The war was nearing its end.
Maxwell Marvelo had done everything they asked of him—stormed beaches, lifted tanks, stared gods and monsters in the face. But the real battle had always been truth. And when the killing stopped, he did what no other hero dared:
He told the truth.
The Liberty Project. The serum trials. The murdered boys. The monsters made in government labs.
He exposed it all.
Under his real name.
The public reeled. Some called him a hero. Others called him a traitor. But he didn't care. He wasn't looking for applause. He just wanted it to stop.
But then came August 6th, 1945.
Maxwell had been in Japan, trying to evacuate a group of Japanese schoolchildren and their families when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. He didn't know it was coming. He only saw the light.
It hit like a second sun.
The city evaporated. Walls melted. People turned to shadows burned into the ground.
Maxwell stood in the blast's center, watching the world fall away. He screamed. Not in pain—he couldn't feel pain anymore. But in grief.
And then… something inside him changed.
A light. Gentle. Golden. Radiating from his hands.
He stumbled across a small girl crying for her mother, half her body burned. When he reached out to comfort her, the light transferred. Her skin began to mend. The pain dulled. She looked up at him, not with fear, but wonder.
He could heal.
He kept going. Pulling survivors from the rubble. Restoring what little he could. Not everyone trusted him—some thought he was a demon or an American experiment. Others refused his touch. But some began to understand he wasn't there to kill.
He was there to save.
One boy watched from behind the remains of a torii gate. He didn't approach. Just stared as Maxwell carried burnt bodies with tears in his eyes. That boy, Jun Aokiji, would grow up to be a struggling manga artist. He'd remember the glowing man who rose from the ash like a god of guilt.
In 1951, Jun would release his first animated short: Shinsei Tetsujin—"Divine Iron Man."
It would become Japan's first anime.
It would inspire a generation.
And they'd pass it on.
Maxwell never took credit.
He stayed in Japan for a while longer, helping in silence, letting the history books say whatever they wanted.
But to the children who survived…
He wasn't a monster.
He wasn't a god.
He was the man who stayed.
The man who glowed.
The man in the ash.