Seven-thirty in the morning, and pale sunlight fell across the wreckage of Tokyo's streets.
Kaguya Shinomiya and Ai Hayasaka walked side by side toward Totsuki Academy.
Mistress and servant in name, sisters in truth, their silhouettes looked impossibly small against the backdrop of a ruined city.
On any normal day, Kaguya would have been ferried to school in one of the Shinomiya family's private sedans. But the Shinomiya household had descended into chaos.
Their sprawling private estate, a fixture of Tokyo's landscape for decades, had been obliterated in the upheaval two days prior. Forget chauffeuring Kaguya around; even her eldest brother Oko had been reduced to borrowing cars from allied families.
As for why the estate was destroyed? The Shinomiya compound sat one street over from Shuchiin Academy. Everyone could do the math.
Right now, the family patriarch Gan'an Shinomiya and Kaguya's three elder brothers were drowning in crisis management: rebuilding the residence, salvaging the family's business interests, arranging care for their ailing father, and navigating the new power structures that had reshaped society overnight.
Kaguya had no desire to go to school. Her home was rubble. Order had collapsed. Every familiar rule had stopped applying. What was the point?
Yet that very morning, her father, a man who rarely spoke to her and never without gravitas, had summoned her. His expression left no room for negotiation.
Starting today, she would attend Totsuki Academy.
Kaguya had stared at him, stunned. The world was teetering on the edge of collapse, and he wanted her to go to school? Was Totsuki sitting on an oil reserve she didn't know about?
But the elite education drilled into her since birth demanded one thing above all else: absolute obedience. She hadn't asked a single question. She'd nodded and left.
She understood, better than anyone, what she was. A puppet of the Shinomiya family. A chess piece to be traded, married off, or sacrificed for the clan's benefit.
Someday, she'd be spent for the family's gain. She'd always known that.
Hayasaka accompanied her in her official capacity as bodyguard. Back at Shuchiin Academy, she never would have walked openly beside Kaguya like this.
She would have gone undercover as "Haysaca," blending in as an ordinary student, watching from the shadows, feeding Kaguya intelligence and support.
But the world had changed. The staggering gap in power that Makoto Nishikado and the others had demonstrated made covert protection meaningless.
Against that kind of strength, hiding was a joke. So Hayasaka had dropped the disguise entirely and taken her place at Kaguya's side in the open.
"Lady Kaguya, it's still quite a distance to Totsuki, and the campus is out in the suburbs. We should call a car."
They'd stepped out of the hotel where the family was temporarily lodged, and Hayasaka surveyed the devastated street as she spoke.
An hour until class, but walking the whole way was out of the question.
Kaguya maintained her usual glacial composure, her cool eyes betraying nothing. She gave a small nod. "Mm."
But in a city this broken, where would they find a functioning cab? The streets were nearly empty. Shops sat shuttered and dark. The only people visible were patrol officers maintaining what little order remained.
The two of them waited at the curb for what felt like ages. Not a taxi, not even a private car passed by.
Nobody in their right mind was going outside.
With no other choice, they started walking toward Totsuki, keeping an eye out for any vehicle they might flag down.
"Help! Somebody help us!"
The shriek came from up the street, high-pitched and ragged with a child's sobbing.
Both girls looked up. Two boys, elementary school age at most, were sprinting toward them in a mess of tears and snot.
One was round as a dumpling with a pointed tuft of hair. The other was rail-thin, his face peppered with freckles.
The fat-and-skinny duo looked almost comical.
Neither Kaguya nor Hayasaka was the type to get involved in strangers' problems. They assumed the boys had gotten into some mischief and were fleeing an angry parent, so they stepped aside to let them pass.
Instead, the two kids dove behind them and refused to come out.
"Please, miss! Help us! Save us!"
"There's a Crab monster chasing us!"
Kaguya's brow creased faintly. She dismissed it as childish nonsense.
Hayasaka was less diplomatic. She reached out to shove the two nuisances away, irritation plain in her voice. "Go play somewhere else. We're busy."
The dismissal sent both boys into hysterics. They screamed their explanation through streaming tears.
"We're not making it up! It's a real monster!"
