BLACK CLOVER: The Whisperer - Yuno Grinberryall

PROLOGUE. How It All Ended

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It's dark.

There is nothing but a void, yet the darkness blinds my eyes.

In the pitch-black void enveloping me, the path ahead remains hidden, shrouded in impenetrable darkness. I strain to discern the hands emerging from the abyss, outstretched and desperate, seeking a connection. The once-playful strands of my hair, accustomed to dancing in the wind, elude my sight, lost in the obsidian expanse. The trails of my footsteps, imprinted on an unseen ground, are a mystery to my obscured vision.

As I navigate this profound gloom, the enigma of what lies beyond this immeasurable dark expanse remains unfathomable.

A vigilant gaze sweeps the surroundings, but an unyielding sameness persists. Everything remains unaltered, an unbroken expanse of unrelenting blackness that engulfs every corner of this desolate void in which I find myself submerged.

An inexplicable pang of sorrow clutches at my heart, its origin eluding the recesses of my memory. The veil of forgetfulness shrouds the purpose of my presence in this abyss, leaving me stranded without a tether to the past or a beacon guiding me through the opaque obscurity.

What is this place, I wonder.

Does my anguish yearn for freedom? Can the ceaseless pain find solace in liberation from this realm? Is the quest for acknowledgment, for a sense of belonging, for recognition, and the truth the essence of my pursuit? What is the truth that my soul longs for?

In this boundless darkness, the familiar light has vanished. I no longer see the world that I grew up in, lost in the abyss of the unknown. The continuum of my origin—past, present, and future—I have forgotten about them all. Yet, fragments of my memory remain.

I don't want to remember them. They would only hurt me more.

Every time I open my eyes, nightmares terrorize me, shrouding the world in a disturbing quietness, devoid of light. Time eludes me in this eerie stillness, and the incessant thoughts echo like a broken record. They beg me to convince myself that reality isn't what I make it to be.

They haunt me as I'm drowning deeper into the shadows, swallowed wholly by nothing but the ravenous devil that started the war between worlds.

⠀

My world plunges into chaos.
I remember: There was nothing but fire.
Screams of help, their painful cries,
the children's wails—I can hear them all.

⠀

I recall the vivid azure flames that ate away the ogres that stood before me, protecting me from those wretched demons. The once-proud, coarse forms of the ogres were swiftly eroded by the flames, their lives extinguished before they could reach me.

"Be safe," their last words resounded.

The gaping split beneath my feet etched itself into my memory, a growing chasm that cleaved the earth in two. The searing pain of being hurled to the side by the fox spirits, screaming at me to run, paled in comparison to the guilt festering within me, gnawing relentlessly from the inside.

"Run! Run as far as you can, Master!"

I remember how someone cradled me in his arms, slashing through the sky and winds. He cared not if my blood painted his once-clean attire in red. With broad wings flapping sharply, we ascended through the crimson sky. Alongside us, others soared, forming a protective barrier on the sides and rear. Their gaze fixed on the pursuing threat, restraining themselves to honor the pledge we made—to spare every soul in our wake.