Ryuu's apartment, late night, Tokyo skyline
The city pulsed with life outside Ryuu's apartment window. Tokyo's skyline was a jagged symphony of neon lights, digital billboards, and the occasional shimmer of something… else.
From this high up, the city looked alive, like a breathing organism — wires and spirits intertwined in glowing arteries.
But between the lights, Ryuu saw flickers. Glitches. Not in the glass or his eyes, but in the air itself.
He narrowed his gaze and whispered, "Scan the city."
[System Scan: Initiated…]
[Spiritual Node Detection: In Progress…]
Aera appeared beside him, floating mid-air, cross-legged, glowing faintly blue against the night.
"Trying to get ahead of the curve for once?" she teased.
Ryuu smirked. "Trying not to die on Day Two."
A holographic overlay spread from her fingertips, layering over the windowpane.
The city transformed before his eyes—soft blue rings radiated from temples, shrines, abandoned train lines, even vending machines. Some blinked violently red.
"These are the karma nodes," Aera said. "Spiritual energy points anchored to emotion, memory, and trauma. They shape Tokyo's invisible energy grid."
Ryuu tilted his head. "Why does a ramen shop have one?"
"Someone died there. Betrayal, heartbreak, lingering resentment… All that karmic energy curdles if left unresolved.
Tokyo's packed with these scars." Aera pointed at several more hotspots glowing ominously.
"These fractures can manifest into spiritual beasts, curses, or attract cultivators hungry for karmic influence."
Ryuu's eyes scanned the map. Temples and alleyways shimmered with deep blues.
Pachinko parlors, subway tunnels, and even a karaoke bar near Shibuya blinked with hostile red.
"Wait… so we're just living on top of a giant, broken spirit engine?"
"Welcome to Urban Cultivation," Aera said with a dramatic wave of her hand.
"In this realm, cultivation isn't just meditation and sword forms. It's emotional resolution, karma hacking, and spirit-tech fusion."
Ryuu rubbed his temple. "You make it sound like therapy with lasers."
Aera grinned. "Not far off."
He leaned back from the window, eyes scanning the room like it might shift again.
"And what about the sects? Are they just… walking around in school uniforms?"
"They blend in. The Kanzaki Karma Sect, the Onmyo Syndicate, even rogue cultivators—they operate under civilian covers, cloaking their spiritual presence."
"Anyone I know?" he asked cautiously.
Aera's expression twitched. "Statistically? Yes."
Ryuu frowned.
"You've been off-grid too long. They're all fighting for influence—controlling nodes, hacking karma streams, neutralizing threats. Tokyo is a battleground wrapped in LED lights."
He let the silence sit. Outside, a digital train zipped silently past a skybridge.
He could feel it now—underneath the noise and lights, something pulsed. It was subtle, but there. The city breathed with karma.
"I could just ignore it," Ryuu muttered. "Lay low. Let the system run on idle."
"You could," Aera said, tone now sharper. "And get left behind. Again."
Ryuu looked at her.
"I wasn't installed to babysit. You've already drawn attention. The firewall stunt in the subway was a flag. They're looking now."
He exhaled slowly.
Aera floated closer. "You leveled up in another world, Ryuu. This city is your next dungeon."
"Feels more like a trap."
She hovered at his shoulder, voice softer now. "Then upgrade your prison. Hack the karma. Rewire your fate."
The scan finished.
[Scan Complete]
[Spiritual Interference Detected – Threat Level: Moderate]
[Possible Sect Presence Near Sector: Shibuya Node-17]
Ryuu straightened. "That's near my school."
Aera's voice dropped to a whisper. "Then it's not just a battlefield anymore. It's personal."
Ryuu looked down at his reflection in the glass—half-lit by the room, half-flickering from the city's pulse. He no longer looked like a clueless student. Or maybe he did. But inside, something had changed.
Behind him, his system glowed faintly:
[New Side Quest Available: Karma Node Investigation – Optional]
[Affection Penalty if Ignored: Moderate]
[Quest Hint: Power Comes to Those Who Interfere]
He sighed. "Figures."
Aera faded into a low-power state, but her voice lingered in the room:
"Choose wisely, Ryuu. This city doesn't wait for anyone."
