The world not just Earth, but the entire layered lattice of existence was defined by an illusion of peace, maintained by beings who were the inevitable concepts themselves. These were the Sovereigns, the rulers of all that was, and all that would be.
Yet, even among the supreme, there was disgust.
From the swirling nexus of entropy that formed her throne, the Sovereign of Calamity and Destruction focused her vast awareness on an insignificant anomaly: a weak fragment of her own conceptual essence, shimmering like a crystalline flaw.
"Tsk.... I never thought I could harbor such a fragile thing. What a shame. Disgusting." The Sovereign's voice was harsh, a vibration of absolute displeasure.
The weak fragment merely emitted a low, mute humming. It was unresponsive, its crystalline structure echoing the perfect, cold indifference of its creator. A cluster of crystals, similar to the fragment, pulsed faintly around the Sovereign.
"Oh? So you've realized you have that kind of weakness."
A new presence manifested in the space a chilling, focused energy. The Sovereign of Prime Apocalypse had arrived.
"Why don't you just throw that weak fragment away? Banish that shame to the lowest plane, where it will never reach us, and be weak along with those lowly beings,"
Apocalypse suggested, the counsel carrying a mocking edge of practicality.
"You speak as though it's simple." Calamity's voice tightened with annoyance, causing her surrounding fragments to visibly tremble. "To create even a piece requires a substantial drain of destruction-based power. And you know why that is, that damn Sovereign of Time."
Apocalypse replied, a mocking tone sharp in the conceptual air. "Ah, the Sovereign of Time. Her influence on the middle and lowest layers is higher than ours. If you cause a sudden, massive destruction, Time will reverse it. Causality will be rewritten, and your destruction will be undone."
"That tone... are you challenging me?"
Consumed by mounting fury, the Sovereign of Calamity ceased all restraint. She ripped the weak fragment from its mooring and hurled it, without ceremony or care, toward the lowest dimensional plane. Then, with an explosive surge of conceptual energy, she lunged toward the Prime Apocalypse.
The fragment fell.
It passed through the high and descended into the low. The crystal structure began to melt and distort, like glass weeping under immense pressure. As it breached the final dimensional barrier, the form liquefied into a pulse of brilliant red light, falling toward Earth.
The Landing
A jarring thud.
A boy, woke up on a school rooftop. He looked around in confused, scarlet-eyed bewilderment. His mind was an absolute blank; there was nothing to process, no past to reference.
"Huh!?"
He raised a pale hand, then looked up at the vast, alien sky.
"Where am I...?"
A minute of silence passed—the vast, empty vacuum in his mind battling the noise of the city. He managed to sit up, his messy white hair falling over his scarlet eyes. His gaze landed on a cracked, discarded piece of hand mirror lying near the parapet.
He slowly reached for it.
"...Is this... my face?"
He touched the smooth, pale skin of his cheek. The surprise was absolute. When he was the fragment, he was nothing but crystalline geometry. Now, he was flesh and bone. As he lowered the mirror, his gaze caught a name stitched faintly on the collar of his black coat: KYUKI.
"Kyuki? Is that my name?" The sound of the unfamiliar word felt foreign on his tongue.
The metal door to the rooftop burst open with a jarring thud.
"Ehh... Who are you? Why are you trespassing on school property?"
A girl stood silhouetted in the doorway, clad in a rumpled school uniform with a too-short skirt. Her face was already etched with severe annoyance. Her nametag read: Yukime Maji.
"State your identity. Now. Or else, I'm going to report this," she demanded, pulling a pen and a small notebook from her pocket uniform.
"H-huh? Who do you mean?" Kyuki stammered, his scarlet eyes wide with genuine confusion.
"I said—state your identity! That's it!" Yukime looked ready to snap. It was clearly already her worst day, and Kyuki was the tipping point.
"...Uh, like what?"
A small brown bird swooped low over the rooftop. Everything fell silent save for the roar of Shibuya far below.
Yukime let out a tight, high-pitched giggle that was devoid of joy. "Ehe... Ehehehehehe... hehehehehehe."
She was trembling, the rage finally overriding her sanity. She moved forward, her shoulders hunched.
"Is there something wron—"
Kyuki didn't finish the sentence. Yukime lunged.
"Today is my bad day! And you just added fuel to my stress! How about I give you a nice hit!"
Just as she closed the distance, the brown bird from before looped back. A tiny, disgusting plop landed square on Yukime's pink hair.
"Eh..."
Yukime froze mid-lunge. She slowly raised a hand, touching the spot. Her whole body began to vibrate violently.
"..."
A tremor passed through the concrete under Kyuki's hand. He felt a sudden, sharp, white-hot pressure in the back of his mind. The information overload from his 'landing' was spiking.
"Argh!" He cried out, instinctively flexing his fingers where they rested on the metal railing beside the sink.
