A decade ago, angels didn't fall.
They walked away.
No clashes in the sky. No light-wrapped saviors.
Just scientists, engineers, and every person close enough to record the moment the world broke itself open.
One flicker above the Inland Sea.
They call it the Godhand now.
A split in the atmosphere so thin, so quiet, most people didn't even notice.
Until the dreams changed.
Until the aura began leaking into waking hours.
Until the monsters came.
They emerged first as pulses. Breathless absences in the air.
Then as reflections.
Then as something worse.
Now they are called Devils.
Entities sculpted from psychic weight and primal memory.
Each one a trauma wrapped in muscle and myth.
Wherever they appear—a Gate lingers after.
The places where logos stop breathing and Zones begin.
In the news, they show Hunters smiling under dome lights.
Broadcasts hum with Compact funding reels:
Auratech towers powering cities.
Streets lined with rune-sensors.
Neon Wardens in gray-and-black coats standing with perfect posture.
But they don't show 14B.
They never show 14B.
Kaelen Dremeir pulls his scarf tighter around his face as he ducks under the east fencing of the Suginami rail service path.
A rusted old marker blinks orange behind him, trying and failing to reactivate.
The rain has already stopped.
But the fog doesn't care.
It clings to his mask.
—
Job Code: 22091
Zone Status: "Expired"
Task: Confirm Core location
Pay: ¥11,300
Deadline: 5 minutes from now
No Compact patrol.
No formal backup.
No one watching.
No one willing to care.
Zone 14B is listed as "non-reactive."
An alley beneath the old freight-run line, surrounded by condemned walls draped in dust tarp and chemically sealed signs.
Weeks ago, a Devil broke in.
Hard Class C.
The report logged it dead.
But Zones don't die.
They wait.
The FamilyMart in the corner is still boarded—its windows covered in black tape and iron-fiber spines, looped to prevent psychic bleed.
Someone had tried to bless the wall in paint:
"Cores don't kill. Memory does."
It's crossed out with Compact red.
Kaelen passes the old vending unit. A flicker of bright blue casts a dress rehearsal glow across the alley floor.
It shouldn't be on.
Not here.
He steps slower.
The water at his boots breathes colder.
Aura doesn't warm places.
It quiets them.
He grips his crowbar carefully.
Aura wire half-dead, tape flaking. He no longer calls it a weapon.
Just Compromise.
A thing too old to break and too quiet to brag.
He turns the corner.
Something changes.
The pressure in the alley goes sideways.
Like the air rotated but gravity didn't agree.
Breath stutters behind his teeth. His lungs forget rhythm.
And then—
It moves.
A silhouette forms near the end of the walk.
No acceleration.
No footsteps.
Just emergence.
Eight feet tall.
Skin drawn in armored seams.
Wiring fed through shoulder veins.
No face.
Only fabric. Like a breathing gasmask turned inside out.
It slumps down from a failed prayer into posture.
But still straightens.
Stares.
That's when it kneels.
No roar.
No leap.
Only ritual.
Hands down. Spine folded. Chest to the gravel.
Then—mechanically, almost reverently—
its chest opens.
Two ribs split. One curves inward.
In the center: a Core.
Pulsing.
Alive.
Offered.
Suspended like regret in slow glass.
Kaelen doesn't take it.
He doesn't move.
Because the moment is too old to be his.
Then—
the gallery opens inside his skull.
A voice that wears his mother's skin.
"You didn't cry."
"You used her ID to buy eggs that night."
"She was still warm when you closed the door."
His ribs forget they function.
His knees betray gravity.
And behind him—
his shadow does not follow.
It breaks rhythm.
Slides to the left of his heel.
And turns to face the Devil.
Slow.
Permanent.
Like it had been here once before—watching.
Kaelen doesn't scream.
He just clenches his pipe tighter.
The Core hums his name backward in feeling.
Then the alley bends with sound.
Light folds above.
And she lands.
Mika Reindart.
Grade A Hunter.
Dawn Division.
—
She arrives like violence remembered late.
Boots land in silence.
Glaive already drawn.
She doesn't speak.
The Devil doesn't defend.
It knows what's coming.
She moves once.
The Devil loses shape.
The Core fades.
Mika never looks down.
Kaelen breathes like his lungs owe interest.
Blood itches behind his eye—not from a hit, but from memory leak.
He watches her pass the corpse.
She stops beside him.
Says nothing.
Just stares.
Not at his body.
Not his weapon.
At the space he came from.
Then—
softly—
"It offered?"
He nods.
"Before you fought it?"
"I didn't fight."
"Before you touched it?"
"I didn't even move."
She watches.
"That's not power."
"That's recognition."
She turns toward the alley.
Where no shadow waits behind him.
"It knew you," she says. "Or remembered someone you belong to."
He blinks.
She raises her collar.
Speaks into clipped wind.
"Zone 14B witnessed unknown.
Civilian — unlicensed. Core — voluntary submission.
Aura behavior: incorrect.
Shadow behavior: altered.
Passive type unknown.
Name: Kaelen Dremeir.
Tag him Grade Black. Detain."
Kaelen breathes once.
A rib pulses with no pain. Only pressure.
Something that feels like being recognized by an old photo of someone you became too late.
"I still get paid?" he asks.
Mika doesn't answer.
"Compact refund rent?"
"That was never part of the deal."
He wipes the blood from his temple.
Shrugs slightly.
"…I've got class tomorrow."
She turns.
Walks.
And leaves behind a silence that already knew this moment was going to happen.
The Core vanishes.
The Zone records nothing.
And the shadow doesn't return.