"Pentakill!" Akira slammed his mouse down hard enough to make his desk shake. The screen flashed victory as his teammates spammed the chat with caps-locked praise.
He leaned back, rubbing his tired eyes. Fourteen hours straight. Again.
Outside his window, neon signs from the internet café across the street pulsed through the thin curtains. His room smelled like instant noodles and energy drinks. He stretched, hearing his spine pop in three places.
"Should probably sleep," he muttered, though his fingers twitched over the keyboard. One more game couldn't hurt.
But his body disagreed. His eyelids dragged down like they were weighted. He barely managed to kick off his shoes before face-planting onto the mattress.
Cold metal pressed against his cheek when he woke up. Akira groaned, rolling onto his back—then froze. The ceiling wasn't his ceiling. Rust-streaked pipes twisted overhead, dripping something that smelled like chemical runoff.
He sat up too fast, head spinning. His hands—small, soft, a kid's hands—gripped the edge of a grimy cot. His hoodie hung loose on his shrunken frame.
The air tasted like oil and mildew. Distant machinery thrummed through the walls. Akira's pulse pounded in his ears. "What the hell?" His voice came out high, unbroken.
He scrambled off the cot—too short now, his feet barely reaching the floor—and nearly tripped over his own oversized clothes. The room was a cramped metal box, littered with broken vials and scorch marks. A single flickering bulb cast jagged shadows. Something wet seeped through his socks.
Akira reached for his phone—gone. His pockets held only lint and a crumpled candy wrapper. He swallowed hard. His throat clicked.
"Okay. Okay." He forced his breathing to slow. His hands clenched. The motion felt familiar—like muscle memory from a dream.
Then his fingers prickled. Heat flared up his arms. Blue light sparked between his knuckles. Akira gasped. The glow twisted, forming the ghostly outline of a dagger—just for a second—before flickering out. His palms stung.
"Shit." He stared at his hands. The air smelled like ozone. His pulse rabbited against his ribs. That wasn't possible. And yet—he flexed his fingers again, reaching for whatever instinct had triggered it. Nothing.
A distant explosion rocked the walls. Dust sifted from the ceiling. Akira staggered, catching himself on the cot. Shouts echoed outside, raw and urgent.
He crept toward the door—rusted metal, dented—and pressed his ear against it. Boots clanged on grating. Someone laughed, high and unhinged.
"Last chance to pay up, chem-pup!"
Akira swallowed. Zaun. The undercity. But no respawn points here. His oversized sleeve snagged on a loose bolt as he fumbled with the door's latch. It groaned open to a narrow alley, choked with greenish vapor.
Neon signs buzzed overhead, spelling out words in a jagged script he shouldn't understand—but did.
Something moved in the mist. A figure—tall, angular—prowled past a broken streetlamp. Their goggles gleamed. Akira ducked back, but his foot kicked an empty vial. It clattered against the grate.
The goggled head snapped toward him.
Akira ran. His too-big hoodie flapped around his knees. The alley twisted, disgorging him onto a gangway overlooking a chasm. Steam geysered from below, scalding his cheeks. Footsteps pounded behind him.
Left—dead end. Right—a market, packed with stalls. He wove through the crowd, dodging a vendor selling glowing snails. Someone cursed as he knocked over a crate. The goggles flickered between bodies, gaining.
His fingers sparked again. This time, he didn't fight it. The heat surged—familiar, terrifying. A hilt materialized in his grip. Light seared his vision.
A blade. Fractured, translucent.
Akira swung blindly. The goggled figure lunged—and recoiled as the spectral weapon passed through their outstretched arm without resistance. Akira stumbled back, shocked at the lack of impact. The blade dispersed into motes of blue light.
The attacker hesitated—then grinned, teeth glinting under the neon haze. "Well aren't you interesting?" Their voice rasped like grinding gears. Akira's stomach dropped. Whatever he'd conjured, it wasn't solid. Not yet.
He bolted again, heart hammering. His thoughts raced—Shirou Emiya started with projections that shattered on contact too. But how? The parallels coiled in his gut like live wires. The alley funneled him toward a corroded maintenance ladder. He jumped, gripping rust-flaked rungs, hauling himself up as metal groaned under his weight.
Below, the goggled figure unsheathed a serrated knife. "Chem-barons pay good for odd little rats," they called, scaling after him with terrifying ease.
