The city was alive, but it was a lie.
From the sixth floor of his university dormitory, Light D. Trail leaned against an open window. Neon veins crawled along the skyline, bathing towers of glass in a restless glow. The drizzle outside blurred the horizon, smearing red and blue lights into watercolor streaks.
Engines purred far below. A siren wailed, its cry echoing between buildings before fading. Somewhere, drunken students laughed too loud, their voices brittle against the silence.
The night smelled of wet concrete and gasoline. The cold wind carried it straight into his lungs, sharp and bitter.
Light's storm-grey eyes reflected the skyline, calm yet unreadable. To his classmates, he was mysterious, handsome, untouchable. To himself, he was… displaced.
"Why does it always feel so foreign?"
That thought had followed him for as long as he remembered.
He had studied here, walked these streets, sat in crowded classrooms. He looked human. He acted human. But some part of him whispered: you don't belong.
His hand lifted to his chest. A teardrop-shaped pendant rested there, cool against his palm. The faint sigils etched into it glimmered in the neon.
His mother's voice echoed—her last words, fragile but firm: "Keep this close, even if you don't know why."
He didn't know why. But tonight, the weight of the pendant pressed heavier than ever.
The city dimmed. The laughter outside ceased.
The world cracked.
Light blinked—and found himself standing on scorched stone.
The battlefield stretched endlessly. Fire roared across the horizon. Ash clung to the air, bitter in his throat. The ground quaked with monstrous steps—creatures too large, too wrong, their eyes glowing red in fractured skulls.
Above, white seams split the heavens. Each crack bled blinding light, each one screaming like a wounded god.
A citadel crumbled, its spires falling like broken teeth.
On its ruined steps, a warrior fought alone. His armor was torn, his cloak in tatters, but his sword blazed like a dying star. Every swing split the air, tearing monsters apart with a sound that was not metal but resonance. Bells tolling across eternity.
Light's chest tightened. That man felt… familiar.
Then he saw her.
Amid the carnage, a girl knelt at a shattered altar. Silver hair poured like moonlight over her shoulders, glowing against the fire. Her eyes—blue tinged with silver—lifted to him. Galaxies burned in their depths.
Her lips parted.
"Light…"
His name, carried through the chaos like a prayer.
Her hand rose. From her wrist, a silver chain of light unfurled, stretching across battlefield and void—straight for him.
He staggered back, pulse hammering. "Who are you?!"
The world trembled.
A voice thundered through the ruined sky, older than mountains, colder than the sea:
"Not of one blood, but of many. Not of one world, but of all. Gather what is scattered. Bind what is sundered. You… are Infinity."
The chain lashed his chest. Burning. Binding. The pendant flared, searing white-hot.
Light screamed—
—and woke.
The night still long. The clock ticked. The neon hummed outside.
But silence pressed too heavily.
Light sat upright, drenched in sweat. The pendant throbbed against his chest.
Thump. Thump.
A heartbeat not his own.
His storm-grey eyes widened. "…What the hell are you?"
The shadows stretched. The air thickened.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
The door rattled under the pounding.
Light froze. Midnight. No one should be here.
Another set of knocks—harder. Desperate.
He rose, silent. His hand brushed the scissors on his desk. His breath slowed, sharpened.
The pendant flared.
The door burst open.
—and a body collapsed into his arms.
Light staggered, catching her before the floor did. Warm blood soaked instantly into his shirt, its metallic scent sharp in the air. She was too light, fragile, but in his arms she felt heavier than any burden he had ever known.
Silver hair spilled across his chest like liquid moonlight, glowing faintly even under the dull dorm light. Her skin was pale, marred by deep, bleeding cuts.
Her eyelids fluttered, and then storm met ocean—blue-silver eyes, dim but radiant, locked onto his storm-grey gaze.
"…I… finally… found you."
Her voice cracked, fragile as glass, yet filled with an unmistakable relief that shook him.
Light's jaw tightened. Calm as always, but beneath that calm, his heartbeat thundered.
"Who are you? What happened to you?"
Her lips trembled. She tried to breathe, choked on blood, and still—she smiled faintly.
He's here… I was right… the Bond led me true.
"Your… blood…" she whispered, "…it's not human."
The words struck him like a blade. And then agony ripped through his chest.
The pendant at his throat exploded in light. A chain of silver erupted, coiling around them both, binding them.
She gasped, clutching at his shirt. Light felt it too—the same wound stabbing through his body. His teeth clenched.
"What—what is this?!"
Her eyes, glazed with pain, softened. Her thoughts bled through her gaze: Don't be afraid… this is fate… we are tied.
Her voice came broken, breathless.
"…Soul… Bond… our fates… tied…"
Her body convulsed weakly. Yet she forced one more whisper, not only with her lips, but with her soul that pressed against his:
"…your warmth… it feels… like home…"
A tear slipped down her cheek, shimmering briefly in the pendant's glow.
Light's breath caught. For the briefest moment, his iron composure cracked. "…Home?"
Her consciousness slipped away. Her body went limp in his arms, yet the Bond still throbbed inside him—her heartbeat overlapping his, her pain echoing his veins.
Light lowered her gently to the floor, his shirt drenched crimson. The pendant still blazed, frantic shadows writhing across the walls like caged beasts.
He stared at her unconscious form, storm-grey eyes darkening with awe, fear, and the instinctive certainty that nothing would ever be the same again.
"…Who the hell are you?"
Outside, the skyline flickered. Above, unseen by all but him, the night sky cracked—splitting wide with a seam of white light.
And so—the awakening began.
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