The white door had vanished into the ether, leaving Nitsuki standing on the familiar grey concrete of his school's rooftop. The wind was gentle, carrying the scent of floor wax and old books, but the boy's heart was a storm of confusion.
"...If this is a dream," he muttered, his voice barely audible over the breeze, "then how is the sword still in my hand?"
He looked down at the Verse Slayer. The cosmic blade pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light, as if it were breathing. His thumb brushed against a small, crystalline blue button embedded in the hilt.
"A button," he whispered. "What happens if I click it?"
He pressed it. Instantly, a system card flickered into view.
[System Notification]
To store the sword, press this button.
To summon the blade, speak its name aloud: VERSE SLAYER.
The moment he finished reading, the card dissolved into pixels, and the heavy weight of the sword vanished from his grip. Nitsuki stood with empty hands, blinking in the sunlight.
"It's gone..."
He stood there for a long time, caught between relief and terror. Is this my Earth? Did the Apocalypse never happen? He had to be sure. He took a deep breath, his voice trembling as he spoke the command.
"VERSE SLAYER."
FWOOOSH.
The air tore open, and the cosmic blade materialized instantly in his palm, cold and powerful. Nitsuki's eyes widened. It wasn't a dream. The power was real. But as the distant sound of a school bell echoed from below, his expression shifted from awe to caution.
"School is in session," he realized. "But am I back on my Earth... or did I walk into a ghost of it?"
The Specter in the Sunlight
The heavy metal rooftop door groaned open. Nitsuki jumped, his heart leaping into his throat
"Oh shit—"
He slammed the blue button. The sword vanished just as three students stepped out into the open air. Nitsuki stood stiffly, a nervous sweat breaking out on his forehead. "Ah—hey guys," he said, his voice cracking.
No response.
The three boys—Noman, Hitaro, and Fugaku—walked right past him. They didn't glance his way; they didn't even acknowledge he was there. They moved to the edge of the roof, their shadows stretching across the concrete where Nitsuki stood.
"Can they not see me?" Nitsuki frowned, waving a hand in front of Noman's face. Nothing. He was a ghost in his own school.
He turned to leave, wanting to find a way out of this nightmare, but a name caught his ear and froze the blood in his veins.
"...What's the situation with Nitsuki?" Noman asked, leaning against the railing. "Why is it taking so long to bring him?"
Nitsuki spun around, his eyes blown wide. He rushed toward them, standing inches away as Hitaro replied.
"No idea. Hanma is taking way too long."
Fugaku scoffed, checking his watch. "Relax. He'll bring him."
At that exact moment, the rooftop door slammed open again. Hanma appeared, his face twisted in a cruel sneer. He wasn't alone. He was dragging a boy by the hair—a boy with Nitsuki's face, Nitsuki's clothes, and Nitsuki's terrified eyes.
"This kid is so damn annoying!" Hanma shouted, throwing the boy onto the ground. "Won't stop yelling!"
The real Nitsuki felt the world tilt. He stared at the bruised, bleeding version of himself huddled on the floor. "That's—me? What the hell...?"
The Breaking Point
The "other" Nitsuki coughed, blood staining the concrete. Hanma stood over him, laughing.
"Hey—!" the real Nitsuki shouted, lunging forward. "What the hell are you doing?! Stop this!"
His voice vanished into the air. He tried to grab Hanma's arm, but his hand passed through the bully like smoke. He was forced to watch, a helpless observer to his own suffering.
"Why did it take so long?" Noman asked, looking down at the broken boy.
Hanma shrugged. "I told the kid to clean my shoes. He refused, so I played with him a bit."
The injured Nitsuki looked up, his voice weak but defiant. "W-why... are you doing this to me...?"
Fugaku stepped forward, grinding his shoe into the boy's head. "So you've got guts now?"
The real Nitsuki's breathing grew heavy. He watched as Noman grabbed his variant's hair, yanking his head back. "I told you to deliver my proposal to Sami," Noman hissed.
The injured Nitsuki spat blood onto Noman's expensive shoes. "Even in your imagination... that won't happen."
SLAP.
The sound echoed across the roof. "Tch. Still talking back?" Noman turned to the others, his eyes cold. "Throw him off the roof."
The other Nitsuki panicked, his hands scratching at the concrete. "N-no—don't! Please! I'll do anything—just not that! Anything except involving Sami!"
"Doesn't matter," Hanma scoffed.
