The fire escape groaned under Dren's weight as he hauled himself onto the rooftop, ethereal blade still blazing in his grip. The city sprawled endlessly in every direction—a constellation of neon and glass that stretched to the horizon like some fever dream of civilization. He didn't know its name yet, but its chaotic majesty was undeniable.
The sight should have been overwhelming, but right now his attention was fixed entirely on the creatures descending from above.
The Fell Constructs moved with unnatural coordination, their bone-grafted rotors beating in perfect synchronization. Each was the size of a small car, its metallic shell fused with writhing organic components that pulsed with sickly bioluminescence. Energy gathered at their forward arrays—not the clean power of Vyrn's war-mages, but something corrupt and hungry that made the air itself recoil.
A graceful thud beside him announced the redhead's arrival.
She landed in a perfect crouch, her movement so fluid it seemed choreographed. The ceremonial robes she wore—traditional shrine maiden garb, he realized—clung to her curves as she rose, the white and crimson fabric somehow pristine despite their flight through Tokyo's grimy underbelly. In her hand gleamed an ancient dagger, its curved blade inscribed with symbols that seemed to shift and writhe in the neon light.
"Stay close and try not to die," she said, jade eyes never leaving the circling drones. "I'd rather not explain your corpse to the shrine elders."
The first Construct opened fire.
Corrupted energy lanced downward in a beam of writhing darkness. Dren threw himself sideways, the blast scorching the rooftop where he'd been standing. The concrete didn't just crack—it *writhed*, taking on the texture of diseased flesh before slowly returning to stone.
"Charming," he muttered, then lunged forward as another drone swooped low.
His ethereal blade met the Construct's forward array in a shower of sparks and ichor. The impact sent vibrations up his arms—stronger vibrations than Kenji's pathetic frame should have been able to handle. The Blade Might was working, incrementally but noticeably. Each swing felt slightly more natural, each movement a fraction closer to the warrior he'd once been.
But he was still painfully slow.
The drone's rotors spun with mechanical fury, trying to lift away from his strike. Bone spurs erupted from its hull, forcing Dren to stumble backward or be impaled. His retreat was clumsy, unbalanced—nothing like the fluid combat dance that had made him legendary.
That's when the shrine maiden moved.
She flowed across the rooftop like liquid fire, her dagger tracing precise arcs through the air. But it wasn't the blade that did the damage—it was the gestures that followed. Her free hand moved in complex patterns, and with each motion, barriers of crystalline light materialized around the Construct. Not to trap it, but to redirect its own corrupted energy back into its core systems.
The drone convulsed, its organic components writhing in agony as its own power tore it apart from within. It crashed to the rooftop in a tangle of sparking metal and dissolving flesh.
"Show off," Dren grunted, but there was genuine admiration in his voice.
Two more Constructs descended, firing in unison. The shrine maiden—Aiko, he remembered from somewhere—raised both hands and spoke a single word in a language that predated human civilization. A dome of silver light enveloped them both, the corrupted beams splashing harmlessly against its surface.
"Your turn," she said, breathing hard. "I can't maintain this indefinitely."
Dren stepped forward, ethereal blade shifting in his grip. The weapon felt different now—heavier, more substantial. Not just a sword of light, but something approaching true steel. The change was subtle but unmistakable.
*Crimson Cut.*
The technique came from somewhere deeper than conscious thought. His blade blazed crimson as he swept it in a wide arc, the energy trailing behind it in bloody ribbons. The attack carved through both remaining Constructs simultaneously, bisecting them with surgical precision.
They fell in four pieces, their death-screams echoing across the Tokyo skyline.
**"FELL BEAST PURGED. VALOR GAINED: 15. ADVANCEMENT PROGRESS: SAINT RANK 1 - 25/100."**
But the victory came with a price.
Fire erupted through Dren's chest again, more intense this time. The world tilted sideways, colors bleeding together like watercolors in rain. For a moment he wasn't on a rooftop but standing in Vyrn's ancient forests, watching Aiko—no, not Aiko, someone else with similar eyes—speak words of power that made the very trees bow in reverence.
*"The balance must be maintained,"* she was saying, but her voice was wrong, older, speaking in a dialect he'd never heard but somehow understood. *"The world-weavers watch, always watch, and when the threads grow thin—"*
**"SOUL FLAME CONSUMED: 5%. TOTAL DEPLETION: 10%. CAUTION: MEMORY FRAGMENTATION DETECTED."**
The vision shattered. Dren found himself on his knees, ethereal blade flickering like a dying candle. Aiko was saying something, but her words seemed to come from very far away.
"—listening? Hey!" She snapped her fingers in front of his face. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing," Dren lied, forcing himself back to his feet. His legs felt like water, but he'd be damned if he'd show weakness to a stranger. "Just... adjusting to the local atmosphere."
Those jade eyes studied him with uncomfortable intensity. "That wasn't nothing. You looked like you were seeing ghosts."
*If only she knew.*
The rooftop fell silent except for the distant hum of the city below. Aiko moved closer, her ceremonial dagger vanishing into the folds of her robes with practiced ease. Despite everything—the battle, the strangeness of their meeting, his obvious evasions—she reached out to check his arms for wounds.
