Bzzt Bzzt
Kenji's phone vibrated against his chest. The young man's eyes fluttered open. Stirring awake, he wiped his eyes. His eyes groggily opened, taking in the soft sunlight of the city.
Groaning. Kenji forced himself up and wiped at his face. His phone dropped to his lap at the sudden shift, now shaking at his thigh. He took it to see what the alarm was for.
7:30 AM.
An alarm set for 7:30 AM.
One he set, but the reason was lost on him.
"Why?" Blinking blearily at the numbers, Kenji tried to recall.
His gaze turned to the hall, and a switch flicked on in his mind. "Oh right... Big Brother's home..."
...
"WAIT. HE'S HOME!"
Kenji forced himself up, nearly stumbling. The bean bag shifted at his sudden absence. The young boy then dashed towards the kitchen, nearly tripping himself in the process.
'Operation Cook Breakfast so I can have an excuse to have Shō stay over is a go!' Kenji excitedly thought to himself.
He bolted toward the kitchen. Pots rattled. A pan clattered dangerously close to the edge of the counter. In his haste, a glass jar wobbled and tipped — but Kenji caught it just in time, breath hitching.
"Not today," he muttered under his breath.
The fridge door swung open. Eggs. Bacon. Spring onions. Ham. Whatever remotely breakfast-like ingredient he could find ended up on the counter. Soon, the kitchen filled with the chaotic symphony of sizzling oil and clanging utensils.
Smoke moved up. The smell of burnt bacon and overcooked ham filtered the air. Somewhere between optimism and disaster, Kenji muttered, "It's fine. Adds flavor."
He nearly set the kitchen on fire three times before finally calling it done.
An hour later, he stood over his masterpiece: two plates of food that were slightly uneven, slightly charred — but made with genuine effort. Kenji set one across the table, then hesitated. Slowly, he slid it closer and moved the chair beside his own.
He sat, leaning forward, trying to look casual as his knee bounced under the table.
With breakfast like this, no overworked big brother could resist.
And so, he waited.
Shō usually left for work at nine, so Kenji figured he had at least thirty minutes to catch him before the day swallowed him whole.
Minutes ticked by. Then, at last, the sound of a door creaking open came from down the hall.
A tall figure emerged — black hair tousled, red eyes dulled with exhaustion, dark circles etched beneath them. His features were sharper than Kenji's, his posture heavy with sleeplessness. He yawned, scratching the back of his head as he shuffled into the light.
"Kenji, hey…" Shō murmured, voice gravelly from just waking. "You're up early."
He stopped by the table. His gaze drifted over the breakfast—the burnt bacon, the blackened eggs, the charred ham. A pause hung in the air, thick with the smell of overcooked ambition.
Then, softly, Shō smiled. "That for us?"
"Yeah!" Kenji said, too quickly, his voice carrying that barely contained excitement.
Shō let out another yawn and sank into the seat beside him.
"When did you learn how to cook?" he asked, picking up a piece of bacon that crumbled in his fingers. "Or — tried to, at least."
Kenji huffed, puffing up like an offended cat. "Come on, this is a masterpiece! Besides, it's still better than all the takeout junk you eat."
"Right, right." Shō smirked faintly, his tone teasing but warm. "I'm sure your bitter, burnt bacon is a fine substitute for gourmet cuisine."
Kenji pouted, but his grin betrayed him.
For a brief, fleeting moment, the apartment felt like home again.
But the moment didn't last.
Just as Shō lifted his fork, his phone buzzed violently against the table. The sharp vibration cut through the quiet morning. He fished it out of his pocket, and for a brief moment, the screen's red glow painted across his tired face.
Whatever he saw made his expression harden. The warmth faded.
"Sorry, Kenji. Something came up."
Before Kenji could reply, Shō was already moving — down the hall, into his room. The sound of drawers opening, fabric shifting, the soft click of a closet door. In less than a minute, he emerged dressed sharply in a black suit, every trace of sleep gone from his features.
He slung a bag over his shoulder, heading for the door. On impulse, he reached for a piece of burnt bacon and smiled faintly.
"I'll just have this for now. Hey, more for you, right?"
Kenji turned, half-smiling, half-hoping. "T-that's true! I guess I'll… have this for myself. Lucky me."
