Chapter 1
The last thing Haruto Sakamori saw of Japan was blood on the crosswalk.
Neon lights from downtown Tokyo flickered in the rain, reflecting off shattered glass and pooling crimson beneath his trembling fingers. The pedestrian signal blinked green. People screamed. Tires shrieked. Somewhere in the chaos, his phone buzzed with a message he would never read.
Haruto had always believed death would be quiet.
It wasn't.
The blade had been cold. The hand that held it steady. A robbery gone wrong—or maybe fate had simply grown bored of him. As his body collapsed onto the soaked asphalt, the towering skyline blurred into streaks of light. His heartbeat became a distant drum. Sirens wailed like mourning spirits.
So this is it…
His vision tunneled.
The world went black.
---
Wind.
Warmth.
The scent of flowers.
Haruto's eyes snapped open.
He wasn't in Tokyo.
He lay on a cliff of white stone veined with shimmering crystal, overlooking an endless valley painted in impossible color. Emerald forests rippled like oceans beneath a golden sun. Rivers glowed faintly silver as they wound between hills. In the far distance, a colossal waterfall spilled from floating islands suspended in the sky itself.
Floating. Islands.
Above him hung not one moon—but two. Pale and enormous, even in daylight, hovering like silent witnesses.
Haruto bolted upright, heart hammering.
"I'm… alive?"
His clothes were gone, replaced by a long black coat stitched with silver thread that pulsed faintly, as if breathing. His body felt different—stronger, lighter. The air thrummed against his skin, alive with something electric.
Magic.
He didn't know how he knew that word fit—but it did.
A soft groan interrupted his spiraling thoughts.
He turned.
Beside him, lying in a bed of luminous white lilies, was a girl.
She looked no older than him—perhaps nineteen or twenty. Long hair the color of moonlight cascaded around her like silk. Her skin seemed almost translucent beneath the sun, faintly glowing. She wore a flowing dress of pale blue trimmed in gold, and delicate markings shimmered along her collarbone like living constellations.
As if sensing his gaze, her eyes fluttered open.
They were not any color he had seen before—silver, but deep, like a star-filled sky.
For a moment, they simply stared at one another, two strangers beneath twin moons.
Then she whispered, voice trembling:
"You shouldn't be here."
A chill ran down his spine.
"Where… is here?" Haruto asked, his voice hoarse.
Instead of answering, she slowly sat up. The ground beneath her fingers sparkled, reacting to her touch. The wind picked up, swirling around them in a spiral.
"This is the Sanctum of Descent," she said. "No mortal survives the crossing."
Haruto's stomach dropped.
"Crossing?"
Her gaze sharpened—fear mixing with something else.
Recognition.
"But… you carry it," she murmured.
"Carry what?"
Before she could answer, the sky darkened.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
The golden sun was swallowed as a shadow tore across the heavens. The twin moons began to bleed—crimson cracks spreading across their surfaces like shattering porcelain.
The floating islands trembled.
From somewhere deep within the valley below, a roar echoed. Ancient. Furious.
The girl's expression drained of color.
"They found you."
"Who found me?!"
She stood in one fluid motion and grabbed his wrist. The moment her skin touched his, power surged through him like lightning through veins of fire. Symbols ignited across his coat, glowing violently.
"You were not meant to awaken yet!" she shouted over the rising wind.
The air split.
A massive eye opened in the sky.
It was larger than a city. Burning gold. Pupil slit like a serpent's. It stared directly at Haruto.
And it smiled.
A voice crashed into his mind.
Bearer of the Severed Fate. Return what was stolen. Or this world will drown in your awakening.
Pain exploded in his skull.
The girl pulled him close, shielding him as fractures split the cliff beneath their feet.
"Listen to me!" she cried, her silver eyes blazing. "If you want to live—if you want answers—you must choose now!"
"Choose what?!"
She pressed her palm against his chest.
And something inside him answered.
A door.
A locked door he had never known existed.
It began to open.
The sky screamed.
The cliff shattered.
And as Haruto and the silver-haired girl plunged into the endless abyss below—
—the eye in the heavens blinked.
And vanished.
To be continued…