The streets blurred. Vander's hand on his shoulder kept him upright when his knees threatened to buckle. Neon signs smeared into watercolor streaks overhead.
Distantly, Akira registered the ache in his palms—raw from whatever blue fire he'd conjured. The scent of fried dough and engine grease cut through the chemical stench as Vander shouldered open a heavy door. Warm light spilled out.
A girl with pink braids whirled from stirring a pot, wooden spoon dripping broth. "Who's the stray?" she demanded, eyes flicking between Akira's oversized clothes and Vander's soot-streaked face.
"Found him cooking up trouble with Finn's crew," Vander said, nudging Akira toward a battered couch. Springs groaned under his weight.
The girl— Vi, names flickering like untagged subtitles—sniffed. "Smells like he lost."
Vander tossed her a roll of bandages. "Get him patched up. And for god's sake, don't let Ekko near him with any of those 'upgrades.'"
Akira's fingers spasmed. Blue sparks danced across his knuckles for a half-second before fizzling out. The girl's eyes widened.
Vander sighed, rubbing his temples. "Yeah. That's gonna be a problem."
The girl—Vi, Akira's memory supplied—dropped the spoon into the pot with a clatter. She grabbed his wrist, inspecting his palm where the skin was reddened like a fresh burn.
"You some kind of shiny new prototype?" she muttered, thumb pressing into the tender flesh. Akira flinched, but she didn't let go. "Chem-barons pay top dollar for kids who glow."
Vander's hand settled on Vi's shoulder, squeezing just enough to make her scowl.
"Not happening." His voice left no room for argument. "Kid's got no tags, no mods. Just bad timing and worse instincts."
Akira's stomach growled loud enough to cut through the tension. The broth smell—meaty, rich—made his mouth water. Vi snorted, releasing his wrist.
"Great. Another mouth to feed." She stomped back to the stove, muttering about "strays" and "soft-hearted idiots."
Vander tossed Akira a threadbare towel. "Wipe your face. You look like you licked a battery."
The rough fabric stung his cheeks. When he pulled it away, blue smudges stained the cloth. His reflection in a dented kettle showed his irises flickering unnaturally—like a faulty neon sign.
Vi slammed a chipped bowl in front of him, brimming with stew. "Eat. Before you pass out and Vander blames me."
The broth burned his tongue, but Akira didn't care. He gulped it down, chunks of unidentifiable meat catching in his throat.
Across the room, Vander rummaged through a rusted locker, tossing vials onto a stained workbench. One shattered—thick green liquid eating through the wood where it landed.
"You're gonna tell me what that was," Vander said without turning around. The words weren't a question.
"Blue sparks don't just happen in Zaun unless someone paid good coin for hextech scraps—or you're dumb enough to lick a chem-vat."
Vi leaned against the stove, arms crossed. Her gaze kept darting to Akira's hands like they might explode. "He's not augmented," she said, jerking her chin at his unmarked wrists. "No shimmer veins either."
Akira flexed his fingers under the table. The memory of that ghostly dagger sent phantom prickles up his arms.
How can he explain waking up in a world that shouldn't exist with powers from an anime he'd binged last night? Vander would think he'd huffed one too many chem-fumes.
The broth turned to lead in his stomach when Vander pulled out the chair across from him—its protesting creak louder than a judge's gavel. The man's shadow swallowed the flickering lamplight.
"Start talking," he said, flicking a vial cap between his fingers like a coin. It spun with unnatural precision before landing upright on the table. The unspoken threat hung thicker than Zaun's smog.
Vi's stew pot bubbled ominously in the silence. Akira swallowed. "I—" His voice cracked. He tried again, focusing on the chipped bowl.
"I don't know how I got here." Not entirely a lie. The last thing he remembered was his dorm room, the glow of his monitor, Jinx's laugh echoing through his headphones as—
A choked gasp escaped him. Jinx. Powder. The timeline snapped into place with terrifying clarity. That explosion in Piltover hadn't happened yet. The bridge. The—
Vander's calloused palm landed on his shoulder, grounding him as the room tilted. "Breathe, kid." The man's voice cut through the rising panic. "Whatever mess you're in, it's not worth choking on Vi's questionable stew."
