There was a man standing on a rock in the middle of a stream that separated two lands.
On the first side, the earth was nothing but craters.
Massive holes tore through the ground as far as he could see, as if the sky itself had rained destruction without restraint.
The land was broken beyond recognition. It was devastation carved into soil.
On the other side stood dead trees, Their branches stripped of life. Beneath them lay the corpses of Vowalkers stretching endlessly into the distance.
Without warning, color drained from everything.
The side of craters sank into pitch black, every abyss deepened until it looked bottomless. The land of dead trees and fallen Vowalkers turned completely white, glowing with a cold purity that erased every shadow.
The stream beneath him trembled.
The flat world bent upward in a single impossible motion, straightening until it stood tall like a wall forced into place by unseen hands.
The water twisted violently and fell, becoming a waterfall that split black from white with merciless clarity.
One side darkness.
One side light.
Darkness meant Condemned.
Light means Blessed.
The rock beneath his feet began to shake.
Then it slipped.
He fell.
He had no sense of touch to feel the drop. No hearing to register the roar of the water. No balance to tell him which direction was salvation.
He had lost everything.
Everything except his eyes.
They remained open as he descended between condemnation and acceptance.
Above him, the black land of craters loomed heavy and endless, a monument to failure. The white land rose just as high, its dead trees and fallen Vowalkers bathed in sterile radiance.
He was expected to choose.
To align himself with ruin or righteousness.
***
As I looked into the mirror, I felt as though I were falling into a hole.
My life had become miserable. It had never been good to begin with.
I sacrificed all my senses just to survive. In that moment, it was logical. Necessary. The optimal decision.
But no one can truly live like this.
A human needs smell. Needs taste. Needs the sensation of touch. Those things are not luxuries. They are proof that you exist. To understand what each sense does, to know its limits and its potential, that is part of being human.
Now I have none of it.
When I stare at my reflection, I do not see myself. There are only eyes.
Eyes across my skin.
Eyes where there should be nothing.
They cover my body in silent rows, unblinking and exposed.
Is clinging to life really that necessary?
Can I give up just once?
I have lost everything.
Not that I had much to lose in the first place. Still.
I used to be called an masterpiece. Someone who could survive anywhere. Someone who could calculate through any situation.
But I am still human.
I cannot step into another world and pretend nothing happened. Not like this. Not with a body that no longer resembles my own.
There are still six days left before this Memory turns off.
Six days.
Where am I even supposed to live?
I do not know anyone here. I have no allies.
It feels like I am still falling, searching for an answer that refuses to appear.
I slowly wipe myself with a towel. One by one, the scattered eyes across my body close. I leave only the two on my face open.
The others have no eyelashes. They do not bulge unnaturally. When closed, they look like thin scars sealed across my skin. As if they have always been wounds.
I call forth my Aspect Ability.
Three chains manifest in the air before dropping to the ground with a heavy presence.
They are massive.
Golden light runs along their length, rising upward in a steady glow. They do not feel ordinary. They feel divine.
I bend down and try to grab one.
My hand passes through it.
I paused.
There is no physical resistance, yet I feel something. A faint connection tugs at my fingers, as if an unseen thread runs between my hands and the chains.
Testing it, I slowly raise one hand.
All three chains lift from the ground.
I narrow my eyes. The sensation becomes clearer. It is not my palm that controls them. It is my fingers.
When I move two fingers, only one chain responds.
I draw that finger toward myself.
The chain follows.
Then it pierces inward.
Not into my body.
Into my soul.
The moment it attaches, runes begin to appear in the air around me.
They form without any surface to rest upon, glowing symbols suspended like drifting embers.
Runes are like words. They do not need paper. They simply exist, written into the air itself.
[[[[[[[Bindling Vow]]]]]]]
[Hearken.
Before threads may entwine and destiny be written, the holder of this sacred Memory must lift their voice in chant. Not to command.
But to acknowledge.
For Fate is not summoned by silence. It is stirred by invocation.
Let the words be offered as incense to the unseen loom. Let intent be laid bare. Only when the chant is spoken and accepted by all who stand within the circle shall the strands descend, luminous and unseen, ready to bind.
***
[Those Who Step Before the Loom]:
Kiyotaka.
?
?
***
[The Measure of the Thread]:
This covenant shall endure not by days nor by seasons, but by purpose.
So long as the named intent remains incomplete, the threads shall hold. When the condition carved into the vow is fulfilled, or when all bound wills release it as one, the weave shall loosen and dissolve.
