Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

All elves traced their origin to the great tree, Yggdrasil. Every year, when the conditions aligned, a ritual was held at its heart. The guardians of the tree presided over it, summoning forth new life from Yggdrasil's living core. From the roots to the crown, all of elven society understood this as their divine cycle, life given directly by the tree itself.

Children born this way were called true elves. They were the vast majority, their births celebrated, their futures blessed. Once a newborn was shaped from the bark and given breath, they would be assigned to a family. But the truth was simpler, if not more sacred: all elves were siblings, all sharing one origin.

By nature, such a system should have rendered evolution impossible. Yet, inexplicably, elves still possessed the capacity to reproduce like other mortal races. Their bodies were complete, their blood fertile. But to the elves, this was not a gift. It was a test.

To bring life through flesh rather than the tree was to reject Yggdrasil itself. Such births were called sacrilege. Their faith taught that a child not born of the tree would never be welcomed back into its embrace after death. They would be cut adrift, denied the cycle that carried the true elves.

Those unfortunate children were branded with a single name: bloodborn. Kin of blood, not of bark. Outcasts by birth, shunned for what they represented.

Racheal was one of them.

****

Being a bloodborn had never been easy for Racheal. The elves did not punish her parents outright for their so-called sin, but the stain of it spread like rot through their bloodline. The Morningstar name, already lingering near the bottom of Yggdrasil's rigid hierarchy, was dragged even lower. Whispers followed them, sneers grew bolder, and before Racheal could even grasp what it meant to live, she understood what it meant to be hated.

Her parents' deaths only sharpened the cruelty of it. They had not died by chance or sickness. No, an elf fanatic, zealous in his warped devotion to the great tree, struck them down in cold blood. To him, their act of love was not just weakness, it was blasphemy. He thought himself Yggdrasil's hand of judgment.

But even the elves who scorned Racheal's birth recoiled at his actions. For while the community branded bloodborn as outcasts, the greatest sin was still the shedding of elven blood. The fanatic was caught and chained, but the punishment brought no comfort. It did not bring her parents back.

From then on, Racheal walked alone in a world that rejected her. Alone, save for Elaine. Her sister's presence was the only hand steady enough to hold her up. The only voice that cut through the hatred and said, you belong. But now, that voice had been silenced too.

And so, as she stood in the council's hall, surrounded by twelve pillars of authority, their words echoed against the hollow ache of her memories. They spoke of duty, of her sister's death, of traditions and laws. They dressed their disdain in formality, yet every syllable was a reminder of the life she had been forced to endure.

When the golden-haired elder finished, her last word dripping with that familiar venom—bloodborn, Racheal's eyes lifted to meet hers. It was calm and unflinching.

"I decline," she said.

The hall fell into silence so absolute it felt as though the great tree itself was holding its breath.

****

Racheal leaned back in her chair, the smug curl of her lips refusing to leave. She replayed the scene in her mind, the sea of ancient, disbelieving faces frozen in shock the moment she said no. The mighty council of Yggdrasil left speechless by a single bloodborn girl.

"Serves them right," she murmured, her voice laced with satisfaction.

But then her expression faltered, the smile tugging into something thinner and more brittle, as her gaze lowered.

"So… I will awaken a Saint Rank talent."

The words tasted strange even as she said them. In the elf community, such potential was sacred. It was the very prerequisite for legitimacy, the key that marked one as worthy to stand as a candidate for ruler. It was the reason Elaine had been chosen. The reason her sister's life had been consumed by duties she hadn't asked for.

And now it was her.

It shouldn't have been possible. For Racheal, born of two Grounder parents, the odds had always been stacked cruelly low. True-born elves had a neat fifty-fifty chance of resonating with the Trial World. For her? The odds were closer to nothing. Yet somehow, she had received the resonance… and now, Saint potential.

Normally, an elf would have cried out in joy, in gratitude. But Racheal could only laugh, a hollow sound that cracked in her throat.

"It's like the tree is mocking me," she said with a bitter chuckle.

Mocking her birth. Mocking her pain. Mocking the very fact that everything she gained came only after Elaine was gone.

Her fingers curled into her lap, nails digging against her skin as her voice hardened.

"They can stick their stupid candidate position up their high ass for all I care. I want no part in it."

The council had granted her time to reconsider, as if expecting she would fold under the weight of their authority. But she knew her answer would not change. How could it? The candidate position was a curse. It was what had stolen the only pillar she had in this world.

Her vision blurred as a single tear broke free, slipping down her cheek.

"Elaine… why did you even accept?" she whispered.

The tear hit the wooden floor with a faint sound, small yet heavy enough to fill the silence of the room.

****

Racheal's breath still came in short bursts as she stepped through the front door, the edge of her training clothes damp with sweat. The early morning light spilled through the windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the golden beams, but she barely noticed. Training had become her only anchor since Elaine's death, the one thing sharp enough to carve through the numb haze that lingered over her days.

She moved toward the dining table, intending only to grab some water, when her eyes caught on the device sitting there. A small recorder.

Elaine's recorder.

Her chest tightened. She hadn't touched it since the day it was given to her. It had sat there for weeks, silent and untouched, a presence both comforting and unbearable. Every morning she saw it. Every night she avoided it.

But today felt different.

Racheal lingered at the edge of the table, her hand hovering above the device. Her fingers trembled slightly, a hesitation she tried to will away. Then, with a sharp inhale, she pressed down and activated it.

The device clicked alive, and after a brief hiss of static, but familiar voice filled the room.

Elaine's voice.

****

A/N: This flash back is ending in the next chapter I hope (⁠-⁠_⁠-⁠;⁠).