Akira's palms burned anew. He willed the sensation outward—not a weapon, but footholds. Blue light crackled beneath his fingers, forming ephemeral platforms on the brickwork.
He leaped sideways onto empty air—and the light held just long enough for him to kick off toward a nearby balcony. His ribs slammed into the railings. He barely clung on as the makeshift steps evaporated behind him.
"Clever trick!" The pursuer's laughter followed him over the rooftops.
Akira rolled onto the balcony, gasping. His vision swam. Each projection left him emptier, like sand draining through his fingers.
Below, market-goers pointed upward. He needed cover. The apartment window was cracked open—inside, shelves of bubbling vials and a chem-cooking setup. Deserted.
He slipped in just as heavy boots landed on the balcony outside.
"Tick-tock, little spark," the voice crooned. Goggles scanned the shadows beyond the window.
Akira pressed against a cabinet, biting his lip bloody to stay quiet. His hands glowed faintly—uncontrollable now. The scent of scorched metal filled the cramped space. A half-formed shield flickered over his forearm before sputtering out.
Outside, the figure tilted their head. "Found you."
The window exploded inward in a storm of glass.
Akira threw up his arms—instinct overriding thought—and the blue light surged in response. Jagged shards ricocheted off a hastily conjured half-shield. The impact sent him skidding backward into the chem-vials.
Acidic liquid splashed across his sleeve, eating through fabric as he frantically shrugged it off. His nostrils burned with the stench of dissolving polyester and something sweetly toxic.
"Stay still," the goggled figure purred, stepping through the wreckage. Their knife scraped against the doorframe, leaving a gleaming scratch in the metal. "You're costing me time."
Akira's pulse roared in his ears. He focused on the tingling in his palms, imagining a weapon—any weapon—solid enough to bite. The light twisted, flickering between shapes: a sword's pommel, a crossguard, before dissolving again.
Sweat dripped into his eyes. He remembered videos—Shirou tracing blades through sheer repetition, through knowing them bone-deep.
But Akira didn't know any weapons. Only pixelated League champions flashing across his screen.
The attacker lunged. Akira dove sideways, crashing into the chem-setup. Glassware shattered. A stray spark ignited leaking fumes—flames erupted between them, searing his eyebrows.
The figure hissed, batting at their singed sleeve. Akira scrambled for the door, but a boot hooked his ankle. He face-planted onto grease-stained floorboards.
"Enough," the voice growled. Cold metal pressed against his throat.
Then—the wall exploded.
Concrete rained down as a massive silhouette loomed in the new gap. Akira coughed through dust, squinting up at a hulking form backlit by flickering streetlights. The knife at his throat vanished as his attacker whirled—only to be caught mid-motion by a fist the size of a cinderblock.
The impact sent them crashing through two more walls. Distant screams erupted from neighboring apartments.
Akira blinked up at the giant—broad as a stormcloud, jaw shadowed with stubble, one eye gleaming gold under the neon haze.
Vander. The name surfaced from some half-remembered Wiki dive. The man who'd carried children out of burning cannery districts. The fist that broke chem-barons in half.
"Kid," Vander rumbled, hauling him up by the scruff like a stray kitten. Akira's toes barely brushed the ground. The scent of cheap soap and gunpowder clung to the man's leather vest. "You got a death wish, or just real bad luck?"
Before Akira could answer, Vander's free hand shot out—plucking a throwing knife from the air inches before it buried itself in Akira's temple.
The goggled assailant staggered from the wreckage of the wall, blood trickling from their nose. Vander didn't even glance at them. He just crushed the blade between his fingers like foil and tossed it aside.
"Run home, Finn," he said, voice scraping low. "Tell your boss Vander's counting his teeth tonight."
The goggled figure—Finn—hesitated, fingers twitching toward another knife. Then they spat a wad of blood onto the floorboards and vanished into the smoke-choked alley.
Vander exhaled through his nose, setting Akira down with surprising gentleness. The floor felt unsteady beneath him.
"You're shaking," Vander observed, thumb brushing the acid-eaten hole in Akira's sleeve. "Let's get that cleaned up before it eats through your skin."
He steered Akira toward the door—past the wrecked chem-lab, past the gaping hole where Finn had been punched through three walls—as casually as someone guiding a guest to the dinner table.