Darkness.
An abyss stretched endlessly in all directions—vast, suffocating, eternal. There was no light, no ground beneath his feet, no sky above. No sound but the distant echoes of something ancient and unknowable.
Izuku Arashi existed in this void.
Or rather—what remained of him.
His body was gone, burned away by divine judgment. What remained was a soul—a dim ember where once a blazing sun had burned. But even now, though weak and flickering, it refused to go out.
A sudden pressure crushed down upon him, a suffocating weight that threatened to snuff out what little of him remained. The abyss trembled, and then—
"IZUKU ARASHI."
A voice rumbled through the void. Not a voice of men. Not a voice of gods.
A voice of the heavens.
It was absolute, unshakable, a force that had decreed the rise and fall of countless empires, that had shaped fate itself. Cold and merciless, it spoke with finality, as though the judgment had already been passed.
"YOU WHO HAVE TRANSCENDED MORTALS, YOU WHO HAVE DISRUPTED BALANCE—YOUR EXISTENCE IS NO LONGER PERMITTED."
Memories of betrayal flashed before Izuku's mind. The moment the blades sank into his back. The moment the spears, the arrows, and the golden chains of heaven tore him down.
The heavens. His allies. His family.
All of them had turned against him.
But even now, he did not bow.
Chains of golden lightning coiled around his soul, burning with divine runes, searing into his very essence. A punishment not just of the body, but of the soul itself.
The torment began.
The first wave came like a roaring inferno, a thousand scorching suns pouring their wrath upon him. Fire that could not be extinguished. His very existence was peeling apart, layer by layer, tearing his soul into raw, exposed agony.
Then came the second wave.
A crushing weight, a gravity that seemed to press from all sides, bending and twisting his form. It was as if the universe itself sought to grind him into nothingness.
But Izuku did not scream.
He endured.
His soul flickered, but it did not break.
A pause. Then the voice returned.
"EVEN NOW, YOU REFUSE TO KNEEL?"
The weight increased. The flames burned hotter. The void itself seemed to fold inward, suffocating, drowning him in suffering beyond imagination.
And still—he endured.
A silence stretched between him and the heavens.
Then, for the first time, there was something almost resembling amusement in the divine voice.
"VERY WELL."
The chains tightened, wrapping around his soul like a cocoon, locking him in a prison that burned his very existence.
"IF YOU WILL NOT BREAK, THEN WE SHALL MAKE YOUR FATE EVEN CRUELER."
The void shuddered.
"YOU WHO HAVE STRUGGLED FOR POWER, SHALL BE CAST INTO A WORLD WHERE POWER IS GIVEN AT BIRTH."
The golden chains pulsed, and something deep within Izuku twisted.
"YOU WHO HAVE CARVED YOUR OWN DESTINY, SHALL BE SENT TO A WORLD RULED BY STATUS AND BLOODLINES."
A sound like cracking glass echoed through the abyss. The void itself was shattering.
"YOU WHO HAVE NEVER RELIED ON FATE—SHALL BE MADE THE LOWEST OF THE LOW."
The abyss quaked, fractures of golden light breaking through the darkness. Izuku's very soul trembled, pulled by an unseen force.
"LET US SEE, IZUKU ARASHI—"
"HOW YOU RISE FROM NOTHING."
The chains snapped.
The void collapsed.
And Izuku fell.
The last thing he saw before everything shattered was a sky of golden thunder.
Then—darkness
To Be Continued in Chapter 3 – The Forsaken World