"What is this?"
Staring at the strange light-screen before her, Amano Hina's irrepressible curiosity sprouted like a seedling breaking through soil and reaching upward.
At the same time, a wordless premonition tugged at her consciousness like an invisible thread. She felt as if she could operate this bizarre screen.
After a brief, almost frozen pause in thought, she reached out with her mind—trembling, chilled through by the rain—and cautiously "touched" the chat group.
In the next instant, before Hina could recover from the cascade of shocks, a semi-transparent, futuristic interface unfurled in her awareness like a scroll. Its design was clean yet arcane, faint streams of data glimmering along the edges. Lines of text were racing upward at dizzying speed—content so fantastical it blew past anything a girl her age could imagine.
Frieren: "@Rei Ao, right—what exactly was that 'world-gate permission' when you traded with Rin?"
Misaka Mikoto: "Oh yeah, that was a thing."
Bibi Dong: "Sounds like a passage that crosses between worlds."
Rei Ao: "Exactly. It's a straightforward world gate."
Rei Ao: "I currently have full control over access to Rin's world."
Rei Ao: "That means I can go back and forth anytime, no time limits."
Rei Ao: "I can also grant temporary or permanent access to other members so you can visit her world."
Tohsaka Rin: "Eh?! So Saeko-nee, Mikoto-nee and the others… could actually come hang out at my place? (surprised-but-excited.jpg)"
Misaka Mikoto: "Seriously?"
Yotsuya Miko: "We can go to a world with magecraft and Heroic Spirits? Amazing! I'm going!!"
Akame: "No trade needed? Does that mean ours can be opened too?"
Hiiragi Shinoa: "I just checked—it's tied to 'special trades.' Just submit one; it's simple."
Kirishima Touka: "Ahem. I can put in a request anytime."
Shiba Miyuki: "Same here."
Miyamizu Mitsuha: "Wow! Other-world travel—I really want to see it!"
[Ding! New member "Amano Hina" has joined the group chat!]
With that system prompt, the torrent of messages briefly paused. Everyone online noticed the newcomer. Then a wave of welcomes flooded in.
Busujima Saeko: "Oh? Another new member? Welcome, Amano Hina."
Misaka Mikoto: "Welcome, newbie."
Miyamizu Mitsuha: "Welcome, Hina-chan! Your name is so pretty!"
Kirishima Touka: "Welcome."
Blizzard of Hell: "Welcome, newcomer!"
…
Hina stood frozen beneath the torii. The rain still lashed her small frame without mercy—but she no longer felt the cold, nor heard the wind or rain. All of her attention was locked on that impossible interface in her mind. Her dark eyes were wide, brimming with confusion, disbelief, and the daze that comes from sheer information overload.
Other worlds? Magecraft? Heroic Spirits?
Each word was a boulder smashing into her once simple, barren view of reality, sending shockwaves through it. It was too much—too strange—too far beyond imagination. Her mind nearly stalled; she couldn't process what she was "seeing."
She was just a normal girl (well, perhaps not entirely normal, given her "sunshine maiden" gift)—working part-time at McDonald's, scraping by, sometimes sneaking up a high-rise to pray for clear skies. How could she suddenly be in a chat group that sounded like it belonged in myth, fantasy novels, or cutting-edge sci-fi?
Her gaze, driven by instinct, locked onto the name everyone kept mentioning—the group owner: Rei Ao.
Was he the one who invited her? Could they all speak directly inside her mind? These people from what sounded like entirely different worlds—so many kinds of people—seemed to trust him, even… rely on him.
A single thought—the only one that felt remotely "reasonable," and it came with awe—split her rain-numbed shock like lightning through storm clouds:
"Could this group owner, Rei Ao… be a god?"
Only a being from legend could do something this impossible, right? The world had all kinds of myths. Hina didn't know if gods truly existed, but she knew she possessed the power to clear rainy skies—the gift people said came from the gods. She was willing to believe.
Staring at the dazzling interface rewriting her worldview in real time, she felt like an ant that had blundered into a divine hall, trespassing into a mythic realm full of limitless possibilities—and unknown dangers. Reverence swelled in her for the unseen god and this mysterious chat group; so did a vast uncertainty about her own situation and future.
Yet, deep within the churn of her thoughts, a faint but irrepressible spark—curiosity, the urge to explore the unknown—quietly caught fire.
The rain kept falling, drumming on every corner of Tokyo, drumming on her soaked body and shaken heart. But Hina knew: from the moment that cold chime rang in her mind, the gray, heavy track of her life had been shunted by an irresistible force onto a different path—one shrouded in fog and strewn with starlight.
Her world had already, quietly, changed.