The night did not end when Renya walked indoors. It followed him.
Down the hallway.Up the stairs. Into the quiet room where he set his shoes aside and placed the metal hero tag on his desk like a question he hadn't answered yet.
He pulled the curtains closed but left the window open. Wind slid through the gap — not cold, just present — stirring the papers stacked beside his notes. The city outside hummed as if dreaming through its own metaphors.
Renya sat.
For the first time since signing the permit, he allowed himself stillness.
It wasn't rest.
It was an assessment.
A practice older than this world, older than the concept of heroes.A practice born in the life he lost, refined in the silence between galaxies, sharpened by his new existence:
Count the strands of the day. Listen to what was said. Observe what did not.
He closed his eyes.
And the world shifted.
Not physically — not like a quirk activation. Not even like the Veil's pressure.
This was softer. Or deeper.
A change beneath all the changes.
Like the faint tremor in the ground before a skyscraper settles.Like the moment before a candle flickers in a room without wind.Like someone — or something — leaning closer to hear him breathe.
Renya's fingers tightened around the armrest.
This was… familiar.
Not from the hero world.Not from U.A.Not from Musutafu.
This came from the path he had walked before death — a path paved not with light, but with intentions sharpened over centuries. A path that required offerings, not applause.
A path he thought he had lost.
A faint thrum echoed behind his ribs, steady as a heartbeat yet entirely separate from it.
The Abyss notices movement.
The thought wasn't a voice. It wasn't language. It was recognition.
In his old world, the Abyss had never "seen" individuals. It responded to momentum. To grow.To will.To the force of a cultivator pushing against their own limits.
This world did not have cultivators. This world did not have Abyssal Rites. This world did not have spiritual tiers.
But this world had humans. Humans who feared.Humans who faltered.Humans who decided.
Humans whose emotions were dense enough to crack the air.
And Renya had spent the day immersed in those emotions — calming, guiding, shaping.
His resonance had changed. His influence had changed. His presence had changed.
And something old, ancient, patient…recognized the shape of his work.
His breath slowed.
The lights dimmed slightly, though he hadn't touched the switch.
Shadows stretched along the walls — not unnaturally, not violently, but attentively. As if they were aligning themselves to him.
Renya opened his eyes.
The room looked normal.
It only felt different.
He held out his hand. A faint wisp of shadow coiled around his fingers — not summoned, not forced. It simply responded.
Like a creature waking after a long sleep.
"Too soon," Renya murmured.
The shadow pulsed once, as if disagreeing.
He frowned. This wasn't the aggressive pull he had known in his old cultivation cycles. This wasn't hunger. This wasn't a demand.
It was an acknowledgment.
As though the energy of this world — spiritual, emotional, human — had finally collected enough in his presence to echo something he once controlled with blood and rites.
Not fully.
Not yet.
But enough.
Enough for the Abyss to hear him again.
Renya stood.
Walked to the window.
The city lights shimmered across Musutafu like scattered lanterns — each one a person, a mood, a mind, a possibility. Each one a tiny ember of resonance.
He whispered, "You're awake earlier than I expected."
The shadows stirred.
Hoshi's words from the tram drifted back into his memory:
"Did I do okay?"
She had done more than okay. Her actions had shaped a room of frightened students into a single calm pulse. That pulse had run through Renya, through the school, through the district.
Resonance.
The first ingredient.
The simplest offering.
A single day of guided emotion — fear to control, guilt to release, panic to resolve — had accumulated naturally around him.
His Quirk had answered.
His Cultivation had followed.
The Abyss had listened.
He wasn't on a new path. He was stepping back onto an old one — but this world shaped it differently. Less blood.More connection.Less sacrifice.More resonance.
A path built from human truths instead of human bodies.
Dangerous in a quieter way.
Knock.
Renya blinked.
Airi leaned into the doorway. "You're awake?"
"Yes."
She rubbed her eyes. "It's three in the morning."
"Time is cooperative today," he said.
She squinted at him. "…Are you doing the weird thinking thing again?"
"I am always thinking," he said.
"Yeah, but this is the weird version."
She stepped into the room, spotted the slight shift in the shadows, and frowned."Your Quirk's flaring?"
"In a sense," Renya said.
"In a… what?"
He shook his head. "Go sleep. School tomorrow."
"You're deflecting," she said.
"Yes."
She glared at him the way only a little sister could. "Fine. But if you pass out, I'm blaming Nezu."
"I accept."
She left.
Renya closed the door quietly.
The room darkened — not unnaturally, but deliberately.
He inhaled.
Exhaled.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, he whispered a phrase that once defined his entire existence:
"Stage One… Resonant Wake."
Nothing dramatic happened.
No lightning.No. surge.No monster roaring from a shadow.
Only a simple truth:
The Abyss acknowledged him.
And Renya acknowledged it back.
Tomorrow, he would live as a hero.
Tonight, he remembered he was something else as well.
Not a demon.
Not a savior.
Not a cultivator bound by old rules.
Something new.
Something between.
Something this world wasn't ready to define.
He stepped back from the window and let the shadows curl around him like careful listeners.
Tomorrow, he would test their shape.
Tonight, he let them breathe.