"It's got human legs, but the top half is a giant crab! A huge one!"
"It's... it's at least as tall as both of you stacked on top of each other!"
That made Kaguya pause. Hayasaka's expression shifted too.
Kids these days are getting more and more insufferable.
BOOM. BOOM.
Heavy footsteps, deep as war drums, echoed from the far end of the street. Each impact sent a tremor through the pavement.
Kaguya and Hayasaka turned instinctively, and their eyes went wide.
A grotesque creature was advancing toward them on thick, human legs, one deliberate step at a time.
From the waist down, it could have been an ordinary person. But its upper body was something else entirely: head, torso, arms, all replaced by the anatomy of a colossal crab.
Its shell gleamed an angry red, hard and chitinous, and two massive pincers opened and closed before it with a grinding, teeth-aching screech.
At first glance, someone might mistake it for an elaborate costume. But this thing stood close to three meters tall. The sheer physical pressure it radiated couldn't be faked by any prop suit in existence.
"That's him! That's the Crab monster!"
Genta Kojima pointed with a trembling finger, his whole body shaking.
Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya chimed in right behind him, voice cracking: "Miss, we saw it with our own eyes! It smashed the ground apart with one swing! It has to be just like the person on TV yesterday! It's a monster!"
The words "person on TV" hit both Kaguya and Hayasaka like ice water.
They'd watched the battle yesterday, the one that shook the foundations of the world order. Every second of it, through their screens.
And they'd been forced to accept a brutal truth: supernatural power existed now. It was real.
Was this crab creature the same kind of being as Makoto Nishikado? As those girls who'd fought alongside him?
While their minds reeled, they noticed a small girl, roughly the same age as Genta and Mitsuhiko, maybe five or six, strolling right up to the Crablante without an ounce of fear.
Pale skin, delicate features like a porcelain doll. She tilted her little head back and stared up at the towering creature with pure, guileless curiosity.
"Mister, how'd you make this costume? It looks so real!"
The girl, Kokoro Katsura, clearly had no idea how much danger she was in.
"That's... that's Kokoro Katsura!" Mitsuhiko gasped.
Kokoro Katsura. A first-grader at Shuchiin Elementary, same as them. Universally acknowledged as the prettiest girl in their year.
Kids in anime worlds grew up fast, apparently. Already picking class sweethearts.
But the adorable little thing stirred no mercy whatsoever in the Crablante. If anything, she made it angrier.
"Another brat! I hate brats!"
With a furious roar, the creature swung its right pincer high and brought it hammering down toward Kokoro Katsura's skull, the air shrieking in its wake.
Kaguya, Hayasaka, Genta, Mitsuhiko. All four faces drained of color. None of them could do anything but watch as the crimson pincer crashed down.
BOOM!
The concrete shattered on impact, stone and dust erupting in every direction.
Any lingering doubt vanished. This was no prank, no costume. This thing wielded the same kind of supernatural force they'd seen in yesterday's battle.
"Kokoro Katsura!"
Genta and Mitsuhiko collapsed into tears, legs buckling beneath them. She was the girl they'd been crushing on since the first day of school.
Smoke billowed outward. Even Kaguya, cold and aloof as she was, turned her head away.
In her mind, the little girl was already gone. Reduced to the same mangled state as those soldiers from yesterday.
Hayasaka, despite the fear clawing at her chest, didn't forget her duty. She stepped forward immediately, shielding Kaguya behind her, eyes locked on the dissipating cloud of dust.
If the creature came for them, she would throw everything she had at buying Kaguya time to run.
But when the dust cleared, there was no body on the ground. No blood. Nothing.
"Onii-san, you look kinda familiar..."
A bright, childish voice rang out from nearby.
Everyone turned, the Crablante included.
A tall young man stood a short distance away, holding Kokoro Katsura by the back of her collar like a kitten, suspending her effortlessly in the air with one hand.
"Makoto Nishikado?!"
Genta and Mitsuhiko blurted the name on pure reflex.
The instant Hayasaka recognized who it was, the weight crushing her chest evaporated. Only one thought remained: We're saved.
