Ushinai and his team—Lyra, Kael, and Zell—reach the outskirts of the capital, Saishin, a city of spires and chained lightning towers. They enter quietly, disguised as wandering healers.
But the air is wrong. Soldiers in black armor march double. People avoid eye contact. Posters cover the walls:
"Beware the Healer of Ash.
He is a threat to the Crown."
It was a drawing of Ushinai.
He had become a myth before he even arrived.
Kael laughs too loudly. Lyra senses danger. Zell disappears into the alleys like smoke.
Ushinai pulls down the poster.
He didn't ask to be a symbol — but the symbol existed anyway.
In the slums beneath the capital, a small rebellion cell approaches them:
Renka, a fire-willed archer
Yura, an inventor with mechanical wings
Akira, a deserter from the King's army
They bow to Ushinai.
"People say you kill monsters," Renka says.
"And spare the innocent. That you freed a village of slaves. That you—"
"I did what anyone would," Ushinai replies.
"No," Akira says. "Not anyone. And definitely not the King."
They offer Ushinai leadership of their cell.
He refuses — but they follow him anyway.
Mercy inspires loyalty, even when you don't want it.
Far above the city, the King's Second Commander, General Kurogane, returns from a distant war. He is a monster of iron—the man who crushed rebellions without leaving corpses. His armor is etched with the names of fallen enemies.
The King meets him privately.
"The Healer of Ash has come," the King says.
"He is young," Kurogane answers. "He will break."
But the King's hand trembles slightly.
This Ushinai reminds him of someone from his past.
Ushinai learns of a labor camp inside the city walls: prisoners forced to mine crystal that powers the capital's lightning towers. Families enslaved. Children beaten.
He tries diplomacy first, asking guards to release the youngest workers.
They laugh.
So Ushinai breaks the chains instead.
In a cinematic sequence—perfect for a manga spread—Ushinai and friends infiltrate the mines, disabling guards without killing. Lyra blocks a collapsing tunnel with stone force. Kael sweeps guards away with wind bursts. Zell takes out searchlights silently.
Ushinai frees hundreds.
The rebellion spreads like wildfire.
General Kurogane descends upon the mines.
He surveys the freed prisoners and the unconscious guards.
He speaks only one sentence:
"Bring me the boy."
That night, Ushinai dreams of his father Takashi standing in a field of glowing ash.
Takashi touches his chest.
"The power in our blood is not destruction," he says.
"It is remembrance. What you protect… answers you."
Ushinai wakes with a glowing mark over his heart — a sigil of ancient origin.
His father's legacy is activating.
Zell sees it and whispers:
"…Kid. That's not normal magic."
The rebellion grows too fast.
Someone inside is leaking information to the King.
Tension builds. Suspicion fractures teams.
At a secret meeting, Kurogane's troops ambush Renka's group.
Akira—the army deserter—betrays them.
He couldn't resist the reward the King offered: full pardon and a noble title.
In the fight, Renka is captured.
Yura is badly wounded.
Akira escapes into the night.
Ushinai feels the weight of leadership — people were hurt because they followed him.
Ushinai goes after Renka alone.
He finds her held captive in Storm Pass, an elevated bridge crackling with lightning.
Kurogane waits.
"What drives you, boy?" Kurogane asks.
"Justice? Revenge?"
Ushinai answers,
"…Responsibility."
They clash.
Kurogane's iron fists create shockwaves. Ushinai's style is fast, evasive, using the terrain. But Kurogane is overpowering — a true general, forged by endless war.
During the fight, Ushinai's chest mark glows again. His blade lights with white flame — not fire, but memory made manifest.
He cuts through one of Kurogane's gauntlets.
Kurogane steps back, intrigued.
"You are not ready," Kurogane says, voice flat.
"And yet… you will be trouble."
He withdraws, letting Ushinai escape with Renka.
The message is clear.
The King now sees Ushinai as a real threat.
Yura dies from her wounds.
Her last words to Ushinai:
"Build something better than the King's world…
even if you must stand alone at first."
Her death shakes the rebellion.
Some blame Ushinai.
Some cling to him even tighter.
Ushinai carries her mechanical wings like a relic.
Ushinai realizes something brutal and mature:
He can't save everyone.
But he can give people a choice.
He forms a faction—
The Ashen Dawn
Not a rebellion of vengeance,
but a resistance built on:
mercy
justice
protection
stopping senseless killing
People join—farmers, deserters, smiths, rogues, healers.
Ushinai becomes a symbol he can no longer run from.
In the palace, the King stands before a vast mural of ancient battles.
"He looks like him," the King whispers.
Kurogane raises an eyebrow. "Like who?"
The King turns, eyes shadowed.
"My brother."
Ushinai's faction has grown from a rumor into a real force.
They train in abandoned monasteries, move through forests like smoke, and strike with strategy—not destruction.
Lyra becomes his second-in-command.
Kael handles scouting.
Zell forms an intelligence network of rogues and spies.
