Asura

Asura is the main protagonist of the action beat 'em up game Asura's Wrath. His Mantra Affinity is Wrath. Voiced by Liam O'Brien (English) and Hiroki Yasumoto (Japanese).

Appearance

Asura is humanoid in appearance, aside from the markings on his body as well as his eyes and arms, his hair is white in color and his skin is of tanned complexion. His eyes glow white and although he has irises, he doesn't have pupils. During his time as one of the Eight Guardian Generals however, he had ruby red eyes and pupils.

Personality

Asura is an angry, stubborn demi-god and is known for charging head on at a foe without a second thought. He is a powerful combatant, as he shows an absence of fear in bad situations and will even fight relentlessly until he's victorious in battle. Because of his stubborn nature, Asura mostly tries to get out of bad problems all on his own. He is also known to be very honorable, and even good hearted, as he becomes angry when he sees an act of evil.

Asura values the lives of the innocent and does not believe in sacrificing the innocent for any reason, as he disapproves of the Gohma's attacks on Gaea, Deus's plain forthe world itself, and the Seven Deities for for theacts of collecting Mantra by murdering humans, as he believes that there is no need for gods that only take. Even when he is subjected to his wrath from, he still has controlover his actions to avoid attackin humans and civilian demigods, instead focusing his anger on the Gohma as well as the Shinkoku military. Asura also dislikes people who put themselves over others, unlike his former master Augus, he is capable of developing close bonds and perceiving others as friends despite his wrath.

Asura is also a caring father and and a family man whether it is outside or even within the battlefield, as he shares a close and unbreakable bound with his daughter, Mithra.

Story

12,000 years prior to the beginning of the game, Asura had a happy life with his wife Durga and his child Mithra. He and Yasha were students of Augus and they participated in numerous battles against the impure Gohma. At some point in the Emperor's castle Sergei, Wyzen and Kalrow confronted Asura and Wyzen persuaded him to join Deus's cause, The Great Rebirth, but he declined. Later when his daughter was appointed new priestess he was outraged and didn't want his daughter to be involved in a war. After the battle against the Gohma and Vlitra he was framed for murdering Emperor Strada by the Seven Deities and stripped of his godly powers and plunged into Naraka. His daughter kidnapped, his wife killed, Asura is now on a quest of vengeance fueled by his rage and hate.

Asura’s soul awakens dangling from a pillar in Naraka, a realm of the afterlife ruled by a mysterious figure known only as the Golden Spider. Suffering from amnesia, he begins to ascend the pillar as the Golden Spider hints about Asura’s past and what the mortal world has become in his absence. Fueled by his unexplainable anger, Asura breaks out of Naraka and inhabits his body, freeing it after 12,000 years in a massive explosion from beneath the surface. Asura wanders Gaea, which has become a vast wasteland afflicted with blood red skies and frequent lightening storms, soon after coming across a human village amidst some ruins that is under attack by the Gohma. While Asura rescues the villagers, a capital ship descends to the village and deploys Trastrium warriors led by former Guardian General, Wyzen.

Wyzen explains that the Eight Guardian Generals disbanded after the coup, becoming the self proclaimed Seven Deities. Wyzen continues to monologue, but is soon interrupted by Asura's fist, prompting a duel between the two. As they duel Wyzen transforms several times, eventually tapping into the Brahmastra’s mantra reactor to become Gongen Wyzen, a form increases his size to the point that he dwarfs the earth. As Asura is about to be crushed under one of Wyzen’s fingers, Asura recalls his entire past, empowering him and activating his Vajra form. Asura's subsequent concentrated onslaught towards Wyzen's finger is so great that it obliterates Wyzen. However, Asura's arms are completely destroyed in the process and, exhausted, Asura falls to the ground unconscious.

Upon awakening, Asura is confronted by Yasha, his former brother-in-law, who tells him to move on and to forget about Mithra, mocking him for returning to life and attempting to oppose the Seven Deities. Asura, revitalized once again through his own rage, savagely attacks Yasha despite the loss of his arms. Though he manages to crack Yasha's mask with a powerful headbutt, he is ultimately overwhelmed and literally cleaved in half by Yasha's final attack.

Asura is awakened in Naraka by the Golden Spider a second time, haunted by the sound of his daughter crying and fueled even further by anger, Asura climbs the pillar again into the mortal world.