"Onii-san, can you put me down? Please..." Kokoro Katsura blinked her round eyes and gave Makoto Nishikado her most well-behaved look.
He didn't seem to hear her. His gaze was fixed on the Crablante, steady and unblinking. A few seconds of silence, then: "Were you chosen too?"
He suspected this crab-thing might be another player, someone the Reincarnation Game's system had dropped into an anime world, granting them abilities in the process.
The Naruto world didn't have anything like this, but the Reincarnation Game could easily run multiple instances at once. This one might have been sent to a different world entirely.
A Crab-Crab Fruit from the Zoan line in the One Piece world, maybe?
The creature recognized him. It stumbled back two steps, all its bluster evaporating in an instant. Its voice came out panicked, stumbling over itself: "I... I wasn't trying to kill that kid! It's just... I was sleeping in the park, and these two brats drew nipples on me with markers! My hands are pincers now, I can't wipe them off, and I lost my temper..."
To prove its point, the monster raised both massive claws and gestured helplessly at its armored chest, where two lopsided black dots had been scrawled with colorful markers.
Hayasaka couldn't hold it. She snorted.
Kaguya pressed her lips together, fighting to maintain the ice-queen facade, but the tremor in her shoulders gave her away completely.
Makoto Nishikado glanced over at them, then pointed at the two boys cowering behind the girls. "The brats you're talking about. Them?"
The Crablante followed his finger, and fury flooded its face all over again. "Yes! Those two!"
Kaguya and Hayasaka's expressions shifted from suppressed laughter to blank disbelief.
So that's what this was about. No wonder the thing wanted them dead.
Genta and Mitsuhiko shrank into their shoulders, scrambling to explain: "W-we thought he was an actor in a costume, so we figured we'd mess with him a little..."
"Who... who'd have guessed someone that huge would be so sensitive about it..."
Their voices dwindled to nothing, heads hanging lower with every word.
Kaguya's composure was crumbling. Hayasaka couldn't decide whether to laugh or scream.
The Crablante's expression flipped from rage to simpering in a heartbeat.
It rubbed its giant pincers together and addressed Makoto Nishikado with careful, fawning deference: "But since they're under your protection, Lord Makoto, I'll let it go! Just... could you maybe help me find a towel to wipe these..."
"Who said I was protecting them?"
Makoto Nishikado cut it off, looking genuinely puzzled.
The Crablante's posture snapped upright, energy flooding back into every line of its body. A vicious grin split its face as it turned and advanced on Genta and Mitsuhiko, step by step. "Well then. Don't mind if I do."
"Onii-san, what's the crab man gonna do?" Kokoro Katsura's personality was innocent, but even she could sense something was wrong now.
"Close your eyes if you don't want nightmares."
Makoto Nishikado set the girl down.
"Okay~"
She nodded obediently and pressed her small hands tight over her eyes.
The Crablante's shadow fell across the two boys. Hayasaka reacted instantly, seizing Kaguya's wrist. "Lady Kaguya, run!"
They skirted around the creature's flank and sprinted to Makoto Nishikado's side.
"Wait for us! Please, wait for us!"
Genta and Mitsuhiko scrambled to follow.
Too late.
A massive pincer came down like a guillotine.
A sickening, wet crunch. Blood sprayed across the pavement.
Genta, the heavier of the two, was crushed to pulp in an instant. He never made a sound.
The shockwave hurled Mitsuhiko sideways. His body slammed into a metal lamppost at the edge of the road.
Blood poured from his scalp, blurring his vision. He forced his eyes open through the agony. All he could see was the Crablante looming over him like a mountain, grinning down with savage glee.
The pincer rose again.
Mitsuhiko broke. "Help me! Somebody help me!"
A second later, there was another fresh puddle of ground meat on the street.
Enter the clowns. Exit the clowns.
Across the road, Shinichi Kudo had been heading to Totsuki for class, same as the others, when he happened to pass by.
He stood frozen, jaw hanging open, unable to process what he'd witnessed.
Seconds crawled by before his mind caught up. His fists clenched until his knuckles went white, and a wave of righteous fury tore through him.
Unforgivable. Having all that power... and standing there watching innocent people die right in front of him.