They called him a bastard behind closed doors.
The illegitimate child of the Hoshigami household.
In the open, they called him nothing at all.
He listened to their taunts all his life.
The sky bled rust over the charred hills of Kuroha. The small village Ren was posted to, they didn't want to see his face, none of them, not his mother nor his father. So he was sent here to Kuroha to prove himself to his family that he was a true Hoshigami.
The ground trembled beneath armored boots and demon claws. Smoke rose like choking hands, blotting out the horizon, and the screams of dying soldiers fell silent beneath the thunder of wings.
Wasuren knelt in the dirt, his hand pressed against a seeping wound in his side. His blade was shattered, the half still clutched in his trembling fist. His skin burned, his vision danced. The smell of blood—his blood—sang in his nose like metal and rot.
He had fought well, or so he thought, he looked round at his dead comrades, and those still engaged in battle against these monsters that sought to claim their lives. The horde was never meant to be this powerful, the Hoshigamis should have been here to prevent this much death in Kuroha. Why weren't they here, they were in charge of the town's defences why weren't they here already, Ren wondered.
"am I going to die here" he said to himself.
He wasn't supposed to be on this battlefield. His brothers and sisters and cousins, the sons of the sun, stood high above in towers of flame, commanding light like it was their breath, wielding it like it was born to them. He, on the other hand, had been thrown into the ranks of the town's fodder—the forgotten, the weak, the untrained. It was their way of not killing him outright. Let the beasts do it.
Let the lightless one die, he isn't one of us.
A screech echoed through the sky.
A demon with black wings and a skull-face dove from the heavens, talons ready to rip into his flesh. He tried to move, tried to call on the light with his weakened body but it sputtered—flickered—and died in his chest. He tried again and failed again.
No fire. No warmth. No power.
"Why…?" he whispered, choking on blood.
He collapsed fully, face to the soil. The mud welcomed him like a coffin.
The winged beast landed just beyond the hill.
Its growl vibrated through the earth. It was coming.
His fingers clenched uselessly around the hilt of his broken sword.
"I don't want to die," he whispered. "I don't want to die…"
His voice cracked with the desperation of someone who never expected to be heard. But in the breath between heartbeats, he spoke again. Louder. Clearer.
"Amaterasu onegai, ONEGAI!!" He said with a blood curdling scream as he tried to get up again. "AM I NOT YOUR CHILD AMATERASU, AM I NOT AN HOSHIGAMI, AM I NOT BLESSED BY THE SUN?"
"If any god can hear me… please."
"If the gods of the dead walk still… save me. Save my brethren."
"I don't care who. I don't care what. Take my soul. Take my body."
"I will be yours."
"I swear my life and allegiance to you."
He waited for silence.
Instead, the wind died.
The battlefield froze.
Even the beast hesitated.
A shadow moved and rose—from beneath him, dark as pitch, curling around his limbs like fingers made of smoke.
And then he heard her.
A whisper that cut deeper than swords.
"Wasuren Hoshigmi, the forgotten child of light"
A presence stepped through the blackened mist.
She walked with the silence of forgotten tombs and the grace of something too divine to be of this world. Her skin shimmered like polished obsidian. Her hair flowed behind her like a cloak of shadows, and her eyes glowed with stars that had long since died.
"You have been cast away by the sun."
"And so you shall belong to the night."
Wasuren looked up, his breathing shallow. He couldn't speak. Could barely think.
" Izanagi ?"
But she smiled—a soft, mournful thing.
"No not Izanagi "
"They left you to die."
"They denied your light."
"But I see you."
She knelt beside him. Her hand—cold as still water—touched his chest, and something ancient burned in his bones. A brand made of silence. Of grief. Of power long buried.
"I am Yami-no-Anagami," she said, her voice like smoke curling from a funeral pyre.
"The Forgotten Flame. The Goddess of Ash and Shadows."
"Abandon the light that betrayed you."
"Take my darkness instead. Swear to honor me, to live for me and die for me, to kill for me and I will give you power to end your enemies, to rise above those that forgot you. Be mine, I shall be yours and they shall say your name never again to be forgotten."
He didn't hesitate.
He couldn't.
What else was there?
"I accept," he rasped. "I… I am yours."
Her eyes flared like dying stars.
"Then rise, my child."
"Rise… and burn them all."
Darkness erupted from within him—a surge of black fire laced with ash and sorrow. It consumed the lightless corner of his soul and replaced it with shadow that pulsed like a heartbeat. His wound sealed with smoldering embers. His limbs surged with new weight—terrible, heavy, and full of purpose.
The demon lunged, shrieking.
But the darkness moved first.
His own shadow stretched and coiled like a beast unchained. It struck upward—piercing through bone and wing—tearing the creature from the sky in a single, violent breath. The monster dropped, smoking, twitching. Then still.
The battlefield fell quiet again.
Only the sound of Wasuren's breathing remained—now stronger. Slower.
He stood.
Or something like him did.
The mud slid from his armor as he rose, eyes blackened with divine night. A sigil burned on his back—a sun swallowed by a ring of ash.
He was not the boy he was moments ago.
Not the bastard prince.
Not the broken soldier.
He was the bearer of a forgotten god's curse.
A new voice lived within his silence now.
And the sun would tremble when it saw what it had left behind.