The sky over Rinsho District never really turned blue.
Even at sunrise, when the upper city of Zenoria glowed with golden light, the slums below remained drowned in grey shadows, wrapped in a permanent haze of smoke and dust. The sun always shone brightest on the world above, on the streets paved with marble, where the Blessed walked proudly, their powers shimmering like stars. But down below, beneath the floating pillars that held the upper city aloft, the slums lived in a twilight of forgotten souls.
It was in this forgotten place, in a crooked house that groaned when the wind breathed too hard, that a crying infant entered the world.
His name decided only after his mother caught her breath was "Kaizen".
No one celebrated his birth. No neighbors came knocking. No blessings were offered. The world had no space, no warmth, no interest for yet another powerless life in the lowest part of Aeterna.
Only his mother, Aiko, held him close, her thin arms trembling with exhaustion and fear.
"He's here…" she whispered weakly, sweat trailing down her pale forehead. "My little Kaizen… You'll be stronger than I ever was…"
But even in that moment of tenderness, her tears wet the blanket wrapped around him. Tears not of joy… but of dread. For she already knew the truth:
Her son entered a world where boys like him were not meant to rise.
Kaizen's father was gone long before the boy opened his eyes.
Some said he died. Some claimed he ran away. Others whispered he was taken by the Shadow Abyss, that dark, forbidden realm whose name alone made the slums fall silent.
But the truth was simpler and colder:
He left because the world had broken him.
And no one bothered to look for a broken man from Rinsho.
Kaizen's earliest memory was sound.
Not a lullaby.
Not a mother's voice.
Not even the comforting hum of a warm home.
It was shouting, two men arguing outside their thin wooden door.
"He owes us!" one yelled. "The woman owes us for medicine!"
"And she won't pay! Her husband's dead, and the brat's worthless!"
Worthless.
That word settled over the boy's life like dust. It followed him before he even learned to walk.
But in that dim little room that smelled of damp wood and old herbs, his mother tried her best. She worked multiple jobs. Washing clothes in the freezing river, sweeping the streets, mending old robes just to feed her son. She often fell asleep sitting up, arms wrapped around Kaizen protectively, as if shielding him from a world waiting to devour him.
He grew up watching her struggle.
Watching her body weaken.
Watching her cough worsen each winter.
Yet she always smiled at him.
"Kaizen… you are my miracle," she whispered. "Even if the world doesn't see it."
Her voice was the only thing that made the slums feel less cruel.
But even she could not protect him forever.
By age five, Kaizen understood three truths:
1. People step on the weak.
2. Power decides respect.
3. He had neither.
In Aeterna, power wasn't a luxury. It was destiny. Children of the Blessed awakened magical abilities by age four, five, or six. They could shape light, call winds, ignite sparks. Their eyes glowed with promising potential.
Kaizen?
He struggled to even lift a bucket of water.
He played alone near the rusted fences, making little shapes in the dirt with a stick. When he wasn't careful, he drew characters resembling the legendary runes of old, symbols of ancient warriors he had only heard of in stories. He loved those stories. They were the only things that filled him with hope.
But the slum children were quick to remind him of reality.
"Hey! Kaizen the Nobody is drawing again!"
"Does your mom still think you'll awaken a power? Don't make me laugh!"
"Try drawing yourself with a power, maybe that'll help!"
Boys older than him kicked his drawings apart. Girls laughed and called him "Empty Kaizen," as if his very soul lacked substance.
Kaizen never fought back.
Not because he was afraid,
but because he knew they were right.
He felt empty.
He felt like a shadow of something that never formed.
At night, he would curl up beside his mother, who combed his messy black hair with her fingers.
"Kaizen," she murmured, her voice thin like fragile paper, "don't listen to them. You don't need power to be someone important."
"But everyone says I'm a nobody…"
"You are my world," she whispered. "And sometimes, the world buries the brightest souls."
Kaizen didn't understand. Not then.
But he remembered the way she coughed afterward, long and painful, as if each breath stole a little more of her life.
When Kaizen turned seven, the world broke another piece of him.
Every year, children from all districts including the slums were tested for magical potential. Guardians came from Zenoria, wearing shining armor and cloaks woven with light. They looked like gods descending from the heavens.
Slum parents gathered their children, hoping for a miracle.
Kaizen stood among them, wearing a torn shirt and sandals that were too big.
A Guardian placed a glowing crystal in front of him, the Arcane Resonator. If he had any magical spark, the crystal would react.
It remained dark.
Completely.
Utterly.
Unmoving.
The loud whispering from onlookers burned in his ears.
"A failure…"
"Useless..."
"Pathetic..."
"Just like his father…"
"He's exactly what we expected."
The Guardian didn't even look at him again. He simply marked Kaizen's name in the "Ordinary" category the lowest tier, below Blessed, below even average citizens.
NOTE: Guardians are powerful individuals born with Blessed Abilities (special magical powers).
They protect the upper cities (like Zenoria) from monsters, criminals, and threats from the Shadow Abyss.
Kaizen's mother squeezed his hand tightly, forcing a smile.
"It's okay, Kaizen. Powers don't decide worth."
But as she hugged him, he felt her tears drop onto his shoulder.
And that hurt more than anything else.
Days became years.
Kaizen grew quieter.
He spoke less.
He smiled rarely.
He learned to survive the slums not by strength, but by silence.
He avoided fights, hid from trouble, and worked odd jobs to help his mother. He carried crates, delivered water, swept floors, even cleaned the abandoned hallways of the old Guardian outpost in Rinsho.
It was in those empty hallways that his imagination lived.