Until that hour, it shall not fade.
***
[The Sacred Equilibrium]:
A Binding Vow is not a bargain of convenience. It is an offering laid upon balanced scales.
No oath may trespass upon a Flaw, nor tamper with an Innate ability, nor wash an Aspect clean of its ordained imperfection. Such transgressions are beyond mortal permission.
Each promise must mirror its counterpart. Each risk must find its equal.
If the scales tilt toward absurdity or greed, Fate will not weave.
Balance is the price of binding.
Equality is the door through which destiny consents.
***
[The Judgment of the Unseen]:
Fate stands witness.
When the vow is spoken and sealed, it is no longer sound. It becomes law etched into the marrow of existence. The threads that descend will coil about the souls of those bound, luminous and unbreakable.
Should one betray the vow, the threads will not fray. They will tighten.
The chains that once joined in union shall constrict in judgment. The bond that protected shall become the instrument of ruin.
For a Binding Vow cannot be broken.
It may only be fulfilled.
Or endured.]
I just stood there witnessing the memory, I had found some hope in this world, A memory made specifically for me.
A perfect contract.
I wore the track suit given by police and went out.
The chains dissapeared as no vow was made.
***
As I step out of the bathroom, I head toward the cafeteria.
Something inside me had turned unusually negative back there. Perhaps it is my Flaw. Or perhaps I simply needed somewhere to release the pressure building in my chest.
The hallway is quiet.
When I enter the cafeteria, I immediately notice the girl looking at me, then glancing at the kid with a grin that practically radiates mischief.
Three stars rest on her shoulder.
A ranking system, most likely.
She gestures for me to sit. At the same time, she casually orders a police officer to bring her a notebook and a pen.
As I take the seat across from her, I find myself observing her more closely than necessary.
She has short, raven-black hair and icy-blue eyes that seem carved from winter itself.
Her skin is flawless. Smooth. White as snow. She is as pale as the kid, yet where his pallor looks unhealthy and strange, hers looks pristine. Intentional.
He appears drained of color.
She looks as though the world selected that shade for her carefully and approved of it.
I could continue that line of thought.
Unfortunately, she writes something in the notebook and turns it toward me.
The handwriting is simple.
It reads:
How long will that condition of yours last?
So she has already concluded that the eyes are not my Flaw. Merely backlash from a Memory.
The kid suddenly says something. I cannot hear him, but I read his lips.
"How is that not a flaw?"
His confusion is understandable. From an outside perspective, losing four out of five senses and gaining scattered eyes across one's body does resemble a flaw.
Before I can respond, she answers him.
"How do you think he is still alive despite not having any way to eat or breathe?"
That provides context.
A Flaw must remain survivable. If it kills the host instantly, it ceases to be a flaw. It becomes a curse.
The kid looks at me for a moment, then returns to stabbing his food as if it personally offended him.
I pick up the pen.
Both of them watch the notebook.
I begin to write.
The ink runs out.
I stare at the blank line where my answer should be.
She snickers.
Another pen is brought.
I take it calmly. I attempt to write again.
The pen snaps in half.
Silence.
A third pen arrives.
I press it to the page.
Nothing comes out.
The ink refuses to flow.
I pause.
It appears that today, the universe has chosen petty resistance.
Everything I touch simply declines to cooperate.
I place the pen down with the same composure I would use if this were completely normal.
Perhaps it is.
Jet is openly amused now.
The kid avoids looking at me, yet i could see him muffling a laugh. which only makes it worse.
For someone who sacrificed four senses to survive, being defeated by stationery is unexpectedly humbling.
***
Over the next few minutes, Ayanokouji tried to write.
First with a pen.
It ran dry.
He picked up another.
It snapped the moment it touched the page.
A pencil followed.
The tip broke.
He sharpened it with patience. It broke again.
Someone, either helpful or malicious, handed him a feather.
Totally not Sunless.
The feather split neatly down the middle.
Sunny lowered his gaze, shoulders trembling ever so slightly.
'Did my [Fated] curse him too?'
It was a joke.
Mostly.
Somewhere behind the scenes, Ayanokouji's attribute, [Embraced by Fate], appeared to be treating the act of writing like a boss level encounter.
Challenge: Write like a normal human.
Difficulty: Apparently Legendary!!!
Jet folded her hands on the table, watching the slow execution of office supplies with the detached air of a Politician looking at the voters.
"Could his Flaw be related to communication?" she asked.
Her tone suggested she was discussing a delayed shipment, not metaphysical sabotage.