Her touch was light, professional, but Dren felt an unexpected warmth spread from the contact. Not romantic, exactly, but something deeper than mere physical sensation. Recognition, perhaps. Or resonance.
"You're bleeding," she said, indicating a shallow cut on his forearm where a bone spur had grazed him.
"I'll live." He pulled back slightly, uncomfortable with the gentleness. Warriors didn't coddle each other. "You fight well for a... what did you call yourself? Shrine maiden?"
"My family has been guardians for seven generations," Aiko replied, producing a small bottle of something that smelled like pine needles and starlight. "We've been dealing with tainted spirits since long before you started stumbling around Tokyo like a lost child."
Dren bristled. "I am not lost."
"No?" She raised an eyebrow, dabbing antiseptic on his cut with perhaps more force than strictly necessary. "Then explain how you've managed to attract every corrupted entity in a fifty-block radius. Half of Tokyo's going to feel that."
Instead of answering, Dren pulled out the obsidian coin. The moment it left his pocket, Aiko's demeanor changed completely. The professional concern vanished, replaced by something that looked almost like fear.
"Where did you get this?" she whispered.
"From the first demon I killed." He held the coin up to the neon light, watching the horned skull sigil pulse with malevolent energy. "It came with instructions. Something about seeking shadows in glass towers."
Aiko's face went pale. "The Mori Financial Building. It has to be." She took a step back, wrapping her arms around herself. "My grandmother told stories about that symbol. It appears when something is trying to... to break through. From somewhere else."
"Break through from where?"
"I don't know." The admission clearly galled her. "The old texts speak of 'world-weavers' and 'threads between realms,' but most of it reads like poetry. Metaphor. I never thought..." She gestured at the dissolving remains of the Constructs. "I never thought it would be literal."
Dren studied her carefully. There was knowledge there, buried beneath generations of half-remembered lore and dismissed legends. Knowledge he needed.
"This glass tower," he said. "You've been there?"
"I've *avoided* it. For good reason." Aiko's jade eyes hardened. "Three shrine maidens have tried to cleanse that place in the last fifty years. None of them came back."
"Then it's exactly where I need to go."
She stared at him as if he'd announced his intention to juggle live grenades. "Are you insane? Did you not hear the part about—"
"I heard." Dren looked down at his still-scrawny arms, disgust curling in his stomach. The fight with the Constructs had proven what he'd suspected: this body was improving, but nowhere near fast enough. He needed to push harder, train more intensively. Six feet, two inches of corded muscle. Emerald eyes that could cut through deception. The proud bearing of a warrior who had never known defeat.
He would reclaim it all.
"I'm going," he said simply. "With or without you."
"You'll die."
"Probably." He shrugged. "But I'll take as many of them with me as possible."
Aiko was quiet for a long moment, studying his face in the neon glow. Finally, she sighed—a sound that somehow managed to convey both exasperation and resignation.
"You're completely mad," she said.
"So I've been told."
"And suicidal."
"Frequently."
"And you have absolutely no idea what you're dealing with."
"That's never stopped me before."
Despite herself, Aiko's lips quirked in what might have been the beginning of a smile. "You know, there's something almost refreshing about such pure, concentrated stupidity."
Dren felt his own mouth curve upward. "I prefer to think of it as focused determination."
"Is that what you call it?" She shook her head, but the motion sent her fiery red hair cascading over her shoulders in a way that caught the neon light and held it. For a moment, Dren found himself genuinely distracted by the sight.
She noticed his gaze and raised an eyebrow. "Something interesting, warrior?"
"Just..." He cleared his throat, oddly flustered. "Your hair. It's very... red."
"Astute observation." But there was warmth in her voice now, and her jade eyes had softened slightly. "Most people find it intimidating."
"Most people are idiots."
This time she did smile—a real one, not the professional mask she'd been wearing. It transformed her entire face, making her look younger and somehow more dangerous at the same time.
"Alright," she said. "I'll help you get into the Mori Building. But we do this my way, with proper preparation and backup plans. No more charging blindly into combat."
"Where's the fun in that?"
"The fun is in surviving long enough to see tomorrow." She turned toward the fire escape, then paused. "What should I call you, anyway? Besides 'suicidal fool'?"
Dren hesitated. His true name carried power, history, the weight of a legend that had died with Vyrn. But something about this woman—her strength, her determination, the way she'd fought beside him without question—made him want to offer it freely.
"Dren," he said. "Dren Valisar."
"Aiko Tanaka." She inclined her head in a gesture that was part bow, part challenge. "Try not to get us both killed, Dren Valisar."
As they descended into the maze of Tokyo's streets, Dren found himself stealing glances at his unlikely ally. The shrine maiden moved with a dancer's grace, her fiery hair a banner of defiance against the neon-soaked night. She was beautiful, certainly, but it was her fierce determination that truly caught his attention.
For the first time since awakening in this alien world, he didn't feel entirely alone.
The sensation was... unsettling. And strangely welcome.