Chapter 0: Hero and Demon Lord (Hope)

Part 1

The war between humans and demons was older than memory.

Every thousand years—like the world exhaling on command—a Demon Lord rose. Not born. Remembered. A shape carved from ancient malice, summoned by the hatred of forgotten gods.

And always, in answer, a Hero appeared. A figure marked by prophecy. A name etched into destiny.

But this time, the rhythm faltered.

The Demon Lord rose as it always had. The world trembled as it always did. Yet no prophecy stirred. No divine mark burned. No chosen one stepped forward.

It was as if the world had forgotten its own story.

For the first time in an age, the cycle stuttered—and something slipped through the crack.

Part 2

Kyle exhaled, watching his breath curl into the frozen air like a ghost trying to escape. The cold bit deeper than armor could block, settling into his ribs with a weight that felt personal. His cloak snapped in the wind, then clung to his legs like a frightened child.

He didn’t adjust it. He didn’t move.

Sunbreaker hung across his back, its once-radiant blade flickering with a sickly embered glow. Not dead. Not alive. Just fading.

A faint pressure pulsed behind his eyes — the first warning. The world dimmed at the edges.

For a heartbeat, the wind vanished.

He was submerged in fluid. A beating pulse that wasn’t his thudded in his ears. A scream pressed against glass. The sterile sting of antiseptic filled his lungs.

Static crackled through his skull.

Then the cold returned. The wind. The ruin.

Kyle opened his eyes slowly, grounding himself in the crunch of frost beneath his boots. He focused on that sound — the one thing that felt unquestionably real.

He remembered nothing before the summoning. No childhood. No home. Just the sensation of waking from anesthesia and realizing he had been someone else.

Or no one at all.

He tightened his grip on Sunbreaker’s hilt. The blade trembled faintly, as if mirroring his uncertainty.

He wasn’t chosen by prophecy. He wasn’t marked by destiny. He wasn’t even sure he was even human.

But he had journeyed through kingdoms. He had met and gathered companions. He had made choices — small, fragile, human choices — and they had followed him here.

He didn’t look back. But he felt them behind him, like warmth at his back.

The wind slipped through a broken wall, thin and sharp.

“Is everyone ready?” he asked quietly.

Masayuki answered first without speaking. The boy’s blade slid free with a soft metallic sigh, his stance precise, ritualistic. Even in a child’s body, he carried himself like a warrior carved from discipline.

Minami signaled from behind a half-collapsed pillar, her gyaru nails glinting like enchanted glass. She was supposed to be hidden, but she gave a cute school idol pose instead — a villainess awaiting her cue.

Kotaro and Kokoro stood shoulder to shoulder, mismatched bodies trembling in mirrored tension. Kotaro’s feline reflexes twitched at every shift of the wind; Kokoro’s flame flickered faintly at her fingertips.

Renji — still wearing Luna’s divine form — nodded once, jaw tight. Then Luna seized control for a moment, her expression softening into a fragile, defiant smile before fading back into Renji’s exhausted posture.

Kyle’s chest tightened.

They were bruised, exhausted, terrified. But they were here.

Not because prophecy demanded it. Not because destiny chose them. But because he had chosen them — and they had chosen him back.

He let out a slow breath, grounding himself in their presence.

“Then let’s finish this.”

Kyle stepped forward.

The final wound of the world waited.

Part 3

Kyle didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to.

He felt them gather behind him — six distinct presences settling into place like constellations he had learned by heart.

The wind slipped through the broken wall, thin and sharp, but their warmth pressed against his back.

“Luna,” he said quietly. “Begin the chant.”

Behind him, a voice rose—soft, trembling, but clear.

“O light that once knew mercy... O flame that once knew warmth… grant us one more breath. One more step. One more chance.”

For a moment, it sounded like Kokoro’s breath catching in her throat. When the prayer ended, it drifted through the air like a thread of gold. It shimmered faintly, then vanished.

The place that they were headed to was the Demon Lord’s Domain. Looking around, it was simple enough to tell that it wasn’t a battlefield. It was a scar — raw, unhealed, and pulsing with memory.

The ground beneath Kyle’s boots was brittle and blackened, as if scorched by something older than fire. Each step sent thin cracks spiderwebbing outward, like the world was flinching from his touch.

Above them loomed the citadel. A cathedral of bone and ruin. Its spires twisted like claws reaching for a sky that no longer wept — only watched.

