Chapter 1 — The World That Forgot Me

Ash.

That was the first thing he saw.

A sky of smothered stars, choked in swirling soot.
The ground cracked and groaned beneath him, black and brittle like burnt parchment.
A wind blew — sharp, dry, and silent — and with it came whispers.
Not voices. Memories.
Memories that weren’t his.
And worse — memories that should have been.

He staggered forward. Bare feet. No name. No pulse.
Only instinct moved him.

And pain.

A phantom ache twisted through his ribs, his wrists, his neck —
as if the world still remembered how he died…
even if no one else did.

“You were never meant to be.”

He turned sharply.
Nothing.

The Wasteland stretched endlessly. A graveyard of forgotten things.
Crumbled blades. Broken crowns. Skeletons of dragons long dead.
A place outside time. Outside story.
Where erased legends rot.

A flicker of gold caught his eye.

There — half-buried in black dust — lay a torn page.
Old. Ancient. Alive.
Its words slithered and reformed as he read them:

The Hero shall rise from distant stars, blessed by divine flame…
And none shall stand beside him.

His fingers trembled.

That prophecy...
He remembered it.

He was the one who stood beside that so-called Hero.
Fought with him. Bled for him.
Died because of him.

But his name wasn’t there. Not anymore.

He wasn’t the Hero.
He was the cost of the Hero.

And this place — this limbo between memory and myth —
was the world’s way of saying:
“You don’t exist.”

He screamed.

A scream that shook nothing.

Until something answered.

A deep pulse underfoot. Like a heartbeat beneath the wasteland.

Then, a voice — low, ragged, ancient —
“You seek vengeance?”

He didn’t speak.
His clenched fists answered for him.

“Then unseal what was forbidden. Bind what was denied. Twist what was pure.”

The sky bled red.
Symbols rose from the ash.
Magic not from gods, not from man — but from something in between. Something lost.

Something called Tsuyoi.

A mark burned into his arm. Veins lit with searing black light.
Pain ripped through him — not as punishment, but rebirth.

He remembered now.

His name.
His death.
The betrayal.
The lie.

And he remembered the only truth that mattered:

If the world erases you...
Then rewrite the world.

To be continued…