The sound of cannon fire rumbled through the blackened streets of Noctis Island.
Smoke choked the sky, turning day into a permanent, hellish twilight.Where once ships docked proudly at golden harbors, now burning wrecks bobbed aimlessly, their flags in tatters, their crews long since silenced.Buildings, once homes and shops, were reduced to skeletal frames, their charred bones reaching desperately toward the ashen heavens.
Through this nightmare stumbled a boy — silver-haired, mud-splattered, blood running in thin lines down his arms and legs.Raizen, barely twelve years old, grit his teeth against the searing pain in his body as he dragged someone through the sludge behind him: his older brother, Kael.
Each step was a battle. Each breath burned his lungs.The weight of his brother felt heavier with every passing moment, but Raizen refused to let go.
"Keep moving... Raizen... you can't stop..."Kael's voice was barely more than a whisper, a ghost among the crackle of fire and the distant screams.
Raizen stumbled again, knees slamming into the muddy ground.Hot tears blurred his vision. He clutched at Kael's bloodied jacket, hauling him onward inch by desperate inch.
In the distance, monstrous figures stalked through the streets — men with cruel smiles and bloodstained weapons. Pirates. Mercenaries. Even Marines, their uniforms twisted and defiled.The so-called "Warlords" had arrived — not to rule, but to destroy.
The world outside Noctis Island had abandoned them.No reinforcements came. No heroes appeared.There would be no salvation.
The only sound was the endless thunder of cannon fire and the laughter of the mad.
Raizen pulled Kael into the broken remains of an alleyway, pressing their backs against a half-collapsed wall.He dared to hope, for a moment, that they might be safe — just for a little longer.
Kael coughed, crimson spattering his lips.
"Listen... to me..." Kael rasped, grabbing Raizen's trembling hand with surprising strength."You have to survive, Raizen. Promise me. No matter what happens... live."
Raizen shook his head fiercely, silver hair matted with dirt and ash.
"We'll both live!" he shouted, voice cracking. "We'll escape together!"
But even as he said the words, he could see it in Kael's eyes — the resignation, the final acceptance.Kael had known his fate long before Raizen had.
Suddenly, heavy footsteps echoed down the broken street.Raizen's heart froze.
From the smoke emerged a figure — tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a crimson officer's coat stained with soot and blood.A brutal smile curled the man's lips as he dragged a massive saber behind him, the blade screeching across the stones.
His name would be cursed for years among the survivors — Admiral Vane, the Butcher of the West Blue.
"Well, well... what do we have here?" Vane drawled, voice thick with amusement."Little rats scurrying for cover."
Raizen instinctively placed himself in front of Kael, raising a broken plank of wood like a shield.His hands shook uncontrollably.
Vane laughed — a deep, hollow sound — and raised his sword lazily above his head.
"Good instincts, boy. But good instincts won't save you."
For a split second, time seemed to slow.
Raizen saw the blade fall.Saw the cold inevitability in Vane's eyes.Felt the absolute helplessness of being a child in a world that cared nothing for him.
He screamed — a raw, primal sound — but it was drowned beneath the roar of the collapsing alleyway around them.
Everything turned to black.
When Raizen awoke, the world was silent.
The fires had burned themselves into embers.Bodies lay twisted in unnatural positions across the street.Ash fell from the sky like gray snow.
He turned his head — painfully, slowly — toward the place where Kael had been.
His brother lay motionless, his eyes closed as if simply sleeping.
But Raizen knew.
He knew.
A great emptiness opened inside him — vast, cold, merciless.
He pressed his forehead to the ground beside Kael's body, fists clenched so tight his nails drew blood from his palms.The promises they had made — to sail away together, to find new lands, to live free — all turned to dust in an instant.
Around him, Noctis Island, once alive with laughter and trade, was nothing but a graveyard.
And in that graveyard, a new fire was kindled — not of warmth, but of resolve.
"Never again," Raizen whispered, voice like steel being forged in the flames of his own grief."I won't live in a world ruled by monsters."
He rose slowly, the broken plank still clutched in his hand.
Above him, the blackened sky wept ash, and far across the seas, powers unseen and uncaring fought for their own dreams.
But none of them knew that, on this forgotten, ruined island, a boy had been born anew — not with a dream of freedom...
But a dream of conquest.
End of Chapter 1: Ashes of Noctis