Ishiki lay on the couch in his room, staring ceiling like it held answers to questions he hadn't figured out how to ask yet.
Sleep wouldn't come. It hadn't come easily for fifteen days now.
Fifteen days since he was injured in the mall. The wound on his shoulder had now turned into deep scars, the progress was maddeningly incremental despite the healing skill one of the camp's Players had used on him.
That healing ability, whatever it was—had accelerated the recovery significantly. What should have taken months took weeks instead. His shoulder was almost useable now.
But "almost useable" wasn't the same as combat-ready, and Kaori had made it brutally clear: he wasn't going on any missions until he could hold a weapon without his arm shaking.
So he had to stay inside his room. 'I am bored.'
He was getting frustrated actually. He desperately wanted to go out and search for his mother and Ren. But, things were getting worse out there.
Just a few days ago, the system had sent back another cluster of failed Players—people who died in their trials and been transformed into Xenons. The influx had been sudden and devastating.
Ishiki sighed and sat up, swinging his legs off the couch. The room felt too small suddenly. He needed to move, and see something other than these four walls and his own spiraling thoughts.
The roof called to him like it had every night for the past week.
***
The metal door to the roof access opened. Cool night air hit Ishiki immediately, carrying the scent of ash and distant ocean.
The moon hung overhead. Full and bright, painting the ruined cityscape in silver and shadow.
Ishiki walked to the railing and gripped it with both hands, testing his shoulder's strength. A dull ache pulsed through the joint, but nothing much.
He stared up at the moon with an expression somewhere between wonder and resentment.
Just two months ago, he had desperately wanted to see it. He used to dream about it—that pale celestial body hanging in darkness illuminating the world when everything was consumed by darkness.
Now he saw it every night.
At first, it had been breathtaking. Mesmerizing. Watching it change shape slowly across the weeks, waxing and waning through its eternal cycle. Even when it got smaller, its light remained as bright as always.
It was like a miracle.
But after looking at it for some time, the charm had faded. Or maybe Ishiki had lost his enthusiasm. Hard to tell which.
'That's how humans are,' he thought with bitter amusement. 'We wish for things we don't have. Obsess over them. Build entire lives around wanting them. And then when we finally get them...'
The thing loses its value, soon it becomes ordinary. Just another part of the background noise of existence.
Humans are strange creatures. Perpetually dissatisfied. Always reaching for the next thing, the next achievement, the next distraction from the gnawing void of purposelessness.
And yet, despite that—or maybe because of that very thing. They were the most successful species on the planet, the most adaptable and the most terrifying.
That was until the Great Fall and system arrived and reminded them that success was relative and terror wore many faces.
Ishiki sighed and with a mental command, summoned his system screen.
The familiar platinum window materialized in front of him, lustrous and slightly translucent, text glowing with information.
He had explored most of his available abilities over the past fifteen days and read every description.
[Ghost Blade] he understood the basics now. He practiced activating and deactivating it until the mental command felt as natural as breathing.
[Soul Archive] remained mysterious. Without corpses to test on, he could only read the description and imagine what "chaining consciousness" actually meant in practice. It felt ominous of course.
His Corruption—[Phantom Voice]—had been mercifully quiet. Or maybe he'd just gotten better at controlling his thoughts.
But two things still eluded understanding. Two mysteries that taunted him every time he opened his status screen.
First was the very Protocol.
He focused on it and the Protocol description expanded on a different screen.
========================
Protocol - [Recursive Anomaly]
Rank - [Unknown]
Protocol Description - [?????]
Ability - [?????]
Description - [?????]
==========================
Ishiki bit his lower lip in frustration. 'I don't want this protocol. It looks suspicious.'
The system either couldn't or wouldn't tell him what this Protocol did, what it meant, how it activated.
There was no information at all.
'Unknown rank. Not even Mythical or Exclusive. Just... unknown. It gives me the creeps.'
The second mystery was more tangible but equally confusing. He navigated to his Vestiges section and focused on the second entry:
=======================
Vestige: Aether Blade
Rank: Epic
Description: [A blade that exists in the space between seen and unseen. The Demigod of Boundaries crafted this weapon to cut not flesh, but the fabric of reality itself. Its edge appears only when wielded by one who walks between worlds.]
Abilities - Phase Strike, Unnoticed assault
Phase Strike - [The blade manifests only at the moment of impact, passing between two worlds at will.]
Unnoticed assault - [The blade bypasses physical defenses. The wielder may strike through material obstacles as if they were not there.]