500 years after his second death, Asura returns to his body. Petrified in stone at the base of a mountain, a shrine has been built around it by the descendants of the villagers he saved. And now, the remaining humans now believe him to be a guardian against the absent Gohma. The Gohma finally attack just as Asura breaks free. A Gohma chieftain kidnaps a girl that was visiting Asura's shrine - whom of which bears a striking resemblance to his daughter, Mithra - prompting Asura to pursue it to the now besieged village.

After defeating the Gohma, a fleet commanded by the Deity Kalrow comes to investigate. As Kalrow taunts Asura’s status as The Fallen One from the safety ship, the Trastrium warriors begin harvesting the souls of the grateful villagers, who believe being absorbed into mantra is ascending to heaven. After dispatching the Trastrium soldiers directly responsible for harvesting the souls of the villagers, Asura destroys the fleet, crushing a fleeing Kalrow inside his own escape pod.

Crashing into a mountain, Asura is found by his old mentor Augus, now one of the Deities. Augus carries the unconscious Asura to a hot spring, presumed to be Augus' own residence. There Augus informs Asura of Deus' ambitions: Deus wants to achieve The Great Rebirth, an end to the War of Creation that will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity at the expense of billions of humans harvested for the cause of destroying Gohma Vlitra, the heart of the Gohma, once and for all. After recuperating in the hot spring at the attendance of Augus' own personal attendants; Asura and Augus launch themselves onto the surface of the moon for their final showdown for an hononable death match. Evenly matched in hand to hand combat, Augus draws his sword, Wailing Dark, and in doing so proceeds to level the moon with the shear force of his attacks and the length-altering blade. In an effort to finish Asura off, Augus impales Asura upon the fully-extended blade (now longer than Gaea's width), pinning Asura to and piercing through Gaea. As Augus prepares the killing blow, Asura breaks Wailing Dark and, grasping the broken blade by the hilt with only his teeth, uses it to kill an impressed Augus.

Not long after paying his respects to his fallen mentor in an honorable battle to the death, a Gohma Striker appears, followed by a horde of other Gohma on the horizon; upon noticing this, Asura prepares for battle again. The girl finds Asura a few days later, once again turned to stone but reviving soon after she finds him. She returns him to the village, presumably to introduce him to her village and family. However, just as they arrive another fleet commanded by the Deity Olga launches a barrage of missiles to purify the land. Asura survives the attack, but finds the girl’s charred body in the rubble. Consumed by fury, Asura goes berserk, transforming into a form known as Berserk Asura, and wipes out most of the fleet within minutes. Distraught that Asura's power has somehow surpassed what took the Deities 12 millennia to gather, Olga commands the now-completed Brahmastra to fire directly at Asura. Yasha tries to stop the firing sequence, but fails to shut it down before Asura is caught in the blast, merely diverting the blast but giving Asura a chance to escape.

Some time later, while Yasha and Sergei are purifying the Gohma and gathering souls from mortals for Brahmastra, Asura, his body burnt and broken by his own rage (a form simply called his 'Wrath form'), carves through Sergei’s ship and disembowels Sergei. With his last breaths, Sergei reveals to Yasha that it was he who kidnapped Mithra, and killed his sister - Asura's wife - Durga, to which Yasha states that he was aware of Sergei’s actions at the time but chose to restrain himself for the cause. Asura then brutally thrusts Sergei to the ground before crushing his head with his foot and begins to attack Yasha. In the beginning of their confrontation, Yasha attempts, in vain, to reason with Asura in an effort to return him to his senses, all the while suppressing his emotions underneath his mask. As the battle wears on, Asura momentarily gains the upperhand, interrupting Yasha's pleas with an attack that destroys his mask. Yasha, now free to express himself, furiously retaliates against Asura; all the while knowing that Asura's wrath will destroy his own body if he is not subdued. Driven by raw emotion, Yasha taps into his own mantra of Melancholy and cracks open Asura’s form, returning his sanity but placing him in a temporary coma.

While in his coma, Asura is visited by the Golden Spider. Despite being regretting by his loss of control, Asura is informed by the Golden Spider that carrying out his revenge and defeating the Gohma is his "destiny". Asura, enraged but awoken, rises and heads for Shinto. He arrives at Deus’ office to find him already in the midst of battle with Yasha. After a lengthy brawl, Deus escapes to the Karma Fortress and commandeers the Brahmastra, to become Sakra Devanam Indra Deus, 'the most powerful being in existence'. Yasha and Asura battle their way into the heart of the Karma Fortress, all the while avoiding being crushed or vaporized by Deus and the security forces. After a second, furious battle, Asura slays Deus as Yasha frees Mithra from her incarceration. Before father and daughter can reunite however, Asura and Yasha are interrupted by the sudden reemergence of Gohma Vlitra on Gaea.

