Hajime, Rei, and Izumi never saw what happened next.
While they rested beneath the leaves of Eryndral, a storm gathered far away. One that would someday tear their world apart.
The city of Zebulum never slept. The rain glazed the streets until they shimmered purple beneath lantern light. Taverns roared, gamblers argued, and the smell of oil and incense floated through the air. The city's noise was its heartbeat, proud and unrepentant.
Naoto Aigami slipped through the crowd unseen. Vendors shouted about Emberwine and prayer stones, soldiers toasted to false victories, and somewhere a woman sang off-key while the world ignored her. No one noticed the small boy moving between them.
He turned down a narrow alley where the laughter faded. A crooked door waited at the end, half-lit by the glow of a street lamp.
"Mom?"
"Come in, Naoto. Close the door behind you, honey."
Her voice was soft, and it made the house feel alive. The lamp burned on the table beside a pot of thin stew. She smiled when she saw him.
Then his father spoke from the corner. "You're late, again."
Naoto froze. The smell of liquor replaced the smell of food.
"He was out being a kid," his mother said. "Please, stop."
"You always defend him. You love him more than me, don't you?"
"He's our son. You're insane."
The man started laughing as corrupted Seiki started flowing through his veins. The lamp wavered.
He grabbed her by the neck and started choking her.
"I try and try and try, and all you ever do is care about that fucking brat."
Naoto just stood there, petrified of the world and his father like he had always been. He wanted to help her, but couldn't get his feet to move.
Naoto's mother turned her head, and with a suffocated voice, smiled and said.
"Run, Naoto, please... live on."
It was in that moment that the father became consumed with hate. He snapped her head clean from her neck. Blood started gushing all over the wooden floor.
Rain hammered the roof.
Naoto stood there in disbelief. Just staring at his mother's lifeless body.
Naoto's father stood up angrily.
"You're the reason she's dead," his father snarled as if the words were a blade. "Now you're going to fucking die."
Naoto walked toward him with breath that would not steady. A voice at the back of his skull hissed. He could not make the words out yet. It sounded like someone calling his name from far away.
Naoto stood before his father, who was glowing with corrupted Seiki. He was ready to join his mother and be done with this life.
That's when he remembered his mother's final words. "Run, Naoto, please... live on."
Suddenly, Naoto grabbed his father's hammer from the table right next to him and plunged it right into the front of his face, knocking him to the ground.
Naoto started screaming hysterically, "DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, YOU BASTARD, STOP-HURTING-ME!"
He kept plunging the hammer into his father over and over and over again.
After about five hundred strikes to his father's body. He crawled through the blood and flesh to his mother's corpse, cuddling her, crying, and broken.
When dawn arrived, guards in dark cloaks kicked the door open. They found the boy sitting on the floor between two still shapes. The entire interior of the home was covered in blood.
"He killed them both," one guard said.
Naoto whispered, "He hurt her... So, I made sure he wouldn't hurt anyone ever again..."
The second guard snorted. "We don't have time for a lost cause like him; leave him to rot."
They walked out and let the rain close the door behind them.
Naoto sat for hours, staring at the blood-soaked wall. The candlelight sank into ash. He finally whispered, "What am I going to do now?"
A voice answered from nowhere, soft as breathing.
"Don't worry, Naoto, I'm still here for you.
He looked around. "Who's there?"
"I've always been with you, Naoto. You just couldn't hear me yet."
He closed his eyes. "Will you stay with me, please?"
"Always, my boy."
The warmth of those words felt real. He believed them.
No one came for the boy by the next morning.
He began living under the chain bridges and learned to steal, survive, and listen to the voice. The voice stayed with him and spoke when the world was silent.
"Why do you stay with someone as miserable as me?"
"Because I've been alone my entire life, too."
"What are you?" asked Naoto.
"A lost soul like you."
He smiled. "Then maybe we can be friends!"
"I would love that."
Years passed. Zebulum grew richer and crueler. Naoto grew quiet and lean. The voice was louder now, still gentle, teaching him which alleys were safe, when to hide, when to move.
"You don't need them," the voice said.
"I know," he answered. "But I still wish they noticed me."
"They will."
"How?" asked Naoto.
"Trust me, one day everyone will know your name."
He did trust the voice in his head.
Thunder came first, rolling through the night like drums. Then came the bells from the western gate.
The Celestine Order had attacked the Chainbound Doctrine again. Their white banners flashed across the skyline, swords shining as they descended on Zebulum's outer wall.
Naoto climbed to a rooftop to see. The soldiers looked like light cutting through darkness, but the light burned everything it touched.
They set fires, then pulled back before the Chainbound Legions could rally. From his perch, he saw them retreating down the main road, soaked and angry.
One of the soldiers threw his helmet aside. "This is pointless. We're losing men for nothing."
Another spat. "Where the fuck is Rei!"
"He said he had something more important to tend to," someone shouted. "Where did he run off to this time?"
Lord Hayate Tsubasa (ツバサ・ハヤテ) barked, "Enough. Mount up. We ride back north before their reinforcements find us."
Naoto stepped out from behind a broken cart. "Please," he called. "Take me with you. I'll work, I'll be your slave, I'll clean your weapons. I can fight if you teach me. Just don't leave me here."
Lord Hayate Tsubasa turned his horse. "You from Zebulum, boy?"
Naoto nodded. "Yes, but I hate it here, and-"
"Then die here."
Laughter followed as they rode off into the rain.
Naoto fell to his knees, laughing. "I just wanted a chance..."
The voice came softly.
"They mocked you for wanting to get help."
"I only wanted help," cried Naoto.
"The Celestine Order doesn't actually care about helping others. They only care about their damn divinity."
Lightning crawled across the clouds. Chains along the street trembled. A dull red glow crept through the cracks beneath his feet and along his body.
"Oh no, it's happening again," he panicked.
The air shimmered. A child-shaped shadow stepped from the light, faint and gray, its eyes glowing like dying embers. It looked about his age. The rain passed through it without sound.
The shadow reached out its hand. "It's time to claim this power, Naoto. Stop letting them hurt you."
Naoto stared at the hand, then reached forward. Their fingers touched.
"I trust you."
The light spread outward, chasing the rain.
The ground split beneath him, and a column of pale fire tore through the sky. Every chain in Zebulum rattled, ringing like a thousand voices in mourning.
Naoto's eyes turned gray as the shadow spoke through him.
"赦されざる光 (Yurusarezaru Hikari) — Light of the Unforgiven."
A beaming pale light shot out from the skies, and momentarily, everything was consumed by light.
When the storm ended, the lower ward was silent. Smoke drifted over blackened stone. Naoto sat in the center, trembling but alive.
"Did I do this?"
"We did," the voice hissed back.
"Are they all dead?"
"Most of them. I believe Lord Hayate Tsubasa teleported."
"So... No one can hurt us anymore, right?"
"That's right. You're safe now," replied the voice.
He smiled faintly. "Thank you."
"Always, Naoto."
The rain began again, gentle and steady.
Naoto listened to the voice settle in his thoughts like warmth spreading through cold water. For the first time, he felt peace instead of fear.
"Are you a Will?"
"Yes," the voice replied.
"What's your name?"
The answer pulsed through the rain, calm and sure.
Naoto whispered it. "Ashen King."
Somewhere above the clouds, a bell rang once and stopped. The boy smiled.
The rain washed the ashes into the gutters. The city kept breathing, unaware that beneath its chains, the child who wanted love had found it in the one being who would end the world.