Chapter 0: Demon Lord and Hero (Despair)

Part 1

The Demon Lord’s final words still echoed through the marrow of the throne when the air shifted.

Not a roar. Not a spell. Just a subtle tightening — like the world inhaling sharply.

Then the throne pulsed.

A shockwave rippled outward, silent but crushing. The floor buckled beneath Kyle’s feet. Bone and metal groaned like a dying heart.

But the Demon Lord didn’t strike him.

It struck Kyle.

A tendril of shadow lashed out — not fast, not slow, but inevitable. Kyle tried to raise Sunbreaker, but the world stuttered.

The sterile buzz filled his skull. The cold became metal restraints. The wind became the hiss of a ventilator. A heartbeat that wasn’t his thundered in his ears.

He moved a fraction too late.

The blow hit him square in the chest.

Pain exploded through him — not sharp, but hollow, like something had been scooped out of his core. He staggered back, boots scraping across fractured stone.

“Kyle!” Kokoro’s voice cracked, flame flaring instinctively.

Kotaro darted forward, intercepting a second tendril with feline reflexes. Sparks flew as shadows met claws.

Renji and Luna’s shared body raised a barrier — thin, trembling, but holding. “Hurry... Just cast the damn thing!” Renji barked. “Not with your posture. How does it help when you’re slouching like a goblin. Do you want us to fail?!” Luna snapped.

Minami flicked her wrist, illusions blooming like glass petals — refracting the Demon Lord’s form, buying seconds, not safety.

Masayuki slid in front of Kyle, stance low, blade humming with lightning. “Stay behind me,” he said, voice steady despite the tremor in his arms.

Kyle tried to speak. Nothing came out.

The world flickered again — battlefield, lab, ruin, glass — all overlapping, all wrong.

The Demon Lord’s voice resonated through the throne, calm and unhurried.

“You cannot wield a blade forged for truth when you fear your own.”

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

Kyle’s breath hitched. His knees buckled.

The Demon Lord rose from the throne — not walking, not floating, but unfolding, like a memory being forced into shape.

The citadel trembled.

The world held its breath.

And despair began.

Part 2

The shockwave faded. Silence rushed in to replace it.

Kyle staggered, breath shallow, fingers numb around Sunbreaker’s hilt. The world around him pulsed — once, twice — like a heartbeat out of sync with his own.

Then the glitch hit.

The citadel dissolved into sterile white tile. The cold became the chill of metal restraints. The wind became the hiss of a ventilator. A heartbeat that wasn’t his thundered in his ears.

“Subject KL-3 responding to mythic imprinting,” a voice murmured behind glass. Clinical. Detached. “Identity slipping.”

Kyle gasped — and the battlefield snapped back into place like a corrupted file reloading mid-frame.

Bone. Ruin. Shadow.

“Calm yourself, my friend,” Masayuki grabbed him by the arm, steadying him. “The battle is still nigh.”

But Kyle’s vision stuttered again — the world flickering between ruin and laboratory, between war and experiment.

Renji and Luna’s shared body rushed to his side, panic tightening their posture. “Hey! Don’t you dare die on us now!” Renji barked. Luna’s voice overlapped his, trembling. “Don’t say that you idiot.”

Kyle tried to speak. Nothing came out.

The Demon Lord watched him with a stillness that felt like pity.

“You feel it, don’t you?” it murmured. “The truth beneath your skin.”

Kyle’s knees buckled. The sterile buzz roared in his skull. A phantom needle pierced his arm. A flatline echoed somewhere he couldn’t reach.

Kokoro cried out, flame flaring in panic. “Kyle! Look at me! Stay here!”

He tried. He really tried.

But the world kept splitting.

The citadel flickered into a surgical theater. The throne became a containment rig. The Demon Lord’s silhouette overlapped with a figure in a lab coat.

Kyle’s breath hitched. His pulse stuttered. His vision fractured into shards of two worlds fighting for dominance.

The Demon Lord’s voice slid through the static.

“You were never chosen. You were assembled.”

Sunbreaker dimmed — not fading, but recoiling, as if ashamed of its own light.

Kyle’s grip loosened. The blade nearly slipped from his hand.

Masayuki stepped in front of him, stance low, lightning crackling along his blade. “Stay behind me,” he said — but his voice wavered.

Kotaro and Kokoro flanked him, trembling. Minami’s illusions flickered like broken glass. Renji and Luna’s hands hovered uselessly, unable to heal what they couldn’t understand.

Kyle’s breath came in shallow, uneven gasps.

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

“You are unraveling, artificial hero.”

Kyle’s vision went white.

And the world broke.

Part 3

The world flickered again — battlefield, lab, battlefield, lab — overlapping like corrupted frames.

A needle pierced his arm. A flatline echoed. A voice behind glass whispered, “Subject KL-3 destabilizing.”

Not fast. Not slow. Just inevitable.

A tendril of shadow carved through the air, slicing a pillar cleanly in half. The impact sent debris raining down like shattered ribs.

Masayuki darted forward, lightning crackling along his blade. “Kyle! Behind me!”

He parried the next strike — barely — the force sending him skidding across the fractured floor. His small frame trembled, but he didn’t fall.

“The experiment’s body is resisting all attempts of forced bonding.”

The words weren’t spoken. They reverberated inside his skill, overriding the battlefield’s chaos.

Kotaro leapt in, feline reflexes blurring as he intercepted a wraith-like appendage. “Damn it—! It’s splitting!”

