The world was white.
Not the white of snow or clouds. It was the white of a blank page. A void that emitted a low, electronic hum.
Jin opened his eyes.
He was lying on a bed. The sheets were crisp, clinical, and smelled faintly of bleach and lavender. The ceiling above him was a pale cream color. A ceiling fan turned slowly, its blades cutting through the stagnant air with a rhythmic, hypnotic swish-swish-swish.
He didn't move. He lay there, staring at the fan.
His body felt light. Too light. The crushing weight that had been pressing against his chest for days—the iron, the cold, the hunger—had receded. It was replaced by a hollow numbness. He was a hollowed-out husk, washed clean by the tide.
He tried to sit up.
A sharp, familiar twitch flared in his left eye. It wasn't the violent fire of the Sharingan. It was a dull, persistent throb. A reminder of the parasite.
He pushed the sheets aside. He was wearing a clean, gray hospital gown. His left arm was bandaged from the wrist to the elbow. He looked at the white gauze. He didn't remember the wound.
He searched his mind for the cause.
The convenience store.
The memory surfaced like a piece of driftwood. He saw the shattered glass. He felt the freezing breath of the man in the raincoat. He remembered the smell of spilled milk.
Tanaka. The name appeared in his head. The manager. He would be angry about the milk.
Jin swung his legs over the side of the bed. His feet hit the cold hardwood floor. He stood up, and the room tilted. He grabbed the edge of a small bedside table to steady himself.
On the table sat a single, red apple.
It was perfectly round. Shiny. Unbruised.
Jin stared at it. A faint, cold shiver traced its way down his spine. He looked at the apple, and for a fraction of a second, he felt a void opening in his chest. A sense of profound, agonizing loss.
He reached out and touched the skin of the fruit. It was cold.
Why does this feel like a tombstone.
He shook the thought away. It was just an apple. Probably a gift from the school or the hospital.
He walked to the window. He pulled the heavy velvet curtains aside.
The sun was high. Kuoh Academy stretched out below him, a sprawling landscape of brick and green ivy. He wasn't in a hospital. He was in the old school building. The occult research club's territory.
The door behind him opened.
Jin didn't turn around. He watched the reflection in the glass.
Rias Gremory stepped into the room. She wasn't wearing her school uniform. She wore a simple, black dress that made her crimson hair look like a bleeding wound against the dark fabric. She carried a tray with a glass of water and a small plate of toast.
"You've been asleep for eighteen hours." Rias said.
Her voice was soft. It didn't have the suffocating pressure it had in the classroom. It was the voice of a host welcoming a guest. Or a captor checking on a prisoner.
Jin turned to face her. He kept his hands at his sides. He forced his breathing to remain shallow.
In.
Out.
"The store." Jin said. His voice was a rasp. He cleared his throat, but the dryness remained. "There was a man. Ice."
Rias placed the tray on the bedside table, next to the apple. She didn't look at the fruit. She looked at Jin's left eye.
"A stray priest." Rias said. She sat on the edge of the bed, her movements fluid and graceful. "One of the extremists who didn't agree with the Church's withdrawal. He was hunting the girl with the yellow ribbon. Asia."
Jin nodded slowly. The name Asia felt familiar. A golden light in the dark. A chime at the door.
"Is she safe."
"She disappeared before my knights arrived." Rias said. She watched his reaction closely. Her blue-green eyes were searching for a flicker of something. A spark of the anomaly. "But we found you in the breakroom. You were... dying, Jin."
Jin looked at his bandaged arm. "I'm fine now."
"No, you aren't." Rias's tone shifted. The softness remained, but the weight returned. The air in the room grew heavy, smelling of crushed roses. "Your body was in a state of advanced neural shock. Your oxygen levels were low enough to cause permanent brain damage. And yet, there was a force inside you... something that was eating you alive to keep your heart beating."
She stood up. She walked toward him, stopping just inches away.
Too close.
"Who are you, Jin Kurosawa?" She whispered.
Jin looked into her eyes. He didn't blink. He didn't look away. He felt the parasite stir at the base of his skull. It smelled her power. It wanted to feed.
Neural integrity: 82%.Warning: Memory buffer unstable.Action: Silence.
"I told you." Jin said. "I'm a clerk. I have a part-time job."
Rias smiled. It was the same smile from the classroom. Polite. Cold.
"A clerk who survived an encounter with a Fallen Angel. A clerk who fought off an ice-wielder with a jar of peppers. A clerk who emits no aura, yet made Xenovia Quarta hesitate."
She reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. Her fingers were warm.
"The empty ones are the most dangerous, Jin. Because no one knows what might fall into the hole."
