Theia Subject 837 The blue-haired kid had no name on the records—none of them did—but it didn’t take long for Hideyori Hakana to remember. He had been there on that day, after all: the day their identity, their future, their everything was torn away by an overwhelming hand who cared neither whether they lived nor…

11:30 In all the recent chaos, something else Kinuka Amibari had forgotten was that today was Sunday. The bustle of the Yorusada shopping mall hit the two girls the moment they stepped through the automatic sliding doors. Though not the biggest, Yorusada was still large enough to get yourself lost if you weren’t careful. The…

11:20 “Kinuka? Hey, Kinuka! Are we nearly there yet?” And thus marked the fifth time Juusei Kanon had asked that exact same question in the past ten minutes. The girl bounced in her seat like a raccoon dosed with amphetamine. The phrasing had varied slightly each time, but the effect on everyone in earshot—about two…

11:00 Kawarajima Park was always popular, even on a morning as grey as this. Fairly small, the patch of green amid the city’s urban sprawl was a carefully cultivated natural respite. Children came here to play; adults, to relax. No-one noticed the two otherworldly entities lurked behind reality’s thin curtain. The first was made of…

“You are the weakest of all!” Gus Ishimatsu struck the phenomenon dead-on. A blinding flash momentarily turned the night sky to day. Seconds later, a sonic boom shattered the glass at the top of the Skytree. Ashinaga, a literal skyscraper, teetered back from the force. The impact had driven a crater into the entity’s front,…

“I’ll call.” Hideyori Hakana pushed another sixteen-hundred yen’s worth of poker chips forward on the coffee table. The man reclined in his lounge chair—glass of whisky loose in one hand—chewing on the butt of his cigarette. “I’ll call as well.” Tan’in Mokuzo pushed forward the same amount. A quick look at her cards to make…

There’s a common saying, that just when you need your voice the most, that moment is when it fails you. What we take for granted suddenly disappears; a parable peddled by fools. Rinkaku Harigane’s voice had never failed him, until now.