Tengoku e no Hangyaku - Rebellion against Heaven (english version)

Chapter 11: The Bastard Herald

Before he became what he was now, Ryuusei was a child left at the mercy of death and despair. I knew no love, no compassion. Her world was forged in blood and ashes. From the moment he was marked by Death, his fate had been sealed: train until he broke, fight until his skin turned to steel, and survive even if his soul was torn apart in the process.

(The Infernal Training)

His first day as a herald's apprentice was torture disguised as discipline. There was no rest, no time to recover. The harbingers' training ground was a hell where only the strong survived. Blows, cuts and fractures were part of everyday life.

"Your body doesn't belong to you," they told him. "It's a weapon. If it breaks, you repair it. If it weakens, you strengthen it."

Ryuusei spent days without sleep, forced to run on burning ground, scale thorn-covered walls, and fight opponents who felt no mercy. The teleportation daggers became extensions of his arms. At first, every attempt to use them ended in self-inflicted cuts or erratic movements. But after countless nights of failure, he managed to master them.

The Yin-Yang Mask was his punishment and his salvation. It allowed him to see the patterns of battle, the emotions of his enemies, but it also made him pay a price: each prolonged use caused him excruciating pain, as if his brain were pierced by burning needles.

Their training with the war hammers was worse. Heavy, impossible to handle with speed, but capable of shattering bones with a single blow. Every time he missed a move, he received energy discharges that left him on the verge of collapse. The lesson was simple: either learn, or die.

(The Forge of a Bastard)

Over time, he stopped feeling fear, he stopped feeling pain. He became a merciless warrior, a living weapon. Death watched him with cold interest, without interfering, without showing compassion. To his peers, Ryuusei was an aberration, someone who was not born to be a herald, but who refused to die.

The breaking point came when he was ordered to execute a colleague. Not because he was a traitor, but because Death wanted him to be.

"If you doubt, you will die too."

Ryuusei looked into the eyes of his victim, a young man like him, desperate, pleading. For a moment, his humanity tried to surface.

But only for an instant.

In the end, the hammer fell. And with that blow, his heart turned to stone.

(The Awakening of the Bastard)

Now, in the present, branded as a "Bastard Herald," Ryuusei understood the irony. He had survived a hell only to be despised by those who had never suffered what he had. But he didn't care. The loyalty of Aiko, a girl who despite everything continued to trust him, showed him that all was not lost.

Perhaps he still had something human inside him. Perhaps he could still choose his own destiny.

But if Death wanted to play with him, then he would become his worst mistake.