The Metzlian Remnant

One Hundred Years Ago,

The sky over the Mardukin lands was no longer blue. It hadn’t been for a while.

Now it hung in a deep, bruised violet, thick with smoke that refused to drift, clinging to the air as if the world itself couldn’t let go of what was happening.

“I am going to protect you.”

The words came out softer than Elzia expected.

She stood amidst the ruins, her massive black wings half-spread behind her, their feathers catching what little light remained like fractured obsidian. At the center of her forehead, a sharp geometric chakra flickered in a fading shade of azure, its glow unsteady, as though it might disappear at any moment.

She was a Metzlian.

To the World Government, she was something that should not exist. To the people of Mardukin… she had been their last hope.

“El… Elzia…”

The child’s voice trembled.

Elzia didn’t answer right away. She pulled the girl closer instead, holding her tightly against her chest as her wings folded around them both—not like armor, but like something fragile trying not to break.

“It’s alright,” she whispered, though her voice wasn’t steady. “I’m here.”

Above them, the sky shifted.

The clouds parted, not for salvation, but for something far worse.

Massive shapes hovered high above the smoke, barely visible through the haze. Silent. Watching.

They hadn’t come for the people.

A sharp whistling sound tore through the sky.

Something fell—too fast to follow, too bright to understand—and in the next instant, the capital was gone.

No explosion. No fire.

It was simply… missing.

As if it had never been there at all.

The screams came after, scattered and short, before they, too, were swallowed by the silence.

Across the land, the Mardukins fought back with everything they had left, but it wasn’t a battle. Soldiers dropped before they could even see what struck them, and entire streets vanished in seconds along with everyone standing in them.

This wasn’t conquest.

It was erasure.

More streaks of light fell from the sky, each one carrying the same silent judgment. Wherever they struck, nothing remained—not rubble, not ash, not even shadows. Just empty space where something used to be.

From the forest’s edge, Elzia could only watch.

She remembered the market street—how loud it used to be, how people used to crowd every corner.

Now there was nothing.

Her grip on the child tightened without her realizing.

“I am going to seal you away…” she whispered, her voice barely holding together. “For the sake of our bloodline.”

She knelt and gently set the girl down against the roots of an ancient tree. For a moment, she hesitated, just looking at her, as if trying to hold onto this one last image.

Then her trembling hands rose and cupped the child’s cheeks.

“Listen to me.”

The girl shook her head immediately, clutching at her sleeve.

“No—”

“You have to live.”

Her voice broke on the last word.

The chakra on her forehead flickered violently, its light stuttering with her breath.

“Even if it means forgetting everything… even me.”

A soft, blinding light began to gather in her palms.

“It’s alright,” Elzia said, forcing a faint smile as a dark tear slid down her cheek. “You’ll be safe this way.”

She leaned forward, resting her forehead gently against the child’s.

“Look at the sky whenever you can,” she whispered. “Even if you don’t know why.”

"When the Sun and Moon collide in a silent embrace, and the shadow of the Earth turns the sky into a bruised violet… when the ‘Black Sun’ weeps for the first time in a century, the seal shall shatter."

The light grew brighter, swallowing the space around them. She placed a black sword beside the girl—silent, heavy, and still.

“When the time comes… it will protect you.”

The ground beneath them began to shimmer.

Slowly, the child’s body broke apart into faint, dark particles, sinking into the roots, into the world itself, until nothing remained on the surface.

Elzia stayed there for a moment after she was gone.

Then she stood.

Her wings sagged behind her, no longer weightless or proud, but heavy, as if they no longer belonged to her. The glow on her forehead had dimmed to a dull gray, barely holding on.

In the distance, the world continued to disappear.

And she could only watch.

A suffocating weight pressed against her chest as faces flashed through her mind—people who had trusted her, who believed she would protect them.

They were gone.

Not defeated.

Gone.

“This… is my failure,” she whispered.

The ground beneath her feet cracked.

Something inside her finally gave way.

A violent surge of energy erupted from her body, tearing through the air and sending debris scattering as her chakra flared one last time—unstable, desperate, burning itself out. Her body lifted slightly from the ground, trembling under the force.

“I won’t let this end like this…”

Her voice no longer sounded steady.

“Even if we don't survive, I'll make sure the future will.”

The air around her warped as the power condensed, wild and uncontrolled.

“I swear it…”

Then something moved behind her, a shift in the darkness, a unknown figure.

Before she could turn, a cold presence pierced straight through her from behind.

Her body froze.

“I never expected Metzlian grew weaker after her…” a voice whispered against her ear, quiet and cruel.

Her light flickered once.

Then it vanished.

The strength left her all at once. Her wings collapsed as she fell forward, her body already breaking apart into fading fragments before she could even hit the ground.

The darkness behind her lingered for only a moment before disappearing into the ruined forest.

Silence followed.

It had succeeded in erasing a civilization… yet it failed to notice the single seed Elzia had planted deep within the scorched world.

It was the seal… and the birth of the last Metzlian.

Deep beneath ash and ruin, that seed would rise, and when she finally awakened to the truth of her past...

She would remember the fire.