The enthusiasm drained with each word.
The door clicked shut behind Shō, leaving the scent of burnt breakfast and silence in his wake.
Kenji sat there for a long moment, staring at the empty chair beside him. The second plate of food sat untouched, still steaming faintly.
Kenji picked up a strip of bacon and bit into it. The bitterness spread across his tongue, lingering far longer than it should have.
"…I lost my appetite," he muttered, setting the rest down.
Silence filled the apartment — the kind that wasn't peaceful, just empty. The city hummed faintly outside, but inside, all he could hear was the faint buzz of his own phone.
Bzzt. Bzzt.
Kenji groaned, pulling it from his pocket. He didn't even check the screen before answering.
"Who is it?" he asked flatly.
"Guess."
That voice. Smug, insufferable, and far too chipper for this hour.
Kenji sighed, pressing a thumb to his temple. "What do you want from me now, Corswain?"
"Ah! Brilliant deduction, my boy. You got it in one! Unless…" A chuckle followed, sharp and amused. "You just read the caller ID. Oh, wait."
Kenji stared at the wall, expression blank, contemplating how hard he could throw the phone before it broke.
To jab at his illiteracy this early in the morning— yeah, Corswain was feeling especially smug today.
"Stub your toe," Kenji said dryly. "And may your sleeps be forever plagued by warm pillows."
A beat of silence. Then laughter — deep, delighted, and utterly infuriating — spilled from the other end of the line.
"Answer my damned question." Kenji impatiently hissed.
The man on the other end let out one final sigh of amusement.
"Alright, alright — take your bat and head down to the abandoned construction site on Mournis Street."
Kenji rubbed his forehead. "Another anomaly?"
"Bravo, my boy! You should really rename yourself Sherlock Holmes." Corswain's voice crackled with a grin Kenji could hear. "But yes, another anomaly. A big one."
Kenji exhaled, pushing himself to his feet. He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, fingers brushing against the cold metal of his bat. He turned toward the door—
"Oh, and Kenji."
The shift in Corswain's tone made him freeze mid-step. It wasn't playful anymore.
"This is the only time I'll offer this to you, so listen closely."
The air seemed to still. Even through the static, Corswain's voice carried a strange weight.
"This job — this mission — isn't big because of the anomaly. Far from it. The creature itself is nothing special. What's special is what comes after."
Kenji's grip on the phone tightened.
Corswain continued, calm but deliberate. "So I'll give you this choice. You can ignore my request — stay home, go back to sleep, pretend to be a normal boy. But in doing so, you'll doom yourself to that same dull cycle. Leeching off your brother. Choking on your own boredom until the end of your days."
The line went quiet, save for the faint hum of the city in the distance.
Corswain's voice, when it returned, was softer— almost gentle.
"Or you can take the call, Kenji Hakurou. Step outside. Swing that bat. And see what's waiting for you beyond the veil."
Kenji stood there for a long moment, frozen in place.
Both choices were awful — yet between risking his life and rotting away as a leech, only one option felt remotely alive. Still, could he really trust Corswain's words?
"Bastard," Kenji muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Can you at least try to be less cryptic?"
"Nope! Sorry, Ken," Corswain said, voice far too cheerful for the weight of the conversation. "The mystery's part of the charm. But if you do step out that door… well, this'll be the last time we speak for a while."
Kenji hesitated. The sudden silence on the line pressed at him.
His rational side screamed trap. The voice of experience warned him not to trust a self-proclaimed eldritch coffee addict with a flair for melodrama. Every red flag imaginable waved in his head.
And yet—
He sighed. Deeply. Resignedly.
"Damn it," he whispered under his breath.
Kenji reached for the door and turned the handle. A rush of cold morning air met him, washing over his face. The city stretched out below, alive with noise and light, as if waiting.
He stepped through.
The door clicked shut behind him. The duffel bag hung from his shoulder, its weight familiar, the outline of the chain-wrapped bat pressing against his side like a silent reminder of what he'd chosen.
—————
"The gas leak at Mournis Street is currently being contained," the voice from a nearby television reported. "Authorities have deployed emergency crews to the scene, and a safety perimeter has been established around the affected blocks. Residents are advised to avoid the area until further notice."
