Ryu's small hands darted over the clunky beige keyboard of his father's home PC, the keys clicking loudly with each press. On the screen, the Yahoo US homepage loaded slowly, the logo flickering as the dial-up connection hissed and squealed. He typed carefully, entering the letters: X-men.
Minutes crawled by. The modem whined and shrieked, sending bursts of static through the speakers, the progress bar inching forward like molasses. Ryu's eyes never left the screen. Finally, the search results appeared: a list of news articles, fan pages, and at the top, the official website of the Xavier Institute.
He clicked the link. Another wait. The spinning cursor hovered endlessly, the page slowly building itself line by line until, at last, it fully appeared.
Ryu scanned the screen. The head of the institute was Charles Xavier. The famous professor and mutant advocate Hank McCoy, along with Jean Grey, were also affiliated with the institute. They even had their own hero team—the X-Men.
He moved through the pages, checking staff lists and profiles of students displayed on the main page, memorizing names and abilities. Then he searched for other groups Dave had known: Brotherhood of Mutants, Magneto, Mystique—all appeared across various articles and pages.
Some names were missing. Hulk, Thor, Iron Man—big figures he knew from Dave's memories—were absent. That made sense. Their time had not yet come; the world had years left before they would emerge.
After hours of searching the internet, Ryu finally confirmed it: this world seemed to be connected to the Marvel universe Dave had read and watched in his past life.
X-Men, the Brotherhood of Mutants, and others—the names, the appearances, the very aura of their stories—couldn't be mere coincidence.
Still, Ryu had little meta-knowledge of what was coming. Dave had been more of an anime and manga fan than a reader of Western superhero comics.
Apart from snippets about the MCU and characters like Thanos, he knew very little beyond the surface. Most of the major events, the intricate connections, the unfolding stories of heroes and villains—that was unknown territory.
Ryu leaned back in the oversized chair, his small form almost swallowed by it. His fingers tapped thoughtfully on the armrest, a gesture that made him look oddly adult while still undeniably cute.
His dark eyes narrowed slightly as he considered his next steps. Calmly, deliberately, he realized he had no clear leads from Dave's memories on what to do now.
'Study first,' he thought, and the decision felt instinctive.
His new biology, awakened alongside his mutant abilities, had enhanced his memory recall and learning capacity. Knowledge from Dave's past life—math, English, basic coding, even IT and programming experience—was already present in his mind.
But much of it was useless for now, as the computers of this era were far too different from the ones Dave had once worked with.
But science… that would be his starting point.
His father, a professor at Chiba University, had accumulated an impressive collection of books: from middle and high school level science to college textbooks spanning physics, chemistry, and biology. If he was going to understand this world, to prepare for what might come, science would be the foundation.
Ryu reached forward and shut down the computer, the quiet click of the power button finalizing the first step of his plan. He slid out of the chair, landing lightly on the floor, and took a deep breath.
With calm resolve, he moved toward the bookshelf, ready to begin.
As he stood before the big bookshelf, the scent of old paper hit his nostrils, sharp and dry, laced with dust that had settled over the years. A strange wave of nostalgia flickered through him, the kind he had felt when he was much younger, flipping through children's books at a library. But he wasn't here to reminisce.
His eyes moved across the rows of thick spines, each marked with fading titles in English and Japanese. Physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy—so many books, and yet he had no idea where to begin. His small hand hovered uncertainly before them.
Then it happened.
A faint spike of chaos brushed against his senses, like a ripple in a still pond. His body stiffened. The sensation sharpened, then twisted—and suddenly it began stabilizing at an alarming rate. His eyes widened, and he instinctively took a step back from the shelves.
The books hadn't moved. They stood as still as ever, heavy and unmoving. Yet, to Ryu's awakened senses, they were no longer quiet.
Everything he had learned in the past few days told him one thing: nothing in this world was ever perfectly stable. Not even air. Every object interacted constantly with countless laws—gravity, motion, wind, pressure, smell, mass.
Even things that appeared still were locked in a constant invisible struggle of imbalance, creating tiny threads of chaos in the atmosphere.
But here, right now, that invisible storm was vanishing. The instability of the world around him was collapsing into perfect order, centering on something in the shelf.
His heartbeat quickened. He hadn't used his ability—he was sure of it. 'So what was happening?'
Ryu, though confused, remained calm as his gaze fixed on the strange glow shimmering along the spine of one of the books. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat—its aura quieter, smoother, carrying far less imbalance than the others crowding the shelves. His brows furrowed. 'What is going on with this book? Who's behind this?'
For a fleeting second, unease coiled in his chest. Could someone have found him already? No—that shouldn't be possible. His ability dulled the noise of his existence, made him nearly undetectable to others. So then… what was this?
Before he could think further, a voice drifted into the room.
"How are you, little Ryu?"
It was a woman's voice, warm yet mature, soothing like a calm river flowing through stone.
Ryu's eyes narrowed instantly. His small hands curled into fists as his heartbeat spiked—but only for a moment. His equilibrium returned swiftly, his pulse easing back to normal as if his body refused to let panic take root. Slowly, he turned his attention back to the glowing book.
"I'm fine," he said evenly, his voice steady despite his age. His eyes didn't leave the book's spine. "What about you? Or… should I say it?"
A gentle laugh followed, soft but echoing faintly in the still air. "Clever boy. But you may refer to me as her."
The glow brightened slightly, spilling golden light across the wood grain of the shelf. The presence in her voice wrapped around him like a cloak—not threatening, not hostile, but undeniably other.
"Then… who are you?" he asked, his tone calm but watchful.
There was a pause, the kind that lingered deliberately, as though she weighed her words.
"This," she finally said, her voice low and melodic, "is your gift for the future."
***
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