The voice started three days ago.
At first, I thought I was losing my mind. Stress from exams, lack of sleep, too much caffeine—the usual suspects when a seventeen-year-old starts hearing things that aren't there.
But voices in your head don't usually have opinions. And they definitely don't laugh when you're about to die.
Three Days Ago - Friday Night
The shrine had been abandoned for years. Everyone said it was haunted, cursed, pick your superstition. I didn't believe in any of that. I just needed a shortcut home, and the path through the shrine grounds cut fifteen minutes off my walk.
It was raining. Not the romantic, movie-scene kind of rain, but the cold, miserable kind that soaks through your jacket and makes you question every life choice that led you to this moment.
I should've taken the long way.
The artifact was sitting on the shrine steps, gleaming despite the darkness. A small crystalline object, no bigger than my palm, pulsing with a faint purple light. It was beautiful in a way that made my chest tight—like looking at something you know you shouldn't touch but can't look away from.
My hand reached out before my brain could stop it.
The moment my fingers touched the crystal, the world exploded into light and pain.
I remember screaming. I remember feeling like something was being poured into me, filling spaces I didn't know existed. Two presences, vast and ancient and utterly wrong in the way they didn't belong inside a human body.
Then nothing.
I woke up in my bed the next morning with a splitting headache and the vague memory of stumbling home in the rain. The artifact was gone. I told myself it was a dream, a hallucination, too much studying and not enough sleep.
I told myself that right up until the first voice spoke.
Monday - Three Days Later
"Akira, you're going to be late!"
My sister Sayuri's voice drifted up from the kitchen, accompanied by the smell of burnt toast. She meant well, but cooking wasn't her strong suit. Neither was volume control at seven in the morning.
I dragged myself out of bed, every muscle protesting. I hadn't slept well. Nightmares about being torn apart, about light and shadow fighting inside me, about screaming until my voice gave out.
Just stress. Just dreams. Definitely not real.
I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror and froze.
For just a second—less than a second, barely a heartbeat—my eyes flashed different colors. The left eye burned bright blue, almost white. The right eye glowed deep crimson, like fresh blood.
I blinked hard. Normal dark brown eyes stared back at me.
"Get it together, Kurogane," I muttered, splashing cold water on my face. "You're fine. Everything's fine."
"You're really not," a voice said.
I spun around so fast I nearly slipped on the wet tile. The bathroom was empty.
"Hello?" My voice cracked embarrassingly.
Silence.
Great. Now I was talking to myself. This was how it started, wasn't it? First you hear voices, then you start responding to them, then you're that guy on the street corner screaming about the end times.
I finished getting ready in record time, ignoring the prickling feeling on the back of my neck that told me I was being watched.
School was school—boring lectures, too much homework, the usual social dynamics of teenagers pretending they had their lives figured out. I kept my head down, took my notes, and tried very hard not to think about phantom voices or color-changing eyes.
It worked until lunch.
"Yo, Akira!" Kenji dropped into the seat next to me with his usual lack of grace. We'd been friends since middle school, bonded by a shared love of video games and a shared inability to talk to girls. "You look like death warmed over, man. Another all-nighter?"
"Something like that," I said, picking at my bento box without much appetite.
"Dude, you gotta take it easy. The entrance exams aren't for another six months. You're gonna burn out before—"
He kept talking, but I wasn't listening anymore. My attention had locked onto the girl across the courtyard.
I'd never seen her before. Long silver-white hair pulled into a high ponytail, ice-blue eyes that seemed to pierce through everything they looked at. She wore our school uniform, but somehow made it look like armor. There was something sharp about her, something dangerous, like a knife wrapped in silk.
And she was staring directly at me.
"Careful," the voice said—definitely real this time, not my imagination. It was calm, measured, like a teacher giving a warning. "She's not human. Not entirely."
I dropped my chopsticks.
"Akira? Earth to Akira?" Kenji waved a hand in front of my face. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I—" I looked back across the courtyard. The girl was gone. "Did you see that girl? Silver hair?"
Kenji followed my gaze and shrugged. "What girl?"
A chill ran down my spine.
The rest of the school day passed in a blur of paranoia and exhaustion. Every shadow seemed too dark. Every reflection seemed wrong. And that voice—the calm, measured one—stayed silent no matter how many times I tried to mentally call it back.
