Chapter 1 – The Beginning of Darkness | A Dark Fantasy Story

📘 SEASON 1 – CHAPTER 1 Chapter 1 – The Beginning of Darkness Rain fell softly. Beneath the streetlights, the droplets formed a pale curtain over the gray city, as if the world itself had lost its color.

Arata Kurogane walked with slumped shoulders, his thin frame barely supporting the school bag he dragged behind him. Today had been no different. A few boys in class had shoved him around again, thrown his notebook to the floor. The teachers had looked away. His classmates had laughed.

The knot of anger and shame in his throat grew tighter with each passing day.

Why is it always me? Why does nothing ever change?

As he walked through the rain, he heard footsteps behind him in a narrow alley. Familiar laughter.

Two of the school bullies were following him.

“Hey, trash bag!” the larger one shouted. “We’re not done having fun yet.”

Arata tried to run, but they caught him almost instantly, slamming him against the wall. Punches rained down one after another. He raised his frail arms to protect himself, but the pain sinking into his body drained his strength with every hit.

Just as his legs gave out—

The air changed.

The sound of the rain dulled. The shadows deepened. The streetlights flickered.

A girl with long black hair and dark clothing stood before him. Her eyes were pitch-black, sharp and deep, like a night that swallowed all light.

The bullies froze.

“Who the hell are you?!” they shouted.

The girl said nothing.

She simply raised her hand.

Shadows twisted upward from the ground, coiling around the bullies before hurling them several meters away. They crashed onto the pavement, screaming.

Breathing heavily, Arata stared at her in terror and disbelief.

The girl spoke in a cold, distant voice.

“You… don’t belong to this world. Your place is elsewhere.”

Black light surged from beneath the ground. The pavement beneath Arata’s feet cracked as a blinding vortex of darkness opened below him.

He didn’t even have time to scream.

He fell.

The last thing he heard was her name, whispered like a curse—or a promise.

“Raven…”

And as Arata fell toward a world unknown, he felt it—

His life had changed forever.