Tokyo, 2044. 4:00 PM.
The world was loud.
Neon signs screamed advertisements. Drones buzzed overhead like angry flies. The subway station was a crushing wave of people—suits, uniforms, tourists—all fighting for space.
Kazuki Tanaka stood in the middle of it all, and nobody saw him.
He wasn't transparent. He wasn't a ghost. He was just… average.
Average height. Messy black hair. A school uniform that was slightly too big.
If you looked at him, your eyes would slide right off, like water off a duck's back.
A businessman slammed his shoulder into Kazuki's chest.
"Move," the man grunted, not even looking down.
Kazuki stumbled back, gripping his bag.
"Sorry," he whispered.
The man was already gone, lost in the sea of heads.
Kazuki sighed and adjusted his headphones. He didn't play music. He just wore them to dull the noise.
This is my superpower, he thought bitterly. I am the world's greatest background character.
He walked toward the exit, keeping his head down. He didn't know that three blocks away, a camera on a telephone pole turned.
Its red lens zoomed in.
It wasn't tracking the crowd.
It was tracking him.
The Abandoned Sector — District 9
Most high school students went to the arcade after class. Or the karaoke bars in Shibuya.
Kazuki liked the silence.
He walked past the "DANGER: CONDEMNED" signs and ducked under a chain-link fence.
District 9 was the graveyard of old Tokyo. It was full of half-finished skyscrapers and factories that went bankrupt ten years ago.
It was peaceful here. No people. No noise. Just the wind whistling through broken windows.
"Just me and the dust," Kazuki said aloud, kicking a rock.
The rock skittered across the pavement and hit a metal door.
CLANG.
The sound echoed. But then, a strange noise answered back.
Hummmmmm.
It was a low, vibrating thrum. It felt like a heavy bass speaker turning on inside his chest.
Kazuki froze.
The sound wasn't coming from the street. It was coming from the building in front of him—a grey, windowless warehouse that looked like a giant tombstone.
The heavy steel door was slightly ajar.
A pale, blue light was leaking out from the crack.
Kazuki knew he should turn around. He knew this was how horror movies started.
But he felt a pull.
It wasn't curiosity. It was gravity.
It felt like the blue light was a hook, and it had just caught him.
He pushed the door open.
The Laboratory
The air inside tasted like copper and ozone.
The room was massive, filled with rows of smashed computers and tangled wires. It looked like a tornado had torn through a server room.
But in the center of the room, untouched by the dust, was a glass cylinder.
Floating inside it was The Suit.
It didn't look like clothes. It looked like liquid mercury frozen in time.
It was silver, sleek, and terrifyingly beautiful. Thin lines of blue energy pulsed through it like veins.
Kazuki walked toward it. His heart hammered against his ribs.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
As he got closer, the suit's light pulsed faster. It was matching his heartbeat.
Thump-flash. Thump-flash.
"What are you?" Kazuki whispered.
He reached out.
He didn't want to touch it. His hand moved on its own.
His fingertips brushed the cold glass of the cylinder.
CRACK.
The glass didn't break—it exploded.
Shards flew everywhere. Kazuki threw his arms up to protect his face, but he wasn't fast enough.
The silver liquid lunged.
It didn't splash onto the floor. It jumped onto him.
"Gah!" Kazuki screamed, stumbling back.
The substance was cold—ice cold. It wrapped around his hand, then shot up his arm. It moved like a living snake, burrowing under his sleeves, wrapping around his chest, his legs, his neck.
It wasn't just covering his skin. It felt like it was sinking into him.
Pain.
White-hot pain exploded in his nerves.
He fell to his knees. He tried to claw the suit off, but it was already part of him. The silver fused with his skin. The blue veins lit up.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING]
A mechanical voice spoke—not in the room, but inside his brain.
[USER DETECTED: KAZUKI TANAKA.]
[VELOCITY CORE: UNSTABLE.]
[SYNCHRONIZATION: 10%.]
"Get off!" Kazuki gasped. "Get it off!"
[ERROR. CONTAINMENT BREACH. DANGER LEVEL: CRITICAL.]
Suddenly, the roof of the warehouse exploded inward.
BOOM.
Three figures dropped from the ceiling.
They were dressed in black tactical armor. Their faces were covered by digital masks that showed only a glowing red eye.
The Echoes. The hunters.
One of them raised a rifle. The weapon whined as it charged up.
"Target acquired," the soldier said. His voice was distorted, robotic. "Secure the asset. Lethal force authorized."
Kazuki looked up, his vision blurring with blue static.
He was going to die.
He was just a nobody, and he was going to die in a dirty warehouse.
No, a voice whispered in his mind. Run.
The soldier pulled the trigger.
A beam of red plasma shot toward Kazuki's chest.
In that split second, time broke.
Kazuki saw the beam coming. But he didn't see it fast.
He saw it crawling through the air like a snail.
He saw the dust motes floating in the air, frozen in place.
He saw the soldier's finger slowly, slowly releasing the trigger.
Kazuki blinked.
Why is everything stopped?
He tried to stand up.
He moved, and the world screamed.
ZWOOM.
Kazuki didn't just stand up. He vanished.
He moved so fast that the air around him caught fire.
He found himself standing at the other end of the warehouse, fifty feet away, before his brain could even process that he had moved.
The plasma bolt hit the floor where he had been standing a microsecond ago.
BOOM.
The soldiers turned, their mechanical heads spinning in confusion.
"Target lost," one said. "Where did he go?"
Kazuki looked at his hands.
They were vibrating. The world looked slow.
He took a step, and electricity arced off his body, scorching the concrete.
He wasn't invisible anymore.
He was a lightning bolt in human form.
[To Be Continued…]