Sunny considered it seriously.
He would not object. The world did not need to reward a man with that face and a good voice. Some things had to remain balanced.
"I support this theory," Sunny said gravely. "A tragic existence. A handsome statue doomed to eternal silence. I, as a witness, stand in solidarity."
Jet glanced at him. "You've upgraded yourself from someone playing extra to a witness?"
Yeah not like he has been completely exposed!
"Titles are all I have."
Then something unexpected happened.
Ayanokouji slowly shook his head.
Sunny blinked.
Jet's gaze sharpened.
Sunny leaned forward slightly. "Wait. How did you know what I said?"
Ayanokouji leaned back in his chair, posture straight, expression composed. He did not react like someone who had just been accused. He reacted like someone mildly inconvenienced by an obvious question.
Sunny's eyes narrowed.
He paid attention to him now. He couldn't breath and probably didn't listen, Maybe more which doesn't meet the eye yet he is clinging to life.
Sunless felt a hint of respect, One cockroach to another.
Still if he couldn't hear...
And yet.
He had responded exactly on cue.
Ayanokouji extended his hand.
The air shifted.
Black and white gathered in a slow spiral, The cafeteria lights dimmed for a fraction of a second.
A thick notebook formed in his palm.
It's cover was black surrounding white pages yet it didn't look like any cloth or paper, More like air.
Jet was momentillary silent expecting before asking.
"Is that your Aspect Ability?"
Ayanokouji shaked his head signalling no.
Ayanokouji didn't knew that only divines had innate ability, so he didn't even think about it.
Thankfully, Jet thought by herself that it must be a memory.
Ayanokouji opened it.
The pages were filled.
Dense writing, arranged neatly in careful lines. No frantic scribbles. No chaotic spacing. Everything placed with deliberate order. As he flipped through, it was clear he was not searching.
He knew.
Sunny's amusement thinned.
Ayanokouji stopped at a page near the back.
His finger hovered above it, then pressed lightly against the paper.
New words began to form.
They did not spill out in fragments. They unfolded steadily, each line flowing into the next with seamless precision.
But whatever he tried to write using his thoughts dissapeared.
So he tried again this time different approach, He wrote from the beginning and considered the cafeteria as a segment, He remembered that everything has to be truth.
So he wrote...
The moment he entered the cafeteria. The subtle shift of emotions when Sunless gave him the feather. The faint scrape of Jet's chair against the floor. The timing of each failed pen. Even the feather that had split.
Sunny felt something cold settle in his chest.
He was paying attention to every small thing, Sunless went silent for a second repositioning Ayanokouji in his mind.
Jet watched closely. "He's not approximating," she said quietly.
Sunny did not answer.
There were no pauses. No corrections. No hesitation between sentences. It was as though everything had already been sorted, labeled, and archived inside his mind.
Ayanokouji finished the last line.
Then, instead of closing the notebook, he turned it toward them.
Silently.
An invitation.
Sunny leaned forward despite himself.
Jet followed.
The handwriting was precise. Clinical. The account was exact to an uncomfortable degree.
Sunny's own muttered comment about "respecting his silence" was written there.
Jet's speculation about his Flaw.
Even Sunny's internal shift from amusement to suspicion was described in terms so accurate it bordered on invasive.
And he was still going on as he put his finger onto the page, Ready if they ask questions now.
Sunny stared at it for a long moment.
"...That's not fair," he muttered.
Jet skimmed another line and huffed softly. "He even noted the change in emotions before you leaned forward. You're predictable, Kid."
"I am a noble cockroach. I was just paying attention to another one of my kind."
Jet for a second went quiet as she saw how confidently Sunless called himself a cockroach.
Sunny ignored her.
As Jet was reading, she mistakenly touched one of the lines with her finger without essence.
***
The vibe had changed around Sunless. Something was wrong. He was being too open with complete strangers.
He didn't know them, yet he didn't feel awkward while trying to join in or let out a joke. He didn't feel out of place at all.
He had lived most of his life in the outskirts. Could he really be moved by just a few moments of hospitality?
This... Felt wrong.
Sunless was finding more about himself...
No... Fuck that, He don't trust others easily to just joke around casually over a few minutes of talk.
There was something deeply wrong... But what?
***
As Jet touched the writing woven without visible essence, she did not expect resistance.
The moment her fingers brushed over the ink, something stirred.
The writing had been inscribed with essence. It answered her touch like a living thing. A subtle current traveled up her fingers and into her senses, sharp and deliberate, and before she could withdraw, the world shifted around her.