The winding chatter from the store's TV made Kenji pause mid-step. He blinked, turning slightly toward the sound.
"The authorities, huh…" he muttered. So Mournis Street was locked down. That would complicate things.
He clicked his tongue. "Guess I'll have to get creative."
"The streets are sealed," Kenji muttered. "The rooftops, though… that's another story."
He dropped into an alley, planted his feet, and ran the wall — jumping off brick and concrete until the skyline swallowed him. Roof to roof he moved: low leaps across vents, sliding under ductwork, rolling to absorb each landing. Mournis Street should be just ahead.
He pulled the hood of his white hoodie up, shadowing his face. If authorities were sweeping the boulevards, he couldn't risk being seen. He became a gust — a streak across tar and gravel, too quick for anyone lounging up there to track.
He felt invisible. He shouldn't have been visible at all. He moved with a speed that mocked the human eye.
And yet something watched.
The thump of rotors cut the air above. A dark helicopter hovered on the skyline, rotor wash whipping dust and loose papers from the alleys below. From the open side door a figure crouched in greens and black, a weapon rigged and ready, optics trained on the streets. A scanner pinged softly.
Static crackled through a radio nearby.
"Echo One, report — identify that contact," a clipped voice ordered.
"Echo One observing," came the reply, calm and professional. "Target: unknown. Tracking bearing three-two-zero. Male subject, moving at high velocity."
"Recommend engage?" the first voice asked, terse.
"Negative," Echo One responded after a beat. "Maintain overwatch. No engagement unless commanded. Keep eyes on him."
The scope held its dot on Kenji as he blurred past rooftop edges, a small, indistinct silhouette against the city. The helicopter eased back, guns lowered but optics hungry, waiting for orders.
"Relay orders to Owl Three. Standby and observe," Echo One called out, his tone clipped and precise.
"Affirmative, Echo One. Owl Three copies," came the response through static.
The helicopter adjusted position, maintaining visual lock as Kenji continued his rapid advance.
—————
Eventually, Kenji reached the edge of Mournis Street. Before him stood the abandoned construction site — what was once intended to be a hospital, now nothing more than a skeletal ruin of girders and fractured concrete. The framework reached skyward like the ribs of some dead colossus, stripped bare and lifeless.
Kenji exhaled softly. "So this is it."
Without hesitation, he slid down the side of a nearby building, timing his jump perfectly to clear the outer barricade. His sneakers hit gravel and dust with a dull thud. He rolled to absorb the impact, stood, and swung the duffel bag around. The familiar weight of the bat greeted his hand.
He gave it a few experimental swings, feeling the chain rattle faintly. Then came the flash of pain — sharp, invasive, like a knife thrust into the socket of his eye. He hissed under his breath, his body tensing, but did not falter.
His left eye pulsed violently, threatening to burst, before the world bled into a new spectrum. The red iris shifted to a deep orange glow, and reality tilted. The world reassembled itself in impossible geometries — angles that shouldn't exist, planes that folded into themselves, data and coordinates bleeding into his vision.
———————
[Anomaly Nearby: Proceed With Caution]
[Threat Level: 78%]
[Unknown Anomaly Detected]
———————
Kenji's expression tightened. "Seventy-eight percent? Are you kidding me?"
He exhaled through his nose, irritation threading his tone. "That orange-eyed bastard said I could handle this... figures."
Still, he lifted his bat and pressed forward into the shadows of the unfinished structure. The metallic groan of the skeletal beams above resonated like the breath of something vast and unseen.
Whatever waited for him inside wasn't going to be simple.
His sneakers groaned against the corroded steel, each step ringing hollow through the skeletal frame of the unfinished building. The hum of the city beyond had vanished —swallowed by an oppressive, unnatural quiet. All that remained was the faint echo of his breath and the cold sting of metal in the air.
A copper tang seeped into his lungs. Iron… or blood? Kenji couldn't tell. His pulse quickened, thudding loud enough that it almost filled the silence. The air felt heavier here — thick, charged, watching.
Then came the sound.
A low, sickening groan — not of twisting girders, but of something wet and living. A noise that spoke of organs, not metal. Kenji froze. A drop of warmth touched his shoulder, sliding down his arm. Slowly, he raised his hand to it.
