December 24th, 2023 - Tokyo, Japan
Yamamoto Corporation, 47th Floor
11:47 PM
The fluorescent lights hummed their eternal dirge above empty cubicles, casting harsh shadows across scattered papers and cold coffee cups. Most of Tokyo was celebrating Christmas Eve with loved ones, but Akira Yamamoto sat alone at his desk, staring at spreadsheets that blurred together like tears he was too exhausted to shed.
Another all-nighter. Another deadline. Another day closer to...
"Yamamoto-kun." The voice cut through his thoughts like ice.
Akira didn't look up from his computer screen. "Yes, Tanaka-san?"
Section Chief Tanaka approached with the predatory smile of a man who enjoyed watching others suffer. "The quarterly reports need to be completed tonight. The board meeting is at 8 AM sharp."
"Tonight?" Akira's fingers paused over his keyboard. "But it's Christmas Eve—"
"Christmas?" Tanaka laughed, a sound like grinding metal. "Christmas doesn't pay your salary, Yamamoto-kun. The company does. Unless you'd prefer to spend Christmas looking for a new job?"
Akira's shoulders sagged. At twenty-eight, he'd already spent six years climbing the corporate ladder, each rung built from sleepless nights and abandoned dreams. His apartment sat empty most nights. His university friends had stopped inviting him out years ago. Even his parents only saw him during obligatory New Year visits, where they'd comment on how thin he'd gotten, how tired he looked.
"No, sir. I'll have them ready."
"Good man." Tanaka's hand landed on Akira's shoulder like a weight. "Remember, the company values dedication above all else. Sacrifice now, success later."
Sacrifice. The word echoed in Akira's mind as Tanaka's footsteps faded toward the elevator. What had he sacrificed? His health, slowly eroding from stress and caffeine. His relationships, withered from neglect. His dreams of making a difference in the world, buried under endless profit margins and efficiency reports.
Akira rubbed his temples, feeling the familiar throb of another headache building. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Tokyo sparkled with Christmas lights—millions of people sharing warmth and joy while he sat in this fluorescent purgatory, crunching numbers that would be forgotten by next quarter.
His phone buzzed. A text from his mother: "Akira-kun, we're lighting candles at the shrine tonight. Praying for your happiness. Come home when you can. Love, Mama."
Happiness. When had he last felt genuinely happy? Not the brief satisfaction of completing a project or receiving praise from superiors, but real joy—the kind that made you grateful to be alive?
I can't remember.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. Twenty-eight years old, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt truly alive.
Akira looked at his reflection in the darkened computer screen—hollow cheeks, bloodshot eyes, hair prematurely gray at the temples. When had he become this stranger? This ghost haunting his own life?
His fingers moved mechanically across the keyboard, muscle memory guiding him through familiar formulas and calculations. Revenue projections. Cost analysis. Efficiency metrics. Numbers that would determine bonuses for executives who already had more money than they could spend in a lifetime.
Is this all there is? The thought whispered through his mind like a prayer to gods he'd stopped believing in. Work until you die? Is this what it means to be human?
Outside, snow began to fall—the first white Christmas Tokyo had seen in years. Akira watched the flakes drift past his window, each one unique and beautiful and destined to melt the moment it touched the warm earth below.
Like dreams, he thought. Like hope.
His chest began to tighten, a familiar sensation that had been growing stronger over the past months. Stress, the company doctor had said. Anxiety. Perfectly normal for someone in his position. Just take some antacids and get more sleep.
Sleep. Another luxury he couldn't afford.
The tightness spread from his chest to his left arm, a creeping numbness that made his fingers fumble on the keyboard. Akira frowned, rolling his shoulder to work out what he assumed was a muscle cramp.
The spreadsheet swam before his eyes. Numbers dissolved into meaningless symbols, then reformed into something else entirely—not data, but memories.
Age seven, building snowmen with his father while his mother brought them hot cocoa. Age fourteen, staying up all night reading fantasy novels, dreaming of adventures in distant worlds. Age twenty-two, graduation day, full of hope and determination to change the world...
Where had that boy gone? When had hope curdled into resignation?
The pain in his chest intensified, a crushing weight that made each breath a struggle. Akira's vision blurred, and for a moment, he thought he saw something impossible—a vast starfield beyond the office windows, cosmic winds carrying whispers of ancient names and forgotten purposes.
Tenshin... balance... responsibility...