She saw everything from Ayanokouji's perspective.
From the moment he stepped into the cafeteria. The alignment of the tables. The positions of the officers. The faint scrape of a chair leg against the floor. The tension in Sunless' shoulders. The micro expressions that flickered across faces and vanished before most would even register them.
She did not merely see what he saw. She experienced the way he processed it. Every detail cataloged. Every variable weighed. Every possible outcome calculated and stored away.
She followed the flow of his thoughts. How he analyzed the three stars on her shoulder and inferred rank. How he measured authority without asking. How he assessed threat levels without shifting posture or expression. Even the way how he monologued about her Beauty.
A faint breath left her nose.
And through all of it, she searched for instability.
There was no bitterness about losing his senses. No frustration at his condition. No anger at the absurdity of surviving without the ability to eat or breathe. He examined himself the same way he examined the room, as a system with variables to optimize.
Detached.
That unsettled her more than hysteria would have.
He had come dangerously close to something monstrous, and he treated that proximity like data. There was no resistance. No visible fear of what he might become. The absence of reaction was heavier than panic.
This was not a child coping.
This was a mind reorganizing itself around loss.
Jet did not believe in saving people from themselves. That was not her job. She was a Reaper, a government weapon tasked with managing risk and preserving useful assets.
She did not chase wounded souls. She eliminated threats and protected potential.
And this boy had potential.
That was precisely the problem.
When she reached the current end of the written segment, she withdrew on instinct. The cafeteria snapped back into place, but her thoughts did not slow.
She did not feel guilt for intruding.
If a Memory could compromise an Awakened's stability, it was her responsibility to identify it.
If a mind was fracturing in a way that could create a future liability, she needed to know.
She had seen too many prodigies burn themselves out or turn into something inconvenient for the government to handle cleanly.
This boy clearly required evaluation.
Not because he was fragile.
Because he was dangerous.
She did not know how much essence he possessed or how long he could sustain this Memory.
If the narration stopped abruptly, they would lose their only method of communication.
That alone made the notebook strategically important.
Children who survived difficult Nightmares with minds intact were rare. Children who survived them with minds like this were rarer.
She was not going to let a rare asset deteriorate unnoticed.
Slowly, without hesitation or dramatics, she flipped several pages back. Her movements were precise. She was not hoping for anything. She was looking for a fault line.
She turned toward the beginning.
Toward his Nightmare.
She knew it was an invasion of privacy. That did not matter. Privacy ended where risk began.
Ayanokouji reacted the moment he understood her intention. He reached for the notebook and tried to shake it from her grasp.
Her grip tightened automatically. It required almost no effort. The book remained firmly in her hand.
Sunless tilted his head slightly, observing the silent struggle. He seemed cautious about something.
Jet flipped to a random page.
The context of a well was written there.
She did not hesitate.
She touched the ink.
...
..
.
_
***
Jet was no longer Jet.
She had become Ayanokouji.
She looked upward from inside a deep well. The walls were slick and suffocating. The water pressed against her body, heavy and unyielding. Above her, grotesque creatures swam through the darkness.
There were many of them.
They swam directly toward her.
Exhaustion weighed down her limbs. Her breath thinned. Death hovered near enough to taste. She understood instinctively that these were Vowalkers. She knew their name without being told.
And yet, she felt no nervousness. No anger. No desperation clawing at her chest.
Only cold.
A terrifying clarity settled over her perception. She could somehow analyzed their movement patterns, their speed, the distortion of water around their forms.
She somehow, someway broke them down into measurable variables. Weaknesses. Structural limits. Predictable trajectories.
She heard Ayanokouji narrating everything...
His voice was steady and detached, so devoid of tremor that she might have mistaken him for a killer calmly describing a dissection.
The Vowalkers came closer and closer.
They slowed.
Without fully understanding why, she tried spread her hands slightly, almost as if admiring a masterpiece she had constructed herself.
She knew they could not harm her.
Not because she was stronger, but because she somehow had already reduced them to something smaller within her understanding.
Her eyes remained half closed, hypnotized by the sensation of absolute control.
Beneath that control lingered something disturbingly inhuman.
Her life did not seem to matter to her. Performing something this insane without a trace of hesitation required a detachment that bordered on monstrous.
The Vowalkers drifted dangerously close to her face.
She did not flinch.
They froze.
Held in place by invisible calculation while the cold narration continued without interruption.
...
..
.
_
She was ripped back into her own body.