He walked the dust-covered corridors and pretended he was a Guardian. He held broken broomsticks like swords. He whispered dramatic lines like the heroes from the bedtime stories he remembered before his mother became too weak to tell them.
One evening, while cleaning a cracked mirror, he caught his reflection.
A skinny boy, hair messy, eyes tired, clothes torn, a nobody.
He stared at himself for a long time and whispered:
"I'll become someone. I swear… I'll become someone."
But the mirror didn't believe him.
Neither did he.
By age nine, Kaizen's world collapsed again.
His mother's health worsened dramatically. She could barely stand; her coughs grew bloody. Kaizen begged doctors from Zenoria to help her, but they refused to even examine her.
"No money, no treatment," they said.
"The disease of the slums is not worth our resources."
Kaizen sat beside her every night, tears blurring his vision as he held her frail hand.
"Kaizen…" she whispered weakly one night, "promise me you'll live… even if the world is cruel."
"I need you," he choked out. "Please don't leave me…"
She stroked his cheek with shaking fingers, her smile soft and sad.
"I'm sorry I couldn't give you a better life."
That night, as rain hammered the thin roof like the sky was mourning, Kaizen held her tighter, praying for a miracle.
But miracles didn't come to Rinsho.
She died before sunrise.
And with her death, the last ray of warmth in Kaizen's world flickered out.
The funeral was small.
No relatives came, he had none.
No neighbors offered help, they barely knew his name.
Only one old woman placed a single dried flower on the wooden box.
Kaizen stood in silence.
He didn't cry.
He couldn't.
His tears had dried long before she died.
When the grave diggers covered the last piece of the wooden box with dirt, something inside Kaizen cracked quietly, like a thin sheet of glass shattering under too much pressure.
He walked home alone that night to an empty house.
A house that no longer felt like home.
Life after that became survival.
Kaizen moved through the slums like a ghost. He ate little, spoke less, slept rarely. The world treated him even worse now, because there was no one to protect him.
He grew used to hunger.
He grew used to loneliness.
He grew used to being invisible.
But the world wasn't finished with him yet.
Because at age eleven, he started to notice something strange.
Every once in a while, when he walked alone at night, the shadows… moved.
Not because of wind, or animals, or flickering lanterns.
They moved toward him.
They leaned in when he passed, like dark figures bowing respectfully. Sometimes he heard whispers, soft, cold, barely audible.
"Kaizen…"
"We see you…"
"You are not nothing…"
He froze the first time it happened, fear clenching his throat. He ran home, slamming the door behind him, heart pounding wildly.
But the shadows were patient.
They whispered again.
And again.
Each time he was alone.
Each time he felt hopeless.
Each time he thought of his mother.
He tried to ignore them.
He tried to pretend they weren't real.
He prayed they were only illusions born from grief.
But deep inside, a strange feeling had begun to grow.
Not fear.
Not curiosity.
Recognition.
As if the shadows weren't strangers… but old friends who had been waiting for him.
Watching him.
Understanding him.
At twelve, the world delivered its cruelest blow yet.
Kaizen had managed to get a cleaning job at a local shop. It wasn't much, just sweeping floors and washing dishes. But it paid enough to eat.
One afternoon, as Kaizen was leaving the shop with a small bag of leftover bread, three Guardians from Zenoria landed in the slum square. Their light-infused boots cracked the ground as they descended like majestic angels unreachable, untouchable.
People in the slums bowed or fled.
Guardians rarely came down here unless something bad happened.
One pointed at Kaizen.
"That's the boy. The shop owner identified him."
Kaizen froze.
"W-What?" he stuttered. "Identified me for what?"
The Guardian captain, a tall woman with glowing silver eyes, stepped forward.
"You are accused of stealing enchanted items from the shop."
Kaizen's heart stopped.
"What? I didn't steal anything! I only sweep floors!"
He never finished the sentence.
A blast of force hit him in the stomach, sending him crashing into the dirt. The bread flew from his hands, scattering across the ground.
He struggled to breathe as the Guardians approached.
"No power… ordinary… unimportant."
"Just arrest him so we can leave this filthy place."
Kaizen screamed as they beat him kicks, punches, bursts of magical force that cracked bone. People watched from afar but didn't step in.
Why would they?
He was nobody.
Just another slum rat.
A nobody born from a nobody.
When the Guardians finally grew bored, they left him bleeding in the dirt.
Kaizen lay there for hours, cold rain washing the blood from his face. His vision blurred, his chest burned, and every breath felt like fire.
But worse than the physical pain…
was the realization.
They didn't even care if I actually did it.
His hands clenched weakly.
I don't matter. I really… don't matter.
For the first time, he wished he had never been born.
And that was when the shadows moved.
They rose from the edges of the alley like smoke coming to life, swirling around him, touching his skin like comforting hands.
The whispers returned, clearer now.
"Kaizen…"
"We have watched you suffer…"
"We have seen your pain…"
"You were never nobody…"
He tried to pull away, but he was too weak.
"Let us give you what the world never did…"
"Let us make you seen."
Kaizen felt darkness seep into his wounds cold, soothing, almost gentle. It wrapped around his broken ribs, his bleeding lip, his bruised arms.
And for a moment…
It felt like the world was finally touching him back.
Not with cruelty.
Not with hatred.
But with acknowledgment.
The shadows whispered one final sentence before sinking into him like ink merging with water:
"You belong with us."
And Kaizen, broken beyond anything he thought possible, closed his eyes and let the darkness embrace him.
Because for the first time in his life…
He didn't feel alone.