"What?" Akira gasped, his hand clutching his chest. The cosmic vision faded, leaving only fluorescent lights and the bitter taste of regret.
His phone showed 11:58 PM. Two minutes until Christmas. Two minutes until another year of his life passed without meaning, without joy, without the love he'd convinced himself he didn't need.
If I could do it all again, he thought as darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, I'd choose differently. I'd choose to matter. I'd choose to love. I'd choose to live.
The last thing Akira Yamamoto saw was the clock turning to midnight—Christmas morning—as his heart gave out from twenty-eight years of slowly dying inside. His final breath fogged the cold window, and his hand fell from the keyboard with a soft thud that echoed through the empty office like a prayer.
SOMEWHERE BEYOND TIME AND SPACE
Consciousness returned like diving into starlight.
Akira floated in an impossible realm where thoughts became visible and emotions had weight and color. No pain, no exhaustion, no crushing disappointment—just an oceanic peace he'd never experienced while living.
Am I dead?
Not dead, child. Transformed.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, ancient as the first dawn yet intimate as a mother's lullaby. Before Akira appeared a presence so vast and beautiful that his mind could only perceive it as shifting geometries of pure love and infinite possibility.
Who... what are you?
I am the one you forgot, though you served me faithfully in ways you never understood. I am the source from which all things flow and to which all things return. But you may call me Creator, if you need words.
Memory flooded back—not his own memories, but older ones, deeper ones. A cosmic realm where beings of pure thought and purpose maintained the balance between order and chaos. A god named Tenshin who grew weary of divine detachment and chose to experience mortal life. A sacrifice that was also a gift.
I remember, Akira whispered, though he had no voice here. I chose to forget, to truly experience what it meant to be human.
And what did you learn?
The question hung in the cosmic void like a challenge. What had he learned from twenty-eight years of increasingly empty existence?
I learned that power without love is meaningless. I learned that knowledge without compassion is hollow. I learned that immortality without growth is just another form of death.
And what would you choose now, my child, if you could choose again?
Akira felt the weight of infinite possibility before him. He could return to the cosmic realm, reclaim his divine nature, resume his role as Tenshin, God of Balance. He could fade into peaceful nonexistence. Or...
I want to try again. Not as a god who pretends to be human, but as a human who might learn to be divine. I want to love. I want to protect. I want to matter.
Warmth that was also laughter surrounded him. Then you shall have another chance, my beloved son. But know this—you will face trials that will test every lesson you learned in that fluorescent prison. You will love and lose, triumph and fail, and through it all, you must remember: the greatest strength is not the power to control, but the wisdom to guide and the courage to let others choose their own path.
Light began to suffuse the cosmic void, brilliant and welcoming. Akira felt himself dissolving and reforming, consciousness streaming toward a distant star where destiny waited.
Remember, Tenshin-who-was-Akira: the heart that chooses love, even in the face of cosmic indifference, is already divine.
The last thing he heard as awareness faded was something impossible—the sound of a baby's first cry, full of infinite potential and the promise of a story yet to be written.
Asteria Kingdom, Royal Palace
December 25th, Divine Calendar Year 1247
Queen Celestine von Celestialis held her newborn son against her chest, tears of joy streaming down her face as she gazed into eyes that seemed far too knowing for a baby.
"He's beautiful," she whispered to her husband, King Aldrich, who stood beside the bed with an expression of wonder. "Look at his eyes, Aldrich. It's like he's already seen the world."
The king reached out to touch his son's tiny hand, smiling as the baby's fingers curled around his own. "What shall we name him, my love?"
Celestine looked down at the child who had arrived during the winter solstice, when magic ran strongest through the kingdom. Something about his gaze suggested depths she couldn't fathom—ancient wisdom wrapped in new innocence.
"Akira," she said softly. "Akira von Celestialis. It means 'bright' and 'clear'—may he bring light to the darkness."
Outside the palace windows, snow fell gently over the kingdom, and for the first time in years, the aurora borealis danced across the winter sky—a sign, the court astrologers would later claim, that something momentous had been born into the world.
In his cradle, baby Akira von Celestialis—once Akira Yamamoto, once the god Tenshin—slept peacefully, dreaming dreams he wouldn't understand for years to come. Dreams of cosmic responsibility and human love, of choices that would reshape the balance between divine and mortal realms.
The boy who would grow up to change the world had arrived, carrying within his small heart the greatest lesson the universe had to offer: that love, not power, was the force that moved the stars.
And in the depths of his innocent dreams, he smiled.