She turned and walked toward the door.
"Eat the toast." She said. "You need the strength. Sona is waiting for you in the council room. She has questions that I couldn't answer."
The door closed with a soft click.
Jin was alone again.
He sat back down on the bed. He picked up the glass of water. He drank it in long, desperate gulps. The water was cold, but it didn't soothe the fire in his throat.
He looked at the toast. He wasn't hungry.
His mind felt like a house after a robbery. The furniture was all there, but the drawers were open. The small, precious things were gone.
He tried to remember his mother's face again.
Nothing. Just a gray blur.
He tried to remember the name of his elementary school.
Nothing.
He felt a strange, hollow peace. He was losing the weight of his past. The more the parasite ate, the lighter he became. He didn't feel the panic anymore. The panic was a memory he had already paid to the System.
He reached for his school bag, which was sitting on a chair in the corner. He pulled out his notebook.
He flipped through the pages.
Most of them were blank. White. Empty.
He reached the middle of the notebook.
There was a page with writing on it. It wasn't his handwriting. It was messy, frantic, written in dark ink that had bled through the paper.
DON'T TRUST THE CRIMSON.THE TOLL IS NOT JUST LIES.LOOK FOR THE KEY UNDER THE THIRD STONE.
Jin stared at the words.
He didn't remember writing this. He didn't recognize the ink.
Under the third stone.
Third stone where? His apartment? The park? The school?
The static roared in his head. The headache returned, a sharp spike behind his left eye.
He closed the notebook.
He stood up and walked to the closet in the room. Inside was his clean school uniform. It had been washed and pressed. The bloodstains were gone. The smell of the alleyway was gone.
He dressed quickly. Every movement was a struggle. His left hand was shaking so badly he had to shove it into his pocket to keep from hitting the furniture.
He walked out of the room.
The hallway of the old school building was dark. The floorboards groaned under his weight. He followed the sound of a ticking clock.
He reached the main lounge.
Sona Sitri was sitting in a high-backed leather chair. She was reading a book. A cup of tea sat on the low table in front of her.
She looked up as he entered.
"You look better." Sona said.
"I'm awake." Jin said.
Sona closed her book. She leaned forward, her glasses reflecting the dim light of the room.
"Tanaka called the school." Sona said.
Jin felt a flicker of recognition. "The manager."
"Yes." Sona watched him. "He said you were a good worker. But he also said something strange, Jin. He said he hired you three months ago, but he can't remember the name of the person who recommended you. He said every time he tries to think of your hiring interview, his head hurts."
The parasite hissed.
External interference detected.Aura masking: Compromised.
Jin kept his face a mask of stone.
"Memory is unreliable." Jin said.
"Is it?" Sona stood up. She walked toward him. "Or is there something about you that erases the world around it? Last night, the energy spike in that store wasn't just ice. There was a moment of... void. A second where everything stopped. Including the sensors we have placed around the district."
She stopped three feet away.
"I checked your records, Jin. Your parents died in a car accident ten years ago. You grew up in an orphanage in Kyoto. You moved here last year."
Jin listened to the words. They sounded like a story about someone else. He didn't feel the grief. He didn't feel the connection.
"Is that true?" Sona asked.
Jin looked at her.
"If it's in the records, it must be true."
Sona narrowed her eyes. "You don't know, do you? You don't even know if your own name is Jin Kurosawa."
The silence in the room grew cold.
Jin felt a sudden, violent urge to laugh. It was a jagged, broken feeling. He didn't know if he was Jin. He didn't know if he was a clerk. He was just a vessel for a red eye and a starving hunger.
"It doesn't matter." Jin said.
"It matters to us." Sona said. "Because the Church is looking for you. Rias wants to claim you. And I want to know why a boy with no soul is walking through my school."
The bell for the afternoon classes rang. A muffled, distant sound.
"Go to class, Jin." Sona said. She turned back to her chair. "But remember. The void eventually consumes itself."
Jin walked out of the lounge.
He walked through the corridors. He merged with the crowd of students. He was a ghost in a sea of living things.
He reached his classroom. He sat at his desk.
He looked at the blank page in his notebook.
He looked at the back of Rias Gremory's head.
He realized something.
He had forgotten the girl's face from the store. The one with the yellow ribbon.
He remembered her name was Asia. He remembered she was golden.
But he couldn't remember her face.
The memory was gone.
And for the first time, he didn't care.
The white static was peaceful. It was quiet.
He picked up his pen.
He didn't write.
He just watched the tip of the pen as it rested on the paper.
A small, dark spot of ink began to spread.
Like a hole.
Like a parasite.