Chapter 01 ~ The Burden of Ash
The final bell of the day rang, a sharp, metallic trill that cut through the heavy afternoon air of the third-year middle school classroom. Instantly, the stifling silence of the study period shattered. Chairs scraped harshly against the linoleum floor, textbooks were shoved carelessly into bags, and the room filled with the chaotic, overlapping chatter of adolescents eager for freedom.
Amidst the sudden burst of youthful energy, Sakazuki remained seated in the back row, a solitary island of absolute stillness.
He was fourteen years old, yet he carried a heavy, imposing presence that seemed entirely misplaced among his peers. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his dark school uniform, and his posture was rigidly straight, devoid of the careless slouch typical of boys his age. Slowly, with deliberate and measured movements, he gathered his belongings. He placed his pens into his case, aligned his notebooks perfectly edge-to-edge, and slipped them into his bag. He did not participate in the loud conversations about video games or the latest hero debuts on the news. His mind was already miles away, locked onto a singular, unwavering routine.
Stepping out of the school gates, Sakazuki navigated the bustling streets of the city. The afternoon sun cast long, golden shadows across the pavement, but he paid no attention to the warmth. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, his footsteps even and rhythmic. He ignored the flashes of colorful quirks from children playing in the park, and he ignored the distant sirens of a hero agency responding to a petty crime. To him, the city was merely a landscape to cross in order to reach his true destination.
Fifteen minutes later, the sharp chime of a brass bell announced his arrival as he pushed open the glass door of "Sweet Petals," a modest, corner-lot bakery.
The transition was immediate and overwhelming. The air inside was thick and warm, heavy with the rich, intoxicating aromas of melting butter, roasted almonds, caramelized sugar, and fresh vanilla extract. The small cafe area was packed. Study groups occupied the corner booths, and local office workers stood in a winding line before the glass display cases, murmuring happily as they pointed at the colorful arrays of pastries.
Behind the counter stood his mother.
Even from the doorway, Sakazuki's sharp eyes caught the subtle, worrying details. Her hair, usually tied back in a neat bun, had loose strands clinging to her damp forehead. A smear of white flour marked her left cheek, and though she was smiling warmly at an elderly customer, handing over a neatly tied box of tarts, her breathing was visibly shallow. The slight, almost imperceptible tremor in her hands as she closed the cash register did not escape his notice.
Without a word, Sakazuki walked past the line, slipping through the small wooden swinging door that led behind the counter. He moved into the cramped backroom, quickly shedding his school jacket. He hung it neatly on a peg, rolled up the crisp white sleeves of his shirt to his elbows, and tied a dark brown apron around his waist. The fabric pulled tight, a physical switch flipping in his mind. He was no longer a student.
He stepped back out to the front, his expression a mask of stoic, professional efficiency.
"I will take the next customer on this side," Sakazuki announced. His voice was deep for his age, calm and entirely devoid of the forced, bubbly cheerfulness usually expected in customer service. Yet, it carried a commanding clarity that instantly drew the attention of the waiting patrons.
A businesswoman stepped forward, slightly taken aback by the intense, serious gaze of the teenager behind the register. "Ah, yes. I would like three slices of the strawberry shortcake, please. And a black coffee."
"Three shortcakes. One black coffee," Sakazuki repeated evenly. His hands moved in a blur of practiced precision. He grabbed a cardboard box, folded the edges with sharp, snapping motions, and used a pair of silver tongs to transfer the delicate cakes without disturbing a single flake of icing. "Your total is eighteen hundred yen."
He worked like a well-oiled machine, completely unfazed by the growing crowd. He calculated change in his head before the register could process it, handed over receipts with a crisp nod, and kept the line moving. It was a rhythm he knew intimately, a dance of cold coins and rustling paper bags.
"Welcome back, Sakazuki," his mother murmured softly as they crossed paths behind the narrow counter. She offered him a quick, grateful glance.
"You should sit down," he replied quietly, not breaking his rhythm as he handed a customer their change. "Your breathing is uneven."
"I am fine, truly. Just a bit of a rush today," she said, her voice strained but light. She turned to pull a fresh, heavy tray of baked melon bread from the rack.
Sakazuki's eyes tracked her movement. He saw the way her shoulders tightened, the way her grip on the hot metal tray faltered for a fraction of a second. The ambient noise of the bakery—the clinking of ceramic mugs, the hum of conversations, the ringing of the cash register—seemed to fade into a dull buzz as his senses locked onto her.
It happened in an instant.
Her knees buckled. The strength simply vanished from her arms. The heavy metal tray slipped from her grasp, plummeting toward the tiled floor with a deafening, echoing crash. Freshly baked bread scattered everywhere, but Sakazuki did not care about the ruined merchandise.
Before the tray even hit the ground, his stoic facade shattered.
He dropped the stack of empty boxes in his hands and lunged forward. He moved with a sudden, explosive speed that defied his heavy build, catching her by the shoulders just as she collapsed against the edge of the display case. The loud clatter had silenced the entire bakery. Gasps rippled through the line of customers, eyes wide with alarm.
"Mother," Sakazuki said, his voice dropping into a low, urgent register. He could feel the cold sweat soaking through the back of her uniform. She was trembling violently now, her eyes half-closed, struggling to draw in a full breath.
"I... I am so clumsy today..." she whispered, her voice barely audible over the ringing in her own ears.
This was not clumsiness. This was the terrifying, undeniable reality of a body giving out under years of relentless, crushing pressure. Sakazuki felt a cold spike of pure dread pierce his chest, but he forced it down, burying it under a wall of absolute discipline. He could not afford to panic.