They dragged the screaming boy toward the edge. The real Nitsuki stood frozen, his mind fracturing. He watched as they hoisted his variant over the railing.
"...No..."
Without a shred of mercy, they let go. A three-story drop. The thud of the body hitting the pavement below was followed by the high-pitched screams of students in the courtyard.
Real Nitsuki stared over the edge, his eyes fixed on the broken form of his "self" below. He wasn't dead, but the agony was written in every line of his twisted body.
Noman turned away, wiping his hands. "Let's leave from the back stairs so no one figures out it was us."
They walked off, laughing quietly. The rooftop fell into a deathly silence.
The real Nitsuki stood alone. His clenched fists were shaking with such violence that his knuckles turned white. The cosmic pulse beneath his skin—the power of Time itself—began to boil.
Something deep inside Nitsuki, something that had been suppressed by years of fear and bullying, finally snapped.
The wind on the rooftop didn't just blow anymore. It began to slow down.
Nitsuki stood in the center of the rooftop, his breath coming in jagged, shallow hitches. The image of his variant lying broken on the pavement below was burned into his retinas.
"...What the hell is all this...?" he whispered, his voice cracking with a mixture of grief and mounting fury. "I don't understand anything. Why did that happen to me? Why was I so weak?"
Before the rage could consume him, a familiar hum filled the air. A white door—identical to the one that brought him here—materialized out of thin air behind him. Nitsuki sensed the shift in the atmosphere immediately. He turned, his eyes narrowing.
"...Another white door?"
He walked closer, his boots clicking against the silent concrete. This time, glowing in a soft, ethereal gold upon the surface of the door, were two words: NEXT MOMENT.
"...So that's how it works," he muttered. This wasn't just a place; it was a journey through the fragments of a life he thought he knew.
Click.
He turned the handle, and once again, the blinding white light swallowed the world. Without hesitation, Nitsuki stepped inside.
The light faded, replaced by the sterile, pungent scent of antiseptic and floor wax. Nitsuki found himself standing in a quiet hospital corridor.
"...A hospital this time?"
Behind him, the door vanished into the wall. He looked down the hall and saw a single cabin door directly in front of him. His eyes drifted to the nameplate fastened to the wood: NITSUKI NARUMI.
His heart skipped a beat. "That's my name."
He walked forward, his hand trembling as he pushed the door open. The room was bathed in soft afternoon sunlight streaming through a large window. On the bed lay another version of himself—pale, unconscious, and hooked up to a series of monitors.
But it was the two people standing beside the bed that made Nitsuki's soul shatter.
"...Mom...?" he gasped. "...Dad...?"
His voice was thick with an emotion he hadn't felt in years. After they had died in his original timeline, he had spent every night wishing for one more moment, one more word. But as he reached out toward them, he remembered the rules of this ghost world.
They didn't see him. They couldn't hear him.
His mother let out a long, heavy sigh—not of grief, but of profound irritation. "I really can't deal with this boy anymore," she said, her voice sharp and cold. "What haven't we given him? And yet he just keeps increasing our expenses!"
She smacked her own forehead in frustration, turning her back on her unconscious son. Nitsuki's father scoffed, crossing his arms as he looked down at the bed with disdain.
"What a weak child we ended up having," the father added, his tone dripping with disappointment.
"I'm so tired of him," his mother muttered. Without another glance at the boy in the bed, she turned and walked out of the cabin. The father followed without a word.
The door clicked shut, leaving the real Nitsuki standing in the middle of the room.
"...What the hell...?" he whispered, his hands shaking with a violence he couldn't control. "How can they talk about me like that? I loved them..."
The pain was worse than any physical wound. The memories of his "loving" parents were being replaced by the cold reality of these variants. Before he could even process the betrayal, another white door appeared silently in the center of the room.
Nitsuki didn't hesitate this time. He wanted to leave. He wanted to run from these truths. He grabbed the handle and yanked it open.
Bright white light poured out once more.
As the light consumed Nitsuki, the scene shifted violently back to the physical world—to the Real Earth.
The roar of heavy military engines replaced the silence of the hospital. A line of armored vehicles tore through the rugged, uneven terrain, kicking up massive clouds of dust. Ahead, the dense, suffocating green of the jungle loomed like a wall.
Inside the lead convoy, the atmosphere was thick with a different kind of tension.
Sami, Takashi, Kento, Xiaolong, Nanami, and Dr. Ishimiya sat in absolute silence. No one joked. No one complained about the heat. They checked their gear, adjusted their stances, and stared out at the approaching treeline.