Despite the Brahmastra being depleted, Asura and Yasha leave with Mithra’s blessing to face Vlitra. Asura and Yasha battle their way to the 'face' of Vlitra, but are overwhelmed by the beast. Mithra, having sensed this, grants Asura the mantra within the Karma Fortress and heals Yasha, transforming the former into Mantra Asura. Now stronger than ever, they manage to force their way into Vlitra's core, the very heart of Gaea, encountering a colossal monster that startlingly resembles Asura’s Berserk form. Realizing that this is the source of Gaea’s wrath, Asura, with the aid of Yasha, slays Vlitra and escapes out of Gaea. As the remaining Gohma are pushed back on the planet below, Asura returns to the Brahmastra to reunite with Mithra, but is interrupted by Olga. Despondent over Deus’ death and the loss of her fleet, Olga takes Mithra hostage and threatens to kill Mithra as revenge. She attempts to kill Mithra, but the Golden Spider suddenly appears and kills her, stating that he cannot allow anything to happen to his “vessel”.

The Golden Spider weaves a web around himself and Mithra. Now transformed, he reveals himself to be Chakravartin, the one true god and the "Spinner of Mantra". Chakravartin states that he himself unleashed the Gohma to test the inhabitants of Gaea, in the hope of finding a successor and ending his need to watch over Gaea. Asura attacks Charkravartin only to find himself severely outmatched, even while in Mantra form. Asura, growing more furious by the second, unleashes his Wrath form in the hopes of saving an imprisoned Mithra. Mithra, sensing that her father will destroy himself if he continued to struggle, launches him off the rapidly deteriorating Karma Fortress and back down to Gaea, requesting that her uncle Yasha, whom of which had already launched after and successfully caught the falling Asura, protect her father.

Asura, after unknowingly having the Mantra Reactor of the Karma Fortress and Yasha's own reactor implanted to him, awakes on Gaea to find a masked Yasha eager to battle him. Though confused, Asura accepts the challenge. The two clash in a flurry of blows, where Asura, thanks to the activation of the Mantra Reactor, gains the upper hand. However, before Asura can deliver the final blow to Yasha, he observes Yasha smiling underneath his mask. Asura halts his attack, but the bandages that covered Yasha's chest were blown away from the force of the onslaught - Revealing Yasha's now heartless chest. Asura then realizes that Yasha revived him, and Yasha, now knowing that Asura is at his strongest, dies contented with a smile upon his face.

Preparing for his final confrontation, Asura meditates underneath a waterfall, seeing visions of the other Deities and reminiscing about Durga, strengthening his resolve and purpose. Riding atop what is presumed to be his own flagship, he heads into space to confront Chakravartin. Chakravartin attempts to destroy Gaea in a single blast, but Asura, with the power of the Mantra Reactor, transforms into a god-like form called Asura the Destructor and deflects it. Asura engages Chakravartin, who again requests that Asura become the new god of the planet only to be rejected once again. The very fabric of time and space begins to come apart as they duel at the edge of Creation for the fate of Gaea. Chakravartin is eventually pressed into his final form, but is brought to his knees by Asura's sheer force of will. As Asura prepares to kill Chakravartin, Mithra breaks free and urges him to stop. Mithra states that if Chakravartin is killed, all the mantra in the world will be forever lost. This will render all of Shinkoku's technology and the power of the demigods useless, including those keeping Asura alive. Asura chooses to destroy Chakravartin nonetheless, resigned to his fate and happy to die so long as Mithra can live free from danger. As the landscape around him collapses, Asura shares his final words with Mithra and vanishes, free of his wrath for the first time.

Abilities

Asura is a demigod and former Guardian General. Having been trained to fight by Augus, Asura is a very skilled amazing hand-to-hand combat fighting skills. Like other demigods and powerful warriors such as Yasha, Asura only uses hand-to-hand combat to fight his opponents. This allowed him to refine his abilities through constant battle to the point where he was able to fight toe-to-toe and defeat other immensely skilled fighters like Yasha, Augus, Deus and even Chakravarin. Even by military-trained demigod standarts, Asura's physical abilities, primarily his strength, stamina, endurance and pain tolerance are of monstruous levels as seen in his many battles against opponents who in theory are far stronger than him, such as Deus or Chakravartin. His durability on another hand while noteworthy is not as high as that of other characters as in nearly every major battle Asura sustained immense damage (usually involving the destruction of his arms).

