*********
'The thirteenth floor has the best view of Tokyo.'
I learned that during my first month at the Civil Affairs Office. Everyone else avoided the rooftop. Superstition, mostly. Thirteen was unlucky. 'so why build a thirteen floored building?', i wonder too.
I fell for the roof top, because no one asked questions up there.
The city stretches forever when you're this high. Neon signs blink like tired eyes. Cars crawl along the roads like blood cells in a body too big to care about one organ failing. From here, everything looked distant enough to forgive.
The wind was cold tonight. It pressed through my coat and settled into my bones, familiar and unwelcome.
I rested my hands on the metal fence and let my forehead touch it.
I'm not here for the view.
I'm here because my thoughts get quieter when the ground is far away.
People assume wanting to disappear means you hate life. That you're angry or dramatic or weak. That's wrong. At least for me.
I don't hate life.
I'm just tired of being the wrong shape for it.
I take a cigarette from my pocket. Third one. I light it, inhale, and feel the burn scrape my throat on the way down. The pain is small familiar, just like the pain in my chest.
I tell myself I won't make this a habit.
I always lie, maybe i just think i'll die of lung cancer instead, but the process is quite slow.
My search for death hasn't always been this... you know.
when i was made CEO at the age of fifteen by grandpa, i was regarded as a once in a lifetime genius. i was popular amongst the elders. i received praise everywhere i went, it filled my hollow heart a little. As a universal custom, i went for my spiritual soul test with Mr.Kaido my physician but i didn't have one. in the words of the pale faced Kaido sensei, 'your spiritual soul is non-existent'.
Everyone had one. Beast souls. Martial souls. Elemental souls. 'why didn't i have any?'. 'was i cursed?'
A spiritual soul was proof that you were meant to exist.
I didn't have one.
When I first heard it, I was surprisingly calm. I smiled politely and thanked the physician for his time.
'Genius children are good at that—being calm when they're falling apart.... right?'
It took three years for the truth to escape the room it was meant to rot in. i had tried my best keeping it from everyone. i knew what would happen if they found out. i would lose everything. the little bit of warmth i had gained woulld all be thrown away. Grandpa might just abandon me too. So i spent three years pretending nothing was wrong, i could've continued, but i trusted the wrong person... i guess. My physician sold me off for pocket change.
I laughed under my breath, smoke curling out with it.
Cheap betrayal always hurts more than expensive ones.
The clan was silent. Silence does more damage when it comes from people who once bowed their heads to you.
I was denounced with careful language and straight backs. Reduced to a liability. A shame. A reminder of what happens when bloodlines grow careless.
Only my grandfather stood.
He always did.
He named me Hikari—light—and then spent his life shielding a candle everyone else wanted to snuff out. He retired early for me. Gave me an empire before I was old enough to understand loneliness.
I wonder sometimes if that's why I'm broken.
People aren't meant to inherit expectations before they inherit joy.... i guess.
I exhaled smoke and watched it vanish into the night.
Four years.
Four years since I stopped pretending I belonged anywhere important.
I work civil cases now. Missing permits. Noise complaints. Death registrations. It's funny how often people need paperwork when someone disappears. As if stamping a form makes absence official.
I'm good at my job. I'm always good at things that don't require me to exist emotionally.
The fence was cold against my palms.
I lean forward just enough to feel my balance shift, then stop.
Coward.
The word surfaces automatically. pain grabs a hold of my heart, its futile thumping trying to escape is loud in my ear. I don't want pain. I don't want drama. I don't even want an ending.
I just want the noise to stop.
The city below doesn't notice me. That's fine. I've gotten used to that.
What I can't get used to is how even the world's invisible rules seem to reject me.
No soul.
No place.
No permission to rest.
The cigarette goes out before I finish it.
I frown and glance down.
The air trembles. It thickens, pressing against my chest like an unseen hand. The city sounds blur, fading into something distant. I straighten, heart speeding up again despite myself.
"That's new," I mutter.
The concrete beneath my feet vibrates.
Hairline cracks spread outward in a perfect circle, glowing faintly with symbols I recognize from forbidden texts and half-burned books my grandfather once told me never to read.
Ancient characters twist and rearrange, rejecting modern language the way the world rejected me.
My breath catches.
"No," I whisper. "You've got the wrong person."
The pressure slams into me.
A voice speaks—not aloud, but inside the hollow space where something should have been.
The one without a soul.
The one who does not belong. you belong with me.
An ancient portal whirrs to life.
Beyond it, a forest. the trees were'nt green like the rest. the trees were dark and sinister like ghost hands stretching into the gloomy, grey sky above. The ground gleamed dark and wet. The air hummed with violence held in check by oppressive rules.
Ha no Mori.
The Forest of Blades.
A place that should not exist. 'just like me'.
Invisible hands close around my wrists, firm and unyielding.
For the first time in years, something pulls me instead of the other way around.
I don't scream.
I don't resist.
I only think, distantly, So this is how it feels to find a kindred spirit.
Then the world tilts—and Tokyo disappears.