The tendril fractured into three, each one twisting toward Kyle.

Kokoro’s flame roared to life, her voice cracking. “Stay away from him!”

She unleashed a blast of fire — bright, desperate — but the flames bent unnaturally, pulled aside as if the air itself refused to let them touch the Demon Lord.

Minami flicked her wrist, illusions blooming like glass petals. “Honestly, these tentacles are ruining my final battle aesthetics.”

Her illusions refracted the tendrils, buying a heartbeat of safety.

But Kyle still didn’t move.

“But Sir. If this continues, Subject KL-3 will die.”

His body strapped to a cold, smooth table. His body convulsed, violently, rhythmically. The sterile air smelled of betrayal as the person in charge sneered.

“If it is, there was nothing more that could have been done.”

‘No more. No more please.’

He couldn’t.

“Snap out of it!” Renji shouted, grabbing his shoulders. “You watch it in every anime but we haven’t reached the dramatic climax demanded of every final showdown yet!”

Luna seized control, her voice trembling. “Please—focus on recovering. Stay with us.”

Kyle tried. He really tried.

But the Demon Lord’s presence pressed against his mind like a weight he wasn’t built to carry.

“You feel it, don’t you?” the Demon Lord murmured. “The fracture. The absence.”

Sunbreaker flickered violently — then dimmed to a faint ember.

Kyle’s breath hitched. His vision blurred. His knees buckled.

Masayuki slid in front of him again, blade raised. “I will not let you fall.”

Kotaro and Kokoro flanked him, trembling but resolute. Minami’s illusions shattered under the pressure. Renji and Luna’s barrier flickered like a dying filament.

The Demon Lord raised a hand — not to strike, but to observe.

“You are unraveling,” it said softly. “And with you… the world.”

Kyle’s body felt hollow from the taunt. His will, scattered like ash.

But his friends never gave up. Because of that, he didn’t let go.

The battlefield returned—not clean, not ordered, but real.

Kyle’s body convulsed once, then stilled. His breath came in shallow, uneven gasps. The pain was distant now, like it belonged to someone else.

Renji and Luna’s bickering paused as their shared body rushed over.

“Kyle, you reckless bastard!” Renji dropped to their knees, pressing down with desperate chest compressions. “Who told you to feint on an armor rating of five or higher?!”

His voice cracked. Not from anger. From fear.

Luna’s hands hovered over Kyle’s chest, trembling as she saw the light return back into his eyes.

“How dare you call him an idiot when all you do is nitpick!” she refuted, continuing to cast healing magic with those same shaky hands.

The light barely held. Even their Saint’s Gown seemed to know this was a losing fight—its glow flickering like a dying filament.

A gust of wind knocked back a skeletal fiend. Kotaro’s voice followed, thin and hoarse.

“My magic’s almost gone.”

Magic flared. Steel clashed.

The ground cracked beneath them, bleeding light and shadow.

“No potions left,” Minami grumbled, staring into her empty bag. “Inventory management on this arc is a disaster.”

Still she smiled—tight, practiced. It didn’t reach her eyes though.

It was six fragile sparks against a tidal wave of darkness.

However Kokoro knelt beside Kyle. If not for the carnage in front of them, it might have looked like they were a couple staring distantly at a cherry blossom viewing party.

She didn’t speak at first. Just looked at him. Her flame dimmed—but her eyes didn’t.

“Please,” she whispered, voice raw. “We need you.”

Her hand hovered over his chest, just above the wound. Tears streaked her cheeks, catching the flicker of her dying fire. Her voice cut through the static—clear, trembling, alive.

His fingers curled tighter around the hilt of Sunbreaker — not in definance, but in choice. The pain in his gut pulsed with every heartbeat, but he welcomed it.

This was proof he was still alive.

Part 4

Across the throne room, the Demon Lord’s final guards assembled: twisted knights in black iron, gibbering wraiths that peeled the skin from the air, grotesque flesh-shapers dragging their own entrails like banners.

The air itself seemed to crackle under the pressure of their vast, flawless numbers.

Thousands of them. The last defense.

Kyle looked at his companions — bloodied and exhausted. Their faces were ghosts beneath the grime.

No spells left. No potions. No fallback plan. Just each other.

And Kyle—broken, bleeding, artificial—slowly got back up while gripping both hands with Sunbreaker again. The blade flickered once then dimmed.

“I commend you for your bravery, fake hero,” the Demon Lord said, voice smooth with delight. “There is no greater joy than seeing a warrior fighting to their very last breath.”

At that moment Kyle gathered the heat, the static, the flickers of self still burning beneath the wreckage. Not prophecy. Not programming. Just the raw, chaotic ache of being alive.

He chose this world—the messy, agonizing, beautiful realness of it—over the cold, clean lie of his creation.

The blade in his hand—Sunbreaker—glowed.

Not with divine light.

But with the unstable, luminous surge of a system overclocked, cracked, and choosing to burn itself out on its own terms.

“Demon Lord. I don’t care what I was,” he rasped, using the hilt as a crutch. “But with my friends I know who I chose to be.”

The fear didn’t vanish. But he anchored it. Let it settle like sediment in a storm.

The citadel pulsed around him—walls groaning, floor trembling—like a dying heart refusing to quit.

He looked at them.

Their voices frayed, but their grip steady.

Even so— they stayed.

Through struggle. Through hardship. Through everything.

Kyle exhaled.