The air in the fourth-floor classroom of Tokyo Metropolitan High was thick with the scent of cheap coffee and suppressed anxiety.
Outside, the rain was relentless, washing the grey cityscape into a monochrome blur.
For Kyle, a nineteen year old—and inhabiting the margins of this world, the rain was perfect.
It matched his mood—indifferent, heavy, and easily ignored.
He sat at the back, his head down, meticulously sketching a complex geometric pattern onto the margin of a textbook he wasn't reading.
Another day. Another rotation. He felt less like a student and more like a ghost temporarily occupying a chair, an invisible presence in a world that refused to look up.
"Hey, loner."
The voice was Kenji Sato, predictably loud, predictably hostile.
Kyle didn't flinch, didn't even lift his gaze from the intersecting arcs and hidden symmetries in his sketch.
Kenji Sato, current small-minded irritant. His entire life is a well-paved road leading straight to the cubicle. He believes this is the ultimate truth of existence.
Kyle internally cataloged the data point, feeling neither anger nor fear, just an overwhelming sense of annoyance.
"–I'm talking to you, Kyle." Kenji's voice was closer now, a grating, low-frequency hum. He kicked the leg of Kyle's desk. "You didn't turn in the group project again. Professor Tanaka said your grade is going to sink lower than your social standing, if that's even possible."
Kyle finally lifted his eyes, meeting Kenji's expectant sneer.
He didn't offer a defense or an apology. He didn't even speak.
He simply looked at Kenji—not at the aggressive posture or the tight uniform, but through him, focusing on the emptiness behind the bluster.
The surface reality is so shallow. They spend all their time navigating the currents of school hierarchy and social performance, never realizing the ocean floor is about to crack open.
Kenji bristled, frustrated by the lack of reaction. "What are you looking at, huh? Got something to say, Freak?"
A quiet, almost hesitant voice drifted from the next aisle.
It was Haruka Mori, the kindest person in their class, though even her kindness was laced with caution when dealing with Kyle.
"Kenji, leave him alone. The bell's about to ring."
Kenji scoffed, giving Kyle one last disgusted glance. "Whatever. Just stay out of the way, invisible." He stalked off, his footsteps heavy and definitive, sounding like the final word on the matter.
Kyle let out a breath. Invisible. That is precisely the point.
He knew, deep in the marrow of his bones, that the world they occupied—the mundane, predictable Tokyo of textbooks and train delays—was a meticulously constructed lie.
THE UNEXPECTED ANCIENT BOOK
The journey back to his small, rented apartment was a blur of neon and concrete.
Kyle lived alone, a situation that suited his need for absolute quiet; and uninterrupted study—though what he studied was usually astronomical data, not physics homework.
He locked the door behind him and shed his damp blazer, dropping it onto the floor.
The apartment was immaculate, silent.
He walked straight to his small, battered desk, covered with stacks of books on obscure mythology, theoretical physics.
That's when he saw it.
Resting exactly in the center of the desk, where moments before there had been only bare wood, was a book.
It was ancient, bound in what looked like dark, fibrous leather that absorbed light rather than reflecting it.
No title was visible on the spine, only a single, metallic clasp shaped like a stylized, three-pronged star.
"I didn't leave this here."
Kyle's heart rate spiked—the first real, physiological reaction he'd had all day.
He had been gone barely thirty minutes.
His window was locked. His door was locked. He lived on the fourth floor.
He reached out, his fingers tracing the cold, smooth leather. It felt like living stone.
The book was impossibly heavy, carrying the weight of far more than ordinary book.
Carefully, he lifted the tome. The title, embossed deep into the cover in a script he had never seen, yet somehow familiar, as he read the title: THE ZENITH SAGA
Kyle opened the book to the first page. The parchment inside was thin, almost transparent, and faintly glowing residual golden dust.
THE UNEXPECTED REVELATION
The first lines of text were a dense, complex calligraphy, flowing and impossibly detailed.
He had no formal training in this script, yet every glyph was immediately understandable, bypassing his eyes and resonating directly with his mind.
But it was the signature at the bottom of the page that caused the blood to drain from his face, leaving a cold, hollow shock in its wake.
The name, etched beneath a symbol of a rising sun, was KYLE.
And the handwriting—the precise, angular slope of the letters.
The unique way the pen pressed and faded on the downstroke—was undeniably his own.
"No way... It's my handwriting…. But this is impossible. This script… this language… its like it carries the weight of millennia."
Kyle lowered himself into his chair, when the book's immense knowledge suddenly begins its flooding through his consciousness like a solar flare.
The first torrent of information wasn't intellectual; it was sensory.
He felt the cold, vast expanse of space as he absorbed all the knowledge.
THE HIDDEN SECRETS
The Norse myths, the myth of the Greek gods, the ascetics of Chinese Xianxia are somehow exists.
Fragmented by historical records from three primary worlds: Norchadia, Olymphia, and Xianzhou.
The book also detailed the immense, physics-defying technologies of three other worlds.
The hyper-dimensional mechanics of Cygnus VII, the bio-symbiotic reality of Aetheria, and the raw power of mass-energy conversion wielded by the Null Point V.
The very fabric of Kyle's perceived reality—the quiet monotony of his student life—was dissolved.
The simple, hidden truth he had sensed was revealed to be magnitudes greater, staggeringly complex, and horrifyingly imminent.
THE REVELATION OF RAGNAROK
A specific passage began to pulse on the page, the ink momentarily blazing silver:
"The Catastrophic Event, the cyclical Ragnarok, is not a prophecy. It is a reality triggered by the convergence of the Six Stars. It is near."
"The failure of the first Seeker must not be repeated. He was betrayed, his knowledge scattered, his life extinguished before the final tether could be secured."
Kyle's fingers trembled against the pages, the text flowing faster with each read when suddenly, his future-self's voice echoing in his head with desperation and clarity.
"I taught you everything I knew, through this book, through the echoes of the future woven into your very being.
"Kyle, you are the last node. You are the Seeker. And the one who took my life is already among them, waiting for you to begin your journey."
The book detailed the Seeker's role: to re-balance the shattered cosmic architecture and avert total oblivion.
The most disturbing sentence of all appeared: a stark, final instruction from his future self, Kai, and to his current self.