He stared in deathly silence at the faceless thing before him – a shell – on its knees. In return, he saw eyes watching him, filled with expressionless fear. From the outsider’s arm an orb, molten with fire and heat, shot out of his hand like a bullet, without sound or warning. It pierced the thing, but more so, it pierced the world; his reality and all that he imagined reality to be.

Behind him, the shadows were crawling with shells. Tall, slender, well-built. Shells of all kinds. Wordless, frightened, they stared at him, cementing the anguish he felt like a stone slab pressed into his back, forcing him to his knees, where he saw the faceless thing now lying.

There was no sound. No scream. Only blood, and the smell of burn. Burnt flesh reeked like charred meat. His mouth filled with fluid, as a wave of nausea flooded its way from his stomach, creeping into the back of his throat where it choked the innocent air he once breathed.

Looking up, there were more shells of far more variety. Yet again, there was not a single expression to be seen. The air of fear mixed into the stench of scorched flesh, creating a fulminant, dense smog that he could not swallow, much less breathe in.

The panic came, and it asphyxiated him in a reality that pressed into his eyes, pierced into his mind and bled sirens into his ears. Sirens that rang for him.

The shells before him, behind him, raised their fingers, pointing their blame, throwing their terror towards their terrifier. They pointed at him, the murderer, shining in bright colour, which began to slowly dissipate from his skin like bloodied water down a sink.

This was reality. This was the truth.

This was only the beginning…

***

“If I had to choose a Jump character, huh?”

These are the words that pulled Max from the drone that was the lecturer’s voice, which he had stopped paying attention to two minutes into his history class. Only a term into his second year of university and he had already been utterly drained of any motivation to be, at the very least, a coping student.

His grades, once decent Bs, declined into average Cs. His love of language and discourse all but lost in the suffering of long nights spent drowning in papers that felt like they meant nothing at the end of the preceding year. It was quite simple; his ambition was dwindling. Maybe even worse. It was already completely gone.

To make the most of whatever free time he had, he maintained seemingly useless hobbies. He was, in essence, an otaku; though not the kind one sees in anime, those who lose their social capabilities due to their (often obsessive) enjoyment of pop-culture. Quite the contrary in fact, since, no matter how he looked at it, his social life was positively booming.

He had many people with whom he constantly communicated (though the majority of these individuals could hardly be considered friends). He had grown accustomed to the independence of looking out for himself. That is until he – by some miracle – got a girlfriend, who he strongly felt he didn’t deserve, and who he believed he failed more and more as he fell into the loss that was his lack of direction.

“I get the idea you’re expecting me to choose that dude who’s always screaming and shooting those blue lasers from his hands?”

Max lazily scanned the class with his chin resting on both his arms, searching for the source of his new irritation. His gaze fell on a trio of friends from whom he expected to hear this conversation. Unsurprisingly his guess was right. They were unmistakably anime enthusiasts. Those of the ‘up-their-own-ass’ technical variety.

The guy at the end of the row in which the three of them sat styled his hair with an unseemly amount of gel to ensure it stayed spiky (however out-dated the look seemed) and always made it a point to show that he carried around at least one manga (translated, of course) among the rest of his notebooks.

The second friend, one of the palest human beings Max had ever seen, always carried around a pack of cards that had come from an old, yet very popular anime; Yu-Gi-Oh. Not necessarily a favourite, but something he had fond memories of nevertheless.

The third friend, the one whose voice had drawn Max’s attention, was particularly normal looking. He had no giveaways that indicated his interest in the more niche hobbies of society. He had short hair, was rather healthy looking, and didn’t seem to have any noticeable atmosphere of condescension; something that his friends thoroughly exuded.

Max had the idea that the ‘healthy’ friend was perhaps new to the waste of life-force that was anime, which explained his inability to distinguish between famous Shōnen Jump heroes, of which there was an extensive list. Before it caught his attention that the lecturer had dismissed the class, he was surprised by the pale friend, who jumped to his feet with his skinny arm pointed at the third friend, contorting his face to show his hyperbolic disgust.

“Blue lasers!? Nani the fuck are you talking about? Did you even learn their names?” he yelled furiously; his tone thoroughly soaked in his deluded superiority. “I bet you watched the English dub! Didn’t you?”

The third friend, a little shaken, stammered a quiet, “Uh, yeah… Surimasen?”

The spiky-haired moron turned his head with a violent fury to face his foolish friend.

