Aoi Shizume first learned about Echoes the same way everyone else did: through emergency alerts on his phone and teachers who suddenly didn't know what to say anymore. One year ago the world had been normal. Then the sky cracked—not everywhere, just in specific places, as if reality itself had been pushed past its limit. Light split where clouds did not exist and doors opened where walls should have been. Scientists called them dimensional convergence points, but everyone else called them Drifts. Through those Drifts came Reverbs, beings born from the collision of two realms: the Main Verse, where humans lived, and the Opposite Verse, a place governed by inverted laws and unstable matter. The Reverbs didn't invade or conquer. They simply existed wrong, bending gravity, sound, and space around them. Not long after the Drifts appeared, people began awakening Echoes. Some glowed, some burned, some shattered the ground beneath their feet. No one knew why it was happening now, only that it had never happened before the realms touched. Governments panicked, organizations formed overnight, and schools quietly began testing students. Aoi was seventeen when his Echo manifested, and everyone agreed it was Sadness. It made sense on paper. His power dulled motion, weighed space down, slowed impacts. Objects fell heavier near him, training dummies sank into the floor by small but measurable amounts. It wasn't flashy, but it was stable, and in a world that had only just started panicking, stable was good. Aoi himself didn't think much about it. He didn't feel especially sad. He just felt flat. His adopted father Haru told him that was normal, that the world had changed too fast and people needed time to catch up. Haru worked for Aegis Resonance, a powerful organization tasked with monitoring Drifts, evacuating civilians, and eliminating Reverbs. He came home tired but smiling and always asked Aoi if he had eaten. By the eighteenth day of Echo school, Aoi understood exactly how far behind he was. He attended every class, passed every written exam, and failed every practical test. Teachers spoke about emotional alignment and Echo growth while he sat silently by the window, notebook empty, pressure settling in his chest. When asked to manifest his Echo on command, something always happened, but never enough. Never the way it was supposed to. Four classmates still spoke to him regularly: Kaito Moriyama, loud and reckless with his Anger Echo; Mina Tsukino, gentle and endlessly patient with her Love Echo; Ryo Kanzaki, a Fear Echo user who noticed too much; and Sora Ichimura, stubborn and unyielding with Resolve. Ryo once told him he was holding back. Aoi didn't deny it. After school, while others trained openly, Aoi trained in secret behind his house. Haru watched him quietly as invisible pressure cracked the ground beneath Aoi's feet. "Don't force it," Haru said. "Echoes grow at their own pace." Aoi nodded but didn't explain that when he stopped forcing it, the weight felt worse. On the day everything went wrong, Haru packed Aoi's lunch like he always did and asked him to walk Ren home. Ren was loud, laughed too much, and smiled like the world was a game she'd already beaten. Which was strange, because her Echo was Anger. It had awakened violently months earlier during a Reverb attack, flames and strength bursting beyond control. Instructors expected her to be volatile, but instead she joked, picked fights she knew she'd lose, and treated combat drills like sports. "People expect me to be angry all the time," she said, walking backward with her hands behind her head, "so I mess with them instead." Aoi watched a sealed Drift shimmer faintly above the city while she talked. "You ever wish you'd gotten a different Echo?" she asked. "Not really," he said. "Liar." "…Maybe a little." She grinned and joked about trading Echoes. He walked her to her building, waited until she went inside, then headed home. The street felt normal. Too normal. When he reached his apartment, the door was open. Haru never left it open. Inside, the smell of ozone and dust filled the air. Furniture was destroyed. The floor was cracked far deeper than his training had ever caused. He found Haru near the kitchen, bleeding and barely breathing. "You're late," Haru said weakly. Before Aoi could speak, heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. A man stepped into view wearing an Aegis Resonance coat with no insignia. His eyes didn't focus correctly, sharp and distant at the same time. "Aoi Shizume," the man said cheerfully. "Sub-Echo probability confirmed." Haru tried to stand and moved in front of Aoi. "He's not ready." "None of them ever are." The man's Madness Echo activated and the room twisted, angles bending, depth misaligning. Aoi felt sick. "Your Sadness Echo is interesting," the man said, "but that's not why we're here." He moved. Gravity surged. The floor collapsed inward. Haru was thrown back violently and didn't get up. Something inside Aoi disengaged—not emotionally, but mechanically, like a switch turning off. The pressure in the room multiplied. The man staggered, laughing. "That's not Sadness." Darkness wrapped around a broken metal rod near Aoi's feet. It felt heavy. Right. The man lunged again, but gravity crushed him mid-step, slamming him into the floor. Aoi struck once. The impact shattered the rod and the ground beneath it. When the pressure lifted, the man didn't move. Sirens wailed outside as Aegis Resonance agents flooded in. Haru was gone by the time medics arrived. Aoi didn't resist as they restrained him. Someone whispered Sub-Echo. Someone else said containment. Someone said Depression. Aoi stared at his hands. He still thought his Echo was Sadness. He didn't know yet that Echoes could lie, that Reverbs were leaks from a broken boundary, or that Aegis Resonance hunted what it couldn't control. He only knew Ren would be angry he hadn't texted back, and that tomorrow the world would demand answers he didn't have.