Blaze was lying on the floor with a spear impaled in his stomach, slowly bleeding out; the blood dripping from his wounds had dyed his white suit red. The room he was trapped in was mostly on fire, in fact the whole house was. The spear sticking out of his stomach wasn't the only injury he had; most of his bones were broken, there was also an arrow stuck in his kneecap.

All those injuries hurt just as much as his heart did; He was not dying because of an attack of an enemy; his death was caused by one of his own family.

He was tired, really tired; It's not as if he hadn't fought for his life, he fought and fought and fought, but the assassins that attacked were too trained. Still Blaze managed to kill 7 of them, but they were too many; a few dozens it seemed to him. They nearly killed him but didn't finish the job; instead they trapped him in one of the rooms and set the whole house on fire. His death was imminent.

It is said that right before one's death, they get glimpses of their whole lives; but what Blaze was getting glimpses of was the fight he had with the attackers, the torture he suffered and the pain they inflicted on him. Blaze was crying, he didn't want to close his eyes because every time he did, he saw those horrible moments, as if he was living through that hell once again.

But he was so tired, his eyes seemed so heavy to him; it was as if his body was urging him to take rest. But his soul knew that if he did, it would be the end and he did not want those horrific memories to be the ones he remembered in his last moments. It was then, that his eyes fell upon a picture on the shelf in front of him; the shelf had already caught on fire.

It was a picture of him and his Maa in a small frame; he intently looked at the picture and tried to recall the sweet moments he had spent with his mother. But it was getting so hard to look at the picture; his tears made it difficult to stare. Blaze somehow dragged his hand to his face and wiped his tears with great effort and then he noticed, the fire was reaching towards that picture!

Blaze couldn't just let it be destroyed like that, so he tried to get himself up and save the picture; but the moment he lifted his body just a little, he felt it, the pain! All the pain! He fell headfirst into the floor again. Then he lifted his head up a bit and looked at the picture. The fire! It was slowly burning the picture! Blaze reached out to it with his right hand but he was still too far; instead his hand caught on fire. But it didn't hurt, maybe because he was so focused on the picture. His face on the picture was already burnt, now the fire was going towards his mother's face.

"No! Please stop… Nooooo!!" He shouted with every bit of energy left in him.

And suddenly something impossible happened, the fire diverted. Blaze was dumbfounded, but then he felt a strange energy inside of him, he felt as if his wounds were healing, and they really were. All of his injuries were healing with a scorching effect; it looked as if all the cells around the wounds were burning and then regenerating once again. He then pulled out the spear from his stomach and the arrow from his knee; and just in a matter of a few seconds Blaze could stand up again.

Then he felt something else, a connection; but to what?

"The fire?!" Blaze wondered and he damn right he was!

The very fire that was about to burn him to death, suddenly felt familiar; as if the fire was listening to him, obeying him. The fire was swaying the same way Blaze was swaying his body; then his gaze fell on his right hand. It looked like his hand was on fire, but it wasn't burning him; he was able to control the fire. After 17 years of humiliation, his powers had finally blossomed. He was amused, overjoyed.

"NO!" Blaze said firmly as he remembered that this was no time to get happy; he looked at the picture and subconsciously shouted, "Maa! I have to find her!"

Then Blaze snatched the picture from the frame, held it tight in his hand, gathered all the flames in that room and focused it towards the wall which he knew faced the garden and blew a huge hole in the house.

*Crash**BOOM**CRAASSSSHH*

"What the…" the assassins who were splashing crude oil in the garden were shocked by the big explosion and a huge piece of debris covered in fire falling right in front of them; but much to their surprise, it wasn't any debris, it was the Prince they heard was taken care of. The flames surrounding Blaze scattered and ignited all the crude oil; some of those people also caught on fire; they ran around in pain screaming, begging for help, until their life escaped their bodies. The garden which was once full of beautiful, fragrant flowers now looked like a scorched battleground.

"Where's my mother?! Where is she?!!"

Every assassin who somehow avoided the fire, quickly drew out there weapons and stood ready kill the Prince who was there target.

"Surrender immediately, and we would think about giving you an easy death." One of the assassins said with a smirk; There were about a dozen of them, the sorry prince stood alone, they had the upper hand. Or so they thought.

