There was once a hero.
The mother's voice broke the thick silence of the darkened room, weaving through the air thick with the scent of burning oil. A single lamp sputtered, struggling against the heavy gloom. It was noon outside—the sun hung high—but here, behind shuttered windows and drawn curtains, it might as well have been midnight.
The boy listened, nestled close against her side, his pointy elven ears twitching at every soft syllable. His mother's voice was a lullaby, soothing and slow, more fairy tale than simple storytelling.
"He was big," she said, her fingers brushing back a stray lock of his hair. "He was kind. He was stern... but not out of cruelty or hatred."
The boy blinked up at her, wide-eyed.
"He was paranoid," she continued, her voice dropping lower, each word heavy. "But he had to be. He wore his strength like a shield, for others' sake. Never once did he fear his own heart. He feared only what might happen if he failed them."
The boy's breath hitched, a thousand questions forming on his lips, but he stayed silent. Listening.
"At his waist," the mother said, her hand instinctively reaching toward her own side as if she too once bore the burden, "he carried a blade. An accursed blade. One that brought misfortune to all who touched it."
The flame of the lamp flickered, casting a brief, dancing shadow across the boy's face.
"Only he," she whispered, voice trembling at the memory, "only he volunteered to carry that weight."
The room seemed to grow colder.
Her voice faltered for the first time, the heavy truth pressing against her throat.
She looked down at her son—so small, so innocent still—and knew the day would come when she would have to tell him the rest. About the cost of that burden. About the choice that would one day fall to him.
But not yet.
For now, she simply brushed her fingers across his ear, soothing him back into the safety of ignorance.
"And he never..." Her voice dropped to a breath, fragile and sacred, as though even whispering the truth risked breaking it. "He never ran from what was his to bear... nor from what belonged to others."
The boy shifted closer, burrowing into her side. His eyelids fluttered, not in the peaceful descent into sleep, but into deep, uneasy dreams.
The lamp by their side sputtered again—shadows stretching like reaching hands across the walls—but it refused to die. Its flame, trembling yet defiant, matched the heartbeat of the story still unfolding.
"Mother," the boy whispered, his voice as thin as a reed. "Did you meet the hero?"
The question hung in the stale air, and for a heartbeat, the mother was silent.
"Did I...?" She let out a low, wistful laugh, as if shaking off the weight of a thousand years. "Ages ago, I was a little elf, too... just a child." Her voice thickened, heavy with memories older than the dust gathering in the corners of the room. "He played with me. With your father. Your Uncle Rukis."
The boy's ears twitched at the names, old and half-forgotten.
"How was he?" he asked, wide-eyed, clinging to the threads of her story like a sailor to driftwood.
The mother smiled, but it was a smile haunted by longing.
"He was..." She closed her eyes for a moment, as if conjuring the image from the depths of her heart. "Big. Bigger than mountains themselves. His chest—broad and wide like the gates of lost kingdoms."
Her fingers moved unconsciously, tracing a shape in the air.
"His hair," she continued, her voice almost reverent, "more platinum-grey than all the countless moons stitched across our night sky."
The boy watched her in awe as she spoke, her voice growing stronger with every word.
"His shoulders," she said with a grin, "were so wide, so solid, you could sit atop them like a throne when you were small enough." She chuckled under her breath, but it was a sound heavy with sorrow, too.
"And his eyes..." she said, trailing off into a sigh.
The boy leaned forward eagerly. "His eyes?"
She smirked, playful, teasing the memory like a sweet she almost couldn't bear to share. "Redder than blood, my darling. Redder than the deepest autumn leaves falling in the ancient woods. Tired... so very tired... yet always gleaming with snark and mischief."
The boy giggled softly at the idea, but the mother's face darkened.
"He made sure," she said, her voice dipping low again, "to never wet those eyes for us. Never let us see him cry."
She pressed a trembling hand against her lips, as if trapping a deeper grief inside.
"And his face..." She exhaled, her voice cracking under the weight of memory. "Great Brahma above," she whispered, the words falling from her lips like a prayer. "He was—"
The door creaked.