They were heading toward the Stone. Toward the battlefield. Toward the place where their training would be tested by blood.
Somewhere, in a dimension beyond their reach, Nitsuki was falling through light. But here, the war was about to begin.
The hum of military engines faded, replaced by the heavy, humid silence of the jungle. On three sides of the dense greenery, the military units split with surgical precision. Armored vehicles pivoted, and soldiers moved into cover, sealing every possible exit. The perimeter was set.
Takashi didn't wait for orders. With a single, fluid motion, he hoisted Dr. Ishimiya onto his back. The doctor gripped Takashi's shoulders, his knuckles white. Beside them, Kento and Xiaolong took their stances, the air beginning to vibrate with the sheer pressure of the Phore gathering around them.
High above, a lone silhouette drifted against the clouds. Sami hovered in the sky, her eyes scanning the canopy like a hawk. Her voice crackled through the comms, sharp and devoid of its usual hesitation.
"Takashi, be careful. I'm detecting three to four Soul Reapers directly in your path—Third Grade."
Xiaolong answered immediately, his voice cool. "Kento and I will run interference. Takashi, your only job is to get Dr. Ishimiya to the stone. Once the area is secure, the doctor collects the data. Let's move."
From the edge of the treeline, Nanami watched them disappear into the shadows of the ancient trees. "This is our fight to win," he said firmly to his officers. "Come on, boys. You've got this."
Takashi broke into a dead sprint, his footsteps barely making a sound despite the weight he carried.
Xiaolong glanced at Kento. "Carry me. Let's move while floating. My water control combined with your electricity—we can wipe them out from above."
Kento didn't waste words. He grabbed Xiaolong, and with a surge of static, they rose into the air, hovering just above the treetops as they shadowed Takashi from the sky.
Suddenly, a thick, unnatural grey smoke began to coil across the jungle floor, obscuring the path.
"I didn't see where that smoke came from!" Takashi shouted, his eyes darting through the haze. "Kento, did you notice it?!"
"If I didn't see it, who would?" Kento scoffed from above.
From their elevated vantage point, they saw the source: a Reaper lurking in the brush to Takashi's front-right. Xiaolong reacted instantly. He condensed the moisture in the air into several massive spheres of water. Kento leaned in, channeling a massive voltage into the liquid.
The spheres crackled with a violent, violet light. Xiaolong hurled them downward. The Soul Reaper barely had time to look up before the water slammed into it with the force of a tidal wave. An instant later, the embedded electricity detonated.
The creature didn't even scream; it was vaporized into ash.
"One down," Kento clicked his tongue. "Two more."
Dr. Ishimiya, clinging to Takashi's back, stared at the scorched earth. "...Their combat coordination is brutal," he whispered in awe.
A second Third-Grade Soul Reaper lunged from behind a massive fern, its claws bared. Takashi didn't skip a beat. He leaped forward, using the momentum of his run to unleash a massive, roundhouse kick. The impact was like a sledgehammer hitting glass; the creature's torso shattered mid-air, its remains scattered across the forest floor.
"Damn... Takashi's grown a lot," Xiaolong whistled from the sky.
"Seeing that up close..." Dr. Ishimiya muttered, his face pale. "I really thought I was going to die from the shockwave alone."
They pressed deeper, the air growing colder as they approached the center of the jungle. The Stone was close—they could feel its pulse.
Suddenly, a third Reaper emerged, its throat glowing as it prepared to spit a fireball. Takashi acted before the creature could even release its smoke. He swung his heavy staff upward, a precise strike that caught the creature under the jaw and launched it thirty feet into the air.
Xiaolong was ready. He shaped ten razor-sharp water arrows and fired them with the velocity of sniper rounds. They pierced the Reaper's hide, ripping holes straight through its core. Even as it fell, the creature tried to hiss, its hand glowing with fire.
Kento ended it.
With a flick of his wrist, hair-thin electric wires shot from his fingers. They sang through the air, slicing through the Reaper's limbs and torso, tearing it apart before it hit the ground.
Xiaolong grinned, watching the pieces fall. "Whoa. That was smooth."
"Of course it was," Kento smirked back, descending toward the clearing. "That was me."
With the path cleared, Takashi skidded to a halt in front of the massive, glowing Stone. Kento and Xiaolong landed beside him, their Phore still humming.
They had reached the heart of the jungle. Now, the real mission was beginning.