The rain had fallen for three days straight. The villagers said it was an omen, a sign from the spirits that something unnatural had entered the world. Deep within the Forest of Shadows, where light barely touched the soil, a boy knelt beside a shallow grave.
He didn't cry.
He couldn't.
The man who raised him—an old outcast herbalist—was gone. Buried by the hands of the one child he'd chosen to save sixteen years ago.
Riku Kurogane.
Born without a Spirit Mark, Riku had been abandoned by his own clan as a baby. In a world where everyone was born connected to elemental magic—fire, water, wind, or earth—being markless was worse than being powerless.
It was being invisible.
Unwanted.
Cursed.
The village had whispered behind his back for years. "That boy is cursed. He brings death. The shadows follow him."
Maybe they were right.
As he stood up, thunder cracked across the sky. The forest went still. No birds. No rustling leaves. Just the sound of his heartbeat, growing faster by the second.
Then—a voice.
> "You don't belong to them."
Riku froze.
> "They cast you aside. But I… I see you."
A cold wind surged through the trees, and black mist began swirling at his feet. His skin prickled. The mist crawled up his legs, wrapping around his chest, his neck.
Then—pain.
Unimaginable pain.
A burning symbol carved itself into his chest, glowing in eerie violet light. His eyes turned pitch black. The forest around him faded to silence.
> "You are mine now, Riku Kurogane."
A scream escaped his lips—but it wasn't just his voice. Something else screamed with him. A deeper, ancient cry. The voice of a being older than time.
The spirit had awakened.
A name echoed in his head like a curse:
> Tenrai — the Forbidden Spirit of Shadows.
His legs buckled. His breath came in short gasps. The world spun.
But in that chaos, he felt something new.
Power.
It pulsed in his veins like fire. Shadows danced at his fingertips, alive and listening.
Riku stood.
Not as a cursed orphan.
But as the vessel of something the world had tried to forget.
They had thrown him away. But now… now they would regret it.
> "I swear… I'll burn this world down before I kneel again."
And just like that, the rain stopped.