A low pressure churned overhead. Not thunder. Something heavier, like a breath held too long.

Kyle’s Chi flickered in his chest, thin and bitter. Sunbreaker trembled at his side, its embered glow stuttering like a dying filament. The air around him distorted faintly, as if reality itself were trying to remember who he was.

Masayuki stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “This place is wrong,” he murmured.

He wasn’t talking about evil. He was talking about structure.

The Domain felt load-bearing — like removing one piece would make the world collapse.

Minami’s illusions flickered at the edges, refracting the air in fractured shards. “Ugh. Even the atmosphere has bad vibes,” she muttered, though her voice was tight.

Kotaro’s ears twitched. Kokoro’s flame dimmed. Renji and Luna’s shared body shivered as if the air itself resisted their presence.

Kyle swallowed hard. The pressure behind his eyes pulsed again — the dissociation warning. A faint buzz. A phantom sting of antiseptic. A beating pulse that wasn’t his.

He forced himself to breathe.

“Stay close everyone,” he said.

They moved forward as one.

The citadel’s entrance yawned open — a ribcage of bone and metal, each arch pulsing faintly with a rhythm that wasn’t wind or magic.

A heartbeat. Slow. Rhythmic. Wrong.

Kyle stepped inside.

The world held its breath.

Part 4

The throne of marrow waited at the heart of the ruin — vast, silent, and impossibly still. For a long moment, it sat empty. Like an altar without a god.

Then the air shifted.

Not with heat. Not with magic. With recognition.

A pulse rippled through the citadel — slow, deliberate, like a heartbeat echoing through bone. The throne answered, its surface flexing as if remembering a shape it had once held.

Something rose from it.

Not summoned. Not born. Revealed.

A mass of shadow and bone unfurled, too vast to be real, too precise to be a nightmare. Its form refused to settle — limbs folding and unfolding, features dissolving and reforming, as if reality itself struggled to contain it.

It radiated no heat. No cold. Only stillness.

A silence so complete it crushed the air, the light, the sound of Kyle’s own pulse.

His knees buckled. Sunbreaker scraped stone as he drove it down to brace himself. The impact rang out — a bell tolling for the end of something sacred.

Behind him, the party froze.

Masayuki’s grip tightened. Minami’s illusions flickered. Kotaro’s breath hitched. Kokoro’s flame dimmed. Renji and Luna’s shared body trembled.

The Demon Lord did not roar. It simply regarded him.

Kyle’s vision blurred. A high-frequency buzz crawled up his spine. A heartbeat that wasn’t his thudded in his ears.

Static cracked through his skull.

The Demon Lord tilted its head, as if listening to the silence inside him.

When it spoke, its voice came not from its mouth, but from the marrow of the throne — a resonance that settled into Kyle’s bones like regret.

“After all of this time...”

The words weren’t a question. They were a memory.

And they struck harder than any blade.

The Demon Lord’s gaze settled on Kyle — not with hatred, but with recognition. As if it had seen him before. As if it had been waiting.

When it spoke, the sound vibrated through the throne, through the floor, through Kyle’s bones.

“Do the gods truly wish to break their pact?”

The words struck him like a physical blow.

A high-frequency buzz crawled up his spine. The sterile sting of antiseptic filled his lungs. A heartbeat that wasn’t his thundered in his ears.

Static cracked through his skull.

Masayuki stepped forward instinctively, blade raised. Minami’s illusions flared, then faltered. Kotaro’s stance tightened; Kokoro’s flame flickered. Renji and Luna’s shared body trembled, breath syncing in panic.

But the Demon Lord didn’t move. It simply tilted its head, studying Kyle’s silence.

“So this is their answer,” it murmured, voice low and vast. “Another hollow blade to break the pact they swore in blood.”

Kyle’s breath hitched.

Ash drifted through the broken ceiling. The wind returned—thin, keening, a dirge threading through the ruin.

He tried to speak. Nothing came out.

Sunbreaker dimmed further, its embered glow curling inward like a dying star.

The Demon Lord leaned forward — not physically, but in presence, in pressure, in inevitability.

“I see. You were not chosen,” it said softly. “You were constructed.”

The words didn’t echo. They settled into him like a truth he had always known.

Kyle’s fingers tightened around the hilt. Not in defiance. In fear.

The Demon Lord’s voice lowered, almost gentle.

“A vessel shaped for a prophecy that never came.”