A low, groaning sound that seemed to stretch across the small, fragile house.
The boy flinched instinctively, his body pressing tighter against his mother's side.
The lamp sputtered violently, its flame shrinking under the breath of a sudden draft. The air turned cold, heavy with the stench of earth and old blood, seeping into the cracks of their sanctuary.
The mother froze.
Her hand moved with quiet urgency, gathering the boy against her, shielding him without thought.
A moment ago, her eyes had been wide with the soft glow of ancient wonder, lost in the bright ache of distant memories. Now, they sharpened into hard, glittering things—like blades polished under moonlight.
She inhaled once, steadying herself.
"He was once considered ugly," she said, her voice low, fierce, almost spitting the words into the dark. "In our imperial elven courts, that was his brand... what foolishness it was."
The boy, still half-tucked under her arm, blinked up at her. His voice wavered. "What... what happened to him then?"
The mother's lips thinned, grief carving deeper lines into her face.
"He fought," she said, the word falling heavy between them, as if it alone carried the weight of an entire lifetime. "He fought... and he defeated a god."
The boy's mouth parted in silent awe, eyes wide, straining to picture the impossible.
But the mother wasn't finished.
"And then," she whispered, as the lamp sputtered lower, casting their faces into trembling shadows, "he died."
The boy jerked back slightly, as if the word itself had struck him.
"He died," she repeated, her voice ragged and hollow. "I was there... I saw him fall, swallowed by the Great Lake."
Silence descended, thick and suffocating.
Only their breathing remained—thin, unsteady, the sound of two souls holding each other above an abyss.
The mother's hand trembled as she ran her fingers through her son's hair, the gesture tender yet desperate, as if she could anchor him against the terrible tides of the story.
"The princess... and the queen," she said hoarsely, "they mourned him deeper than any blood kin. He was their champion. Their son. Their elder brother."
Her gaze flickered toward the door.
The old wood shuddered again—subtle but undeniable—as though something pressed against it from the other side.
Her voice dropped into a raw, fearful hush.
"And now," she breathed, "some debts are not content to stay buried."
The lamp gave a final, feeble flicker.
And died.
Darkness poured into the room like a living thing, swallowing every edge, every breath, until even the boy's heartbeat seemed too loud against the suffocating silence.
"Mother," the child's voice wavered, small and trembling in the blackness, "the dark is here."
"The dark was always there," she whispered, pulling him closer, her arms tightening protectively around his slight frame. "It only shows itself when the light is gone."
The boy pressed his face into her side, desperate for comfort that even her steady warmth struggled to give.
"Don't worry," she murmured into his hair, her voice steady as steel drawn against the dark. "You know what to say when you are in fear."
The boy hesitated. Then, with a shaking breath, he nodded, summoning the words she had stitched into him long ago—an armor of syllables meant for nights exactly like this.
Before he could speak them, a sound broke the fragile cocoon of the room.
From the distant streets of Olive Dale came noise—loud and fractured—like the clamor of an execution being carried out. A chaotic symphony of angry shouts, breaking wood, and steel striking stone.
The boy clutched at her tighter.
"Stay here," she whispered, smoothing his hair with a trembling hand. "I'll be right back."
Before the dark could argue, she slipped from his arms and moved toward the door, her steps soundless despite the pounding of her heart.
Out into the night.
The streets were a mess of torchlight and shrieking voices, the scent of blood and burning oil thick in the air. Commoners, peasants like herself, gathered in clusters, their faces pale and pinched with horror.
She pushed through them, the sharp edge of dread settling deeper into her chest.
And from their frantic mouths, she learned the news.
"Princess Paliv Ellarion," one woman hissed to another, "was promised to Khan Gharov."
"But they found her," another spat, "in bed with a dark elf."
"A dark elf!" gasped a man nearby. "A filthy, soot-skin!"
The words spread like wildfire, fanned by fear and loathing.
"Queen Mellirion has spoken," another added grimly. "The princess will be wed... and the boy executed. In the same breath."
The woman's blood ran cold.
A wedding and an execution, tied together like two heads on the same pike.
