The Story of Yeling Mah

I am Tidalflame

Mom's hands crumbled to dust in mine.

I was sprawled on the floor, staring at the ashes of my parents and sister, who had been burnt to a crisp. Blue flames all around me. Despite the scorching heat of the hellfire I was surrounded by, my tears glistened across my face.

"Mama... baba..." I whimpered, the scary lines that had scratched themselves into my left arm were pulsating blue. The same colour as the fire that had killed my family.

Rise. Yeling Mah.

The voice in my head boomed with superiority, forcing me to stand to my feet.

"You never said my family would be killed like this! You never said that! You liar! Liar! Give them back! Please give them back!"

I screamed, trying to claw at my forearm, blood trickling all over the ground.

Your family for the Hinokami. That was the exchange. That was the pact. An eye for an eye. A leg for a leg. For your family, the price to pay, I have granted you, with the power of Hinokami. The flames of the Great Akuma.

I stumbled out of the house, which was burning down as well.

"You killed them! You did!"

I gazed at the distance, then at my arm.

"I killed them..." I sobbed, falling to my knees.

For days I stumbled across the streets of New Ulysses. No one paid me attention. Most of them avoided me. At some point, I collapsed from hunger and exhaustion.

And that was when a man stood before me. In a black trench coat, shadows concealing his face.

"Little one, I sense loneliness from you."

I didn't answer, as the man knelt in front of me, pointing at my arm.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" I screeched, shuffling back and concealing my hand away from the man.

"I kill everybody I see. I killed the only people I had left. I kill kill kill kill kill!" I sobbed, my body shaking in a trance.

"You are a Dogma holder." The man said.

I stared at him from within the bangs of my hair.

The man smiled as he folded up his sleeve, revealing lines that looked all too similar to mine. But his were... even more intricate. Like it was a combination of multiple patterns.

"Hinokami. Is it wrong to want to kill? You wanted to kill even before you received the Akuma's Flames. You wanted everybody to die. Am I wrong?"

"Wha... what?"

The man held out his hand.

"Now. Your family, all that you held on to some semblance of value to this world, has been burnt to ash. By this world. You have nothing holding you back."

"Nothing holding me back..." I recited.

"Do you want to destroy the world?"

My heart began beating faster, until I could feel and hear my own pulse.

"Yes, sir. I want to destroy the world. But it isn't right. This world's laws make it not right. I cannot hurt..."

The man smiled.

"Then join me, Taras Pax. Join the Contingency Initiative. I will let you use your powers however you want. Unbounded by this world's rules. For we shall create another. One for people who deserve it. One for people like you to deserve to be happy. And those who this world has favoured, those who don't deserve the riches they flaunt so carelessly before your face. Those people. I will give you the opportunity."

"What opportunity..." I asked, knowing full well what the answer was.

Taras smiled sinisterly.

"The opportunity to eliminate them from the world. Yeling Mah. Join me, and you will become one to engulf this world in flames. Like a tsunami. Like an unstoppable torrent of vengeance. Like a tide."

I shook his hand.

Like a Tidalflame.