Brooklyn, New York, Earth
Naoya Sato's knuckles were still bleeding when he shoved his room door open.
"Half-breed freak!"
The words still rang in his head. Three guys. All bigger than him, or so they thought. They had cornered him outside the library, talking shit about his "Jap mother" and his "confused identity."
He had tried to walk away. He really had.
But then one of them grabbed his shoulder.
Naoya didn't remember much after that. Just the taste of blood when he bit down on the guy's arm. The satisfying crunch when his fist connected with another's nose. The fear in their eyes when they realized the quiet half-Japanese kid wasn't so quiet anymore.
"Fuck off," he had told them, his voice cold as ice.
They had run.
Now, standing in his tiny apartment in Flatbush, Naoya stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Black hair, still messy from the fight. Tall, six-foot-two, fond of going to the gym. His father's height, his mother's features. Not quite fitting in anywhere.
Just like always.
He washed the blood off his hands, watching it swirl down the drain. His phone buzzed on the counter.
Sophia: hey! how was your day?
Sophia: can i come over later? around 8? 🥺
Naoya felt his chest squeeze. Sophia Martinez. The girl from his Sociology class who liked to talk to him. Who laughed at his dry jokes. Who didn't seem to care that he was awkward and withdrawn most of the time.
He picked up his phone, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
What should he say? "Sure" sounded too casual. "Yes, please" sounded desperate. "I'd like that" sounded weird still.
Suddenly, the floor twisted.
Naoya stumbled, dropping his phone. It clattered against the tiles as the entire apartment shook. This was not the gentle tremor of a subway passing underneath. This was extremely violent.
"What the—"
The walls cracke, picture frames fell, glass shattered.
Outside, people were screaming.
Naoya grabbed his headset from his desk, intending to….what? Call someone? His mom was at work in Manhattan. What was he supposed to do? Regardless, he ran to the window to check.
Then came another violent shake. Stronger this time. Naoya dared a glance at the sky, and felt shivers run down his spine. The sky was breaking. Fractures of light spider-webbed across the heavens, each crack showing glimpses of.…other places. Other skies. A crimson sun. Purple lightning. A void of absolute darkness.
And then he saw it.
Something was emerging from one of the cracks.
Something huge.
A wing. Scaled. Black as midnight and almost the size of a building. Then another wing. A neck, serpentine and endless. And finally, a head.
A dragon.
A fucking dragon.
Its eyes glowed like molten gold, and when it roared, every window on the block exploded.
"No. No, no, no—" Naoya backed away from the window, his legs shaking like jelly. "Did I just see a fucking dragon? Am I hallucinating? Am I losing my mind?"
This wasn't real. This couldn't be real.
People were pouring into the streets now, screaming, running in every direction. But they weren't just running from the dragon.
Naoya saw a man in strange armor, actual armor, like something from a medieval painting, materialize in the middle of the intersection. He looked around, confused, then drew a sword that glowed.
A woman appeared next to him, wearing robes covered in glowing symbols. She raised her hands and fire, actual fire, erupted from her palms.
More people appeared. Dozens. Hundreds. All wearing strange clothes, speaking languages Naoya had never heard, wielding weapons and powers that shouldn't exist.
And they were panicking.
Everyone was panicking.
A man in mechanical armor tried to communicate with the armored swordsman. They didn't understand each other. The swordsman raised his sword defensively. The mech fired a warning shot.
Then boom. Chaos. Absolute chaos.
"I have to get out of here." Naoya grabbed his jacket and ran for the door.
The building shook again, and this time, part of the ceiling collapsed behind him. He leaped down the stairs three at a time, bursting out onto the street just as reality itself seemed to scream.
The dragon was closer now. So close he could see the individual scales on its hide. It circled overhead, roaring again, and Naoya felt the sound in his bones.
Run.
Without thinking, he ran. Past the confused warriors. Past the people with glowing hands and floating weapons. Past the….wait, was that a tiger the size of a bus?
Just run.
He didn't know where he was going. Away. Anywhere but this chaos.
A chunk of concrete fell from a collapsing building, and Naoya looked up.
But he was too late.
The chunk hit his head, and the impact sent him sprawling. Pain bloomed in his skull, and his vision blurred.
The last thing he heard was screaming.
~
When Naoya opened his eyes, the dragon was staring at him.
He screamed.
The dragon didn't move even at Naoya's scream. Instead it just stared, his molten gold eyes fixed on him. Naoya scrambled backward, his hands scraping against broken asphalt. He had a terrible headache. Everything hurt. But fear was a stronger motivator than pain.
"Stay back! Stay—"
The dragon's massive head tilted, almost curious.
Around them, the chaos continued. People shouting, fighting, crying. Buildings crumbling. The sky still fractured.
Naoya tried to run again, but his legs wouldn't work properl, and his vision swam.
Then suddenly, there was silence. Everyone froze mid-motion. The dragon stopped mid-breath, the collapsing buildings hung suspended, and even the smoke in the air stopped moving.
A voice echoed across the frozen world. It sounded young, and almost mocking.
"HELLOOOO, MORTALS!"
A figure materialized in the sky, a man, or something wearing a man's shape, made of shifting light and dice that never stopped rolling. His grin was too wide, and his eyes twinkled with a strange brighteness.
"I am Tycheros, God of Games!" He spread his arms theatrically. "Welcome, welcome, to the greatest show in divine history!"
"You're probably very confused right now," Tycheros continued, pacing through the air like it was solid ground. "One moment you were in your own world, living your boring little lives. The next—BOOM!—seven worlds become one! Exciting, right? That is what is happening. And yes, there were other worlds in existence asides you!"
The frozen people couldn't respond, but Naoya saw the terror in their eyes.
"Here's the situation: Twenty gods got bored. Very bored. So we decided to play a game." Tycheros's grin widened. "Seven worlds. Each world sends fifteen champions to fight in the Celestial Arena. Lose a match? Ten percent of your world's population goes poof! Gone! Erased!"
What the fuck?
"Multiple rounds. Multiple eliminations. Last world standing gets to survive." He paused, letting that sink in. "The rest of you? Well... extinct is such an ugly word. Let's say 'removed from existence.'"
This couldn't be happening.
"Now, I know what you're thinking: 'But mighty Tycheros, how will you choose the champions?' Great question!" He snapped his fingers. "We'll choose them ourselves! Can't have you killing each other before the fun starts. That would be wasteful."
Around Naoya, people were trying to fight. To run. To attack each other. Warriors swung frozen swords at strange beings. Mages prepared spells they couldn't release.
Tycheros noticed and laughed.
"Oh? Oh, no no no. We can't have that." He wagged a finger like scolding children. "You don't get to decide who lives and dies. That's our job. Now..."
He raised both hands, divine energy swirling around him.
"The tournament begins tomorrow. Until then..."
He snapped his fingers.
"Sleep tight!"
Naoya felt his body go limp, and his vision darkened. All around him, billions of people from seven different worlds collapsed simultaneously.
The dragon fell from the sky like a puppet with cut strings.
And Tycheros, God of Games, laughed as he faded from view.