Ashura

The protagonist of the series and the last living member of the Ashura clan, Ashura (阿修羅, Ashura?) was born after Taishakuten had killed his father and seized the throne. His mother, Shashi, at the same time gave birth to Taishakuten's son Ten-ō, and tried to kill Ashura, whom she believed must stand in her way to rule Heaven at Taishakuten's side. However, Ashura's powers protected him and enclosed him in a cocoon where he slept undisturbed for three hundred years, until Yasha-ō awoke him.

Upon being freed from his cocoon, Ashura first appears as a baby, but grows rapidly to a child of maybe eight years. At first outgoing and friendly, he soon becomes aware of his cruel destiny, as Taishakuten has almost everyone with whom he has associated killed. Feeling guilty for their deaths, he vows to become strong enough to defeat Taishakuten himself.

However, Ashura has another side: He is, in fact, the "true Ashura", the merciless god of war whose wish is the total destruction of Heaven, Earth and Hell. This side was suppressed by several seals, one of which is the distribution of his true power among the Six Stars, but is freed upon their meeting. Only his love for Yasha-ō, his adoptive father, finally triumphs over his lust for destruction. As a punishment for his father's sin, Ashura was born genderless so he cannot continue the royal line of Ashura, which Ashura-ō so desperately wished to preserve that he tried to defy destiny.

Languages which do not have a gender-neutral pronoun usually refer to him by either the male or the female pronoun; the choice of either is often a source of much contention.