The vacuum around Arata's black-glass blade shrieked as he tore through the humid Tokyo air. His ability, the Void's Edge, was a double-edged sword; every time he manipulated the density of the oxygen to create those razor-sharp vacuum pockets, it felt as though the atmosphere itself was trying to crush his lungs.
The Possessed businessman—a Vessel of the Fourth Circle—was no longer human. His expensive suit had shredded, replaced by a grotesque, chitinous exoskeleton that pulsed with a rhythmic, oily black light. As Arata landed a flurry of "stutter-step" strikes, the creature didn't just bleed; it exhaled a toxic, freezing mist that turned the falling rain into jagged shards of ice.
Arata lunged, his blade glowing with a dim, violet hue. He aimed for the core—the spot just below the sternum where the evil spirit usually anchored itself. But the creature was unnaturally fast. It caught the blade between its teeth, the sound of metal grinding against supernatural bone echoing off the warehouse walls like a gunshot. With a guttural snarl, the monster swung its elongated, club-like arm.
The impact was a sickening crunch. Arata was launched backward, his body shattering through a stack of wooden pallets before slamming into a structural steel beam. His vision flickered. One of his ribs had definitely snapped, and the metallic tang of blood filled his mouth, thick and warm.
The creature didn't give him a second to breathe. It leaped, its shadow stretching across the warehouse floor like a reaching claw. Arata rolled to the side just as the concrete where his head had been disintegrated under the monster's fist. He tried to trigger another stutter-step, but his legs gave way, the sheer exhaustion of the Void's Edge taking its toll.
As the creature loomed over him, its jaw unhinging to reveal a void of swirling darkness, a flash of brilliant sapphire light illuminated the rafters.
"Enough, you parasite," a voice rang out, steady and cold.
Aiko Kotoha stepped into the light. She didn't look like a soldier; she looked like a priestess of a forgotten age. Around her, the air began to shimmer as her Divine Flowers of Spirit manifested. These weren't soft garden blooms. They were jagged, crystalline petals of pure spiritual energy, glowing with a bioluminescent gold and blue.
The monster turned, sensing a greater threat, but it was already too late. Aiko raised her hand, her fingers weaving a complex mudra.
"Bloom," she commanded.
The petals didn't just fly; they swarmed. They moved with a collective intelligence, a hurricane of light that circled the Possessed. The creature thrashed, its bone-claws tearing at the air, but the petals were intangible to physical matter. They passed through its armor, sinking deep into the spiritual marrow of the beast.
Wherever a petal touched, a burst of white-hot purification followed. The creature's roar turned into a high-pitched scream as the "Divine Flowers" began to root themselves in its negative energy, draining the darkness to fuel their own radiance. The warehouse was swallowed by a blinding, celestial glare.
Arata shielded his eyes as the monster was pulled apart from the inside out, dissolved by the sheer purity of Aiko's power. When the light faded, only the unconscious, human body of the businessman remained on the soot-covered floor.
Aiko rushed to Arata, her glowing palms already hovering over his chest. The warmth of her healing energy began to dull the screaming pain in his side. "You're getting reckless, Arata," she whispered, her eyes dark with worry. "Eleanor didn't train you to be a martyr."
An hour later, Arata limped toward the suburban outskirts of Minato. His body was a map of bandages and bruises, hidden beneath a heavy hoodie. Despite the wealth and power of the Vane Foundation, he still returned to the Miller household every night. It was his only anchor to a world that didn't involve blood and spirits.
His biological brother, Hiroki, had been discharged from the care facility months ago, though he remained quiet and easily startled. He lived with Arata and their kind-hearted step-parents, the Millers, trying to reclaim the childhood that had been decapitated on that kitchen floor years ago.
As Arata pushed open the front door, the house was strangely quiet. The Millers were out for a late-night gala, leaving the brothers alone.
"Arata? Is that you?" Hiroki's voice came from the darkened living room, illuminated only by the flicker of a massive television screen.
"Yeah," Arata grunted, trying to keep his voice steady despite his fractured ribs. "I'm home."
Hiroki scrambled up, his eyes bright with an uncharacteristic excitement. He was holding a sleek, unlabelled black game console that looked far too advanced for any current market. "You have to see this. A package arrived today—no return address. It looks like that RPG we used to talk about before... before everything."
Arata sat heavily on the sofa, his teammates Kael and Aiko suddenly appearing at the window and door. They had followed him home, sensing a strange residual energy that shouldn't have been in a suburban living room.
"Wait, Hiroki, don't—" Arata started, his instinct for danger screaming.
But Hiroki had already pressed 'Start.'
The television didn't show a loading screen. Instead, the glass of the monitor seemed to liquefy, turning into a swirling vortex of chrome and violet light. The sound wasn't music; it was a rhythmic, mechanical hum that vibrated the very foundation of the house.
Suddenly, the living room wall behind the TV began to peel away, revealing not the backyard, but a jagged, shimmering passage—a tunnel of light that felt like it was pulling the very air out of the room. Through the portal, Arata saw glimpses of a Tokyo he didn't recognize: skyscrapers made of liquid light, vehicles that defied gravity, and a sky the color of a dying star.
"It's a gateway," Kael hissed, his hand on his weapon. "This isn't magic... it's time."
"Arata, we have to close it!" Aiko cried, but the gravitational pull was becoming irresistible.
The Vane Foundation members—Arata, Aiko, and Kael—were pulled forward by an invisible force, their spiritual signatures reacting to the portal's frequency. Arata reached out, his fingers brushing Hiroki's hand as he was dragged toward the shimmering abyss.
"Hiroki! Run!" Arata screamed.
But Hiroki stood frozen, the controller falling from his hands as he watched his brother being pulled into the future. The three warriors were sucked into the tunnel, the light blindingly bright, the sensation of their atoms being stretched across centuries.
With a final, deafening crack of thunder, the portal began to collapse.
Arata's last vision of his own time was the terrified face of his brother standing alone in a ruined living room. Then, the tunnel snapped shut, leaving the modern world behind.
They were gone. And in the future, something was waiting for them.