Crimson. Thick, gleaming. Fresh.
His breath caught. His orange eye flared, burning like a dying sun as it scanned the space beyond human sight — beyond sanity.
And there it was.
It didn't move so much as stutter into being, flickering like a broken projection. Its shape bled in and out of reality, shrouded in static, as though the world itself refused to acknowledge its existence. But Kenji's cursed vision forced the impossible into focus — and the world screamed in protest.
———————
[WARNING! WARNING!]
[Anomaly Threat Rating: ???%]
[Anomaly Subjugation: DISENGAGED]
[Advisory Override: RUN. RUN. RUN. RUN. RUN.]
———————
The sound echoed in his head like the beating of war drums. His eye pulsed violently, veins searing with heat as the creature's form twisted — and the silence broke, replaced by the faint hiss of static and the wet sound of something dragging itself closer.
A tendril shot from the dark above. The air screamed as the world fractured.
SLAM!
The impact tore through the site like a bomb. Dust, debris, and twisted steel filled the air —bent, rended, folded under the sheer weight of the blow. Kenji threw himself back, narrowly escaping the crushing strike, but the shockwave still caught him. Shards of metal tore into his arm, biting deep. He hissed through his teeth, blood soaking into the white fabric of his hoodie until it bloomed red.
He looked up. Even through the fractured lens of his orange eye, the thing's form refused to stabilize. The tendril — if it could even be called that — glitched, its outline flickering between spatial dimensions, jagged and wrong. Every second he looked at it sent static crawling up his spine.
Another strike came. He raised his bat just in time, the chain wrapping around the tendril mid-swing with a crack of light. Metal shrieked, energy bled — but as he stepped in to counter—
Everything stopped.
———————
[Error. Error. Error.]
[World Line Compromised]
[Commencing Status Check]
[Reality Anchor: COMPROMISED]
[Temporal Lock: COMPROMISED]
[Existence of Self: COMPROMISED]
[Recommended Action: DAMAGE REDUCTION]
[Applying…]
———————
The world glitched.
For a moment, Kenji's vision shattered into fragments. He was there — and not there. The sound of his heartbeat distorted, echoing like static through a broken speaker.
Then came the pain.
Blood burst from his mouth. His entire body convulsed as a searing force tore through his left shoulder. He staggered, looking down — his orange eye widening in disbelief.
The tendril was inside him.
It had pierced clean through, anchoring him to the ground like a butterfly pinned beneath glass.
But he remembered dodging. He knew he had. He saw himself move, felt the air shift — so how—
His eye flickered, showing him data that made no sense. His coordinates… his body's position… had been overwritten.
He was standing exactly where he would've been hit.
The realization clawed up his spine. The anomaly hadn't just altered space — it had rewritten causality. It decided that he had never dodged at all.
His system resisted, barely holding the seams of his existence together. The blow that should've been fatal was reduced — if only by brute force of will.
Kenji coughed, spitting red, eyes blazing against the collapsing geometry of the world.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
From the shadows, the anomaly stepped into existence.
If it could be called that.
Its presence tore through perception like broken glass — every edge jagged, every motion wrong. It didn't walk so much as skip through points in reality, flickering left and right even as it advanced in a straight line. The air shimmered around it, warping like heat over asphalt, and with each flicker came the shrill hum of something trying to exist where it shouldn't.
Kenji's orange eye strained against the distortion. The shape beneath the static flickered into view — a silhouette, barely human. And yet…
A mouth too wide, a grin far too knowing. Catlike ears twitching in a rhythm that wasn't synced to time. And two hollow pits for eyes, darker than shadow itself — black voids that pulled at the edges of his sanity.
It was smiling at him.
Each step it took sent another wave of distortion crashing through his senses, and in his head—
————————
[Warning! Warning! Warning!]
[Temporal Lock: Failing]
[Reality Anchor: Failing]
————————
He stumbled back, eyes darting to the tendril still impaled through his shoulder, and then to the bat in his hand. The chain glowed faintly —an unnatural, spectral light pulsing through each link.
Corswain's words echoed in his head:
"The chains bind reality. Anything they touch is forced to obey the laws of your world. Nothing more, nothing less."
