. He sighed, stood up, put his sniper rifle behind his back and started walking towards the girl's position.

"Guess I gotta take care of her now, what a pain…" he said to himself. When he reached the girl's side he took off his goggles, put down his headphones and crouched down to be on the same eye level as the girl.

"Yo." he said. The girl continued crying, but turned around to see who was standing next to her.

"So, uhh… sorry I couldn't save your mom… uhm… ah, crap. I'm no good with brats." he scratched the back of his head, trying to think of a way of how to deal with the little girl.

"I, uhh… oh fuck it." he stood up again, stretched out an arm and looked at the girl.

"I'm gonna go to the next village, if you wanna come, then hurry." he said. The girl seemed to understand her current situation, and while she knew she shouldn't listen to strangers, she also knew that her family wouldn't be able to accompany her anymore. So the girl slowly stood up, looked at her mother's corpse one last time, turned around and took the young man's hand. While doing all that, she didn't stop crying for even one second, and she would continue crying for a while. And so the young man and the little girl started walking hand in hand.

But because he was annoyed by the girl's sobs and cries, he quickly put on his headphones again. After a while of walking without saying anything, the girl seemed to finally have calmed down a little bit and pulled at his sleeve. He looked down to her and noticed that she wasn't crying anymore. He put down his headphones and started talking.

"Yo, run out of tears?" he asked.

"…" the girl didn't answer him.

"You've got a name?" he continued.

"…Anaïs. …y-you?" she said.

"Me? Why should I tell you?"

"…" Anaïs wanted to know his name too.

"Shinonome. Ibuki Shinonome." he said as he looked skywards.

"Sh… Shino…me?"

"Ibuki's fine."

"…Ibuki." she repeated his name.

Those few lines were the only things they exchanged on their way to the village. When they arrived there, the young man called Ibuki explained to the people what had happened to the other village and asked if they could take care of Anaïs. An elderly couple decided to take her in and wanted to thank him for at least saving one person from the Akuma's attack, so they invited him to at least stay the night.

"You can take a shower if you want too, you must be very tired." the elderly woman said.

"I, uhm… no, it's…" Ibuki wanted to refuse, but the woman's eyes were filled with honesty, he wanted to accept her invitation.

Since he had been wandering around aimlessly for quite some time, he didn't have spare clothes or anything to change into, so taking a bath once in a while was a rare opportunity. He possessed only what he was wearing on him. A pair of red jeans, knee-high black leather boots, a shirt, a short grey coat and a pair of black leather gloves. He used the black bandana he was wearing around his waist and the goggles on his head as a protection against sand storms. If there was anything else he needed to carry around he knotted his quite big bandana into a bag. The most valuable things he owned were his headphones filled with his favourite music, he'd have them on almost all the time, and his two guns. A sniper rifle for super long distance shooting and a normal one.

After he had taken a short bath, he joined the elderly couple and Anaïs for dinner. The little girl didn't say a word during the entire time. After finishing eating, they all went to bed. While Anaïs was given the small guest room as her new room, Ibuki was lying on a blanket on the floor. He didn't intend on spending the night, he was just waiting for everyone to fall asleep and then leave in the middle of the night. He silently left the small house and started walking out of the village.

"Those people are better off if they don't get involved with me for a long time." he whispered to himself. While walking away, he thought about the little girl for a while, but quickly forgot about her and put on his headphones.

And just like that Ibuki Shinonome continued on his way. He didn't know where he was headed to, he didn't have any goal. Since he knew that the world was dying and probably wouldn't last that much longer, he also didn't care about where he was going. He was a bit of a pessimist. He was just walking around in the unending desert, and if by chance he met people on his way and could do anything to help them out a bit, then he'd try to; because he had nothing else to do anyway, in this ashen world of ours.