The cold was the first invader.
It seeped through the pod's transparent canopy, through the thin layer of preservation gel, and into his bones. In the twilight between cryo-sleep and waking, Ryosuke Tanaka dreamed. He dreamed of giants—metal titans locked in a crushing, desperate dance with monsters that rose from the sea. He dreamed of screaming metal, of the taste of ozone and saltwater, of a final, brilliant explosion of light that swallowed everything.
And he dreamed of a face.
Sharp, elegant features framed by snow-white hair that defied gravity. Eyes the color of glacial ice, seeing everything, seeing through everything. A smirk that spoke of effortless superiority. The face was beautiful. It was his face. And yet it wasn't.
Who am I?
The thought fragmented against the ice in his mind.
[Bio-signs stabilizing.]
[Neural re-integration at 47%... 68%... 92%.]
[Cryo-stasis protocol: TERMINATED.]
The voice was not a sound. It was data, etched directly onto his consciousness. Clean, clinical, and utterly alien.
With a hiss of equalizing pressure, the canopy of the medical pod slid open. The cold became a physical assault, raising gooseflesh on skin that hadn't felt air in two centuries. Ryosuke gasped, the breath burning in lungs that had been still for lifetimes. He pushed himself up, muscles trembling with a profound, cellular weakness. The preservation gel sluiced off him, pooling in the pod's basin with a viscous glug.
He was in a white room. Sterile, humming with soft machinery. A single monitor on the wall displayed a rotating emblem: a globe encircled by what looked like a stylized neural network, with various unfamiliar icons orbiting it—a lightsaber, a Marine's justice cap, an Imperial Aquila, a straw hat.
The door slid open with a whisper. A woman in crisp, grey medical scrubs entered, a data-slate in her hand. Her eyes, a warm brown, scanned him professionally before widening a fraction. A quick, almost imperceptible intake of breath. Then, the mask of professionalism slammed back down.
"Awake. Good." Her voice was calm, practiced. "You're the last of Batch 73. How do you feel?"
Ryosuke tried to speak. His throat was raw. "Where…" he croaked.
"Shallow Bay Memorial Cryo-Facility. Terra Prime. Formerly… well, you'd know it as Earth." She approached, a handheld scanner buzzing as she passed it over his body. "The Multiversal Shift caused… irregularities. Temporal, spatial, biological. You've been under for two hundred years."
Two hundred years. The words meant nothing. They were numbers without context. He looked at his hands. Long-fingered, pale. They looked strong. They didn't feel like his.
"My face," he said, the words coming easier now. His voice was different too. Smoother. Deeper. It held a melodic, almost lazy confidence he didn't feel.
The nurse hesitated. "Physical alteration is a common side-effect of prolonged stasis during the Shift's resonance period. Some call it 'Reality's Rebranding.' You drew… a particularly striking lot." She couldn't help another glance at his features, a faint blush coloring her cheeks before she looked back at her slate. "It's more than cosmetic. Initial scans show your neural pathways have been fundamentally rewritten. You're not the man who went into that pod, Ryosuke Tanaka. Not entirely."
A mirror. He needed a mirror.
As if reading his mind, she tapped her slate. A section of the wall shimmered and became reflective.
Ryosuke stared.
The man in the mirror stared back with eyes of piercing, crystalline blue. Hair white as fresh snow, spiking up artfully. A face of impossible symmetry and beauty, carrying an expression of bored, innate superiority. It was a face meant for idols and angels. It was the face from his dream.
Gojo Satoru.
The name surfaced from some deep, buried stratum of memory. A character. Fiction. Not real.
I am real. This is real.
A wave of vertigo hit him. He gripped the edge of the pod, his knuckles white. The narcissistic part of his new psyche purred at the image. The rest of him recoiled in a silent scream.
[Host consciousness stabilized.]
[Godly Mecha System fully integrated.]
[Initial diagnostic running…]
The blue text scrolled in the periphery of his vision, transparent yet undeniable. It wasn't on the wall. It was in his head.
Host: Ryosuke Tanaka
Synchronization Baseline: 0%
Mech Affinity: Unbound
Abilities: Scanning…
"What is that?" he muttered, pressing the heel of his palm to his temple.
"What is what?" the nurse asked, concerned.
