Pain.
That was the only thing he could feel at that moment.
Tatsumi looked down at what had once been his working right arm lying uselessly on the ground. Looking at the detached limb sent another wave of pain over the stump of his arm.
How could this have happened? At one moment his village was going about their day as usual, clearing snow from the exterior of the buildings, rekindling the fires, hunting, skinning, all of these daily chores, and the next an icicle had suddenly pierced the village leader's chest.
It had all happened so fast, no one had had any time to react and suddenly a wave of sharpened ice sprouted from the ground and destroyed several of the small homes and taken many people's lives Ah, but for Tatsumi that wasn't even the worst part. His two greatest friends that he'd known since childhood had been swept up in the attack. "Sayo?! Ieyasu?!" he had cried, but it was all for naught. By the time he had realized what happened they were already gone.
Looking around in utter terror with adrenaline coursing through his veins he spotted the woman behind the slaughter of his people. She had light blue hair, she was wearing the army general outfit of the Empire, her eyes shone like bright blue diamonds, and she had a rather sizable bust. Located just above her chest was a strange looking tattoo, it was unlike anything Tatsumi had ever seen. On one hand, this woman was the spitting image of beauty, there was only one thing that detracted from just how attractive she was.
An overwhelming and stifling amount of bloodlust, such that it had frozen Tatsumi in place. The feeling of it washing over him was suffocating, he struggled to breathe and his breaths came out in shallow gasps. An almost monstrous form appeared to linger behind the woman drawing his full attention, the area around him blurred as he hyper focused on the terrifying presence of this woman. Then, she took a step, seeing this Tatsumi's mind kicked into overdrive as he leapt backwards as far as humanly possible.
It was a pointless endeavour of course, as the moment he leaped back she shot forward faster than he could perceive and was directly in front of him. His face morphed into an expression of fear, panic, and sheer surprise at the speed of the woman before she kicked him in the jaw sending him flying into a house. Tatsumi yelled out in pain before looking at his surroundings he realized he was in the village chief's home. His eyes darted around at the various items and artifacts before falling on a certain one. It was a relatively simple urn decorated by the ancestors of his tribe. The chief said it had been in their possession for centuries. It contained the blood of a phoenix, an SS-Class danger beast, who had befriended one of their past leaders, and gave him its blood as a token of respect for the man and his village. The chief had told the village that if the safety of their home was jeopardized then a young able bodied man were to drink the contents of the urn, for it would grant them the power to protect their home.
Tatsumi bolted for the relic as fast as he could in his terrible state. "I understand the significance of this relic, but for the sake of the village and myself I cannot die here and let our tribe fade away into history. I will tell our story and continue our line under any circumstances." With that final thought, he picked the urn up and pressed it to his lips, the taste of iron and cinder filled his mouth, but despite his disgust he forced the warm liquid down. For a few seconds nothing appeared to happen, suddenly though, flames burst from his body, licking at his skin and spreading their warmth through his body. His wounds began to heal and his before useless arm began to grow back from the flame. "This heat, these flames, my tremendous healing, the phoenix's blood must have given me some of its power!"
An icicle suddenly flew past Tatsumi's cheek, causing a cut to form on his face before it was quickly consumed by fire and subsequently healed. Though, this didn't stop Tatsumi from yelling out like a little girl.
"It's admirable you've managed to survive this long, I believe you're deserving enough to know my name before I kill you," The blue haired woman said as she walked through the hole in the building, "My name is Esdeath, the strongest general of the Imperial Empire."
"You kill my friends, family, and wipe my tribe from existence and then give me your name as if nothing happened!" Tatsumi yelled out in a flash of anger, the blue haired woman now known as Esdeath simply looked at him in amusement before responding, "Surely you must know considering you come from a tribe boy, the weak must fear the strong, and are meant to be culled for the greater good of the strong."
"Don't feed me that bullshit!" he yelled out in response, "I watched my friends and people die because of you! There is nothing you can say to justify that! I'll make you pay for what you've done!"
Unbeknownst to Tatsumi what he said had lit a fire in Esdeath unlike anything she had ever felt before. For years she had thought about the concept of love and a significant other, but everyone was either too weak for her taste or simply wasn't her type. Tatsumi however, fit what she wanted in a man to a T, a burning passion for something that fuels his strength, his genuinely good looks, and not to mention his ability to stand up to her. The young teenager could very easily become a desirable man, so in that moment she decided he would be hers. Oh she didn't think it would be easy of course, but her love for all things sadism and torture would surely iron out his kinks and make him a good obedient man for her.
As these thoughts ran through her head she was stunned by a sudden burst of fire toward her. Esdeath quickly dodged the flame before looking to where it had come from. With arms stretched forward there stood Tatsumi, seemingly a the source of the flame. Esdeath looked towards the boys, admittedly, muscled chest and noticed he now had a making between his pecks quite similar to hers. While hers looked like a Y with its two protrusions bent to the sides, alongside two eye shaped dots below either side, his looked an awful lot like the talons of a bird holding a flame.
"Hm? I recognize that symbol… ah, I see. He just gets more and more interesting," Esdeath licked her lips in delight upon realizing where she had seen the symbol before. It had been shown to her when she had originally gotten her teigu, it was the symbol of that who wielded the power of the phoenix danger beast. It granted the user immortality (albeit a limited version that had its limits, nor did it prevent the wielder from dying of old age) and absolute control of flame. All other flame teigus were dominated by the power of the phoenix, easily controlling their flames and making them its own. Even the power of Rubiante could not rival that of the phoenix. The reason the symbol had been shown to her was because it was the complete antithesis of her teigu. She had drank the blood of the Kuraokami, a danger beast with unrivaled power over rain and snow that granted its users a supreme control of ice. The catch with these teigus was that, had it deemed the consumer unworthy, it would cause them an excruciating death unlike any other. She had been the first successful wielder of hers, and Tatsumi would be the first wielder of his. Despite knowing how his power completely dominated hers it only made her want him more. That flame inside of her (pun intended) grew to a soaring height.
Esdeath decided at this moment that the best route would be to leave the boy and allow him to grow his power. While some would see this as an extremely idiotic move she could only see it as an excellent one. It would allow for an even more exciting battle with the boy before she claimed him as hers and hers alone.
Tatsumi had no time to react when the woman appeared behind him and gave him a chop to his neck. The last thing he heard before succumbing to the blackness were the final words he'd hear from Esdeath for two long years, that now ran through his head constantly in his quest to kill her. "Mmm, get stronger boy, so when we inevitably fight it will make the feeling of claiming you all the more exciting."