There were no heroes in Kai Arashi's story.
Only chains.
And the broken boy who wore them.
Kai remembered the first time he realized he was different.
He was seven years old, standing in a dusty courtyard, watching as his classmates screamed and laughed, their arms glowing with the awakening of their first Sigils.
Some sprouted flames from their fingertips.
Others conjured barriers of shimmering light.
One even levitated off the ground, laughing as teachers praised him.
Kai watched it all in silence.
Waiting.
Hoping.
But when it came time for his turn…
nothing happened.
No flame.
No light.
No sigil.
Only silence.
Only failure.
The teachers exchanged pitying glances.
His classmates laughed and pointed.
His mother's face — once so warm — twisted into cold disgust.
His father refused to even look at him.
The years that followed were worse.
In a society built on Sigils, those without powers were parasites.
Dead weight.
Liabilities to be discarded.
Kai became invisible.
Mocked by students.
Beaten by thugs.
Ignored by teachers who once promised he was "special."
Home was no better.
His mother snapped at every mistake.
His father drowned in alcohol, muttering about curses and shame.
Kai learned early:
if you couldn't show strength, you didn't deserve love.
If you didn't have power, you didn't deserve to exist.
Sometimes, late at night,
when the bruises bloomed under his skin and the hunger gnawed at his ribs,
he thought he heard a voice.
A whisper at the edge of dreams.
Soft.
Dark.
Ancient.
"You are not weak.
They are simply blind."
At first, he thought he was going mad.
But the voice never hurt him.
Never lied.
It simply waited.
Patient.
Hungry.
Just like him.
The day he turned fifteen, Kai made a vow under the broken sky:
"I'll never beg for power again.
If the world won't give it to me,
I'll rip it from their corpses."
He didn't know it yet —
but the Abyss had already chosen him.
Because only the truly broken could hear its call.
Only those who had nothing left could wield its hunger without breaking.
Only Kai.
Only Asura.
The boy who was supposed to be powerless…
was becoming something far worse.
Something unstoppable.