In that moment, the raw, uncontrolled power of the Calamity Fragment found its first outlet.
The section of the metal railing Kyuki touched instantaneously corroded. It didn't rust, it simply decayed from pure structure into fine, metallic dust that slipped through his fingers.
Yukime, thankfully distracted by her own mounting disaster, didn't see the silent, localized act of destruction.
"KYAHHH NOOOOOOOOO!!" she shrieked, bolting toward the nearby outdoor sink.
Kyuki, fighting the receding mental spike, got to his feet. Despite the internal chaos, his newborn sense of kindness took over. He spied a forgotten brush.
"Let me help you," he said, taking the brush and walking toward the hysterical girl.
"Is there something else I can get?"
"Get a soap! Quick!" Yukime demanded, desperately trying to rinse the mess.
The word "soap" triggered a cascade of complex, foreign information in Kyuki's blank mind: personal hygiene, cleansing agent, surfactants, market placement. The 3rd dimensional data was flooding in.
"Alright, just wait here."
He recognized the symbol for a toilet and quickly ran inside, retrieving a bottle of liquid soap before returning to the rooftop sink.
"Here, take the soap."
Yukime snatched the bottle, vigorously scrubbing her hair while muttering a stream of annoyed, creative Japanese curses.
"Damn it! Why is today my bad day!"
A few minutes later, Yukime cleaner, but deeply resentful, dragged Kyuki away from the sink and pushed him into a small, dark storeroom near the stairwell.
"Stay here, okay? I don't want any conflict when other students see you. They'll call you a suspicious foreigner, even though you look local."
She glanced at his scarlet eyes, her expression shifting slightly. "Just stay here until the evening."
She didn't wait for a reply, slamming the door shut and leaving Kyuki alone in the suffocating dark.
Few hours later.
The small storeroom was stiflingly dark, smelling of dust and ancient gym equipment. Kyuki had spent the last few hours sitting on an upturned crate, processing the massive, disorganized dump of 3rd dimensional information that had flooded his mind. He knew about traffic laws, the price of ramen, and the concept of a bank account, yet he had no concept of himself.
The door was violently pulled open.
"Kyuki!"
Kyuki flinched, turning around sharply to face the sudden light and the furious silhouette of Yukime.
"What is your actual name? I need to know about you, Kyuki. You're suspicious. I don't care how you ended up on the rooftops, but just tell me your name already!"
Kyuki stood, his scarlet eyes blinking.
"My name is Kyuki."
Yukime pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a heavy, dramatic sigh.
"Oh, God. Be serious. 'Kyuki'? Isn't that the brand name on your coat? Just tell me your real name already!" She muttered under her breath, "Baka..."
"Yes, my name is Kyuki—" He stopped dead. The information about the coat, the brand, the name—it was all just data. He had no internal confirmation. "Wait..."
The confusion in his eyes was genuine. "I... I don't know. I really don't know who I am. When I woke up, I was already on the rooftop."
Yukime regarded him with a slow, lazy skepticism that was somehow more annoying than her rage. "What? Are you being serious or not?"
".....I truly don't know." Kyuki met her eyes, the vast, empty sincerity in his scarlet gaze causing a different kind of flinch in Yukime.
"What are you looking at—are you looking at my chest!?" She immediately covered her chest defensively with her arms.
"E-eh!? No! I am not staring at your chest! I would never be so rude!" Kyuki protested, a flush of panic rising in his neck. This was the first time anyone had "slandered" him, and the injustice was deeply upsetting.
"Hmph! Fine. Whatever," she dismissed, adjusting her coat. "Do you have parents? Or any place to stay now that you're off the rooftop?"
A silent, heavy moment passed between them. The full, cold realization of his total abandonment finally sank into Kyuki. He was utterly alone.
"No... I don't have parents. I don't have a home." His expression became visibly crestfallen.
Yukime watched the genuine descent of his mood, the kind of pure, honest despair she only saw in movies. She sighed, her anger draining out, replaced by reluctant pity.
"Is that so," she said, her tone suddenly flat. "Then... I guess you can stay at my home."
Kyuki's despondent expression brightened immediately, transforming into one of radiant gratitude. "Really? Thank you!"
He took a quick step toward her, intending to offer a grateful hug, but Yukime sidestepped him with the practiced efficiency of someone avoiding a slow-moving truck.
"Hold it right there, weirdo. It's not charity. First, you help me with my work at home. Second, you respect my parents and siblings. Got it?"
She then gave him a sharp, warning look. "Stay here until I confirm the coast is clear. No one sees your weird face and coat until we're off school grounds."
Yukime Maji slammed the door again, leaving Kyuki blinking alone in the darkness, a single word echoing in his empty mind: Home.
CHAPTER 1 END.