✦ Prologue ✦
A blood-red interface appeared before him. Black-and-white text flickered across it.
[THE XXXX HAS DRAWN A PATH] [CONDITION LOCKED]
Next Activation: Pending
Timeframe: Unstable
Primary Failure Penalty: [ xxxx xx xxx xxxx xxxx xxxx ]
[FINAL WARNING]
— DO OR DIE —
It always appeared at the worst possible moment.
He smirked. "...Pathetic."
Three weeks of testing had taught him exactly two things. The System never lied. And it never threatened without collecting.
"Fine."
He still didn't know what this thing was, what had built it, or what it wanted from him. He didn't care anymore.
Let's see how far you can actually push.
✦ Chapter 1 — The One Who Watches the World ✦
Three weeks earlier.
Zekai stood in front of the convenience store's bread shelf, a small bouquet of white flowers tucked under one arm. He'd made it himself that morning. It wasn't much, but buying one would've cost too much. Now his real problem was figuring out how cheaply he could eat.
"Bread for breakfast. Rice ball for lunch." He picked up the bread, checked the price, and sighed. "If I still had a job, I wouldn't have to do math over bread."
He'd never bothered finding another job. As long as Marcus was around, money had never been much of a problem.
Marcus performed in a circus tent for a living—tricks, sleight of hand, the whole act. He was always trying to get Zekai to understand something about who he was. "You know what your name means, Zekai?" his grandfather had asked him once.
"The One Who Watches the World. Most people look. Almost nobody actually sees."
Zekai never knew whether to take that as a joke or something his grandfather actually believed about him.
He grabbed a loaf of bread and headed toward the counter. A little girl came sprinting between the aisles, head turned toward her mother. She slammed into his hip before she saw him.
He caught his balance. "Hey, careful." She was already bolting off before he could say more — straight to her mother. "Mommy!"
Zekai stood there with his right hand extended. Only then did he notice the deep, unhealed X-shaped scar across it. He immediately pulled his sleeve down, hiding the scar from view.
He watched her go. 'She's alright.'
He kept walking. At the counter, Aron Lexi—nineteen, permanently tired-looking—brightened the second he spotted him.
"M-Mr. Zekai! Morning—ah, sorry. Good morning."
"...Morning."
Zekai set the bread on the counter. Aron rang it up, his eyes catching on the flowers tucked under Zekai's arm before he thought better of mentioning them.
"Haven't seen Grandpa Marcus lately. He doing okay?"
"He's in Sanctum Grace. Circus gig."
"Huh." Aron nodded. "Sounds like him."
"Fifty Ryn."
Zekai reached into his pocket for the cash. His expression shifted. Nothing there. He checked the other pocket. Something was in there, and he pulled it out fast, hoping for the money.
It wasn't. He stared at what was actually in his palm—a black tarot box, crimson lines threading across its surface like cracks in glass.
He'd never seen it before. He turned the box over in his palm. "Grandpa's?"
He glanced down at the coat. "I grabbed his by mistake." His eyes went back to the box. "So where's my money?"
Marcus must've forgotten to put the money in this morning—he'd been in a hurry and Zekai had taken the wrong coat anyway.
He set the box down on the counter. The water in a nearby glass rippled. The lights overhead flickered once.
"...Huh." He didn't touch the box again.
He shrugged. "Aron—"
Aron already knew what was coming. "I know." He pulled out his card and tapped it against the reader before Zekai could stop him.
Zekai hadn't expected that. "...What are you doing?"
"Don't worry about it."
Zekai hesitated. His ego immediately told him to refuse. He had never liked accepting charity, especially when it meant owing someone else. Normally, that would've been enough.
But this was Aron. Zekai couldn't bring himself to push him away. His pride resisted, but not as fiercely as it should have.
He let out a quiet breath and accepted the food. "I'll pay you back."
"Sure." A pause. "Eventually."
"Thanks... Aron."
Zekai grinned. "How's Sara?"
"I-I know who you mean!" Aron's ears went red. "It's going really well. We went to the theater yesterday—she kissed me."
Zekai laughed. "Look at you."
Aron pressed a hand to his chest. "I thought my heart was going to explode."
"You're nineteen, not twelve."
Aron ducked his head, a little embarrassed—and then his eyes caught the flowers again, and his laugh died down. "Mr. Zekai. Today's your parents' anniversary, right?"
His laugh caught in his throat. He looked down at the white petals—fragile, already dying, slow enough that no one noticed yet.
"I'm fine." He glanced at the flowers. "They won't last forever."
Aron nodded, didn't push. He tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. "Eat something after, alright?"
"You just paid for my breakfast."
"Exactly. Don't waste my money."
Zekai turned for the door. Cold morning air hit his face the second it slid open. He kept walking—until he saw the men.
Several figures in black coats stood at the edge of the crossing, unbothered by the crowd around them, all looking up at the sky at once like they were waiting for something to arrive. Then they checked their smartwatches in unison, an orange display blinking a warning across each screen. One of them, sunglasses on despite the overcast sky, glanced back up. "Countdown started," he said, flat.
"Be ready," another answered.
Zekai looked around. Hundreds of people crowded the crossing—not one of them so much as glanced at the men.
'Why is nobody else seeing this?'
"...Idiots, all of them."
"Mr. Zekai!"
The voice was unmistakable. He turned to find Aron shoving through the crowd, the tarot box held high over his head. "You forgot this!"
Zekai's expression changed. "Aron, don't—that thing's no use to me."
His phone rang before he could finish. Marcus's name lit up the screen. 'Why is he calling me?'
Marcus was usually deep in rehearsal by this hour, which meant he almost never called during the day—and when he did, it was usually to complain about something. Zekai hesitated over whether to pick up.
Before he could decide, someone shoved past him hard enough to spin him off balance. Something slipped loose from a hidden fold inside Marcus's coat pocket and struck the ground.
Tick.
He turned. "Are you blind?" Whoever it was had already vanished into the crowd.
Aron reached him a second later. "You okay?"
"Hm."
He looked down between his feet and found a black cube resting on the pavement—no markings, no seams, nothing to explain what it was.
The moment he saw it, something in his gut told him to drop it.
The wind stopped. The crowd went still. Even the cars on the road just... stopped.
Zekai bent down and picked up the cube. Neither of them had time to react. The civilians who had been there moments ago were nowhere to be seen. In the blink of an eye, the world around him ripped apart, layer by layer, like sheets of paper tearing loose — and something new was already forming behind it.
Aron froze. "Mr. Zekai, what is this?!"
Zekai stared at the collapsing world. "Holy shit... Great. Just great."
✦ End of Chapter 1 — The One Who Watches the World ✦