By the time classes ended, I'd convinced myself I needed to see a doctor. Or a therapist. Possibly both.
I took the long way home, avoiding the shrine. The last thing I needed was another weird experience in that place.
"Akira! Hey, wait up!"
I turned to see Kenji jogging to catch up, along with two other guys from our class—Takeshi and Hiro. They were decent enough, though we weren't close.
"We're gonna grab food at that new ramen place," Kenji said, slightly out of breath. "You in?"
I should've said no. I should've gone straight home, locked my door, and slept for about fourteen hours.
"Sure," I heard myself say instead.
We took the shortcut through the shopping district, laughing about something stupid Takeshi had said in class. It felt normal. It felt good.
That should've been my warning.
The alley appeared out of nowhere—a narrow gap between two buildings I could've sworn wasn't there a moment ago. One second we were on a busy street, the next we were surrounded by brick walls and shadows.
And we weren't alone.
Three men stood blocking the far exit. Something about them was wrong—too still, too pale, eyes that reflected light like an animal's. The temperature dropped ten degrees in an instant.
"Well, well," the one in the middle said, his voice like grinding glass. "Four young souls, ripe for the taking. It's my lucky day."
Takeshi tried to run. He made it three steps before he collapsed, screaming, clutching his head. Dark energy coiled around him like living smoke.
"What the hell—" Hiro didn't finish his sentence. The same energy hit him, and he went down hard.
Kenji grabbed my arm, face pale with terror. "Akira, we need to—"
The middle man appeared in front of us without seeming to move. One moment he was ten feet away, the next he was there, hand reaching for Kenji's throat.
Time slowed down.
I saw Kenji's eyes widen. Saw the man's yellowed teeth split into an impossible grin. Saw my own reflection in those animal eyes—saw myself standing there, frozen, useless.
"Pathetic," a second voice said. This one wasn't calm. This one was cold and sharp and angry. "Are you just going to stand there and watch them die?"
"I—I can't—"
"Then move aside," the second voice growled. "Let me handle this."
Something shifted inside me. Like a gear clicking into place, like a door slamming open.
My right eye burned. The world tinted red.
And I stopped being me.
I was still there—still conscious, still seeing and hearing everything. But I wasn't in control anymore. My body moved without my input, faster than I'd ever moved in my life.
My hand shot out and caught the man's wrist an inch from Kenji's throat. The man's eyes widened in surprise.
"Bad move," my mouth said, but it wasn't my voice. It was deeper, rougher, edged with violence.
I—he—twisted the man's arm at an angle that definitely broke something. The man screamed and stumbled back.
"Akira?" Kenji's voice was small, terrified. "What's happening to you?"
I couldn't answer. I wasn't the one in control.
The other two men rushed forward. My body moved like water, like violence given form. I dodged the first attack, caught the second man's fist, and drove my knee into his stomach hard enough to lift him off the ground.
It was brutal. Efficient. Terrifying.
The calm voice from earlier spoke up: "Kage, you're going too far. We're supposed to protect them, not traumatize them."
"They're alive, aren't they?" the angry voice—Kage—shot back.
"Barely conscious and traumatized is not the victory condition here."
They were arguing. Inside my head. About the best way to handle the situation while my body continued to fight like something out of a martial arts movie.
The middle man—the leader—backed away, fear evident on his pale face. "You—you're a Dual Soul bearer. That's impossible. They were all hunted down—"
"Guess you missed one," my voice—Kage's voice—said with a vicious grin.
Dark energy erupted from my right hand, black-red and crackling with power. The man tried to run. Kage was faster.
I don't remember the next part clearly. There was screaming. There was blood. There was the smell of something burning.
When consciousness fully returned, I was standing in the middle of the alley, breathing hard. Kenji, Takeshi, and Hiro were unconscious but alive, slumped against the wall. The three men were gone—fled or disintegrated, I couldn't tell which.
And my hands were covered in blood.
"Oh god," I whispered. "Oh god, what did I do?"
"You didn't do anything," Kage's voice said, no longer angry. Almost... satisfied. "I did. You're welcome, by the way."
"This is hardly the time for gloating," the calm voice—the first voice—said. "He's in shock. We need to—"
"Who are you?" I said out loud, not caring if anyone heard. "What are you? What did you do to me?"
Silence.
Then, softly, the calm voice spoke: "My name is Hikari. And I'm sorry, Akira, but your normal life is over. It ended the moment you touched that artifact."
