Pre-Chapter 2: Rei in the Shadows
The first thing you learn about Eden, Rei thought, is that it looks better when you're not sober enough to care.
From the cathedral spire, the whole city glittered like something holy. Gold light glinting off every tower. White banners catching the wind. Choir drones humming faint prayers through the night air.
It was when you climbed down... down into the alleys, down into the gutters... that you saw what it really was.
And Rei had always liked the view from down here better.
He leaned against a cracked pillar just outside Sector 5's old tram station, hands in his pockets, one boot resting against the wall. The faint light of curfew drones swept past him in lazy arcs, and the faint static hum of city-wide broadcasts murmured above the rooftops.
Below the tower, Eden was cracking.
He'd watched one of the riots flare up not an hour ago.
A dozen men and women screaming in the slums, throwing broken bottles at a checkpoint wall, yelling about their homes being destroyed in the latest Akuma attack. A few soldiers fired warning shots. Nobody died... tonight. But the cracks were spreading.
Faith didn't fill bellies. Faith didn't stop the Akuma getting closer every week.
And Luther wasn't here to hold the line anymore.
Rei flicked his eyes to the side and watched a pair of Zero's soldiers drag a man to his knees in the square across from him. They were shouting something about contraband... black feathers, maybe. Rei couldn't hear over the sound of the wind rattling through the steel scaffolds.
But he watched. He always watched.
He'd learned long ago there was more power in silence than in screaming.
The man's face blurred in the shadows as they struck him. Rei didn't flinch.
He just pulled his coat tighter and walked on.
...
Naomi's grave was quiet.
Nobody ever came here anymore.
It wasn't even technically a grave... just a blackened garden hidden behind the archives, marked by a single, cracked tablet inscribed with her name. The grass here never grew right. Too close to the cathedral's energy lines, maybe. Or maybe it just knew better.
Rei crouched down in front of the stone and let his fingers brush across the carved letters.
Naomi Matsumoto. Oracle.... Saint.
He almost smiled at that last one. Naomi would have hated it.
"Guess I should... yeah" he murmured under his breath. "If you hadn't died, this game would've ended a long time ago."
He tilted his head slightly, listening to the faint hum of divine energy in the air around him. The city's divine grid always buzzed louder near this part of the cathedral.
"You'd hate what we've all become," he said softly. "You'd hate him most of all. But me?"
Rei smirked faintly.
"I think you'd understand."
He stood, shoving his hands back in his pockets, and looked up at the tower.
Zero was probably still in his sanctum. Pretending the weave of foresight was under control. Pretending the cracks weren't already in his plans. Pretending he still knew how to win.
But Rei knew better.
Rei always knew better.
...
Planting misinformation in Zero's ranks was almost laughably easy.
The thing about Zero's soldiers was that they thought loyalty made them smarter. It didn't. It just made them predictable.
Two hours after leaving Naomi's grave, Rei slipped into the west barracks unnoticed.
A few lines of falsified intelligence files here. A few falsified Akuma movement reports there. A subtle suggestion that one of the other Observers was diverting supplies for herself. A handful of cracked divine relay stones planted in the lower racks.
It wasn't much yet. Just enough to make the lie plausible.
And plausible lies were better than perfect ones.
When he finally stepped back out into the cold air of Eden's lower rings, he lit a thin cigarette and let the smoke curl around his lips.
From the corner of his eye, a faint shadow shifted against the far wall.
"I was starting to think you'd never show," Rei said, exhaling slow.
The shadow leaned forward into the faint light of a streetlamp.
Mr. P, as casual and unbothered as ever, sunglasses catching the faint gleam of the runes overhead.
"Kid," he said, his tone wry. "You've got an unsettling little streak of competence."
"I learned from the best," Rei shot back dryly.
Mr. P's crooked grin widened.
"That's the kind of line I like to hear."
He leaned his back against the wall, lighting his own cigarette, and they stood there in silence for a moment... just two ghosts watching the city slowly eat itself.
"You're sure about this?" Mr. P finally asked, his tone quieter now.
Rei didn't look at him.
"Always was," he said.
"You've still got a lot of… questions. You're not scared of what I'll do next?"
Rei finally turned his head, silver eyes catching the faint light.
"I don't care what you do next," he said flatly. "As long as it's not what he wants."
Mr. P chuckled low in his chest.
"See," he murmured. "That's why I like you."
He glanced back toward the tower then, his expression briefly darkening... just enough for Rei to catch it before it was gone again.
"The game goes deeper than even you know, kid," Mr. P said softly.
Rei's smirk curved faintly as he dropped his cigarette and ground it out beneath his boot.
"And you think I'm not ready for that?"
Mr. P blew out a long stream of smoke.
"Oh no," he said wryly. "I think you're exactly ready for it."
They stood there a moment longer, the faint hum of Eden's divine grid buzzing above them like a heartbeat.
Then Mr. P pushed off the wall and straightened his coat.
"Time to let the rest of them catch up," he said.
Rei nodded once.
And as Mr. P slipped back into the shadows, Rei murmured to himself, almost too quiet to hear:
"I'll protect him. Even if it means burning the whole damn city down."
Above them, the bells of Eden tolled once more, hollow and cracked.
And Rei smiled faintly as he melted back into the dark.