His Mantra affinity is Wrath. This signifies that Asura's strength is proportionate to his level of rage and anger. This plays a major role in the series as it allows to Asura to constantly build up and increase his Mantra output to what could be infinite levels the more rage he builds up. Yasha once questioned Deus, how Asura's Mantra levels could match those of the Seven Deities even after accumulating over seven trillion human souls worth of Mantra to enhance their powers. Even the Mantra God Chakravartin was appalled that he was unable to counter the massive force of Asura's Mantra. At this point it should be noted that Asura's anger and wrath were at their peak as he was facing (arguably) the individual responsible for the death of his wife and the suffering of his daughter. Asura's Mantra abilities revolve around his hand-to-hand fighting style, producing fist-channelled blasts that can be charged for extra damage, using Mantra to enhance the force of his strikes, jump massive distances, even producing colossal pure Mantra arms that he use to swipe a massive Gohma army. Asura's only flaw is that his body will begin to break down when his rage and Mantra become too strong for him to contain, though this was fixed when Yasha implanted the Mantra Reactor on him.

Asura has gained a large number of transformations, which further escalates his Mantra powers by exceedingly high levels.

Transformations

Vajra Form: Asura's most commonly seen form, it is a form where Asura's arms are coated in a golden metallic armor. Through the Mantra activation within his body he is able metalized his arms through the power of his Wrath Mantra and increase their strength and making them more suitable for combat. Asura's mastery of this form is most prominent in the fact that Asura is rarely seen outside of this form.

Six-Armed Vajra Form: Asura achived this form during his fight with Gohma Vlitra before his betrayal through Mithra's divine power. When Asura gets enraged, his Mantra usages escalates, and he grows a total of six arms. His power in this form is tremendous, easily able to decimate normal enemies and being capable of defeating the Vlitra single handedly, defeating Wyzen even in his Gongen form, Augus, and even defeat Deus.

Berserker Form: When Asura's anger peeks he completely loses control and has no sense of reason, becoming a being of pure rage. When he witnessed the death of the little village girl, he reached a scale of power on which he managed to annihilate an entire Shinkoku armada and challenge the Brahmastra directly. This turn of events transformed him into a feral, golden-coated monstrosity armed with razor-sharp claws. Unlike his usual form, Berserker Asura's signature extra arms manifested as massive, phantom limbs made of concentrated Mantra generated from the portals on his back. The arms, including Asura himself, are capable of releasing inconceivable volumes of Mantra. While in this form Asura will continue to fight until his four Mantra arms are destroyed, although it should be noted that Asura displayed the ability to generate the larger Mantra arms.

Wrath Form: When Asura's Berserker form takes a direct hit from the Brahmastra, his extra arms are destroyed and his body is scorched black. This "Wrath" form, however, is Asura's greatest downside, as his body becomes unable to contain the massive volumes of Mantra and will gradually start to break apart and tear away at Asura. Attacking in this state causes Asura to inflict more damage on himself than his enemies, but he still managed to easily kill Sergei and fight Yasha before being reverted back to his normal form.

Mantra Form: During the final assault on Gohma Vlitra, Asura achieved his highest degree of power. After being bathed in the Mantra released from the Brahmastra by Mithra, Asura becomes Mantra Asura. In this state, Asura's rage is at its most focused, harnessing the excess Mantra into power and increasing the size and armor of his arms to hulking, armored proportions. These arms possess the strength of a thousand arms and can vent jets of Mantra for increased maneuverability and striking power. In this state, Asura (along with Yasha) was able to defeat Gohma Vlitra and the Vlitra Core.

Asura the Destructor: After Yasha fitted Asura with the Mantra Reactor, Asura's body became capable of containing any level of anger and Mantra he could reach. When Chakravartin attempted to destroy the Earth with a powerful energy blast, Asura stood in from of it and took the brunt of the attack assuming the form of The Destructor. In this form he becomes larger than Gaia itself, his skin becomes grey-colored and he manifests six arms identical in appearence to those of his Mantra form. His power in this stage is immense, as during his battle with the Mantra god, his blasts destroyed multiple stars and planets and was able to punch a planet at least a hundred times bigger than him to the point were it broke apart. In this form he was able to injure Chakravartin to the point where he was forced to change into his final form out of anger and frustration.

Other Appearances

Asura appeared alongside other Capcom characters in the social game, Minna to Capcom All Stars and its continuation, Street Fighter × All Capcom.