The cafeteria snapped into focus. Her vision blurred at the edges. Sweat clung to her skin, She is feeling what Ayanokouji felt.
For a brief moment, Jet need to rethink somethings.
She reached for the cup of water on the table and drank it without saying anything.
Across from her, Ayanokouji and Sunless had taken the notebook from her grasp.
Even after witnessing such horror, she regained her composure within seconds. Most Awakened would have needed hours to recover from that level of immersion.
The Nightmare did not unsettle her.
The Vowalkers did not unsettle her.
Even if that first Nightmare was extreme beyond reason, that was not the source of her disturbance.
It was how she had felt while inside him.
That cold precision. That emotional absence. That indifference toward survival.
That was not normal.
She had almost felt like a monster wearing his skin.
She looked at the notebook again, and for the first time in a long while, a faint discomfort settled in her chest.
On the latest page, Ayanokouji was still narrating.
The page read exactly what had just occurred.
[As the girl tapped the ink on the page about my first visit to the well, she became unresponsive. We tried to yank the notebook away from her, but she was too strong for both me and the kid. Using all our strength, we somehow managed to pull her back, yet what returned was not the usual her. Once filled with confidence and mischief, her face had gotten serious as she drank water, her body drenched in sweat, What she just saw and felt didn't affect her... Would others be the same? I wonder... Oh, She keeps glancing at the book as I write this, visibly unsettled by it, but there is nothing I can do to comfort her except continue. To move forward, I must not stop this narration. So I ask you, whoever you are, whose name I do not know: I do not need your help with my mental state. I understand the way I am, and I have accepted myself as such. Please, do not pry into what made me this way. I do not need your help.]
When the narration ended, the book disappeared in a ripple of essence.
Ayanokouji looked at her calmly and gave her a tray of food, She must be hungry after going through that.
That's the most he could do right now.
Sunless, after reading the page, felt a chill crawl up his spine. He glanced toward Ayanokouji with something close to unease.
Jet remained silent.
She disliked this feeling deeply.
The sensation of being perceived not as a person, but as a character within someone else's controlled narrative.
Still, she could not ignore what she had seen.
"Ayanokouji," she said finally, her voice controlled but firmer than before, Her mask was back, She no longer was filled with mischief. "you do not get to decide that you are fine simply because you can explain yourself logically."
He did not answer.
"You think because you understand yourself, that means there is nothing wrong," she continued, her gaze steady. "That is not how it works."
She exhaled slowly.
A victim will always say they are alright, even when they are not.
She looked at both boys.
"I am not here to pry for curiosity," she said. "I am here because if I ignore something like this and you break later, that failure will be mine."
For a brief moment, something softened in her expression.
She leaned forward, the three stars on her shoulder catching the dim light.
"You're a monster in a tracksuit. That's fine. I work with monsters every day some of them even have names. But if that 'detachment' of yours makes you a liability in the field, I'll be the one to put you down. Not because I hate you, but because I don't have the paperwork time to deal with a rogue Sleeper."
She looked at Sunless, then back to Ayanokouji.
"Both of you are cockroaches," she muttered, a ghost of a tired smirk returning. "One hides in the shadows, and the other hides in plain sight by pretending he isn't even there. Fine."
She stood up, the authority in her posture absolute.
"Don't expect me to feel sorry for you. In this world, being a monster is a survival trait. Just make sure you're our monster."
"Both of you are going to therapy."
Sunless couldn't help but feel that something was very wrong, Why was he opening up so easily?
While Ayanokouji just looked at Jet with calm eyes, [Embraced by Fate] had given him the perfect opportunity to get himself two teammates for the future.
And he made sure to seize it, as he now watches Jet wear the cold mask and hide away the part that genuinely wants to help them.
He once again realizes he will always be something he doesn't want to be.
That everything he does is nothing but an act, and [Embraced by Fate] has become a perfect partner in crime.
The pen breaks, how others open up to him faster than usual... Everything was leading to this directed by [Embraced by Fate].
Ayanokouji just happened to be the perfect actor.
As he is surrounded by the two, he wonders, even in this new world, will he look at everything logically? Or will a part of him awaken and look at others like a human and not think about the rewards?
Sunless slowly moves his eyes towards Ayanokouji as they slowly turn cold.
'What is this feeling?'
There's only one way to find out.
***
I was free today so wrote one quick chapter.
How was this, I tried to mix both humour and erm I forgot the word for what the other part was called....
Do tell me something, Are they acting canonical or naw.