Across the room, Vi flipped him off without looking up from scrubbing burnt broth from the pot. "It's edible when you don't let it boil over, old man."
Akira's fingers twitched against the bowl. The blue flicker under his skin had dimmed, but the memory of Finn's serrated knife glinting in neon light left his palms clammy.
He flexed them slowly, testing the strange warmth pooling in his fingertips. Shirou Emiya's tracing required understanding—no, knowing a weapon's structure down to its molecular weight. But this wasn't a game anymore. There were no respawns here.
"You got a name?" Vander's question startled him. The older man was rolling a cigarette now, the paper catching neatly between his fingers despite their size.
"Akira." The name felt too small in the heavy air of the bar. Outside, the distant hum of Zaun's undercity pressed against the walls like a living thing.
Vi snorted. "Fancy topsider name for a gutter rat." She flung the scrubbed pot onto a hook with a clang. "You gonna tell us why Finn was hunting you? Or do I have to guess?"
Before he could answer, the door burst open. A blur of blue braids and scrap-metal armor tumbled in, skidding to a halt. Powder's wide eyes locked onto Akira instantly.
"Whoa. New kid glows?" She darted forward, fingers already poking at his singed sleeves. "Did you explode something? Can I see?"
Vander caught her by the hood before she could climb onto the table. "No experiments." His sigh carried the weight of a man who'd repeated this exact phrase too many times.
Powder pouted, but her gaze remained fixed on Akira's hands. "But Ekko said—"
"Ekko's banned from the basement after last time," Vi interjected, flicking a pea at her sister. It bounced off Powder's forehead, earning an indignant squawk.
Akira watched the exchange with something caught between awe and dread. They were alive. Whole. Unbroken. For now. The thought settled like a stone in his gut.
Finn's hissed threat echoed in his skull—chem-barons paid well for oddities. And whatever flickered under his skin? That was the definition of odd.
Vander's cigarette glowed in the dim light as he exhaled a slow stream of smoke. His golden eye gleamed when he leaned forward.
"Here's how this works, kid. You tell me what you are. I decide if you walk out that door." The unspoken alternative hung in the air like the sharp scent of gunpowder.
Akira's throat went dry. In the stories, Shirou Emiya had years to master projection. He had hours. And one terrible truth: in Zaun, secrets were currency. But so were lies.
He sucked in a breath. "I can make weapons." The admission tasted like rust. "Or... I think I can."
Powder's gasp was loud enough to drown out Vi's muttered "bullshit."
Akira flinched as Powder grabbed his hands, turning them palm-up like she was inspecting some shiny new gadget.
"Show me," she demanded, bouncing on her toes. Her fingers were sticky with something that smelled suspiciously like nitroglycerin.
Vander's chair scraped back. "Stand down, Powder." His voice carried the weight of a vault door slamming shut. The girl huffed but retreated behind Vi, though her wide eyes never left Akira's hands.
The stale air in the room grew thicker. Akira flexed his fingers, trying to summon that strange warmth again. He remembered Shirou's first traced blade—the way it flickered like bad reception. If he could just—
Blue sparks danced across his knuckles for a split second before sputtering out. Sweat dripped down his temple. His palms burned like he'd gripped a live wire.
Vi whistled. "Well, shit."
Vander studied him like a malfunctioning still. "That all you got?"
Akira swallowed. He focused on the memory of Finn's knife—the serrated edge catching neon light, the weight of the hilt—and willed his hands to glow.
This time, the light held for three full seconds before dissolving into smoke. The phantom weight lingered in his grip.
Powder clapped. "Do a grenade next!"
Vi elbowed her. "Idiot, he just made a butter knife."
Vander exhaled sharply, stubbing out his cigarette. "Kid's a walking chem spill." He jerked his chin toward the back corridor. "You stick close. No wandering topside, no flashing that party trick near the fissures.
"And kid, that bowl of broth was not free. You have to earn it." Vander said as he cleaned the table. "Welcome to the last drop."
Vi smirked, cracking her knuckles. "Guess that means you're on dish duty."
Akira stared at the towering stack of greasy plates. His reflection in a puddle of broth showed irises still flickering blue.
Somewhere in the pipes above them, metal groaned like a living thing. The real storm hadn't even begun.