The smell of dampness consumed the walls.
The room was small, silent; a forgotten sanctuary where loneliness seemed to have taken root years ago.
In the darkness, a voice emerged. It came from no specific place, not even from the air itself. It was hoarse, ancient, worn down by centuries of repetition without answer; a voice that sounded more like a memory than a sound.
"Is destiny… inevitable?"
The young man who slept did not hear it with his ears. The question slipped into that buried region of the self where dreams are born… and excuses go to die.
A brutal chill ran down his spine. His eyes flew open, ripped from an abyss that left him no images behind—only the certainty that he had fallen very deep. His body jolted in a violent spasm, a primitive reflex, as if something had tried to claim him from within.
Sweat seeped from his forehead, thick, uncomfortable, foreign. He could not remember the dream. Only the terror it left behind.
Kaizen Ryouma.
That was the name given to him before he had even drawn his first breath.
He let out a short sigh.
"My head really hurts…"
He sat up with solemn slowness, almost ceremonial, as if rising from bed were a heroic act demanding more willpower than he possessed.
His phone vibrated a couple of times: several messages from 'Mom.'
Kaizen ignored them and let the device fall onto the bed, as though he lacked even the strength to pretend interest.
The faint light slipping through the window revealed the dark circles under his eyes:
silent marks of restless nights he preferred to pretend did not exist.
The city lay beneath a perfect silence.
Too perfect.
Clean, orderly… like a corpse made up to look alive.
Kaizen yawned, irritated even by the act of breathing, while his ego—the most faithful companion of all his mornings—began to stir awake.
He collided with a wall on his way to the bathroom; his body still refused to cooperate with life.
"How many people must have lost their sense of purpose?" he murmured. "It scares me to know I'm not the only one fate threw away…"
The mirror returned a reflection he enjoyed more than he cared to admit:
brown hair tinged with red that caught the light shamelessly, an arrogant gaze, a smile that no longer belonged to happiness.
He styled his hair with surgical obsession.
Every strand in place; an unrecognized artist, according to himself.
The digital calendar blinked:
November 1st, 2045
Kaizen let out a laugh so shallow it bounced off the walls without finding a soul to settle in.
Today was not a shower day.
So he simply returned to his room, rummaging through the closet in search of clothes that suited his pathetic existence.
As he crossed the hallway—wide, cold, empty—he walked with the calm of someone who no longer expected much from anything.
A small humanoid robot rested inactive against the wall.
"Rebecca! Make me breakfast as fast as possible," he ordered, with the seriousness of a sovereign.
The robot's eyes lit up.
An old model, but functional; enough to obey, not enough to preserve any dignity.
It nodded and moved toward the kitchen.
Kaizen tried to turn on the television.
Nothing.
He clicked his tongue.
The spasm that had woken him still crawled through his body, like a warning he ignored out of sheer convenience.
He watched the seconds pass on the clock.
Nothing changed… though deep down, he wished it would.
And then it happened.
Rebecca tripped over one of the table legs.
She tried to steady herself, only to hit it again.
Plates fell in a chain reaction.
Cutlery scattered like useless shrapnel.
Glasses shattered into pieces in a brief, crystalline collapse.
A perfect domestic tragedy.
Kaizen observed the disaster with a disappointment so profound it bordered on sophistication.
"Damn it… the world never cooperates with me."
"I'm sorry," Rebecca said, her robotic voice monotone yet strangely gentle.
Kaizen stepped closer and ran a hand over her metallic head, with a gesture so paternal it bordered on the ridiculous.
"It's fine. I think I'll go for a walk…"
He smiled.
It was the only thing he could offer his artificial assistant.
Kaizen grabbed his things and left without fixing anything.
He abandoned the mess behind, as if it belonged not to his life but to that of a stranger.
The sky was clear.
The sun shone arrogantly, gazing upon a humanity that pretended it had learned something from hell.
And Kaizen, without knowing it, was about to face the fate of the greatest idiot of all.
★ ★ ★
The smell of metal still lingered in the air, as if the streets retained the memory of blood that no longer existed.
People walked in fine, impeccable clothing, designed to forget. No one had grown up amid poverty or inequality; society as a whole was a mouse that, after accepting the cage, learned to love its sentence.
They laughed. They spoke of business, artificial happiness, of work, work, and more work.
Kaizen moved among them with his headphones on, letting the music isolate him from a world that pretended perfection. Everything followed its routine; he remained trapped in his own.
A mediocre routine… one he had once believed he could master.
He wanted to be unique, though he did not even know if he was.
As he crossed a small bridge, he saw them.
A group of children played, shouted, invented heroic poses, and celebrated imaginary victories. They played at being masters of a world they did not understand.
"I hope this lasts our whole lives," one of them said, with a clean smile, uncracked.
The others laughed, sharing candy as if it were treasure earned through sweat.
Kaizen felt a sharp sting in his chest.
"Last our whole lives…?" he murmured, with a melancholy he did not try to hide. "I wish those words were true."
He sighed. It was not annoyance; it was something older, something that had grown tired before learning how to hope.
The laughter, the games, simple existence itself… all of it dragged him back to a place he thought buried.
"Stupid nonsense," he said, sketching a smile that fooled not even his own loneliness.
