We were outside.
Not transported. Not falling.
Just… there.
Sunlight on concrete. Streetlights still burning despite the hour. Cars passing like nothing had ever bent, folded, or rewritten itself behind us.
The Axis was gone.
Or pretending to be.
The city felt wrong.
Too alive.
Too normal.
Neon signs buzzed overhead, flickering with the same tired confidence they always had. Cars passed in steady intervals, tires hissing against asphalt still warm from the day. Somewhere down the street, someone laughed—sharp and careless, the kind of laugh that belonged to a life untouched by anything lurking beneath it.
Everything looked like it always had.
And that made it worse.
Then—
Grrrrrr.
The sound ripped out of me without warning.
Loud.
Sharp.
Humiliating.
I froze mid-step.
Yuna stopped walking.
She turned slowly, eyes dropping to my stomach like she was inspecting a crime scene.
"…Did you just growl?" she asked.
I clenched my jaw. "No."
Grrrrrr.
Her stare held for half a second longer.
Then she burst out laughing.
Not a chuckle.
Not a smirk.
A full, unrestrained laugh that echoed off the narrow street.
"Oh wow," she said, wiping under one eye. "Three days unconscious and that's your comeback?"
"I didn't even feel hungry," I muttered, heat creeping up my neck.
"That's because your brain was busy not dying," she replied easily. "Now it's catching up."
She pointed across the street.
A small restaurant glowed warmly between darker buildings, its windows fogged slightly from the heat inside. A wooden sign hung above the entrance, old but well-kept.
[ Fujinoya Restaurant ]
Steam drifted out every time the door opened.
Something in my chest loosened just looking at it.
"Food," Yuna said. "Now."
---
Inside, warmth hit me like a wave.
Not just temperature—weight.
The air was thick with broth and oil, with soy sauce and something grilled just long enough to char at the edges. My stomach clenched painfully this time, no longer subtle about its demands.
My shoulders dropped before I could stop them.
We sat.
The owner nodded sharply from behind the counter.
"Irasshaimase! (Welcome!)"
The words felt grounding. Ordinary.
Minutes passed.
Then the table filled.
A steaming bowl of tonkotsu ramen, fat slices of pork resting in pale broth. Crisp karaage piled neatly beside it, still crackling softly. Two onigiri wrapped tight in seaweed. A plate of gyoza, sizzling faintly as oil popped around their edges.
I stared for half a second longer than necessary.
"Itadakimasu," Yuna said casually.
I echoed it more quietly.
"Itadakimasu."
Then I started eating.
The first bite hit me like memory.
Heat flooded my mouth. Salt followed. Fat and broth and something deeply familiar that had nothing to do with Galactors.
Life.
My chest loosened without permission.
"Oh," I whispered.
Yuna watched me with a faint, satisfied smile.
"Told you," she said. "Food resets the soul."
Halfway through the bowl, my hands stopped shaking.
For the first time since waking—
I felt normal.
Just for a second.
For moments i forgot everything.
Then—
The air shifted.
It wasn't dramatic. No wind, no sound.
Just… muted.
Like the room had been wrapped in thick cloth.
The laughter softened. The clink of bowls dulled. Even the sizzling gyoza sounded distant.
I froze mid-bite.
The noodles slid halfway down my throat and stopped.
My chest tightened.
My eyes narrowed.
Then widened.
Fear crawled up my spine, cold and deliberate.
The wrongness wasn't coming from it.
It was reacting to me—drawn close like iron filings toward something misaligned.
"…Yuna," I said quietly.
She was still eating.
"What."
"There's something behind you."
She didn't turn.
I did.
A figure stood near the entrance.
Too tall.
Too thin.
Its outline flickered, unstable—like smoke trying to remember the shape it once had. No face. No eyes. Just a hollow suggestion of a head tilted slightly, as if curious.
But I knew.
It was looking at me.
My chopsticks slipped from my fingers and clattered into the bowl.
The ghost tilted its head.
My breath hitched.
"I—I didn't see that before," I whispered.
It felt less like it had arrived—
and more like it had been there already, waiting for me to notice.
Yuna sighed and finally glanced over her shoulder.
"Oh," she said flatly. "See what?"
My heart slammed.
"There," I said, pointing. "Something's watching us."
She squinted.
"…I don't see anything."
My pulse roared in my ears.
"Maybe I hit my head," I muttered. "Maybe I'm hallucinating—"
She suddenly screamed.
"KAIEEENNN!"
I flinched so hard my chair scraped loudly across the floor, adrenaline detonating in my chest.
Then—
She burst out laughing.
She waved her chopsticks lazily through the air.
"I can see them," she said. "Ghosts exist too. Idiot."
"…You're actually evil," I muttered.
Under different circumstances, I might've laughed harder.
"Relax," she added. "Low-grade Echo Oni. No hostility."
"Oni aren't demons," she continued, tone instructional. "They're what spirits become when emotion gives them teeth."
"It's staring at me."
Not at my body.
At the place inside me where something had been taken—and something else hadn't settled yet.
"Yeah," she said. "They do that."
The ghost drifted closer.
Every instinct in my body screamed at me to move, to run, to do something.
It leaned in—
And passed straight through the table.
Cold brushed my skin.
Not wind.
Absence.
I gasped, breath tearing from my chest.
Before I could even push back—
Yuna extended her hand.
Not fast.
Not dramatic.
Precise.
Her fingers closed around empty air.
The ghost reacted instantly. Its form flared, glowing faintly, like something dragged against its will. Smoke-like strands peeled away from it, curling toward her palm.
The same way they had from the assassin's body.
The figure twisted—
Then unraveled.
Pulled apart into thin, whispering wisps.
And vanished.
The air felt cleaner afterward.
That scared me more than the ghost ever had.
Yuna withdrew her hand. The faint glow faded.
She picked up her chopsticks again and resumed eating like nothing had happened.
I stared.
Frozen.
"…You just—" I swallowed hard. "You did something."
She glanced at me.
"Oh."
I remembered it then.
The hospital.
The assassins.
The fog-like strands drawn into her hand.
"…That," I whispered. "That thing you did before."
She shrugged. "Did I?"
"You absorbed it," I said. "Didn't you?"
She took another bite.
"Eat before it gets cold."
My hands clenched.
"This isn't funny."
Her eyes lifted to meet mine.
The humor was gone.
"You learn to see them," she said quietly. "Once your eyes are open, you see them everywhere. In crowds. In shadows."
She paused.
"You never get to close them again."
My throat tightened.
"I don't want this."
"You don't get to choose," she replied calmly. "You only get to adapt."
I looked down at my ramen.
Steam still rising.
Food still warm.
But it didn't feel safe anymore.
She spoke again, almost casually.
"This isn't new," she said. "It's older than countries. Something catastrophic happened. This Japan region first."
I swallowed.
"I couldn't understand," I whispered. "But this is reality… and I'm still far behind."
I forced myself to eat anyway.
"…Does this ever stop?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Only when you stop caring."
I swallowed hard.
"…I don't think I can."
She nodded once.
"Good."
The restaurant sounds rushed back all at once.
Spoons clinking.
Voices rising.
Oil popping loudly.
We paid and stepped back into the street.
The city looked the same.
Lights buzzed.
Cars passed.
Someone laughed again.
But I knew better now.
Somewhere between the broth and the ghost—
Something in me had crossed a line.
And there was no going back.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 30 — I CAN SEE SOMETHING ELSE ✦