I AM EXTRA IN A SHONEN MANGA

The Fourth Gate was not meant to be opened this way. Not alone. Not while injured. Not while the Void pressed in from all sides like a hungering sea.

And yet…

Raiquen turned to her.

"Eliryn," he said, his voice layered not just human, but threaded with Shinrei resonance. "Stay back."

She stepped forward instead, the scythe gleaming in response.

"No."

She met his blazing gaze with her storm-touched calm.

"If you're going to burn yourself to stop this, I'll burn too."

Raiquen's mouth twitched at the corner, a ghost of a smile. There was no time to argue.

From the left, a screech erupted as a larger Voidborn one with four bone-like wings and a split jaw descended toward them. Its tendrils writhed with acidic black ichor, and its presence dimmed even the twilight sky.

Khael skidded back, parrying a strike with a snarl. "Tsk. Too many of them!"

Another Voidborn erupted behind him, jaw stretched unnaturally wide. Li and Ko surged in, blades flashing in unison as they covered Khael's flank. Ko landed a kick that sent one creature flying into a boulder. Li followed up with a windslash that cleaved the terrain.

"Fall back to the line!" Ko shouted. "Regroup by the elders!"

But Raiquen didn't move.

Neither did Eliryn.

She raised the scythe.

The flower bloomed fully.

A sound like the chime of an ancient bell deep, distant, final rang across the field.

Silver and black light cascaded from the blade as Eliryn spun into motion, her scythe carving circles of sealing script into the air. Each sweep closed a tendril. Each spin silenced a screech.

Behind her, Raiquen roared.

He charged.

Red vines burst from the ground beneath him, twisting into the shape of a great crimson serpent that launched him skyward.

With a downward arc of his blade, he descended on the four-winged Voidborn.

"Echo art: Thorn Rend!"

The impact cleaved through its core with a shockwave so loud it shattered the nearby cliff face.

Void scattered in a spiral.

Sil leapt into the air and snapped his fingers glyphs of bloom-light flaring as he mirrored Raiquen's motion, casting illusions to redirect the next wave of Voidborn.

"Keep pushing!" Kirell shouted, her whip of water-bloom affinity lashing across the battlefield, wrapping around a Voidborn's throat and yanking it back into Braggen's punch.

Braggen grunted, bark-armor flaking off his shoulders from the sheer force of the fight. "Hurry. We don't last long."

And still the elders watched.

Elder Lao's ancient eyes quivered. "The fourth gate… the Thorn Serpent…"

Elder Mia covered her mouth.

Elder Loe simply murmured, "This is the blooming of a legacy."

And the battlefield raged on.

Eliryn stood at the edge of the fraying world, eyes fixed on the widening rift.

Violet-gray irises shimmered like storm clouds at dusk, turbulent and unyielding.

The battlefield pulsed with chaos shouts, spells, strikes but to her, it was distant.

"I guess… I have to use it."

The words barely left her lips, a breath against the howling dark.

A glint of silver veins traced through her obsidian scythe as her grip tightened.

The flower near the grip once dormant pulsed faintly, its petals beginning to twitch open.

She remembered the ritual.

The seal.

The elders' hands pressed on her skin, murmuring chants of control under the guise of protection.

They feared what her affinity could become:

Bloom — Hope.

Shade — Destruction

She was made a vessel, but not a wielder.

That was the reason Raiquen defied them.

That was the spark of their rebellion.

Not power but freedom.

And now?

The rift would not be closed by strength.

Not by rage. Not by force.

Only by one thing.

To Seal the Rift: One Must Fuse With It.

A Shade-Bloom user must sacrifice their existence…

Their name, their soul, their memory…

To become the lock on an ever-hungry door.

A permanent seal.

No resurrection. No rebirth. No voice to echo in the world she saved.

❝ Eliryn… ❞

A voice broke through her resolve.

She turned.

Raiquen stood, blood down his brow, his Fourth Gate aura flaring with golden-thorn energy, eyes locked on her.

Even battered, he knew.

Even now, he refused.

"Don't."

His voice wasn't a command.

It was fear.

It was loss, wrapped in syllables.

Eliryn gave him a soft smile.

Bittersweet.

Tender.

"We always knew it might come to this."

"But it's okay."

"Let me bloom… just once… as I choose."

The flower on her scythe bloomed fully now.

Crimson petals laced with ink-black veins.

Elder Lao fell to his knees.

His face grief-struck.

"She's activating the sealed core…"

Elder Mia sobbed quietly.

Elder Loe, eyes dim, whispered, "The legacy… completes itself."

The battlefield halted.

Even the Voidborn twitched sensing something ancient stirring.

Even Ko and Li turned to look.

Sil's illusions froze mid-air.

Braggen's fist hung inches from another strike.

Kirell's whip lost tension.

And Khael bloodied and breathing heavy looked up at the rift.

A petal drifted skyward.

Eliryn rose.

Her aura exploded black and bloom entwined, spiraling.

Her feet no longer touched the ground.

The scythe turned into light.

The rift responded.

It screamed.

Khael clenched his fists.

"No… there must be another way—"

Raiquen shouted, "ELIRYN!!"

But Eliryn's voice, as calm as the eye of a storm, echoed through the battlefield:

"Let my shade guard your future."

"Let my bloom become your beginning."

And then—

She flew into the rift.

A flare of light.

A shriek from the void.

A silence.

The sky dimmed.

The rift…

It stopped widening.

It pulsed once—

Then stilled.

Not gone.

But sealed.

A single petal drifted down.

It landed in Raiquen's hand.

And somewhere in the silence,

a flower bloomed.

Khael's fists trembled.

His knees sank into the bloodstained earth.

Around him, the wind died. The howls of the Voidborn faded like an echo swallowed by the night. The sky was cracked but no longer bleeding.

"Raiquen…"

Khael's voice was hoarse, but it couldn't reach him.

"ELIRYN!!!"

Raiquen's cry tore through the stillness, a scream of rage, of grief, of helpless defiance. His hand clutched the petal as if it were her soul itself.

The single bloom glowed faintly, pulsing against Raiquen's palm.

Khael's eyes stung not from ash. From memory. From guilt. From everything.

He clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to look away.

"She gave everything..."

"And what did I give?"

He looked down at his hands scarred, calloused, cracked but empty.

He had memories.

Memories of a Dragon.

Of Loiran's smile.

Of power sleeping beneath his skin.

But that was all they were memories. Not strength. Not action. Not enough.

"Why…?"

"Why am I still too weak?"

He slammed a fist into the dirt.

Again.

And again.

The ground cracked beneath his fury, but it didn't answer him.

To be continue