At the time, he hadn't understood. Corswain had never explained what that meant. He never did.
'Annoying bastard…' Kenji thought, gritting his teeth.
But he didn't need to understand it. He just needed it to work.
The tendril pulsed, trying to drag him deeper into the spatial fracture forming beneath him. The ground twisted like a reflection in water. He screamed, muscles tearing as he forced his arm to move. Blood sprayed, slicking his grip on the bat — but still, he pulled.
The chain unraveled, coiling around the tendril like a serpent of light.
The tendrils shrieked.
The sound wasn't one that could be made by anything with lungs. It was as if the air itself rejected the noise, vibrating violently until it split into a dozen discordant frequencies.
The light from the chain flared. Reality snapped back for a heartbeat — colors solidified, sound warped — and the tendril began to melt under the weight of the world's laws.
Kenji stood there, panting, bat in hand, as the chain burned against the impossible.
"Come on…" he muttered through clenched teeth, "Be real. Just be real, damn it."
But mercy had no place here.
The catlike anomaly tilted its head, that warped, toothy grin stretching ear to ear — as if amused by his plea. Its void-black eyes shimmered with fractured light, reflections of impossible shapes that existed nowhere and everywhere all at once.
Kenji's lungs burned. His vision blurred. The claws dug deeper into his neck, and the tendril that had burrowed into his shoulder spread —black veins of static crawling across his skin, distorting flesh into something unrecognizable.
The boy gasped, his voice breaking. His body convulsed as though rejecting its own form, bones creaking like strained metal.
————————
[Warning. Warning. Warn— Er… E̷͕̺͇͂̒͊r̵̻̹͗͑̀̚o̸͕͔̎̅́̿̓r̴̡̞̎.]
————————
The system's voice fizzled out into nothing — replaced by the dull static of a dying radio. The orange glow in his eye flickered violently, glitching between red and white as if struggling to remain coherent.
He couldn't breathe. His fingers twitched weakly against the creature's arm, his bat slipping from his grasp and clattering uselessly to the ground.
The world around him distorted — colors bled, geometry folded in on itself, and gravity seemed to forget what it was meant to do. The air turned thick, syrupy, wrong.
Kenji's knees buckled. His vision swam. He thought he could see his reflection in the creature's grin — but the reflection wasn't him. It was something else, something smiling back.
Tears welled at the corners of his eyes as his body began to go limp.
'I don't want to die…'
The thought echoed again and again — a desperate whisper swallowed by the static.
Then, faintly, through the ringing void in his head —
A voice.
Not the anomaly's, not his own — but one that resonated deep within the core of his mind, as though speaking from somewhere between dream and memory. A womanly voice, a mother he had lost...
"Then fight for it."
The tendrils twitched. The chains on the fallen bat began to stir, faintly glowing once more.
The chains stirred.
From where the bat had fallen, steel links slithered like serpents, rising and coiling around Kenji's arm. Their glow pulsed with his heartbeat — faint, uneven, but alive. He gripped the handle as though clinging to a lifeline, his body trembling against the pull of the anomaly that sought to unmake him.
The air was thick with static. Reality hiccuped. His existence flickered — there, then not, marred only by the dying embers of his system's insistence that he remain.
And in that moment, Kenji swung.
Steel met the incomprehensible. The bat's chains roared as their light flared — a human concept turned weapon, a paradox forced into form. The impact struck through the anomaly's body like divine punctuation.
Crack!
A sound that didn't belong in this world — like a bone breaking across dimensions. The anomaly staggered, its head twisting backward in an impossible arc. That grin fractured, and from its throat came a screech that couldn't decide what it wanted to be — laughter, agony, or hunger.
Kenji didn't stop. The glowing chains constricted, grounding him in this fragile, man-made reality. His subjective truth clung to him like armor. The world around him bent to his declaration — and the anomaly faltered under its weight.
————————
[Subjective Law: Anomalies are weak to his baseball bat.]
————————
His system obeyed.
The words weren't metaphor — they became law. In this corner of fractured space, Kenji's will rewrote the rules.
Corswain's words echoed in his mind — "The world you enforce is the world that obeys."
And in Kenji's world, no matter how monstrous, how eldritch, how infinite—
Anything could be taken down with a bat.