=======================
The bladeless tachi, It was the weapon he received from opening the sealed box during his trial. Well it was because of the unknown protocol of his, and the tachi itself was beyond comprehension.
He didn't know how to use it, so, [Black Tether] had been his go-to weapon. A spear that did exactly what spears were supposed to do, stab things until they stopped moving. He was not the spearmen of fine knowledge to start with.
The blade was infinitely more dangerous than this spear, only if he knew how to use it. Part of him wanted to test it right now. Summon the weapon and swing it at the railing, see what happens.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed from the stairwell behind him.
Ishiki tensed reflexively.
Kenji emerged from the doorway, blonde hair catching moonlight, looking tired in ways that had nothing to do with lack of sleep.
He spotted Ishiki and his expression shifted to... relief. He walked over slowly and leaned against the railing beside him, leaving a comfortable distance between them that spoke to newfound camaraderie rather than wariness.
"Hey, Ishiki." His voice carried the weight of too many thoughts. "Can't sleep?"
Ishiki glanced at him, then back at the moon. "Yeah. And what about you?"
Kenji was silent for a moment, fingers drumming against the metal railing. "A little anxious. Maybe paranoid."
Ishiki frowned. "How so?"
"We are teammates, right? I will trust you."
Ishiki passed him a reassuring smile.
Kenji sighed and then looked at the camp. where now about a hundred tents stood in the garden of the school. "The world as we knew it is no more, huh?" his voice came out flat, hollowed by exhaustion and despair. "Two new people who joined the hunting part died today."
Ishiki looked at him with narrowed eyes. That... was bad news.
"Isn't it amusing? How everything just... ended. Like we didn't even get to know what exactly happened. One moment we're living normal lives—school, work, whatever mundane problems felt important. The next moment everyone around us was dying, and then we were sent to those horrible trials."
He laughed, but the sound had no humor in it. Just bitterness and disbelief.
"I'm just..." He paused, searching for words. "I'm just glad I found Akari alive. Or maybe... maybe I would have lost it. Without any reason to survive, I might have just succumbed to the pressure and Give up."
Ishiki stayed quiet, letting Kenji speak. Sometimes that's all people needed—someone to listen without judgment or hollow reassurance.
"And now these Scenarios." Kenji's hand clenched on the railing. "Well, fuck it."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring— a simple ring with a diamond at the top, that caught moonlight and held it. He stared at it with an expression that was equal parts hope and terror.
"After the Scenario is over, I'm going to marry her. That's why I'm a little worried about leaving her alone. Her timer shows one hundred and two days as of now."
He looked at Ishiki directly, desperate for an answer he already knew wouldn't be comforting.
"Tell me... will we be back by the time she's sent to her Scenario?"
Ishiki met his gaze and considered lying, to say something hopeful and meaningless to ease the fear in Kenji's eyes.
'This fool.'
Instead, he told the truth.
"No." His voice came out somber. "Or actually, I don't know if we would be back or not. Nobody knows what's going to happen. The last group vanished over a month ago. None of them have returned. Maybe they're still there. Maybe they're dead. Maybe they're somewhere we can't imagine."
He paused, then added more gently: "But I do know this—worrying about it won't change it. All you can do is survive your Scenario. Get back to her. That's the only thing in your control."
Kenji nodded slowly, fingers closing around the ring. He stood there for another moment, processing, then pocketed the ring and straightened his shoulders.
"Come on." He raised one hand, and light coalesced in his palm. A lustrous rapier materialized—slender and elegant. "Let's spar."
Ishiki blinked, surprised by the sudden shift. Then smiled and walked to some distance in front of him. "Yeah. Alright."
He also wanted to get stronger, there was no time and he wanted to become stronger than he was currently, or he would be the first to die.
He raised his own hand and thought the name with familiar ease.
[Black Tether]
The obsidian spear carved out of a single piece, appeared in his grip.
They faced each other on the moonlit roof, weapons at the ready.
This was just them trying to remind themselves that they were still alive, still capable, and still had some measure of control over their fates.
Kenji settled into a fencer's stance. Weight forward, rapier extended, ready to dart in and out.
Ishiki gripped his spear with both hands, ready to deflect and counter.
For a moment, they just stood there. Two young men on a rooftop in a ruined world, holding weapons.
They both tensed, muscles coiling—
THUD.
The sound echoed from the direction of the camp gates.
They froze mid-stance, weapons still raised.
That wasn't the sound of gates opening for patrol rather, of something hitting them from the outside.
THUD.