Yuuto Arai was not previously on a plane.
He didn't know his first time would be his last.
Cabin lights flashed overhead with the announcement, loud and unaware of the storms that churned outside. "We'll be landing in Osaka in about—"
BOOM.
The voice was silenced. The fuselage rattled. Screams were heard.
Yuuto leaned his forehead against the window, racing heart. The world outside had lost its mind.
The sky was purple. Not sunset purple—an odd, swirling mass of blue and purple. It beat with a pulse. Lightning flashed between clouds in slow, purposeful streaks, as if time itself were being pulled through molasses.
What the hell is that…?" he breathed.
The girl beside him vanished.
No shout. No sound. One moment she was sitting there, and the next, there was only an empty seat. Yuuto blinked. His stomach plummeted. Row by row, people were vanishing—bags dropping through vacant seats, phones hitting the floor.
Wait. Wait, what—
He tried to get up, but his legs would not work.
The aisle around him bent—bent—like a sheet of metal under heat. Then, the entire plane cracked open with a shriek of tearing reality.
And Yuuto fell from the sky.
He did not drop far. Bitter cold gave way to heat, the deafening rumble of engines to birdsong and the rustle of leaves in trees.
He hit the ground with a jarring whump.
.Ow, he moaned, gazing upwards at the twin moons in the sky. His face was twisted, his hair matted with leaves, and his head was reeling like a top losing its life.
Then he heard it.
A low growl.
He moved his head, and he saw it—a beast, a wolf shape made of bone and darkness, eyes shining pale green. Oh come on," he grumbled. "I just crashed out of an airplane.".
The creature charged—
—and a flash of silver cut across his eyes.
The creature fell, its body neatly divided in half.
Between him and the beast was a woman. Taller than he. Clad in armor. Sword raised, quivering from the blow. Her silver locks streamed as she turned to him with indifferent, impassive eyes.
"Great," she grumbled. "Another idiot who fell out of the sky."