(Act I)
Nothing followed me out of the restaurant.
No monsters.
No shadows.
Just the certainty that I would never see the world the same way again.
The city didn't push me away.
That was the cruel part.
Neon signs still blinked lazily above narrow streets, their colors bleeding into puddles left behind by an earlier rain. Cars hissed over wet asphalt, tires whispering secrets they didn't care to keep. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed—a careless, unguarded sound, like nothing in the world was wrong.
Life moved on.
Leon's words didn't follow me. They stayed behind in Galactors—heavy, unmoving—like gravity embedded directly into my spine.
Executioner. Axis.
What is the reality of life?
Pain and suffering? No. Survival? No.
Then what is it?
Even now… I still didn't know.
Each step forward felt wrong, like the ground itself expected me to stop, to finally collapse under the weight of what I'd lost—to sit down on the pavement and let the truth crush me properly.
I didn't.
Because if I stopped now, I wasn't sure I'd ever move again.
Yuna and I stood in front of my apartment building.
Twenty floors of glass and concrete rose into the night, its clean lines reflecting the city lights like it was proud of how untouched it looked. I'd walked past this entrance thousands of times without ever really seeing it.
Yuna whistled softly.
"This your apartment?" she asked. "What a sophisticated life."
I didn't react.
She smirked sideways. "Yeah. I know. Sophistication doesn't come easy."
Tall glass walls framed the entrance. The small flower garden near the doors—something I'd stepped past every single day—caught my attention for the first time.
Some flowers bloomed brightly, petals wide and confident.
Others had already rotted, brown and curled in on themselves.
Life's the same, I thought. Some grow. Some decay.
My eyes drifted to the corners of the building.
I saw them.
Faint shapes. Thin silhouettes drifting behind unaware neighbors. Echoes clinging to shadows, to stairwells, to the edges of things people never looked at directly.
Ghosts.
I smiled.
I didn't even realize I was doing it until the curve of my lips felt wrong.
That scared me.
A few people glanced at me as they passed.
To them, I probably looked like a crackhead lunatic—standing still, staring at nothing, smiling at empty air.
Yeah, I thought bitterly. That's exactly what they see.
Please… let this be a dream. Let me wake up somehow. Let everything rewind.
My chest tightened until breathing hurt.
I didn't move.
Yuna noticed instantly.
She snapped her fingers once—sharp, loud, grounding.
"Kaien."
I swallowed hard. "…It's not a dream," I said quietly. "I know."
My jaw clenched. "I just hoped it was."
She didn't tease me this time.
"Then face it," she said calmly. "Or it follows you forever."
We stepped inside.
The elevator greeted us with soft instrumental music.
Too gentle. Too normal.
The kind of sound meant to soothe people who believed the world was predictable.
I pressed the 11th floor.
The doors slid shut with a muted hum.
Each passing floor stacked pressure inside my skull—memories, regret, disbelief—layers compressing tighter and tighter.
Ding.
The doors opened.
Yuna raised her hand, stopping me.
"Wait."
She stepped out first.
Her presence changed instantly.
Her posture lowered, center of gravity shifting. Her eyes sharpened, scanning reflections in the glass, the ceiling corners, the seams between doors. She moved in a zigzag pattern down the hallway, silent and efficient, like she'd done this a thousand times.
Professional.
Thirty seconds later, she raised her thumb.
"Come on, boi. All clear."
I stepped out, muttering under my breath, "No… she's the real crackhead."
The hallway smelled wrong.
Burnt metal. Old blood. Ozone.
My door—
Forced entry.
The frame was splintered. Hinges bent inward like something had kicked them repeatedly without concern for noise.
A memory slammed into me.
Steel screaming past my face. Air tearing apart. Pain detonating through my body.
My breath hitched as I stepped inside.
The apartment looked like aftermath.
Not messy.
Wounded.
Furniture overturned violently, not knocked over but thrown. Walls carved with deep blade marks, some shallow, some punched all the way through concrete. The floor cracked where bodies had slammed into it, fractures spidering outward like frozen shockwaves.
The air itself felt bruised.
Like the violence had only stepped outside for a cigarette—and planned to come back.
I moved toward my room without thinking.
My fingers brushed the wall instinctively.
The same place.
Click.
A hidden panel slid open with a whisper of internal mechanisms.
I frowned slightly and tapped it again, harder this time—more out of disbelief than intent.
The panel shifted.
Something unfolded.
A compact device emerged, its surface smooth and black, multiple lens-like apertures adjusting rapidly. I jerked back on instinct.
A thin beam of light swept across my face.
[ SCANNING… ] [ IRIS PATTERN CONFIRMED ] [ IDENTITY VERIFIED ] [ ACCESS GRANTED ]
The voice was calm. Neutral. Inhuman.
The panel tilted outward.
My eyes widened.
The space behind it wasn't a wall.
It was an armory.
Weapons waited inside.
Not displayed.
Stored.
Organized.
Blades of different lengths and designs, some sleek and modern, others archaic, etched with symbols that made my eyes ache if I stared too long. Swords rested in magnetic clamps, their presence heavy even from a distance.
Firearms—compact pistols, long rifles, designs I recognized and many I didn't. Grenades sealed in dense foam. Canisters labeled in languages I didn't know.
Unknown artifacts hummed faintly—some metallic, some organic, some refusing to fit into either category.
My chest tightened painfully.
I couldn't describe it.
Not fully.
It wasn't just shock.
It was the sudden realization that this space had existed beside me my entire life—and I'd never known.
Behind me, something caught my attention.
A box.
Rectangular. Wooden—but not old. Deep red lacquer traced with flowing gold lines that passed like waves, intersecting with thin streaks of white light that pulsed faintly.
It didn't hum.
It waited.
Yuna let out a low whistle.
"Oh. Cool."
She glanced at me. "Your brother didn't half-prepare."
She reached in and lifted a compact pouch from a side rack. Its surface shimmered faintly, refusing to reflect light properly, like reality slid off it.
"Oh," she said. "Nice."
"What's that?" I asked.
She tossed it to me.
"Spacefold Storage Bag," she said. "Arata's gift from another world."
I caught it awkwardly, the fabric light and warm in my hands.
"Keep it. You'll need it."
I stared at the pouch.
I'd watched enough anime to know what this was supposed to be.
"This feels unreal," I muttered. "Like something from anime. Not real life."
I'd just never expected reality to copy fiction this badly.
She smirked. "Reality doesn't care what you believe."
I hesitated—then inserted my hand.
The bag swallowed it.
Completely.
"Oh… oh."
I started loading.
Blades vanished into the pouch. Swords followed. Firearms. Grenades. Artifacts.
The mysterious box slid inside last.
The pouch didn't grow heavier.
Didn't bulge.
"…This is insane," I muttered. "It doesn't weigh anything."
Then clothes—mine and Renya's. Essentials. Documents. A life folded into fabric and sealed away.
Yuna glanced around the ruined apartment.
"Why does your apartment look like a secret agent base?"
I exhaled slowly. "I've been asking myself the same question."
She nodded once.
"Then we check your brother's room."
My throat tightened.
I swallowed.
Somewhere deep inside, I already knew—
Whatever Arata had left behind… This was only the beginning.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 31 — WHAT ARATA LEFT BEHIND ✦