The Story So Far
History:
Ruca was born in a rich merchant family from the Imperial City of Regnum. Being the only child and thus the only heir he spent most of his time studying so one day he’ll be able to inherit and lead his father’s company, just like his parents wished him to do. He was the top student of his class, but due to his timid nature he was always being bullied or teased by his classmates. Because of this, he became quite introvert and preferred to spent most of the time in his own room reading books, believing that he is only causing trouble to people around him.
For a rather long time Ruca saw himself in his dreams as an arch-demon Asura, the general of Sensus, a person that ruled all over the Heaven (Devaloka). Asura was a magnificent leader, fearless and invincible what made Ruca wish he could be someone like that too.
Ruca’s life suddenly changed when he met Iria, a girl, who ran away from her village, chased by a religious organization, Arca. The leader of Arca, Mathias, believed that Iria knew where the power known as Manifest is, but Iria herself denied it. When Arca believers tried to kidnap the girl, a strange power awakened within Ruca, allowing him to save Iria. It turned out that the power was the Devic Artes, that only Fallen could use. The problem was, Fallen were feared greatly by other people and so Regnum established a law to catch them. Since Ruca used his powers to stop Arca, he couldn’t stay in Regum anymore and had to escape before the soldiers came after him. Later it turned out that Iria is also a Fallen, or actually, an Avatar (as they call themselves). Iria explained to Ruca that Avatars, in their past life, were those who lived in Devaloka, the ones known as Devas or gods. Devaloka was destroyed in the Fall, causing the world to lost its balance and Naraka (Earth) to slowly fall apart, devastated with catastrophes and wars. The Fall was also the reason why Avatars started to appear. They were souls of Devas reincarnated on Naraka. The strange dreams Avatars had were scattered memories of their previous life, which also meant that Ruca used to be Asura in the past. According to what Mathias told Iria earlier, the key to find the Manifest lies within Iria’s past life memories (to Ruca’s great shock Iria was Inanna, Asura’s lover) and that power of Manifest is necessary for Arca to create the Utopia. In the end Ruca and Iria decide to travel together in order to look for other Avatars and try to find out more about the Manifest.
The journey to Naos, where Iria wanted to meet with a rumored “Holy Maiden” ended with both Iria and Ruca caught by strange people, who called themselves the Grigori and had the ability to seal Devic Artes of Avatars. Unable to fight back Ruca and Iria were transported to Avatar Laboratory, where they met two other Avatars, Spada and Chitose. While Chitose willingly decided to join Arca, because it grants protection to all its followers, the other three (or actually mostly Spada and Iria) refused and were taken to see Oswald, surprisingly, the high officer of Regnum’s military that also seemed to have connection with Arca. Seeing that Ruca, Iria and Spada (who turns out to be Durandal, the sword of Asura, in his past life) are capable of fighting, Oswald forced them into the military, sent them to the battlefield and ordered to defeated Garam’s troops.
At the battlefield Ruca was at first extremely afraid, hoping that there was a way for them to avoid fighting Garama soldiers, but the more he fought the more he became fond of the feeling of defeating his enemies - the power of Asura started to be too much for him and made him lose sight of himself. Only after Iria scolded him for killing people and laughing like maniac while doing it, he recovered from this state and promised never to allow something like that to happen ever again.
Soon, Regnum’s camp was set on fire and attacked by mercenary Ricardo. After short battle he let Ruca and others escape, even though, being the Avatar, he was Hypnos ,the enemy of Asura. Ricardo stated that he is not interested in his past, which made Ruca hope, that if they ever meet again, they might be able to convince the mercenary to help them.
After escaping from the camp they headed to Naos, only to find out that the Holy Maiden Ange was taken to Naos Base, because she tried to save the Church from bandits and used her powers, destroying the Cathedral in the end. Upon leaving Naos to search for Ange, Ruca had some second thoughts about being Avatar. At first he was happy that he became powerful and met his comrades from the past, but he realize that the memories could take the better of him and made him forget about who he is right now, just like it was with Avatars-soldiers from the battlefield. The memories from the past became a burden to him. Because of being an Avatar he couldn’t came back home, there was no place in this world that could accept them. Despite this, he still felt homesick, but after talking to Iria and Spada about their reason for continuing this journey, he understood, that he can’t just whine about how miserable his life seems to be to him. He promised Iria that he’ll stay by her side and do everything he can to help.
Inside Naos Base they found something horrifying. Captured Avatars were used there for experiments with some kind of new weapon. As it was later revealed, their lives where energy source for it. The thought that someone could use Avatars like that made both Ruca and Iria angry. Later, it turned out that Holy Maiden Ange was also used in the experiments, but they manage to save her and convince her that she shouldn’t be blaming herself for what happened to the Cathedral in Naos. Eventually Ange joined them, revealing that in the past she was Orifiel, the strategist.
