Adam crashed in the new world.
Well—a crash may be a bit strong.
It wasn't classy.
It wasn't spiritual.
It wasn't even "walking out of a portal with the wind blown back in your hair and theme music playing."
Nope.
This was a face-first, forehead-crashing, moss-muffled Yamcha-style crater dive.
Majestic glowing light one moment, the next—WHUMP. Face full of wet green.
If someone had been paying attention, they'd have thought a meteor got tired and gave up.
He simply remained there, limbs outspread, dignity dissipating into the air like loose XP.
And of course, Dea went mad like a star in the sky.
"OH. MY. ADAM!"
She flew down like an anxious comet in stardust and worry, leaving a trail of sparkles and a potentially deadly dose of concern.
In two seconds, she was at his side, face inches from his, eyes so wide they could be mistaken for two small galaxies in full supernova.
"Are you all right!" she shrieked, shaking him like a gacha player frantic for a five-star pull.
"Are you injured!? I'm going to destroy the angel who was supposed to coordinate our entrance—send them to the debug plane!"
Her whole body glowed with a divine glitchiness that occurred when goddesses became emotional.
"Quick, say something wholesome!! Anything! I need to know you're not brain-fragged and gonna spiral 2B on me! I can't have you going the Nier Automata tragic stoic spiral! Not you!"
Dea now lay almost horizontally on the moss next to him, her chromatic eyes glitching color for color like a stuck loading screen between heartache and panic. She looked at his stationary figure, her glittery cheeks bathed in panic-coded light.
"Say something!! Goddammit, Adam!"
And then, at last—he groaned.
A slow, low, I-don't-know-what-plane-of-existence-I'm-on groan.
Followed by another groan, then a slow turn of the head.
Adam squinted up at her—his sparkly guardian goddess turned worried beanbag—and blinked.
Her face was right there.
He was basically eye-to-eye with what looked like an anime protagonist's fever dream—star-glow eyes, glowing strands of hair, and a voice that sounded like it had emotional support built into the echo.
He lifted his face an inch from the moss. Just enough to mutter:
"Up close you're very… sparkly?"
The sound Dea made could only be described as "Squee.exe successfully executed."
It wasn't human.
It wasn't divine.
It was something more.
Somewhere in the woods, a bunny's emotional distress just dissolved.
"You have no right," she panted between glittery hyperventilations, "to be this wholesome… after such a Yamcha-style faceplant!"
She collapsed beside him, arms dangling with relief and euphoria, laughing like she'd just seen the ultimate collectible pop out of a mystery box.
"You're okay! You're still Adam! The Buff King of Empathy! The Soft Boi Saint of Side Quests! The Chosen Support!"
Adam groaned again. "Please never call me that again."
"NO PROMISES!!" she chirped, practically vibrating beside him.
Adam groaned again, sitting up from the forest floor's moss. A crumb of dirt clung to his cloak, and a leaf was stuck in his hair. He blinked at the unfamiliar scene before him: sunbeam-filtering trees, trees that seemed to whisper to the wind in hushed tones, and birds singing in a harmony that was far too rehearsed to be natural.
And Dea.
She lingered by his side, shining softly in a fashion that wasn't purely divine but… delicate.
Her anticipation had begun to crack around the edges, like stained glass pushed too hard.
Her colorful eyes—formerly drenched with cosmic glitter—continued to shimmer, yet now it was akin to starlight reflected upon a pond rather than fireworks. Quiet. Still lovely. Still brilliant. But subdued.
"You don't have any right to be this wholesome after such a Yamcha-style faceplant," she had said once more, forcing one of the tight smiles people wore when they were attempting not to cry. Her laughter was genuine, but you could hear the shaking in it if you listened closely enough. "Seriously. I was afraid."
Adam blinked.
"Then I thought you were this invincible divine admin," he whispered. "Why would you be afraid?"
Dea smiled, a bit more bitterly this time.
"Because being a goddess does not make me invincible to caring."
She settled down next to him, her radiance softening ever so slightly, illuminating only enough to send the moss below her shimmering like stars.
"I've watched heroes fall," she told him, voice softer now. "I've given them rebirth. I've awarded boons to paladins who became tyrants. I provided divine protection to a healer once—he ignited a war." She let her breath out in a sigh, her hands trailing idly through the moss. "Being a goddess means that I see potential. And sometimes, its loss."
She glanced at Adam.
"But you? You never required divine intervention. You chose to be good even when nobody was looking. And perhaps I became attached."
Her lips curved into a gentle, self-deprecating smile.
"Okay, that's not maybe. I am. I'm attached. Deeply. Passionately. Most likely in a way that would shame the Elder Deities' Weekly Meeting."
Adam rubbed his cheek self-consciously.
"So… you're telling me I'm your favorite streaming show and now you wish to become a character on it?"
Dea laughed once more, more full this time, and brushed a piece of moss from his shoulder.
"You know what? Yeah. Except I want to be more than an in-the-background character. I want to be a member of your party. Your tale. Not just as a god vending machine that gives out buffs and glittery hugs."
She got up, dusted off her robes of the cosmos, and extended her hand with intent—not twinkle.
"I'm not going with you just to fangirl, Adam. I'm going with you because I see what you could be. And perhaps… perhaps I need to recall what hope feels like to invest in someone with all of me. Not as a goddess. But as Dea."
Adam looked at her hand.
Then he engulfed it.
And for an instant, the world stood still.
Somewhere in the woods, a bunny passed out once more.