People start calling Ushinai:
"The Unburning Flame."
A symbol of mercy that refuses to die.
Ushinai hates the title… but wears it anyway.
In the palace, the King opens a sealed chamber.
A pale woman steps out, barefoot, hair like silver glass.
Commander Shiromori
—The Third Commander
—The King's executioner
—A witch who manipulates memories and illusions
"She will break the boy," the King says.
Shiromori smiles faintly, as if she already knows Ushinai's deepest fear.
At dawn, the Ashen Dawn launches its first coordinated strike: disabling three lightning towers.
The city reacts violently.
Troops pour into the streets.
Shiromori appears.
Her illusions turn soldiers into shadows, civilians into monsters, allies into enemies.
Kael nearly kills Lyra before Ushinai snaps him out of it.
Then Ushinai sees HIM—
His father Takashi
standing at the end of the street.
Every instinct screams to run to him.
But Ushinai senses the lie beneath the image.
"Why do you hide from the truth?" Shiromori whispers.
Ushinai realizes:
She can weaponize memory.
Ushinai barely escapes with his team.
Zell discovers ancient writings in an underground archive:
The King created a "Glass Labyrinth," a memory-built dungeon formed from the regrets and sins of the royal bloodline.
No one enters it.
No one escapes it.
And the King's obsession with it… matches his obsession with Ushinai's bloodline.
Ushinai hears the name "Takashi" written in the old records.
His father had a secret life.
Ushinai calls a meeting with all high-ranking Ashen Dawn members.
People argue—some want open war, some want evacuation, some think Ushinai is moving too slowly.
A debate explodes:
"Your mercy will get us killed!" one commander shouts.
Ushinai answers quietly:
"My mercy is why any of you are alive enough to argue."
Silence.
Respect grows, even from the loud doubters.
Ushinai decides:
He must enter the Glass Labyrinth alone.
Humanity can't fight blind.
Lyra tries to stop him.
"Don't make yourself a martyr."
Ushinai touches her shoulder.
"I'm not dying in there. I'm coming back with answers."
The entrance is beneath the palace: a spiral staircase into black crystal.
When Ushinai steps inside…
the world becomes glass.
Fragments of memory hover in the air like broken mirrors:
children crying, soldiers screaming, the King kneeling in blood.
Ushinai walks into a maze made of sins.
The walls change shape.
Voices whisper.
The floor cracks beneath illusions.
He sees:
• his village burning
• his father dying a thousand ways
• himself becoming the King in alternate realities
Shiromori appears, not in flesh but as a projection—
"You cannot handle the truth, Ushinai.
Your father was no victim."
In the heart of the labyrinth, Ushinai witnesses an echo of a royal throne room.
A younger King.
Another man—identical in face but different in spirit.
Ushinai finally understands.
The King had a brother.
Takashi.
His father.
Takashi rejected the throne and fled the kingdom, taking forbidden knowledge with him.
The King declared him a traitor.
The massacre of Ushinai's village was not random.
It was punishment.
Ushinai sinks to his knees.
Everything he built—his ideals, his revenge, his identity—shakes.
He is not a random survivor.
He is the son of the King's greatest enemy.
Shiromori tries to break his spirit.
"You are royalty, Ushinai.
A cursed lineage.
Even your mercy is inherited guilt."
Ushinai whispers"No."
He stands.
The labyrinth cracks under his feet.
"My father didn't abandon the kingdom out of fear…
He left because he refused to become like you."
The ash-mark on his chest blazes.
A new power awakens:
Ashi no Kizuna — Bonds of Ash
Ushinai can manifest bonds—threads of glowing ash—that connect hearts, memories, and intentions.
He can see which illusions are real.
He can break lies.
He can sever the influence of Shiromori's magic.
Ushinai destroys the labyrinth's illusions from the inside.
The labyrinth collapses.
Shiromori materializes in full, blade raised.
They clash in a surreal, glass-shattering fight.
Memory fragments explode like fireworks.
Shiromori finally falters when Ushinai uses Bonds of Ash to sever her illusion-core.
She collapses, whispering:
"You… are the King's nightmare."
Ushinai drags himself from the collapsing labyrinth just as it implodes.
While Ushinai was inside…
the Ashen Dawn was attacked.
General Kurogane led a surprise assault.
Lyra lost half her unit.
Kael was nearly captured.
Zell was gravely injured.
Entire supply routes burned.
Ushinai's absence weakened them.
Some members blame him for the losses.
He accepts the anger in silence.
Leaders carry weight, not excuses.
The King broadcasts a message across the whole kingdom using lightning towers:
"Ushinai.
Son of the traitor Takashi.
Come forward and kneel.
I will grant your allies mercy."
The whole nation hears it.
Ushinai watches the speech in silence.
Lyra puts a hand on his shoulder.
"You're not kneeling," she says.
But Ushinai isn't thinking about surrender.
He whispers:
"He just confirmed everything I needed."