A Hero’s First Memory

Yūsha’s first memory was not of his parents.It was the taste of copper and static that flooded his mouth whenever he saw. Today, it tasted like a storm and broken bones.

The alarm of Fortress-7 cut through the gray air like a knife.

A metallic screech that meant only one thing: Umbryn infestation within the walls.

For everyone else, it was a sound of panic.

For Yūsha Kurayami, it was the sound of his fear becoming real.

The Lower Markets—usually a boiling mix of merchants and valuable scrap—had turned into a trap.

People ran in every direction, their screams muffled by the siren.

Yūsha, seventeen years old with his Aegis Academy uniform already stained with dust, moved against the flow.

He didn’t need a commander’s orders over the comms.

His Code— a shadow rooted deep in his marrow—was already guiding him.

A cold tingling climbed up his spine, pointing toward the thing, the wrongness hiding among the crowd.

“Kurayami!”Akihiro’s voice, deep and steady, sounded behind him.“Confirm. Where?”

Yūsha scanned the area. His eyes sifted through the sea of bodies.

The world for him shifted into subtle layers.He could see people’s fear like a shimmering vapor—an emotional specter.

But there was something else. A thick, black thread—fear that didn’t belong to any human.It smelled of emptiness and long, jagged teeth.

“There.”He jerked his chin toward a vendor selling mechanical parts.

The man, unremarkable in appearance, smiled as he helped a woman find shelter.

Yet to Yūsha’s Code, that smile was a scar across the chaos.

Around him, reality blurred slightly, as if following its own false programming.

“He’s a Wanderer,” Yūsha muttered, knuckles white around his fists.“A mimetic. It feeds on panic and grows stronger with it.”

Akihiro nodded, his weathered face like a mask of serenity.“Good. The other Awakened would feel it as an itch. You see it. That’s our advantage. Now act.”

Act. Of course. The easiest word for me.

Other Awakened channeled lightning, hardened their skin like steel, or moved objects with their minds.

Their powers are weapons.

Mine is nothing but an oracle of misery.

The Code of Fear didn’t even give him the strength to fight—only the knowledge of how he would end up if he failed…Dead.

Letting out a slow breath, pushing aside the thoughts clawing at him, Yūsha advanced.With each step, reality around him seemed to slow—
—but only in his vision. Everything else remained the same.

Then he saw her.
A girl.

Maybe six years old, crying beside an overturned stall, separated from her parents.

And right behind her, the vendor—or rather, the Umbryn—was kneeling down with a paternal smile.

His hand, human-looking only seconds before, began to drip, to stretch into a tall, razor-like shadow hovering over the child.

Yūsha saw it all with brutal clarity.
A bloody overlay on reality: the shadow piercing the girl’s chest,the light fading from her eyes,the scream that would never leave her mouth.

The immediate future, delivered as a screen of terror.

“Step away from her!” Yūsha’s voice, a rough and commanding whisper.

The Umbryn froze.
Its human eyes shifted toward him, and for a moment, the illusion slipped.

Yūsha felt something like ancient recognition—the same look one spider would give another weaving its web.

The man’s form disintegrated.
Like watching a candle made of darkness melt.

What rose instead was a skeletal silhouette woven from shadows, with dozens of cold, glowing points arranged like eyes.
A B3-class Wanderer. But for the girl at its feet, it was the final monster.

The creature clicked—and the girl broke into sobs.

It launched itself toward her.
Fast—a smear of pure malice.
Yūsha stayed still, focusing on the lines.
On his gift—and his curse.

On all Umbryns—on all things living and unliving—he could see the lines of weakness.

The cracks in existence itself, threads of deep, pulsing red marking where a strike, a word, a single action would have the greatest effect.

For an Umbryn, those were breaking points.
The network of lines across the B3 Wanderer was chaotic, but one—right in the center of its cluster of eyes—burned with ferocious intensity.

“The light!” Yūsha yelled, eyes fixed on the monster.“The pulse lamps!”
Akihiro, ready to charge, understood instantly.

His Code was Kinetic Force.

Snatching a metal bar from the ground, he hurled it in a clean arc toward the emergency lamps overhead.

A blinding flash of pure, white light.

The B3 Wanderer—creature of darkness—shrieked.Its shape contorted, vulnerable, blinded.

And in that moment of raw pain,the red line at its center blazed like a small sun.

Yūsha moved on sheer instinct.
He grabbed a sharp fragment of pipe from the ground and, gathering every ounce of strength his teenage body held, drove it into the brilliant, glowing point.

The sensation was like ripping apart a soaked canvas.The scream cut off at the root.

The dark silhouette dissolved, turning into fine black dust that scattered into the wind.
Silence fell suddenly, broken only by Yūsha’s ragged breathing and the child’s frantic sobs.

He collapsed to his knees, sweat dripping from his brow.

The copper taste in his mouth was overwhelming.

It had worked.He’d used his curse to save someone.Maybe, finally, he’d managed to tame his fear.
But then, something struck him.

The moment he touched the Umbryn core—ripped through that weakness—a brutal surge of sensations flooded his mind.

He was used to visions of a lost hero;yet this one felt different. More personal.

He saw a white room, too white, filled with monitors streaming incomprehensible data.

He saw his own face—younger, pale, terrified—reflected in reinforced glass.

And he heard a voice—female, cold as an operating table—whisper:

“Subject 02 responds to primary fear stimulus. The Code is stabilizing.”

The vision faded, leaving him hollow and more frightened than ever.

Because it wasn’t an illusion. It was a piece of his past…a past stolen from him.

Akihiro approached and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You did it, kid. Just like a real hero would.”

Yūsha looked up, his face drained of color, shock still fresh in his eyes.

“Akihiro…” his voice cracked.“Who is Subject 01?”

Akihiro’s hand on his shoulder tensed instantly.

The pride on his face vanished, replaced by a mask of caution and… was that pity?

“Yūsha,” he said softly, though with a firmness that allowed no argument,“those are questions better left unasked. For your own sake.” 

Fear, Yūsha realized then, didn’t only come from monsters. Sometimes it came—painfully—from the answers.