"Death? And easy? *sigh* You have offered me an easy death. But you see, I'm not as kind as you; I won't 'offer' you an 'easy' death. I'm gonna grant you the most gruesome and painful death any of you could ever possibly imagine." Blaze's words shook all of their hearts, they somehow had a feeling that this prince was not just bluffing.

"You damn brat!!" one of them yelled and rushed towards Blaze with his mace, ready to swing at full force. But he made one mistake, the mistake of underestimating a 'Royal Blood'.

Blaze quickly dodged the mace and grabbed that man's wrist; the man had worn a metal plate on his arm. He suddenly realized that he had messed up catastrophically, the metal plate had started to heat up, just from the heat of Blaze's hand; his instincts told him not to move even an inch, as he felt that a predator had gotten hold of him.

"Do you know how much it hurts to have molten metal poured directly on your skin?" Blaze asked as his hand heated up more and more, till that metal plate started melting.

"AAARRGHHGGH!!!" the assassin screamed his lungs out in pain as the molten metal from that plate burned through his skin, Blaze let go of his hand but there was nearly nothing left of it. He could do nothing else but stay there on his knees, shrieking and shaking in unbearable pain.

"Well now you know." Blaze said calmly.

All the other assassins w stood there absolutely baffled as they realized that the prince they had come to kill, turned out to be a …….

"Monster!!" One of them yelled.

"Monster? Me? I'm the monster here? You!! You break into my house! Nearly kill me!! Endanger my family!!! And I am the monster?!! No no no no, I'm no monster! And you are no innocent men!"

The men who were trained to be killers all their lives had finally come across someone, no! Something that frightened them deeply; for the first time they were truly afraid for their lives. And to make everything worse Blaze spoke again, "So I'm asking again. Where is my mother? Where is she?!!!"

Every one of the assassins were too scared to answer his question, because they knew that once they tell him, their death would be imminent.

"She's dead." The man kneeling down in pain in front of Blaze said in a low voice.

"What?" Blaze got close to his face, "What did you just say?"

The man looked at Blaze with loathing eyes and shouted with all his power, "She's dead! You hear me? We killed her, she begged and begged for mercy but we didn't show none. We killed her viciously, we defiled that bitch over and o..mmph." Blaze grabbed him right by his mouth; the man now looked at Blaze's face and saw tears rolling down from his eyes.

"Die." Said Blaze and burned the man down to ashes.

The remaining assassins were shaking in their boots, as they had already realized how that man had sealed their fate, ensured their demise.

"I couldn't…. *sniffle* I couldn't even protect you, Maa!!" Blaze broke down at last, his heart was aching, far more than the pain he had experienced physically. He stared at the picture of his mother; He cried and cried and cried, till the anger in him triumphed over the sorrow of his lose.

"You! You people killed her. Why? Whyyy??!!!" Blaze screamed at the men before him.

"We just followed orders! We were hired to do this."

"Orders? Hired? By who?"

"Someone with the title Agnihotri; that's all we know, I swear."

Blaze covered his face with his hand and then started laughing maniacally, "He really killed his own family, for a throne, that damn throne! He actually hired people to kill me, to kill us."

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah, he hired us! This is nothing personal dude!" one of the assassins said, trying to convince Blaze to let them go.

"Nothing personal you say; after killing my mother! None of you are leaving here alive."

All of them knew they were about to be attacked so they thought of running for their lives, but they soon realized what the Prince said was true. They were trapped, surrounded by fire; they couldn't escape, nor did they have any chance of winning against that monster. So they did nothing, knelt down and surrendered to their demise, The illegitimate Prince Blaze Kamiyama.

There was once a time when Nila and Blaze played around in this garden; Blaze had no friends of his own age, and nor did he need any. To him, his Maa was more than enough. He utterly loved plucking red roses and making a floral crown out of them for Nila, his beloved Maa.

But what was the significance of this garden anymore? Why would it exist? Now that he has no one to make a Rose Crown for.

So he burned it down; he burned it until no one could ever imagine that there was a garden there ever before.

The assassin were destroyed with not even a speck of them left. The house behind him was fully scorched; and the fire finally extinguished. Blaze fell on the ground, a ground covered in grey ashes of everything the fire had erased. Blaze lied there, looking up at the sky; he could hear some people coming. Were they the royal guards? Or maybe some more assassins?

Well, it didn't matter; Blaze was too tired to get up anyway. He closed his eyes and wished to reunite with his only true family, his Maa.

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