"The… text. The system."
Her concern turned to something else—a mix of awe and wariness. "You have a System Manifestation. High-tier awakenings often come with them. It's an internal quantifier, helps you understand your capabilities. Most are simple—power rankings, skill lists. Yours seems… vocal." She made another note. "They usually align with your awakened abilities. What does it say?"
Before he could answer, the System text flickered.
[Abilities Detected: Cursed Energy Manipulation - Limitless Technique.]
[Sub-ability: Six Eyes - Activated.]
[Sub-ability: Reverse Cursed Technique - Available.]
[Sub-ability: Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void - Locked. Prerequisite: 40% Synchronization with compatible Mech.]
[Assessment: Reality-Altering Capability. Tier: Primordial-Adaptive.]
Cursed Energy? Limitless? The terms resonated with a knowledge he shouldn't possess. He felt something stirring within him—a vast, humming power, like a reactor coming online deep in his soul. The air around his skin seemed to thicken, to warp slightly.
The nurse took a step back, her scanner chirping frantically. "Your bio-energy readings are off the scale. And… there's a spatial distortion forming around you."
Ryosuke focused, trying to quell the unfamiliar power. As he did, his vision changed. The world bled into layers of information. He could see the nurse's thermal signature, the flow of electrical currents in the walls, the subtle stress fractures in the polymer of his pod. He could see everything, all at once, with dizzying, infinite clarity.
[Six Eyes: Perception at 100%. Energy cost: minimal.]
He blinked, and the overlay faded, leaving him breathless. "What… what happened to the world?" he asked, his mind reeling. "You said 'Multiversal Shift.'"
The nurse took a steadying breath. "Two hundred years ago, the day the last Breach closed, reality… cracked. Not just here. Everywhere. Worlds that were stories, myths, alternate dimensions—they collided, merged, or just appeared. It was chaos. Wars between gods and spaceships, between wizards and mechs. It almost ended everything."
She handed him the data-slate. On it played news footage—grainy, chaotic. A Jaeger, an old Mark-3, fought side-by-side with men in brightly colored spandex against a creature made of living shadow. Starships dogfighting with dragons over shattered cities.
"Eventually," she continued, "they realized fighting each other was suicide. Bigger threats were coming from the cracks between realities. Star-Eaters. Demonic legions. Reality parasites. So they forged an alliance. The United Federation. We're… barely holding it together. And the only thing that gives us an edge are people like you."
"Like me?"
"Awakened. People who emerged from the Shift or the long stasis with new powers. Abilities that can be paired with technology, especially Jaegers." She looked at him, her gaze intense. "Modern Jaegers don't need two pilots drifting anymore. The neural interface has been refined. A single pilot, if their sync rate is high enough and their abilities are compatible, can wield a mech with devastating precision. They become avatars. You… with a System and those readings… you're a candidate for the Corps. The Pacific Rim Corps needs every gifted pilot it can get."
The Pacific Rim Corps. The name was an anchor in the swirling madness. Something he knew. Something he had, in a past life, given everything to.
[New Objective: Enlist in the Pacific Rim Corps.]
[Secondary Objective: Increase Synchronization Rate.]
[Note: Synchronization is the key to unlocking System functions and Abilities.]
Ryosuke looked from the slate to the mirror. The beautiful, arrogant face looked back, a stranger wearing his skin. But beneath the alien features and the swirling new power, a core remained. A memory of fighting for something bigger than himself. A loyalty to a cause. A stubborn, unwavering will.
He stood up, the medical gown clinging to him. He felt weak, confused, and utterly out of time.
But he also felt the infinite power humming in his veins. He saw the impossible clarity of the world through the Six Eyes. And he saw, in the reflection, the ghost of a smirk touch his perfect lips.
"Where do I sign up?" Ryosuke Tanaka asked, his voice now carrying the first, faint echo of the confidence that would one day shake stars.
Outside the cryo-facility, on a world rebuilt a hundred times over, the sky was no longer just blue. It was streaked with the light of passing starships, the shimmer of energy shields over distant districts, and the faint, ominous glow of rifts leading to other worlds. The dance of the giants had ended. A war for all reality had begun.
And a man with the face of a god and the heart of a soldier had just awakened to join it.