Chapter 1: The Poison in the Cup

The sky was soft with twilight, stained orange and violet as the sun bled behind the city skyline. Yuto Tanaka stood on the rooftop of the school, the wind teasing his dark hair as he looked out over the place he called home.

Behind him, Renji laughed.
“C’mon, don’t get all dramatic now. We’re graduating. One last toast before life pulls us apart, right?”

Yuto smiled faintly, accepting the can of soda Renji offered. They’d been best friends since middle school—bonded over video games, late-night study sessions, and their shared dream of doing something meaningful. Yuto never had many friends, but he never needed more than one good one.

He cracked open the can. The fizzy hiss seemed louder than usual.

Renji lifted his own drink. “To the future.”

“To the future,” Yuto echoed, and drank.

It tasted off. Bitter.

Seconds passed. His hands trembled. The can dropped from his fingers, clattering to the ground.

“R-Renji…?”

His vision blurred. His knees gave out.

Renji stood above him, smiling—not cruelly, not angrily, but with a twisted sorrow.

“I’m sorry, Yuto. I really am.”

Yuto’s throat burned as he coughed violently, red spilling from his lips. His lungs struggled for air, his fingers clawed at the concrete. “Why…?”

Renji knelt beside him. “Because you always got the attention. You were the smart one, the quiet one everyone admired. I was always just the friend of Yuto Tanaka.”

Yuto wanted to scream, to ask how years of friendship could end like this. But the poison was already dragging him under.

As the last of his strength slipped away, the world grew dim. A strange warmth began to curl around his body—like a cocoon of firelight.

And then—

“O soul lost to treachery… Hear the dying will of kings.”

The voice wasn’t Renji’s. It was deeper. Ancient. Echoing from somewhere beyond the veil of the world.

“Let the pact be sealed. Let the blade be born. Let a Hero rise.”

The rooftop faded. The stars twisted.

And Yuto Tanaka died.

✧ ✧ ✧

He woke to the stench of blood and smoke.

The sky above was cracked open with red lightning. Screams echoed in the distance. Around him were corpses—soldiers in silver armor, mages burnt to ash, a banner torn and soaked in mud.

And slumped against a throne of shattered stone, a dying old man whispered with his last breath:

“...Thank the gods... the summoning worked...”

Yuto gasped for air, hand clutched to his chest. His body was intact—but different. Lighter, sharper. Something ancient stirred in his veins, humming with power. Red markings shimmered faintly across his arms and vanished just as quickly.

“I… What is this place?” he croaked.

The dying king smiled.

“You are our final hope. The Crimson Hero. Born of death, forged by betrayal.”

His eyes closed. His last breath slipped free.

And Yuto, alone in a ruined throne room, with a broken crown at his feet and blood on his hands, knew one thing:

This world had summoned him not to live—but to fight.

Ash drifted from the sky like snow.

Yuto stood frozen in the ruins of a throne room, the silence broken only by the distant roar of something inhuman. The king’s corpse lay still, his crown bent and scorched beside him. Everything reeked of magic, blood, and despair.

Yuto’s heart pounded.

He was alive. He had died—*he had died*—and yet he stood here. Whole.

A strange warmth still pulsed through his chest. He looked at his hands. Faint crimson lines had traced themselves across his skin when he first arrived, like glowing runes, but they had since faded.

“What is this place...?”

He didn’t have long to wonder.

The great doors of the throne room creaked open with a deafening groan. Yuto turned sharply, instinctively raising his fists—though he wasn’t sure what good they would do.

A figure stepped through, clad in battle-worn leather and a tattered white cloak. She moved with both urgency and grace. Her silver-blonde hair, stained with soot, framed a face hardened by conflict.

She stopped when she saw him, blue eyes wide with disbelief.

“You… You’re the one. The summoning worked.”

Yuto stared back. “Who are you?”

She hesitated only a second, then gave a short, formal bow. “Princess Lyra Aelwyn. Heir to the kingdom of Aelwyn... what’s left of it.”

Her voice cracked slightly at the end. She looked past him at the dead king and fell silent.

“That was your...”

“My father.”

She moved to his side, falling to her knees beside the corpse. She pressed her forehead to the king’s armor in silence.

Yuto lowered his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She didn’t reply. A moment passed before she stood again and turned to him, her voice steadier.

“You were summoned by his final spell. The Hero Ritual. It calls a soul from another world when all hope is lost.”

“Why me?” Yuto asked, bitterness rising in his throat. “Why summon someone who just died... betrayed?”

Lyra studied him. “The spell finds a soul at the edge. Between life and death. Someone willing to fight.”

“I didn’t choose this.”

“No. But you were chosen.”

She stepped closer, searching his eyes. “You carry the Crimson Sigil. You may not feel it yet, but the pact is sealed. That mark—” she pointed to his arm “—means you were reborn under the Crimson Vow. Blood-forged magic. It feeds on loss... and rage.”

He remembered Renji’s smile as the poison took him.

Yeah. He had plenty of both.

Lyra continued. “There’s no time. The enemy is coming. They’ll sweep through the capital by nightfall. We must flee.”

“Enemy?”

“The Empire of Drazan. They’ve already conquered three of the five kingdoms. My father held them off for years with what little we had left. He gave everything for this last chance. *You*.”

Yuto clenched his fists. “So what now? I just... fight in a war I know nothing about? For people I’ve never met?”

Lyra nodded solemnly. “That’s the burden of a summoned hero. But you’re not alone.”

She extended her hand.

“Come with me. Learn our world. Survive long enough to decide what kind of hero you want to be.”

Yuto stared at her hand.

In his world, a friend’s hand had led him to death.

Here, it might lead to something else.

After a long pause, he took it.

---

## **✧ ✧ ✧**

That night, they escaped through hidden tunnels beneath the palace.

Yuto saw a glimpse of the world outside—a kingdom ravaged by war, skies lit by dragonfire, magic woven into every stone and tree.

And overhead, the stars of another world watched him.

He was no longer Yuto Tanaka, the forgotten student.

He was the Crimson Hero of a dying kingdom.

And his story had only just began