1 Flashback

In the back alleys of the city where garbage is dumped and passerbys pay no attention. There lay a young man. The young man had wild unruly black hair, with dark red streaks mixed in. His eyes were completely black other than his purple irises. Lastly on his chest a red substance was building and puddling up around his legs. That young man is me.

As I lay here watching my own blood form a puddle around my legs I can't help but think back on my life trying to make sense of how I ended up in this situation.

I think back to my earliest memories. I think I was about 1 year old. I was quite a happy baby. I was smart and told I was a genius as I learned how to speak simple sentences at six months and could walk at seven. Everything I ever wanted I got without hesitation. Even my older brother who is normally cold to everyone would secretly give me candies.

When I was 3 years old I gained a younger sister. When I was 4 I awoke my Stigma. A stigma is markings that every human being gains when they come of age. The stigma is a identification of our powers that come from our Vessel. The Vessel is an marble like organ that resides in the right chest cavity. My family was excited about my stigma as my stigma never wanted to take actual form but instead was a bunch of black markings that reminded one of flames. A never before seen stigma was cause for celebration. It was the happiest day of my life so far but little did I know at the time it would lead me to suffering.

The Vessel allows one to see their own 'Status' my status was pretty normal for my age except my intelligence was much higher. Under the stigma section was written [??? Shadow Puppet 1] A new power and a new stigma was indeed wonderful but... No matter what I did or tried Shadow Puppet only allowed me to move and change the shape of shadows. It had no attack ability, no defense, no support. You could do the exact same thing with my stigma as you could do by making hand signs in front of a lamp.

This of course concerned my family. You see our family was quite traditional. Might is right in our household and has been since our Ancestor awke a Dragon Metamorph stigma the one and only of it's kind in all of history. Ever since our family has almost always given birth to those who could use elemental stigmas. My brother had a very powerful Lightning stigma named Volt Commander but when compared to mine. Mine was just useless.

Of course my family didn't give up on me hoping that one day those ??? would one day be revealed to show my stigmas true power. With he passing of time the treatment I got became worse and worse. No longer could I get anything I wanted, no longer would people pay as much attention to me, even my title as genius was tossed aside since my stigma was useless. When I was 7 my sisters stigma awoke her stigma. An Ice element type named Snow Fairy. There was much celebration for this as this stigma had been recorded down and only 3 others have had this stigma each one was very powerful in their generation.

It was here that things took a drastic nosedive. I became isolated. Even my own father began to pretend that I didn't exist. The servents no longer cared either in fact some got satisfaction watching me get shunned. I was told to eat in my room some of the spite filled servents would take most of what I was to eat so I went hungry quite often.

When I was eight my father came to me for the first time in over a year. He told me to show him what I can do with my stigma. I tried hard to make my stigma do something else, anything else but still all I could do was move shadows. Father looked down at me with scorn, not a single shred of love was in them anymore. "You are a disgrace to this family" He told me before striking out my name from the records. This was the worst disgrace anyone can suffer. Those who had their names erased were treated with scorn and condemnation no matter where they went in human society.

Of course after having my name striken from the records I couldn't stay in the household. I, an eight year old child, was quite literally thrown out onto the streets. My nightmare deepened from there. Though my elder brother got me a small apartment, paid for my schooling, and sent me money every month for living expenses it didn't change anything else. My status now only had one name on it and the due to the meddling of certain servants and branch family people, who were envious of my title of genius when I was younger, let the whole city spread the rumor of how I was disowned and how useless my stigma is.

From then on anyone could bully me. Adults ignored me, children beat me, even the teachers who once praised me for my smarts developped a cold attitude towards me. My only friend is Sabre who is a shadow I created to look like a dog. I managed to give him limited intelligence so he always greets me when I get home. So here I am 17 years old now. My brother pulled some strings to get me a recommendation into The University of Minerva. Some of the people from the branch family learned of this, as they had grown used to looking at me like trash, well they dragged me into a back alley and stabbed straight into my Vessel then left me here.

Ah my conciousness is fading... I don't want to die but I can't move my body. "I'm sorry... Sabre... Adam... Jean... I hope I can... be your brother...in my next life..." Everything fades to black.

"Heh you aren't going to give in that easily are you boy?" I hear a voice coming from the darkness around me "I am not giving in I just have no way to survive this" The voice cackles "I wouldn't give a definite answer to anything boyo. Let me ask you are you happy with your fate so far?" Even though I have no body in the darkness I shake my head or at least I think I did something like that. "Kukuku I thought so. Tell me boy if you survive what do you want to do" 'What will I do?' Again my I see scenes from my life. "I want revenge. I want to make those who tossed me aside, those who scorned me, those who killed me to kneel down before me and regret!"

The voice remained silent for a moment "Oh so you want to be a villain?" 'Do I?' I once again shake my head "No. I don't think I want to be a villain" my decision for that was simple. My brother and sister would be disappointed in me if I went down that path. "Kukuku it's all about perspective boy. A man who steals is a villain but if he only steals to feed his family is it considered villainous? Back in old times what you consider villainy now was all just normal thing everyone did to survive."

I can't really respond to that since he has a point an act of villainy can be as bad as you want it to be. One may consider a man a villain while another may consider the man a hero. "Well boy you have my affinity that is the only reason I am talking to you, no one of you humans has ever had an affinity to me before. So I will give you my blessing." I blink "Wait I am dead how can you bless me besides who are you anyway?" The voice chuckles again "My name is Erebus, but I suggest never letting anyone ever hear that name come from your mouth. In fact it may not even appear in what you humans call 'Status'. Oh and my wife may bless you as well. It all depends on if she likes you. Oh I gotta go boyo~" Then the voice didn't speak again no matter how much I tried to contact it.

I don't know how long I was in the darkness but suddenly I heard something "Kekeke it work! Mako genius!" Opening my eyes I see a small green figure in front of me dancing around in joy. 'I'm not dead?'