He had always been a prisoner of himself. Perhaps since the day he was born.
The atmosphere felt strange, almost hollow. Everything seemed repaired, patched together, like a life assembled from recycled parts: functional, acceptable, empty.
He sat on a small bench and pulled a few coins from his pocket. Few, fragile, discolored. He had no more, and rent was coming due.
"Is this really still worth it?" he thought, and for the first time the question did not stop at the surface.
He stood up and kept walking.
He reached a forgotten rooftop on an old building, one from before the reconstruction. No one had bothered to tear it down because it no longer got in the way.
From there, the city looked like a board game.
His phone vibrated.
A notification from the NEXUS Channel, the primary global broadcast; the place where humanity fed itself, thrilled itself, felt alive.
They were about to transmit the first Marked War of the month.
A spectacle. A modern circus where monsters with human names fought, while spectators applauded as if atrocity were nothing more than entertainment.
Kaizen watched the presentation of the participants. Their names rang with manufactured epic, with promises of borrowed glory.
He leaned against the railing.
"The Marks of Destiny…" he whispered. "I wish I had been worthy."
He closed his eyes.
At last, he accepted that the world was alien to him.
His hands trembled.
"I'm tired… and this," he murmured, "this is just rest."
He thought of his mother, of that wry smile, of her cooking. He thought of Rebecca and the clumsiness that defined her. He thought of everything he once desired and ended up losing. And of nothing else.
No one needed him. No one would remember him.
He placed one foot on the railing.
Then the other.
The wind struck his face.
There was no fear.
There were no tears.
Only relief.
"I suppose…" he murmured, "this is also a decision."
He leaned forward.
Silence became a god in that moment.
Not even the sky seemed to hear his suffering, and to be honest, he no longer cared if he died there, crushed by the fall or erased by time.
"Well…" said an unfamiliar voice, light and casual. "Are you all right, sir?"
It arrived calmly.
Too calmly.
Kaizen froze.
He slowly turned his head.
A man stood a few steps away: black hair, a heavy presence, a smooth, expressionless white mask that seemed to watch him without eyes.
"Although, now that I think about it…" the man added with irony. "No, you're not. It looks like tragedy follows you with remarkable dedication."
Kaizen lowered one foot from the railing. Then the other.
Not out of hope.
Out of curiosity.
"Who…?" he asked.
"Kaizen Ryouma, right?"
He nodded automatically, lacking the strength to ask how the man knew his name.
"Excellent," the man continued. "Allow me to introduce myself. Umbra-01."
He looked out over the city from the rooftop.
"An interesting place to give up."
Kaizen laughed weakly.
"I'm not giving up," he replied. "I'm finishing something."
Umbra tilted his head slightly.
"That makes it even better."
He placed a hand over his chest with exaggerated flair.
"I'm something of a rebel… a dissenter… a nuisance to the established order. And you," he said, looking at him, "have curiously caught my attention."
Kaizen's eyes were dull. Empty.
Umbra sighed, as if he had expected more.
"How disappointing…" he murmured. "I thought you'd hold on a little longer before breaking."
Kaizen let out a dry laugh.
"I'm nothing but trash," he said. "You're late to realize that."
Umbra shook his head, as if correcting a child.
"Oh, no, no. That part I see quite clearly. You're a walking tragedy, I won't deny it," he replied calmly. "But I also know your kind very well."
He took a step forward.
"People who have very little left to lose… and for that very reason, are useful."
Kaizen closed his eyes for a moment.
"What do you want…?" he asked, exhausted. "I don't think I can do anything."
Umbra let out a short laugh, genuinely amused.
"That's what I like most about you," he said. "You don't even try to lie."
He remained still.
"Look, Kaizen Ryouma. You're broken. You have no money. No reputation. Your family barely exists to you, and the world will never remember you," he listed with cruel calm. "In simple terms… you are nobody."
Kaizen did not answer.
"I, on the other hand," Umbra continued, "wish to rewrite this world in my own way. And for that, I need pieces… people willing to break a little more."
He turned toward him.
"I will offer you the Mark of Destiny."
Kaizen opened his eyes.
"Not as a gift," Umbra clarified.
He leaned forward slightly.
"You are a test. An experiment. A toy, if you prefer. But believe me… that is infinitely better than remaining an idiot on the verge of suicide."
The words pierced him.
Something moved inside Kaizen.
Not hope.
Not faith.
Wounded pride.
Umbra straightened and dropped a card in front of him. The plastic hit the ground with a sharp sound.
"Think about it," he said as he stepped back. "Or jump and end this. Both options fascinate me."
His figure began to dissolve into the mist.
"Oh, and Kaizen…" he added before vanishing. "Don't mistake this for mercy. I don't save anyone."
Silence returned to reign.
Kaizen breathed with difficulty. His eyes, once dull, recovered a faint glimmer.
He picked up the card.
A number.
A nickname.
A pretty name meant to conceal something deeply bizarre.
And for the first time in a long while… the idiot felt that he existed again.
★ ★ ★
He who defies destiny does not write his story… he merely changes the way it will destroy him.
Thank you for walking these pages with me.
You are the spark that allows this story to breathe.