Shoji's eyes blinked open to fog. Damp concrete. Distant sirens, faint and hollow. His limbs ached like they'd been wrung out and discarded.
He was still in the alley.
Still alive.
Still alone—
"Shoji!"
The voice came sharp, cutting through the haze. Quick footsteps slapped the pavement. A flashlight beam bobbed against the mist.
Shoji tried to sit up, but the world tilted. His body refused to cooperate — sluggish, half-numb, like something had drained the strength from his bones.
Then a figure appeared — tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a windbreaker with Kamizu Academy's logo stamped over the heart.
Reacer Igarashi. Campus supervisor. PE coach. Part-time history sub. Former Bearer — retired after his Blessing burned out in his twenties.
"Hell," Reacer muttered, kneeling beside him. "You look like you went five rounds with a freight train."
He extended a hand.
Shoji flinched.
For a heartbeat, his vision twisted — not reality, but memory. The light from the sky, wild and alive, eating itself. The voice, inside him. The pulse of something divine and wrong.
His breath caught.
"I'm fine," Shoji croaked, but his voice cracked. It wasn't convincing.
Reacer raised an eyebrow but didn't lower the hand. "You're pale. Shaking. And lying. Now stop being stubborn and take the damn help."
Shoji hesitated — then reached out.
Their hands touched.
Nothing happened.
No flash of light. No reaction. No mark on his skin. Just a callused grip and a steady pull.
Shoji stood — wobbling slightly, but upright. The air still felt heavy. Not with magic, just with memory.
"You hit your head?" Reacer asked, checking him over quickly. "Any pain, vision problems, weird ringing?"
Shoji shook his head.
Reacer didn't look convinced, but he sighed. "You're lucky. This alley's not the safest at night. Come on — I'll walk you out."
They didn't talk on the way back. Shoji couldn't. His thoughts were a whirlpool — spinning, devouring, repeating. The sky had ripped open. A Grace had descended. Or something like it. And it had hit him.
But there was nothing to show for it. No mark. No change. Nothing. Just confusion.
Shoji barely remembered getting home.
The lights were off. No one was there to ask where he'd been. His mother worked nights — two jobs, neither of them close. He left a note on the table: Home. Fine. Sleeping.
It was a lie.
He crawled into bed still wearing his uniform. The smell of old wood and laundry detergent filled his nose. He stared at the ceiling for hours, watching the shadows stretch and shrink.
He couldn't sleep.
He woke five times. Each time, the same picture in his mind — the sky tearing open, the light pouring down, the voice whispering inside him.
When morning came, it wasn't with peace.
7:43 AM.
Shoji cursed and threw himself out of bed. Cold water. Cold rice. No time to comb his hair or fix the collar of his shirt. He ran the whole way, shoes slapping pavement, heart never quite settling into rhythm.
He made it to Kamizu's front gate just as the bell rang.
Class 3-C looked the same as always.
Gray walls. Scratched desks. Students slumped in chairs, some still chewing breakfast, others whispering about which celebrity got a Blessing this week. Someone had stuck a doodle of a
Greed sigil on the backboard — shimmering gold marker, amateur but flashy.
Shoji slipped in and dropped into his seat.
Kana turned, eyebrows already raised.
"You look like hell," she whispered.
"Didn't sleep."
"Nightmares?"
"Something like that."
She paused. Her eyes lingered on him a moment longer than usual — searching, maybe. Then she nodded and faced forward.
The door slid open.
"Settle down," Mr. Hoshino grunted as he walked in, as emotionless as always. "Page 214. War of the Fractured Factions. Try not to fall asleep while pretending to care."
Shoji stared at his desk.
He expected something — a flicker, a burn, a hum in the air.
Nothing.
He opened his book.
The rest of the day crawled.
Math. Language Arts. World History. Kendo — which he skipped, faking a headache.
No glowing skin. No bursts of energy. Not even a hint of divine interference. His body felt the same. His thoughts… maybe not. He kept drifting.
Was it a mistake?
Did the Grace fail?
Was I... rejected again?
The thoughts wouldn't stop. They circled him like vultures, quiet but relentless.
After school, he walked home slowly. The sky was clear. No rifts. No music. Just clouds and power lines and the same old world.
At the crosswalk, a group of younger students pointed excitedly at a holo-ad playing on a bus stop screen — a Bearer of Wrath performing in a pro duel, blades lit with flame, crowd roaring like it was a god themselves.
Shoji looked away.
That night, he didn't train. He didn't study. He just sat in the dark, back pressed to the wall of his tiny room, knees pulled to his chest.
What if it never comes back?
What if it did choose me… and then changed its mind?
Shoji looked down at his hands.
No mark. No glow.
Just fingers.
Just skin.
Just Shoji.