In a world where the gods demand pain as tribute, Yuda has served as the Great Shrine Maiden of Asterion for over a century—a Regeneration-blessed tool of the state, burning and healing without end, never permitted to die. She has long since stopped believing in the voice she speaks for.
But when a northern village is reduced to ash by a rogue flame-blessed, Yuda is dispatched to investigate. What she finds is a young man consumed by fire that will not kill him, cradling the charred body of a g
Fire Punch: Flame of Atonement - Three days and three nights — the inextinguishable flame and the unceasing regeneration
Snow was falling on the burned ruins of the scorched village.
The sky sagged low and leaden, so heavy that even the sun's position was lost. Fine flakes drifted on the wind, settling in a thin layer over the remains of the charred houses. Burnt beams jutted out like black bones, and the whiteness of the snow only made that blackness stand out more starkly.
Yuda stood at the village entrance.
The hem of her white vestments dragged across ground mixed with ash and snow. Her white hair, grown to her waist, swayed in the wind, and her blue eyes—like the deep heart of a glacier—stared into the depths of the ruins. On her back, the wing-shaped mark of blessing gave off a faint heat.
(Three days.)
Yuda thought.
(Three days have passed since that day.)
She had kept her promise. She had told him to run if he meant to run, and that she would return here in three days. And now she was here. Even she didn't understand why she had come back.
No—she understood.
(Because it's an order.)
An execution order. A command handed down by the Blessed Management Bureau: dispose of the unregistered flame blessed. The decision of the state. The will of God. She had come here to carry it out.
That was all.
That was supposed to be all.
Yuda took a step into the ruins.
Beneath her boot, charcoal crumbled. Not a crisp crunch, but something drier—a sound like collapse. Like the snapping of dead wood's bones.
Heat still lingered in the ruins.
When snow touched the ground, it hissed and melted. Steam rose, clouding white in the cold air. It was as though the entire village were still breathing. No—that was wrong. The village was dead. What was breathing was the flame that had burned it.
An inextinguishable flame.
Doma's fire burned until its target was charred to nothing. And even now, three days later, that fire still flickered here and there throughout the village. From the gaps in the black charcoal, a pale blue fire showed its face. Even as snow piled up, the fire did not go out. It melted the snow, raised steam, and burned on in silence.
Yuda watched the scene without expression.
(I don't think it's beautiful.)
(I don't think it's terrifying, either.)
(It's just—this is what a blessing is.)
She walked on. Threading between the collapsed, burned houses, she headed deeper into the village. Traces remained everywhere of the forty people who had once lived here. A half-melted pot. Shards of broken pottery. Scraps of carbonized cloth. And—
Bones.
Small bones, buried in the ash.
Yuda passed by without stopping.
(There are no bodies left.)
(Doma's fire burns even the bones to nothing.)
(What remains is only ash and charcoal and the inextinguishable flame.)
In the center of the village was a plaza.
A place where once there must have been a well, where gatherings were held, where children ran about. Now it was nothing but an empty lot under a thick layer of black ash.
And in the middle of it—
He was there.
Aguni.
A fifteen-year-old boy. His short, dark brown hair was kinked and singed at the tips from the heat of the flames. His amber eyes were wet with pain, unfocused. His whole body was wrapped in an inextinguishable flame.
His skin burned and sloughed and regenerated, regenerated and burned and sloughed again. Red-black flesh writhed beneath the fire. His clothes had long since burned away, his bare body cloaked in flame. On his left arm, a burn scar carved with his sister's name—the characters "Luna"—stood out sharply.
He was standing.
For three days, the whole time.
Burned by the fire, tormented by pain, and still he kept standing.
Yuda stopped at the edge of the plaza.
(He's still standing.)
She thought.
(For three days, the whole time.)
(While the fire burns him.)
(In the middle of the pain.)
Aguni's lips moved faintly.
"Luna..."
A hoarse voice. Lost in the sound of the flames, barely audible. But it reached Yuda's ears clearly enough.
"It's still... burning..."
Aguni's body turned slowly toward Yuda.
Within the fire, his amber eyes wavered. Those eyes were clouded with pain. Tormented by hallucinations and phantom sounds, unable to tell reality from dream. That was the kind of look in them.
Yuda opened her mouth quietly.
"By order of the Blessed Management Bureau, I dispose of the unregistered flame blessed."
Her voice was flat. The same emotionless voice she used when reading oracles aloud. A voice that had spent over a hundred years speaking for the state.
"By the will of God, your existence is denied."
She got that far—
And then Yuda stopped.
(...Something's wrong.)
Something was caught in the back of her throat.
The final sentence wouldn't come out.
"By the will of God, you ought to die"—those words caught in her throat and would not emerge.
Yuda, her face still expressionless, felt the anomaly occurring inside her.
(Why?)
(I've spoken these words countless times.)
(When performing the oracle, when reading out execution sentences.)
(Without a shred of emotion, I've uttered them as mere sound.)
(And yet.)
(Why, now?)
Aguni looked at Yuda.
The white vestments. The wing-shaped mark on her back. And those cold blue eyes.
Aguni's face twisted.
"...You're... the Bureau's...!"
His voice cut through the sound of the flames.
"The state's... side...!"
Flame erupted from Aguni's body.
With a roar, the surrounding snow evaporated in an instant. A hot wind whipped Yuda's white hair violently, setting the hem of her vestments flapping.
"The state that... burned my sister...!"
Aguni shouted.
"You people... made Doma a hero...!"
His right arm swung up, wreathed in flame.
"Give Luna back...!!"
A mass of fire shot toward Yuda.
Yuda did not dodge.
Whether she thought there was no need to dodge, or whether she simply lacked the will to—even she didn't know. She just stood there, watching the oncoming fire.