And outside, beyond the skyline, somewhere near Shibuya… a red node began to flicker. Pulsing and Watching ,Waiting
Quietly.
Ryuu's feet touched pavement like he was walking on air — not because he was confident, but because part of him still wasn't sure this was real.
He'd escaped a collapsing isekai through an ERROR_GATE and landed back in Tokyo like nothing had happened.
Time here hadn't moved much. And yet, everything felt… shifted.
The familiar school gates loomed ahead, unchanged — rusted hinges, cracked sidewalk, and a vending machine that still ate your coins half the time. But now, Ryuu looked at it all with a different gaze.
[Cultivation Sensor: Passive Scan Mode Active]
People shimmered faintly. Not visually — more like an instinct.
The girl who ran past him was surrounded by energetic pink pulses. Her karma: excitement, stress, unresolved tension. A teacher down the hall radiated exhaustion and regret.
And then… silence. A blank void.
Ryuu turned his head — and saw her.
She stepped through the school gates like a drop of ink into water. Controlled. Measured. Out of place but perfectly composed.
Mayumi Kanzaki.
Tall, black hair tied neatly in a silk ribbon, eyes sharp like ink strokes on old parchment. Her uniform crisp, posture straight — but it wasn't just elegance. It was aura. The air seemed to give way to her.
"Yo, Ryuu!" a classmate slapped his back, snapping him out of it. "You look like you saw a ghost."
"Or a boss battle," Ryuu muttered.
As they made their way toward the classroom, Aera's voice quietly buzzed in his ear — only he could hear her.
[Alert: Spiritual Signature Detected – Class 3-A]
[Subject: Kanzaki, Mayumi – Affinity: High-Karma / Fate-Type Cultivator]
[Threat Level: Undetermined]
"New transfer?" Ryuu whispered.
Aera's avatar flickered briefly on the inside of his glasses. "Yep. And she's carrying more spiritual weight than your whole year combined."
When Ryuu entered the classroom, Mayumi was already seated — front row, center. Naturally.
Their eyes met briefly as he walked past. Something clicked. Not recognition — more like... resonance. His system UI blinked.
[Romance Meter Flicker]
[Affection Seed: Unknown Origin]
[Status: Glitched Compatibility Detected]
"…What?" Ryuu almost tripped over a desk.
"Sit down," Aera whispered dryly, "You're sweating like it's a boss raid."
Class began as usual. Teachers droned, students whispered, notes passed behind backs.
But Ryuu couldn't focus. Every time he looked at Mayumi, he saw it — the faint shimmer of spiritual shielding around her. Invisible to anyone else, but clear to him now.
During lunch break, Ryuu retreated to the rooftop, half to clear his head and half to breathe without his system pinging every three seconds.
Or so he thought.
Mayumi was already up there, leaning against the fence, breeze teasing her hair.
"Ryuu Kurozawa, right?"
He froze mid-step.
"…Yeah."
"You don't belong in this school."
His mind scrambled. "Excuse me?"
She didn't look at him. Just stared out over the city. "Not this version of it, anyway."
There was a pause.
"I've been trained to spot distortions. People who've… been somewhere else."
Ryuu felt a cold sweat form.
[Internal Panic Rising]
[Activate: Casual Dumbass Protocol?]
He forced a laugh. "You sound like you're in an anime."
Mayumi turned then — just slightly — and smiled faintly.
"You have no idea."
She walked past him, her presence like a brushstroke of fate cutting through his aura. As she left, Aera's voice popped in, lower than before:
"…Ryuu."
"What."
"She's not just strong. She's tracking you."
A chill ran down his spine. He looked down at his interface:
[Flagged: Potential Threat / Romantic Interest – Mayumi Kanzaki]
"Of course," Ryuu muttered. "She's hot and wants to kill me."
Somewhere below, the school bell rang.
Ryuu looked out at the city, then back toward the door she'd vanished through.
His normal school life?
Yeah. That was officially over.
Ryuu slammed his door shut, dropped his bag, and collapsed onto the floor.
"Okay," he exhaled. "Hot girl at school might be a spiritual assassin. Great start."
