Mio
Mio woke up in the Lawson.
The real one.
Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Refrigerators humming against the far wall. Cold tile beneath her cheek.
For a long moment, she just lay there. Staring at the underside of a snack shelf.
A price tag dangled above her: ¥148 for melon bread.
Then the notifications came.
[INCURSION CLEARED]
[Grade: F]
[LOOT ACQUIRED]
Items have been placed in your System inventory.
She opened her inventory.
[Inventory]
Silver Hair Clip (Damaged)
Chipped Dagger (Rusted)
Shattered Shield Fragment
Torn Leather Strap
Everything they'd carried. The junk they hadn't bothered to sell. Funneled to her because she was the only one still breathing.
The cores—whatever they'd actually earned in there—must have gone to the Bureau. Standard recovery protocol, probably. The valuable stuff never made it to survivors.
Aoi's hair clip. The one she'd worn since middle school. The one that had fallen into the dirt when the vines split her skull.
Vendor trash now.
Mio closed the window.
Another notification. Different color—gold-edged, pulsing faintly.
[ENGINE: OBJECTIVE]
Clear C-Grade Incursion: 0/1
Time Remaining: 17:32:47]
Reward: Rare Lootbox
She stared at it.
The System didn't give quests. The System tracked stats, managed inventories, processed loot. It didn't want things.
But the Engine did.
She dismissed it. The notification minimized to the corner of her vision—still there, still counting down.
Not gone. Waiting.
C-grade. The Engine wanted her to clear a C-grade incursion.
She'd nearly died in an F-grade. Twice.
Her phone buzzed. Bureau app.
NOTICE: Meguro Branch incursion flagged for review. All surviving participants must report to nearest Bureau office within 24 hours. Failure to comply may result in credential suspension.
Twenty-four hours. They weren't waiting for her to file a report at her convenience.
The money—¥150,000, her share of the emergency assignment—was still at the Bureau.
She'd have to check out at a kiosk to collect it. Explain why four delvers went in and one walked out.
Tomorrow's problem.
She checked the time. 4:12 AM.
The incursion had started at 18:47. Over nine hours ago. She'd been dead for some of that. Or close enough.
The memory hit her all at once. Everything.
The cathedral. The vines. The ultimatum.
Three may leave. One must die.
Shiori's ice in her chest. Aoi's dagger at her throat. Rin's boot on her wrist.
We'll take care of Nana.
Her breathing went ragged. Her hands started shaking.
She curled into herself on the cold tile floor, knees to her chest, and she—
She cried.
Ugly, heaving sobs that echoed off the empty shelves and the humming refrigerators.
Snot and spit and sounds she didn't recognize as her own voice.
They left me.
They did the math and they left me to die.
She'd known Aoi since middle school. Before the Integration. Before any of this.
Aoi had been her friend when being her friend meant something other than party composition and damage calculations.
And when it mattered—when it really mattered—she'd looked at Mio and seen a number.
Mio pressed her forehead to the tile and screamed.
The sound bounced off the walls. Empty. Meaningless.
No one heard.
When she was done—when there was nothing left but hiccups and salt—she lay there in the silence.
A shape moved at the edge of her vision.
She flinched—but it was just a cat.
A stray, grey and thin, watching her from between the shelves. Its eyes caught the overhead glare—two yellow coins in the dark.
They stared at each other.
Then it bolted, disappearing through a gap in the entrance that shouldn't have existed.
The incursion was closed. The Lawson was real again. But it had left a crack behind.
The gap sealed behind the cat—tiles knitting together like they'd never been apart. But Mio had seen it. A wound between worlds, still healing.
Mio got up.
Knees first. Hands on the cold tile. Then her feet.
Nana was waiting.
The trains weren't running at 4 AM, so she walked. Meguro to Shibuya. Shibuya to home.
An hour and a half through empty streets, past convenience stores with their lights still on, past drunks in loosened ties weaving toward nowhere.
The city was different at this hour. Empty in a way that felt almost peaceful. Vending machines hummed on corners, and the occasional taxi slid past like a ghost.
A woman sat on a bench outside a closed izakaya, heels in her lap, staring at her phone. She didn't look up as Mio passed.
The sky was starting to lighten when she reached the building. Grey-pink at the edges.
She climbed the stairs to the third floor.
Reached for her keys.
The door swung open before she could use them.
Nana stood there in her pajamas. The ones with the little cats.
Her hair was a mess—tangled, unwashed, like she'd been running her hands through it for hours.
Red eyes. Tear tracks on her cheeks.
"Where—" Her voice cracked. "Where have you been?"
Then she crumbled.
Her legs gave out and she fell forward, small hands grabbing fistfuls of Mio's hoodie, face pressing into her stomach.
The sobs that came out of her weren't words. They were sounds—raw, animal, the kind of crying that hurts to listen to.
Mio caught her. Sank to her knees in the doorway, pulling Nana against her.
"I'm here." Her voice was hoarse. "I'm here. I'm sorry."
"You said evening." Nana was hitting her chest now, weak fists that didn't hurt. "You said evening. I called you. I called you so many times—"
"I know. I'm sorry."
"I thought you were dead." The words were muffled against Mio's chest. "I thought you left. Like Mom and Dad."
The last thread holding Mio together crystallized.
"I'll always come back." She pressed her face into Nana's hair. Strawberry shampoo. The one she'd picked out herself. "I promised."
"You took too long."
"I know."
They sat there in the doorway, the grey morning light brightening around them.
Her sister in her arms, tears soaking through her hoodie.
Eventually, Mio pulled back. "Let's go inside. It's cold."
Nana nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
Then she looked at Mio. Really looked.
Her face went white.
"Onee—" Her voice cracked. "That's blood."
Mio looked down.
Her hoodie was stiff with it. Brown, dried, crusted into the fabric. The hole where Shiori's ice had punched through was ringed with a dark stain covering half her torso.
"I'm okay," she said. "It's not—"
"That's too much." Nana's eyes were wide. "People don't... that's way too much."
"I know."
"You should be dead."