The flame struck her left shoulder.
A hiss.
Her white vestments scorched in an instant, and the skin beneath was engulfed. The smell of burning flesh. Heat reaching the bone. Skin melting, muscle charring, nerves burning away.
—It hurts.
Yuda's expression twisted faintly.
(It hurts.)
(It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.)
She was a regeneration blessed. Her wounds repaired themselves automatically. Burned skin regenerated, charred muscle returned to normal. But her sense of pain was that of an ordinary person. The pain ran straight through her body.
The wound on Yuda's shoulder repaired itself before her eyes. The burned, sloughing skin peeled away, and new skin was born beneath it. Blood seeped, flesh swelled, the wound closed.
But the fire did not go out.
Aguni's flame had the same nature as Doma's. It burned until the object it touched was charred to nothing. Even as Yuda's regeneration kept pace, the fire burned the new skin again. Burning, burning, trying to burn it all away.
Yuda's shoulder repeated regeneration and destruction.
(This is.)
Yuda thought.
(The same as the verification, a hundred years ago.)
Deep in her memory, an old scene surfaced.
A hundred years ago. The verification chamber of the Blessed Management Bureau. Cold stone walls. Restraints. And a flame blessed. She had been burned by that fire for three days and three nights. An experiment to measure the limits of her regenerative ability. Torture to probe her pain threshold.
(Back then, I was still young.)
(I screamed and wept from the pain, prayed to God, wished for death.)
(And then, on the third night.)
(My emotions vanished.)
Yuda looked at Aguni.
The boy wrapped in flame, his face twisted with pain, and still he kept standing.
"You burn too...!"
Aguni unleashed fire again.
This time it struck Yuda's right arm.
Her vestments burned, her skin charred, her flesh caught fire. Yuda's right arm carbonized in an instant. Bone was exposed, fingers burned away.
—It hurts.
Yuda gritted her teeth.
(It hurts.)
(But I won't die.)
(I won't die.)
The burned-away fingers regenerated. Bone connected, muscle returned, skin covered them. But the fire burned the regenerated fingers again. Burning, burning, trying to burn them all away.
Yuda's right arm repeated regeneration and destruction.
(You're the same.)
Yuda stared at Aguni.
(Your flame can't kill me.)
(My regeneration can't keep up with your flame.)
(But you yourself are being burned by your own fire.)
(Your regeneration can't keep up with your own flame.)
(In other words.)
(We cannot kill each other.)
Yuda understood that within the first few minutes.
Aguni's flame could not burn Yuda to nothing. Yuda's regeneration could not keep up with the burning, but neither was she ever completely consumed. Her wounds were always repairing, the fire always burning on.
And Aguni himself was being burned by his own flame. His regenerative ability could not keep up with the burning. His skin was constantly charring, his flesh constantly scorching. But he did not die either. A flame blessed does not die by his own fire.
Neither could kill the other.
Neither could die himself.
This was not a fight to the death—it was a war of attrition.
"You... why... won't you fall...!"
Aguni's voice was shaken.
"Why... when you're burning...!"
Yuda answered quietly.
"I'm a regeneration blessed too."
Her voice was flat, as ever.
"Your flame can't kill me."
"...Shut up...!"
Aguni unleashed fire in rapid succession.
Roar, roar, roar!
Masses of flame struck Yuda's body one after another. Chest, stomach, legs, face. Her white vestments burned away, her skin charred, her flesh caught fire. Yuda's whole body was engulfed in flame.
—It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.
Yuda's body repeated regeneration and destruction. Skin melted, bone was exposed, organs burned. But the next instant they had regenerated. Regenerated, and burned again. Burned, and regenerated again.
(This is.)
(The verification from a hundred years ago.)
(Being replayed.)
Yuda thought, within the fire.
(The same as then.)
(Burned, regenerated, burned again.)
(In the pain, my emotions are being scraped away.)
(Something that was human is dying, little by little.)
The fire burned Yuda's face.
Her left eyeball burst from the heat. Her vision went blood-red. But the next instant a new eyeball regenerated, and her sight returned.
(It hurts.)
(But I'm getting used to it.)
(A hundred years ago, it was the same.)
(On the third night, I got used to it.)
(And my emotions vanished.)
Yuda's lips moved faintly.
"...I see."
She murmured within the fire.
"God doesn't say that."
A verbal tic. The words she always swallowed down inside, the ones she spoke unconsciously.
Aguni shouted.
"What... are you saying...!"
The fire intensified.
"Because you people... made Doma a hero...!"
"Luna died...!"
"My... sister...!"
Aguni's words came in fragments.
"You people... don't know anything...!"
"The state's little ornamental shrine maiden...!"
"Hear the voice of God...? Don't make me laugh...!"
"Because you people... believe in God...!"
"A madman like Doma... becomes a hero...!"
Yuda, burning in the fire, listened to Aguni's words.
(The state's ornamental shrine maiden.)
(That's right.)
(I don't hear the voice of God.)
(I'm only performing the oracle.)
(Deceiving the people, gathering faith, justifying the logic of the state.)
(Just a tool.)
Aguni's flame burned Yuda's back.
The wing-shaped mark rose up with the heat. The mark of blessing glowed white, as though screaming.
—It hurts.
Yuda's body tilted heavily for a moment.
(My regeneration can't keep up.)
(Aguni's flame is too strong.)
(The same inextinguishable flame as Doma's.)
(My regeneration can't erase it completely.)
Yuda dropped to her knees.
White ash swirled up from the scorched ground. Her white hair was burned black by the fire. Her vestments no longer held any shape, and her charred, sloughing skin was exposed.
(But.)
(I won't die.)
(I won't die.)
(A hundred years ago, I didn't die either.)
(Burned fo
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