Aera hovered into view above his desk — a glowing, miniaturized hologram wearing a sarcastic digital smile. "Told you not to slack off. Now the Fate Police are sniffing your spiritual scent."
Ryuu pulled himself up, groaning. "So. Explain. What the hell is a Kanzaki?"
Aera floated to his screen and instantly projected a glowing data-tree — branches of sect names, karma signatures, and blurry icons spun in midair.
[ACCESSING URBAN CULTIVATION DATABASE]
TOPIC: KARMA SECTS – TOKYO NODE]
"The Kanzaki Karma Sect," Aera began, "is one of the Big Five in Tokyo. They specialize in fate-linked cultivation — predicting karmic flows, adjusting destiny paths, hunting anomalies that could destabilize the city."
"Like me," Ryuu muttered.
"Exactly like you," she confirmed. "Your little jump between worlds? That's like putting a neon sign on your soul saying 'I've been corrupted by narrative distortion.'"
"Wait—'narrative distortion'?"
Aera's voice softened, now serious. "You're not just some random isekai dropout anymore. You're a karmic variable. An unpredictable data stream. To someone like Mayumi, you're a glitch."
Ryuu swallowed hard, watching the floating map zoom into a flickering outline of Tokyo. Spiritual energy lines—thin, luminous threads—crisscrossed the skyline. Some points pulsed brightly. Others blinked red.
"What's that?" Ryuu pointed.
"Urban energy nodes," Aera said.
"Places with high karmic potential—shrines, arcades, subways, vending machines… Tokyo's crawling with them. And guess who's fighting over control?"
The screen shifted, now showing two opposing sect logos:
KANZAKI SECT – [Discipline, Fate, Cleansing]
ONMYO SYNDICATE – [Chaos, Curse Tech, Corruption]
"The Onmyo Syndicate hacks karma with spiritual malware. Dark cultivation boosted by cursed tech. They're not just a threat to the system—they're turning karma into a virus."
Ryuu felt his pulse rise. "So I'm stuck between a discipline-obsessed fate cult and a demonic hacker gang?"
"More or less," Aera said cheerfully. "Welcome to modern cultivation."
He leaned back, trying to absorb it all. "So what now? Pick a side? Stay hidden?"
Aera flickered with a grin. "You could always flirt your way into survival."
"Not helping."
She hovered closer, suddenly serious. "Look. You're already being noticed.
Mayumi wasn't the only one scanning you today. I picked up two other spiritual probes near the school. One of them was cloaked — Onmyo-style."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?!"
"Because I wanted you to feel the full anxiety of spiritual puberty hitting at once."
Ryuu glared. "Thanks."
Suddenly, the lights in his room dimmed — not physically, but spiritually. A strange vibration hummed through the floorboards.
[ALERT: KARMIC SHADOW TRACE DETECTED]
[SOURCE: SHIBUYA SECTOR – ENERGY SPIKE – CLASS: DANGER]
"Something's moving," Aera whispered.
They both turned to the glowing map. In Shibuya, one of the city's major nodes pulsed red — like a heartbeat gone wrong.
"What is it?" Ryuu asked.
Aera's expression darkened. "A Karma Fracture. Raw corrupted energy tearing through the balance of the city. If left unchecked…"
"…It'll draw both sides to war."
Ryuu stared at the map. The city wasn't just home anymore. It was a battlefield. One he was already part of.
Suddenly, his system flickered — a glitch across the screen.
[ERROR DETECTED…]
[UNKNOWN MESSAGE INTERCEPTED]
"He's back. Eliminate the variable."
Ryuu felt the chill deep in his bones.
Aera's voice was cold now. "You've been marked."
The screen blinked red again:
[NEXT EVENT: UNKNOWN FACTION MOVING TOWARD SHIBUYA]
[MISSION INCOMING… STAY ALIVE.]
The digital wind in the room fell still. Outside, the city lights flickered — a sign only he could see.
Aera looked him in the eyes. "We either start running, or you start training."
Ryuu clenched his fists.
"…Then open the training room."
Scene fades out on the glowing city map — Shibuya pulsing like a ticking bomb.