Above the din, the bells of Olive Dale tolled—low and mournful.
Each hollow chime hammering a truth deeper into the bones of the city.
"It will not," came a voice from beyond the crowd—calm, certain, cutting through the thick night air like a blade.
The woman turned, and so did many others.
From the smoke and half-light emerged Great Knight Kazam, the man they called the Golden Wrist.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and built like a war-forged statue—his presence alone enough to make armed men falter. His skin, bright and dried, bore the history of a hundred battles, each line across his arms and face a story unspoken. Emerald-green eyes, sharp and unsettling, glowed faintly even in the gloom, framed by a rough mane of golden blonde hair that tumbled to his shoulders in unruly, wind-swept waves.
A single braid hung from behind his left ear, threaded with iron rings—each one a token of an enemy he had personally slain.
His armor was an unorthodox fusion: gleaming gold-dipped wristplates that earned him his name, over a worn and battered cuirass stitched from blackened leather and cracked silver scales. Golden silk was wrapped around his waist and shoulders, frayed and stained with old blood, trailing like a war-banner in his wake. His boots, caked with the red clay of long-forgotten battlefields, thudded heavily on the stone as he advanced.
Even the way he moved was a study in brutal grace—like a predator that had been caged too long and was only now remembering freedom.
"Disciple of the Hero?" the woman asked, half in awe, half in dread.
Kazam shook his head once—a slow, deliberate gesture that carried the weight of an oath.
"No," he said, voice low and steady. "I am no disciple. I am only his squire. That is all I will ever be to him."
Without hesitation, he drew his blade—Gatthrex—from its scabbard.
It was a monstrous sword, nearly as long as he was tall, forged of blackened steel that gleamed with a sickly oil-sheen. Runes, long faded and battle-worn, crawled across its blade like ancient scars.
The crowd recoiled, sensing instinctively that this man did not bluff. That this was no staged drama of the court.
"I will save Fa Git," Kazam declared, his voice slicing through the rising tide of fearful murmurs. "For he was my master's friend. His disciple."
The woman stammered, trying to find words, but Kazam cut her off without mercy.
"But the que—"
"Fuck the Queen," he spat, his face twisting with something almost feral. "I owe no loyalty to crown or kingdom. Not to a court that gorges itself while letting its gutters drown in blood."
He took another step forward, the earth seeming to tremble beneath his boots.
"My loyalty," he growled, "belongs to only one. Mugyiwara Shotaro—he who disappeared. The only one who climbed down into the filth and found me. When all others turned away."
His emerald eyes burned, not with righteous fury, but something colder, older.
"Only he showed mercy," Kazam said, tightening his gauntleted fist around Gatthrex, "and by his mercy, so shall I act."
He raised the blade, letting the runes catch the faint torchlight, a thousand ghostly whispers seeming to stir around him.
"If I must cut down every soldier of this kingdom to end this mockery," he said, voice like a blade scraping bone, "then so be it."
The bells of Olive Dale tolled again—deeper, heavier.
Not mourning anymore.
Warning.
Because the Golden Wrist had drawn his blade.
And the world would bleed before he lowered it again.
"You do realize," came a dry voice from a nearby rooftop, "that standing there monologuing like some tragic hero out of a storybook is a complete waste of time?"
Kazam flashed a face palmed. "Oops."
And then he ran—straight toward the execution grounds.
They dragged the boy through the streets like a broken trophy.
Fa Git—his name hissed through the crowd like a curse.
His body was carved with blood and cruelty. Ashen skin marred with deep, raw gashes; his once-powerful frame, muscular and proud, now bore the scars of a punishment meant not to kill but to humiliate.
His hair, a thick tumble of violet, was slicked to his scalp with sweat, dirt, and worse. His amethyst eyes—those beautiful, stubborn eyes—were dried hollow from the agony of his earlier beatings. Cuts crisscrossed his biceps, his calves, his back—a latticework of suffering etched by imperial hands.
They marched him naked but for a torn loincloth, the cold biting at his ruined flesh. He stumbled over shards of glass thrown in his path, coal and filth hurled at him by jeering crowds. Excrement smeared his skin, but he never once lowered his head.