They tried to escape from Naos base, but they were stopped by Ricardo, who this time was sent to bring Ange to a person named Albert. Ange persuaded him with valuables and so Ricardo joined the group as Ange’s bodyguard.
After some time they headed to Regnum again to look for more information. Splitting up, Ruca was to search in the house district. As he approached his home he heard his father threatening the soldiers who came looking for him. Soon soldiers left and Ruca heard how much worried his parents were about him and that they believed he had a reason for not coming back, yet they wished he would return. For the very first time Ruca realized how much they actually loved him. He was then approached by Eddy and Nino, his classmates that always bullied him. To Ruca’s surprise they also were worried about him and even helped him escape from soldiers. Unfortunately, this caused a commotion and Ruca had to hide in Spada’s base, in the sewers. In there he met Hermana, a little girl orphaned because of the war. The group was soon back together and while helping Hermana they found a memory circle, a device that could return the memories of their past. After stepping on it and witnessing a scene from Devic Era, Hermana also turned out to be able to see it, stating that she is Vrtra, the dragon who raised Asura.
Traveling all over the world they tried to find other memory circles, but with each one they had even more questions than answerers. What Ruca knew, was that Asura tried to reunite Devaloka and Naraka and for some reason he needed the Manifest to do so. Everything they learnt led them to believe that it was the Overlord, leader of Sensus and Mathias’ past life who destroyed Devaloka, using the Manifest. This caused Ruca to blame Mathias for making lives of Avatars the way they were: lonely, miserable and without the place that would accept them. After encountering Chitose in Ashihara, she said it was in fact all Inanna’s fault and that Inanna betrayed Asura, but Ruca refused to believe that and protected Iria from Chitose’s attacks, saying that he doesn’t trust neither Arca nor Chitose.
Soon Ruca started to have even more doubts, wondering who actually was Overlord and what was his connection to Asura, or how he obtained the Manifest. To make things worse, first Ricardo betrayed them in favor of his older brother from his past life, then Ange, swallowed by Orifield’s guilt for not being able to protect his student Himmel, tried to make it up to Albert (who was Himmel) and even fought against Ruca and others to protect him. Even though she knew Albert wanted to sacrifice her to unleash the power of the Manifest. Ruca believed that both of them had their own reasons. He forgave Ricardo, after the mercenary saved them and realized that his brother is not the person he used to know. Ruca also tried to make Ange understand that she shouldn’t be blaming herself and suffering because of something that happed in her past life.
After some time it was revealed that the Manifest is hold into the Sky Castle. The party tried to get there before Mathias, but unfortunately they were too late. Moreover the truth behind the Fall was revealed. Believing that uniting Devaloka and Naraka will cause chaos and wars, Inanna took Durandal and stabbed Asura in the back, when he was about to activate the power of the Manifest. Betrayed by his beloved, Asura in his rage broke Durandal in two and killed Inanna, the three of them died together and became the statue in Sky Castle. It seemed that the power of Manifest no longer controlled by anything, destroyed Devaloka.
Hearing all of this Ruca broke apart. He could no longer hear his friends’ voices, swallowed by the feeling of betrayal and guilt. He could think only about that it was his fault that the things looked like that, that the world was the way it was now. Completely broken he came to Mathias’ side, but he didn’t actually listened to her and soon his own power gone wild, causing the Sky Castle to fall apart. A wish to disappear was stuck in his mind.
When he woke up, Ruca saw a dark space with the Overlord and Asura standing before him. After listening to both of them for a while (mostly to Asura) he came to realization that he has his own life now and the bonds he formed with his friends were not something that was created because of the past.
When Ruca woke up, he saw injured Chien (previously a member of Arca) that helped him to get to Sania village, where Ruca’s friends were. Chien wanted to leave, but Ruca, worried about his injures told the boy to come with him. As they approached Sania Iria welcomed them. Ruca apologize to her for everything and told her it was all his fault, but she refused to take his apology, saying that he never did anything to apologize for. Reunited with his friends they decided to head to the Tower of Dawn to stop Mathias from using the Manifest to destroy the world.
After they left Sania, Hermana remembered that in fact Devaloka wasn’t destroyed, but it was not completely reunited with Naraka. The reason was that both Asura and Inanna killed someone they loved the most, the sacrifice activated Manifest, but since they wished for the opposite Devaloka was only in half united with Naraka. When Iria started to say that it was her fault after all, Ruca cheered her up and said the exactly same words she told him when he felt it was his fault. They all agreed that those memories where actually something to help them fix the mistakes they did long ago, but they couldn’t forget that they are completely different from their past life now and they shouldn’t be bound to it.