But this time, through emotional resonance, not merely sparkly overwhelm.
"Now, that's enough of the gloomy stuff!" Dea suddenly bubbled, clapping her cheeks with both hands like a post-battle magical girl attempting to return to sparkle mode.
"Ugh, I swear, I was spinning like 2B after reading her mission logs in reverse! I'm not designed to monologue like a despairing JRPG villain. I'm designed to be the mascot-level mood lifter!"
She drifted in a cinematic loop-de-loop, trailing behind her sparkles like a low-poly skybox that's glitching gorgeously.
Her face remained rosy from before, and her signature galaxy-colored eyes glimmered like the Persona 5 Royal loading screen—you know, the one that says "take your time," but you never take it.
Attempting to get her spark back, she grinned at Adam.
"Now then! Let's go to the closest village, you utter Diva of Kindness?"
But she didn't budge.
Because Adam had turned, slowly, quietly—and stared at her straight-faced with that gentle, soul-still-quieting smile of his.
The kind that could've been plucked from a Studio Ghibli sobfest + 3rd arc rebirth scene combo pack.
"Dea," he told her, and it sounded like a well-chosen dialogue option in a Persona confidant cutscene.
"You don't need to snap back immediately. You don't always need to shine."
Her wings fluttered anxiously. "W-What do you mean?"
"I mean…" He moved closer, his fingers light on her shoulder. "Even magical girls can have off days. Even incredibly overpowered celestial waifus can have off days. But the fact that you can care that much? That you're still here, still attempting—that's what makes you amazing."
Dea blinked. Her cosmic brain.exe short-circuited.
"You're like... the emotional equivalent of an S-rank support skill," he added with a chuckle. "The kind that doesn't show up in the combat stats, but still saves the entire damn party."
A silence.
Then—
"YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THINGS LIKE THAT!" she yelled, rolling backward into a barrel roll like an F1 car in the rain in full Verstappen panic drift mode.
"I AM NOT CAPABLE OF THIS DEGREE OF WHOLESOME HARM, SIR!!"
"Sorry?" Adam provided, but it was accompanied by a boyish smile that informed her he wasn't sorry at all.
"You—you—! That's not fair!" she exclaimed, waving arms wildly as though they were shooting sparkles just to cool down her overheating system.
"You can't just slam me with Ghibli-grade sincerity and Persona-grade emotional impact without a cooldown time!"
"I can go again," Adam pretended, deadpan.
"NO, YOU CAN'T! I will combust! I'm already at max emotional RPM!"
She grasped her cheeks and whimpered.
"Oh stars, I felt that one in my soul. Like Morgana just said to me, 'go to bed,' but emotionally."
She hovered in frantic circles, saying things like "Empathy damage is real" and "His support stat must be cracked—like, broken meta-tier" before finally crashing back onto the mossy ground beside him.
Then, more quietly:
"…Thanks."
Adam cocked his head. "Hm?"
"For acknowledging that," she whispered, brushing away shining tendrils of her hair from her face.
"Other people always assume I'm going to be... sparkly. Loud. The comic relief. The emotional nitro boost. But you… you see me. Like I'm not the winged hype girl in the cutscene or something."
Adam shrugged. "You're my BFF ride-or-die, remember?"
Her eyes went wide. Then shook.
And she launched at him in a massive hug—not a fancy magical girl hug, but one that felt real, warm, and entirely necessary.
"You're the realest damn protagonist I've ever met," she whispered.
"Like, if Deku, Subaru Natsuki, and Araragi had a lovechild and he mained emotional DPS, it would be you."
Adam blinked. "I feel like that's the weirdest compliment I've ever gotten."
"And the most precise," she grumbled, hugging him more tightly.
Dea spun, her wings creating rainbow slipstreams like a Formula 1 car accelerating out of a chicane.
"Right! Emotional damage fixed. Heart drive rebooted. Shall we proceed, Captain Kindness? You take the lead—I'm here to fix bunnies with my sparkle aura and shout 'Baka!' when the NPCs flirt with you."
Adam chuckled. "Let's proceed, Sparkle Engine."
"Okay! Let's head to the nearest town!" Dea declared, doing an impromptu twirl mid-air that left behind a trail of glitter like someone just sneezed a magical girl transformation.
Then she suddenly froze mid-pose, eyes going wide.
"OH STARS—I totally forgot!!"
She slapped her cheeks with both hands, eyes darting as if she'd just realized she left the oven on in the celestial realm.
"Forgot what?" Adam asked, eyebrow raised.
"To explain the power system, duh!" she wailed, throwing her arms up in a theatrical panic spiral.
"That's, like, Day One Isekai Tutorial 101 stuff!! How did I forget that? I'm literally your divine guide slash hype girl slash exposition fairy-slash-mascot-wife-in-progress!"
She spun in place, muttering to herself like a JRPG NPC stuck in a glitch loop.
"Ughhh, this is what happens when I let my brain spiral into tragic android monologue territory. I was two seconds away from quoting 2B again."
Then she took a deep breath, puffed her cheeks out, and sparkled.
"Right! Let's fix this. I'll explain everything on the way to Elysia—the town, not the metaphorical afterlife! Although, honestly, both are kinda cute!"
She gave a wink, the kind that could power three seasons of anime by sheer energy alone.
"Prepare for glittery lore drops and mildly chaotic infodumps, Captain Kindness!"
Adam simply smiled.
She was back.
And he was glad.