Not when they spat at him.Not when they cursed him.
Even as the imperial elves spat poison at his feet and mocked his birthright with slurs heavy enough to crack bones, Fa Git walked forward.
Hands bound. Pride unbroken.
In his mind, he clutched two faces tighter than life itself:
First, his father—stern and silent, eyes like flint, the man who had taught him what it meant to endure.
And then—Paliv.
Her face burned against the darkness.
Golden-brown hair wild against a summer sky. Emerald eyes glistening with defiance and something sweeter when she had looked only at him.
The memory came unbidden—dangerous, desperate, and achingly tender.
Her laughter had once been sunlight over him.
Her touch, a mercy he had thought forever forbidden.
He could still feel the trembling of her fingers as they undid the ties of his tunic, the desperate reverence in the way she had pressed against him, tasting of salt and honey under frantic, stolen kisses. The way she had arched into him beneath silken sheets, gasping his name like a prayer — a prayer only the damned dared to whisper.
He could still hear her voice, cracked and breathless, begging him not to leave her even as the first cruel light of dawn crept through the window.
That warmth.That sin.That life.
It was all he had left now.
And it would not be enough.
The priests waited by the gallows, robes heavy with symbols of hollow mercy.
The noose swung lazily from the execution frame, as if eager for his neck.
The crowd roared and jeered, their hatred sharp enough to draw blood without a blade.
And somewhere closer—so close he could almost feel it—came the sharp ring of steel against stone.
A promise whispered through the air:
Not every story ends in silence.
"I wish she were here," Fa Git muttered to himself, dry laughter scraping from his cracked lips as he was dragged through the mud toward the execution square.
"But maybe..." He coughed, tasting blood. "Maybe she shouldn't be."
He stumbled forward under the rough hands of his captors, head bowed — and that was when he saw it.
A slip of paper.
Trampled into the dirt, half-hidden by bootprints and blood.
In the briefest blink, he caught the words scratched across it:
You know what you have to say.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
He lifted his eyes, searching — and across the mass of sneering, spitting faces, he saw a figure.
Small.
Still.
Watching from the crowd.
The child.
The boy from the old stories.
Fa Git only had a blink before rough hands shoved him forward again, toward the execution platform.
The air grew thicker. The world narrowed to the creaking of the wooden frame, the swaying of the rope, and the worn boots of the executioner standing before him.
The man wasn't cruel — no sadistic gleam in his eye, no thirst for blood. He was simply... tired. Dutiful. His voice, when he spoke, was warm but stern.
"Prisoner," he said, "you are granted final words."
The crowd hushed, eager for either a plea or a curse.
Fa Git, broken in body but unbowed in spirit, lifted his chin.
The noose swung before him like a serpent tasting the air, eager to strike.
But he remembered the note.
And he knew.
There were words older than any crown, deeper than any oath.Words meant not for surrender.But for calling.
A slow, bitter smile curled his cracked lips—more hatred than hope—as he thought of her.Paliv.Marrying that wretched bastard.
He spat blood onto the dirt, lifted his voice, and spoke:
"When the sky is fire,"
The crowd stiffened. The executioner froze mid-step.Across the square, murmurs slithered through the air like a growing storm.
"When the ground is thorn,"
His voice rose, iron sharpening against the wind.Every imperial elf present—noble and common alike—felt it:The ancient gravity in those words.The sheer wrongness of hearing them spoken aloud.
"When the kin is liar,""When the fate is scorn..."
The sky itself seemed to tighten, heavy and breathless.A deep rumble trembled across the heavens.
Then—goosebumps.
A sickness of dread washed over the square like a cold tide.Mothers pulled children behind them. Soldiers tightened their grips on weapons that suddenly felt useless.
And Fa Git?He only smiled wider, defiant.
He kept walking forward, closer to the noose, closer to death.
But it was not death that was coming.
It was something far, far above it.
"When bonds go rotten,""When prayers are heard—and forgotten..."
A child in the crowd pointed upwards, his small hand shaking violently.
Eyes turned to the sky.
