Episode:
When Asura comes to after the events of the previous episode, he finds himself clinging onto an exceedingly tall, stone pillar in a vast, empty world without any memories of who he is. Before he can get the chance to take in his new surroundings, a golden, mechanical spider appears before him, explaining that he is in Naraka and urges him to start climbing the pillar. As Asura climbs, the Spider refers to him by his name. Almost immediately, a memory emerges from the back of his mind.We flash back to several years/centuries/millenia ago when Asura was still being mentored in combat by Augus. Out in the field, Augus pits Asura up against several small Gohma as a warmup before personally sparring with him. Asura manages to land a few nasty hits that send Augus crashing into a nearby rockface. As a reward, Augus decides to treat Asura... By headbutting his lights out.
Before Asura can even let this memory set in, he finds himself plagued by another, more upsetting memory where he is beset upon by an army of demigod soldiers and their leader, who strikes at Asura with a bolt of lightning as the crying of a young girl rings in his ears.
According to the Spider, this man's name is Deus, but right now, Asura couldn't care about that. All that's bothering him right now is the ceaseless crying in his head. Asura increases the speed of his ascent, his anger slowly boiling over.
Eventually, Asura makes his way back to the surface in a violent explosion; his clothes now stained red and black, and his eyes glowing with rage. After calming down to a more reasonable level, Asura takes in the sights around him and the Spider explains, to his shock, that he is standing in Gaea, and he has been dead for twelve-thousand years...
Interlude:
Unsure of where to go next, Asura wanders the barren wastelands of Gaea. Eventually, the Golden Spider points him towards a nearby village. Shocked at the state of it, Asura assumes that the demigods let the Gohma rampage through it, only to be given a more horrifying revelation:They did this themselves.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Tropes:
- Back from the Dead: The episode ends with Asura breaching back to Gaea in a firey pillar.
- Eldritch Location: Naraka is portrayed as a void with an inky blackness obscuring the bottom and a blank white void instead of a sky, all of them connected by various tone pillars depicting a Buddha-like figure, Asura clinging to a comparatively thinner axis mundi. It also acts as a Place Beyond Time, as by the time Asura gets there, it has been 12,000 years since his death. Whether or not this is the case or Asura really did spend 12,000 years climbing nonstop is never really established.
- Evil Costume Switch: Not really evil, but after Asura escapes Naraka, his pants turn from white and gold to red and black.
- Ghost Amnesia: When Asura wakes up in Naraka, he has trouble remembering who he is or what happened to him.
- Video Game Tutorial: Asura's flashback is set when Augus is training him to fight Gohma, giving the player a tutorial for the intricacies of melee combat.