He hoisted her up effortlessly, supporting her entire weight against his side. He turned his head toward the stunned crowd, his dark eyes sweeping over them with a fierce, authoritative glare that froze any questions in their throats.
"Please excuse the interruption," Sakazuki said, his tone leaving absolutely no room for argument or pity. "The shop will be pausing service for ten minutes. I ask for your patience."
Without waiting for a response, he guided his mother through the swinging door and into the dim, quiet sanctuary of the backroom. The contrast was stark—leaving behind the bright lights and the overwhelming scent of sugar for the cool, shadowed silence of the storage area. He carefully lowered her onto the small, worn armchair they kept in the corner for breaks.
He immediately went to the small sink, filled a glass with cold water, and retrieved the small plastic pillbox from her purse. Returning to her side, he pressed the glass into her trembling hands.
"Drink," he instructed softly.
She took a small sip, her chest rising and falling unsteadily. She looked up at him, her face alarmingly pale in the dim light. And then, despite the exhaustion, despite the clear pain radiating through her fragile frame, the corners of her lips curled upward. She smiled at him. It was a weak, trembling smile, but it held a depth of warmth and stubborn affection that struck him harder than any physical blow ever could.
"I am sorry, Sakazuki," she breathed, her smile unwavering even as her eyes watered slightly. "I am leaving the front to you again. I just need... a moment to catch my breath."
She was apologizing. She was collapsing from an illness exacerbated by a decade of grueling labor to keep him fed and clothed, and she was smiling to reassure him.
Sakazuki clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ground together. He reached out, his large, rough hand gently resting over her trembling fingers, steadying the glass.
"Do not apologize," he said, his voice a steady, grounding rumble in the quiet room. "You have nothing to apologize for. Sit here. Do not move until I return. I will handle the front."
She nodded weakly, leaning her head back against the chair and closing her eyes, the smile still faintly lingering on her lips.
Sakazuki stood up. He turned his back to her, taking a slow, deep breath. He smoothed the front of his apron, forcibly reigning in the storm of emotions threatening to boil over inside him. He needed to be cold. He needed to be efficient.
Pushing the door open, he stepped back into the bright, expectant gaze of the customers.
"Thank you for waiting," Sakazuki announced clearly, stepping back behind the register. "Who was next?"
As the line cautiously resumed its movement, Sakazuki's hands went back to work. Tongs, boxes, coins, receipts. His body executed the tasks flawlessly, driven by years of muscle memory. But his mind was a raging furnace of thought.
While he carefully boxed a delicate lemon tart, tying the ribbon with a swift pull, his thoughts drifted to the root cause of this miserable reality.
Tartarus. The maximum-security prison. A deep, sunless pit designed to hold the absolute worst refuse of humanity. That was where the man who sired him resided. A man who possessed a devastating quirk of molten rock and ash. A villain who had used his terrifying power of magma not to protect, but to burn, to conquer, and to destroy.
Sakazuki handed a customer their change, his face an unreadable mask.
His mother never spoke ill of the man. She kept her feelings locked away in a vault of silence, raising Sakazuki entirely on her own since he was four years old. She worked sixteen-hour days, breathing in flour dust and standing on hard tile floors until her joints ached and her health began its slow, cruel decline. All to ensure Sakazuki had a normal life. All to shield him from the shadow of his father's crimes.
Many people in this era of superhuman abilities liked to blame society. The villains parading on the news constantly whined about how the system failed them, how the heroes were corrupt, how the rules of the world pushed them into the dark.
Sakazuki rejected that pathetic ideology with every fiber of his being.
He grabbed another pastry bag, shaking it open with a sharp flick of his wrist. He did not blame the hero society for his broken family. He did not blame the environment. He placed the blame exactly where it belonged: squarely on the shoulders of the man who chose to become a monster. His father had made a choice to inflict suffering, and because of that choice, his mother was currently sitting in a dark room, smiling through a pain she did not deserve.
To Sakazuki, the world was not a gray area of misunderstood intentions. It was black and white. Actions had absolute consequences. Evil was a choice, and it needed to be eradicated with an uncompromising, overwhelming force. A justice so absolute that no criminal would ever dare to bring ruin to another innocent family.
"Keep the change," a businessman said, pulling Sakazuki from his thoughts.
"Thank you. Have a safe afternoon," Sakazuki replied automatically, closing the register drawer with a solid thud.
He was in his third year of middle school. The time for choosing a high school was rapidly approaching. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He would enter the hero course. He would endure whatever grueling training was required.
But he was not doing it for fame. He was not doing it to see his face plastered on billboards or to hear crowds cheering his name. He despised the theatrical, commercialized circus that modern heroism had become.
He had two absolute, unshakable goals.
First, Justice. He would become an immovable wall, a force of nature that would hunt down the dregs of society and ensure they faced the brutal reality of their actions. He would make certain that men like his father were thoroughly and permanently broken.
Second, Money. Hero work, especially at the highest levels, was immensely lucrative. He needed wealth. He needed enough money to afford the greatest medical specialists in the country. He needed enough capital to shatter the lease of this bakery, to lock the doors forever, and to ensure his mother never had to lift another heavy tray or force another exhausted smile for the rest of her life.
Sakazuki looked toward the swinging door of the backroom, his dark eyes narrowing with an intense, burning resolve that felt hot enough to melt steel.
He would crush the villains of this world to uphold the law, and he would collect their bounties to save his mother. He would bear whatever burden was necessary to achieve both. That was his vow.
"Next in line, please," Sakazuki called out, his voice steady, his hands ready, and his path forward clearer than it had ever been.