​The grand foyer of the Azul estate, once a symbol of prestige and ancient lineage, had been transformed into a grotesque gallery of slaughter. Bodies were scattered across the expanse, their forms twisted in their final moments of agony. But it was the ritualistic precision that truly chilled the blood: their eyes had been gouged out, leaving hollow, weeping sockets, and their heads were resting on the floor directly before their own kneeling, headless bodies.

​There were five people in this haunting posture at the center of the hall. The rest of the clan—close to twenty friends, workers, and extended family—were scattered throughout the space.

​Blood filled the whole place. It pooled and flowed, moving like a dark, viscous river across the polished marble.

​Hitachi stood frozen at the threshold, his breath hitching in a throat that felt like it was filled with glass. His eyes locked onto the central five. His heart shattered as he recognized them: his mother, his father, his younger brother, and his two little sisters—the twins.

​He stared at their severed heads, at the missing eyes, and slowly moved his horrified gaze across the rest of the room. Every single person he had ever known was here. And each of their eyes were gone.

​"Ten. Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen..."

​The voice was terrifyingly casual, slicing through the heavy silence of the manor. Hitachi slowly turned his head to the side. There, sitting at the ornate center table, was a man with vibrant red hair clad in a deep black cloak. He was counting the eyes he had harvested, placing them on the table as if he were counting mere marbles or glass balls.

​"You..." Hitachi whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of recognition and absolute horror.

​"Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven."

​Sagittarius completely ignored him, his attention focused entirely on the small, wet spheres of the Azul heritage.

​Seeing the man who had massacred his family, destroyed his home, and ruined his life, Hitachi’s paralyzing fear vanished. It was replaced by a white-hot, burning rage that threatened to consume his very soul.

​"You Bastard!!"

​He screamed, the sound tearing from his lungs as his Legendary-class sword shimmered into existence in his hand. He lunged toward the man with every ounce of strength he possessed.

​"I don’t fucking care if this is an illusion!! Today, I will kill you!!!" He screamed, hot tears of grief and fury rolling down his face.

​Sagittarius finally stopped counting. He shot an annoyed, sidelong glare at the charging youth. Instantly, Hitachi froze in mid-air. The momentum of his attack was crushed by an invisible weight. He dropped to his knees, his legendary sword clattering uselessly to the marble.

​He gripped his chest, gasping for air as he felt as if countless needles were stabbing into his heart and lungs simultaneously.

​"Ahhhh!!" He screamed in agony, a thin trail of blood leaking from his mouth.

​"You never learn, Hitachi... This is the way of the world," Sagittarius said, his voice cold and devoid of empathy. "The strong can only feed on the weak to get stronger."

​Sagittarius snapped his fingers, and the pouches on the table—filled with the eyes of the Azul clan—vanished into his storage. He stood up and loomed over Hitachi. His Celestial Eyes were locked onto his nephew. They weren’t colorful like the potential ones Hitachi carried; instead, they were a terrifying binary of red and white. The white color was spinning clockwise within his irises, acting like predatory pupils.

​"Your eye is still weak." Sagittarius stopped before him, staring down with clinical disappointment. "You are the oldest in the Azul clan lineage, but your twin sisters’ eyes were far better than yours... You are simply a trash."

​He raised a hand, placing it mockingly on Hitachi’s head, then squatted down to look him in the eye.

​"You are useless, Hitachi... You couldn’t even protect your siblings, and now, you’re witnessing their headless bodies and heads, with their eyes out. Do you know why all this happened to you? It’s because you are weak... So weak that you aren’t even qualify to join them in the afterlife."

​Sagittarius stood up abruptly and struck out with his leg, his boot catching Hitachi squarely on the side of his face.

BAM!

​Hitachi was sent flying. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the pool of his family’s blood, his vision swimming as his blood-red eyes stared directly into the severed heads of his parents.

​"Hitachi! Get stronger!! Make your eyes more worthy of my attention. Then... I will come for them," Sagittarius said, turning toward the door. "At least awaken those eyes first. You’re simply useless; I even wondered why you’re part of the Azuls... What a disappointment."

​He took a step toward the exit, but a strangled voice stopped him.

​"STOP!!"

​Sagittarius paused and looked over his shoulder. Hitachi was pushing himself up from the crimson floor, his body soaked in the lifeblood of his kin.

​"If I don’t do anything today, I will be a complete and utter coward! So I will fight you to the end—"

​BAM!!!

​An invisible concussive force erupted from Sagittarius’s Celestial Eyes, smashing into Hitachi’s chest like a battering ram. Hitachi vomited a mouthful of blood and collapsed, the world spinning into darkness.

​"What a fool! Shouting without strength... You’re truly worthless."

​As Sagittarius walked out of the house, the moment his foot exited the estate, the entire building was engulfed in a sudden, roaring inferno.

​’Just one left,’ Sagittarius thought, his figure vanishing under the cold night sky.

​Inside the burning manor, Hitachi lay in the blood of his family, friends, and workers. He gritted his teeth in a rage so profound it fractured his mental limits. Without him even knowing, his natural red eyes shifted, the pupils dilating and the irises swirling into the complex patterns of the Celestial Eyes. As the flames rose to consume the evidence of the massacre, he finally lost consciousness.

​On the second-floor landing, Mirabella’s Spectral Form stood silently. She had witnessed the core trauma of Hitachi’s life, and a rare flicker of empathy touched her cold heart.

​’So this is the pain you are holding deep down...’ she thought, her gaze lingering on the boy in the flames. ’If you need my help, I will help you get your revenge.’

​With a final look at the fallen heir of the Azul Clan, she vanished.