"I'm Kage," the angry voice added. "And Hikari's right. You're stuck with us now. Better get used to it."
I looked down at my hands. The blood was real. The unconscious friends were real. The impossible fight was real.
This wasn't stress. Wasn't a dream.
I had two consciousnesses living in my head. Two souls sharing my body.
And I had no idea how to make them leave.
I managed to get my friends to a busy street and call an ambulance before slipping away. They'd be fine—confused and probably traumatized, but physically fine. The paramedics would think it was a mugging gone wrong. No one would believe the truth.
I wasn't sure I believed the truth.
I made it home somehow, my body moving on autopilot. Sayuri was working late, thank god. I couldn't face her like this, couldn't pretend everything was normal when I had blood under my fingernails and voices in my head.
I stood in my bathroom, staring at the mirror. This time, when my eyes changed color, they stayed changed.
Left eye: bright, glowing blue.
Right eye: deep, burning red.
"Don't panic," Hikari's voice said, gentle and infuriatingly calm.
"Don't panic?" I laughed, high-pitched and slightly hysterical. "I have two people living in my head, my eyes are glowing like a goddamn anime character, and I just watched my body beat the hell out of three... what even were they?"
"Demons," Kage supplied helpfully. "Low-level ones. Barely worth the effort, honestly."
"DEMONS. Right. Because that makes this better."
"Breathe, Akira," Hikari instructed. "I know this is overwhelming, but we need you to stay calm. We can explain everything, but not if you're hyperventilating."
I forced myself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
"Okay," I said after a moment. "Okay. Explain. What are you? Why are you in my head? And what the hell is a Dual Soul bearer?"
"Long story," Kage said.
"Not helping," Hikari chided. Then, to me: "You're a Dual Soul bearer now. That artifact you touched? It was a seal, containing two souls. Mine and Kage's. We're... old. Ancient, really. And now we're bound to you, sharing your body."
"Sharing," I repeated numbly.
"Think of it as roommates," Kage said. "Permanent roommates. Who can take control of your body when necessary."
"That's horrifying."
"That's survival," Kage corrected. "Those demons? They'll be back. And they're the least of your problems. There's an organization hunting Dual Soul bearers. They want to collect us, use our power for something big and bad. Hikari's too polite to say it, but we're all in deep shit."
I sat down on the edge of the bathtub before my legs gave out.
"So let me get this straight," I said slowly. "I accidentally unsealed two ancient souls, who are now living in my head and can take over my body. Demons exist. There's a secret organization hunting people like me. And my normal life is over."
"Pretty much," both voices said in unison.
I put my head in my hands.
"This is insane. This is actually insane."
"Welcome to the supernatural world," Kage said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. "Hope you survive the experience."
I looked up at the mirror one more time. Left eye blue. Right eye red. Two souls. One body.
"What happens now?" I whispered.
"Now?" Hikari said gently. "Now you learn to live with us. Learn to use our power. And hopefully, learn to survive what's coming."
The lights in the bathroom flickered once.
Twice.
Then went out completely.
In the darkness, I heard it—a low growl that definitely wasn't Kage. It was coming from outside my window.
"Ah," Hikari said, his calm demeanor cracking just slightly. "That would be them. Faster than I expected."
"What do you mean 'them'?" I demanded, my heart hammering.
"The demons from the alley," Kage said, and for the first time, he sounded almost... excited. "Looks like they brought friends. A lot of friends."
I moved to the window and looked down at the street below.
My blood turned to ice.
They were there. Dozens of them. Pale figures with wrong proportions and glowing eyes, all staring up at my apartment building.
All staring at me.
The one in front—taller than the others, with bone-white skin and eyes like dying stars—smiled. Its mouth split too wide, revealing rows of teeth that definitely didn't belong in a human face.
"Dual Soul bearer," it said, and I could hear it clearly despite being three floors up. "Come out and play."
"Time to learn," Kage said, and I felt my right eye burn brighter. "Lesson one: how not to die."
"I'll guide you," Hikari added, my left eye glowing in response. "But Akira... you need to trust us. Can you do that?"
Could I? Could I trust two ancient souls living in my head, who could control my body, who'd just told me my life was over?
Did I have a choice?
The demons below began to move toward the building.
I took a breath. A deep one.
"Teach me," I said.
And the world exploded into light and shadow