And what they saw stole the breath from a thousand lungs at once.
Something enormous—something that had no right to exist—was falling from the clouds.A shadow without form.A shape made of wrath and ruin.
The priests dropped their relics and fled.The guards stumbled back, their faces pale as bone.
Fa Git did not falter.
He screamed into the rising storm, voice raw and burning:
"Keep your way. DO NOT FALL.""KEEP WALKING THE PATH. CLOSE YOUR lids-- THEN YOU CALL."
The earth shuddered beneath him.
The heavens howled above him.
And still he roared:
"When THE FAITH IS HIGH, CHANCE IS ZERO—""THEN FROM BEYOND THE HANDS OF POSSIBILITY—"
The creature in the sky dove lower, faster, a star of black fire.
"COMES THE HERO!"
The words were a blade, and he drove them into the world with every shred of his soul.
The thing in the sky crashed into the city like a hammer of gods.
Stone shattered.Earth heaved.The towers of Olive Dale screamed as they split and fell.
And from the crater of ruin—something stirred.
Something was stirring.
Something not under their laws, not under their gods.
Something answering the call.
The smoke from the crater began to clear, rolling back in heavy, reluctant waves. And through it, a voice—sharp with snark, dripping with a sass and sarcasm too familiar to be mistaken—cut the silence in half.
"Well, well," the voice drawled. "I leave for, what, seven hundred years... and you lot turn the place into a shithole."
Kazam reached the execution grounds—and nearly collapsed.
He stopped dead in his tracks, heart hammering, jaw unhinged in horror and disbelief at the figure standing within the smoking ruin.
There, half-casual, half-apocalyptic, stood a man.
Red eyes, burning like dying suns.Sun-kissed skin, weathered and scarred like an old war map.Silver hair, slicked back and spiked at the crown, wild and defiant against the heavens.
He wore a sleeveless black compression shirt clinging to a frame carved from battle, a crimson cloak tied around his waist like a makeshift cape.Strapped combat pants and battered brown boots completed the look—a rogue who never cared for the court's pageantry but carved legends with his own two hands.
A living myth.A walking curse.A ghost returned.
"M—M—M'LORD!!!" Kazam gasped, voice breaking into a scream that could have shattered marble.
He made a face so utterly broken, so shock-stricken, it was as if the heavens themselves had yanked the floor out from under him.
(If gods could screamed, they would have. Loudly.)
The silver-haired man casually stretched his arms over his head, as if waking from a long nap, glancing around at the ruins, the stunned faces, the shattered towers.
His crimson gaze landed on Kazam.
And he grinned.
"Oh, you're not a brat anymore, huh?" he said, cocking his head. His voice oozed mischief, as though he hadn't missed a single heartbeat since the day he vanished.
He gave Kazam a mock-inspecting look.
"Can't keep that black elven BBC in your pants, huh?"
Kazam blinked, flailing his hands. "What the fuck is BBC—?"
"Don't bother with it," Shotaro cut in, smirking.
"You've said that before," Kazam muttered, dragging his hands down his face. "You're still saying it now."
Shotaro only chuckled—a sound like a crack in the sky—and stepped forward, the ground seeming to remember his weight, his legend.
The crowd, executioners, priests, soldiers—all of them—stood paralyzed.
Because deep down, every soul in Olive Dale recognized the man in the crater.
Not as a savior.
Not as a soldier.
But as the storm that once tore the heavens apart... and had returned.
And to understand how he came back—how he survived death, betrayal, and the annihilation of kingdoms—You would have to go to the very beginning.
To the first heartbreak.
The first battlefield.
The first blade drawn against a friend.
Thus begins the story of Shotaro Mugyiwara:
A story of pain and loss, of being thrown into mud yet clawing back into the light.Of betrayals sharp enough to sever gods.Of love, reckless and bloody.Of hatred, old as the bones of the earth.Of swinging fists and broken crowns.Of style measured not by gold, but by the enemies left kneeling in his wake.Of saving what should have been damned.
Thus begins the legend anew.
A journey like none else
The journey of a hero that kept moving forward.