“It’s sumimasen, you uncultured twat.”

Max stood up to leave, slinging his backpack over his bony left shoulder, having found Dawn of the (Practically) Dead’s outburst utterly annoying.

Goddamn fan-boy elitists, he thought bitterly.

As he passed the group, he kept an ear out and could swear he heard the ‘normie’ mutter, “I swear to god, you guys are the reason I’ll stay a virgin till I die.”

“Damn straight!” the skinny pale friend concurred. “Bombastic 2D waifus over these 3D tricks any day!”

Max was on his way to get food when his cell phone began to vibrate. It was Jane.

“Hey, are you still in class?” she asked as soon as he answered.

“Would I be answering if I were still in class?” Max retorted.

“Okay, okay. No need to be a wise-ass. When do you finish?”

Max stopped in the hallway, standing up against the wall to avoid the foot traffic of students flooding the narrow corridor that spanned the length of the humanities faculty.

“I’ve got one more class, but I can skip it,” he said with a severely audible amount of hope in his voice.

“Listen up, you spoiled hissy! You’ve been skipping classes left and right all damn term,” Jane exclaimed, in a manner akin to her mother when she reprimanded Max for the one time she found his off-campus room dirty. “You go to your last class and I’ll meet you at the car after.”

“Fiiiiiine. Will you at least grab us some lunch before I get there?” Max rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed to be asking.

“Alright, but I get to choose what we eat today.”

She hung up, and with the click Max felt the embarrassment of being financially dependent on his girlfriend wear him down to a pathetically sorry state.

***

Heavy.

This thought flooded Jin’s mind as he progressed through the stages of waking up.

Someone’s... sitting on me.

It didn’t take him much effort to determine who the weighted alarm clock was. Akiko, his little sister, was attempting to wake him up by sitting on him and yelling that he didn’t have all morning. The first rays of sun had begun to penetrate his bedroom window as he blinked the sleep out of his eyes.

“Jiiiiiiiin”, Akiko nagged melodiously.

“Yes, yes,” he responded quietly, still feeling the dregs of sleep drain at his ability to stay awake.

“You’re pretty and you’re cute, Akiko,” he went on, saying what he assumed would please her. “Now get off your big brother so he can breathe.”

“Are you calling me fat!?” she pressed down on him harder, her palms digging into his chest.

“No, I’m calling you pretty and cute,” Jin mumbled feebly.

“I worked hard to maintain this figure! Take back what you said,” she started rocking back and forth, causing Jin to groan in exhausted concession.

“Okay! I’m sorry, you’re not pretty or cute.” Jin could barely keep his eyes open, but that didn’t stop his lips from giving away his amusement.

“That’s not what I meant!” she cried.

“Okay, you’re not heavy or fat. But will you please get off me?”

“Then wake up!” Akiko complained as she got off her brother. “You really wanna be late on your first day?”

“You’re right.”

Jin sat up and wiped his eyes before smiling affectionately at his sister.

“I’m sorry. Thank you for waking me, Akiko.”

He patted her head and she pretended she didn’t enjoy it by swatting his hand away.

“I’m not a little girl anymore. You don’t need to treat me like a brat,” Akiko folded her arms, turning her nose up at her brother with exaggerated pomposity. “I’m in my first year of high school and I would like to be treated like an adult.”

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Jin laughed softly and once again started patting his little sister’s head.

“Okay Miss adult. I’ll stop patting this cute, adult head of yours, so that you can go be an adult at high school, with all your fifteen-year-old adult friends.”

She puffed up her blushing cheeks and swiftly swatted away his hand once more before storming out of his room.

A few minutes later, Jin Akira was dressed and downstairs at the dining table having his breakfast, while his sister ran around looking for things she may have forgotten to pack for her first day as a highschooler. He missed the days when she was a little clumsier and he had to look out for all the things that she may have forgotten, as her dependence on him made her that much more adorable. Not that it took anything away from how cute she still was.

His mind wandered to his current state of affairs; it was his first day as a university student at the Yōsaishima Academy of Advanced Magic. He glanced down at his right hand, eyeing the ring that he had very recently received. A ring that he was told was extremely important. A ring with a legacy that he doubted he could live up to. A silver signet ring, engraved with the petals and corona of the daffodil, which served as the crest of his family’s guild. A guild that had chosen him, the glorified ‘stray’ with no steadfast ties, as their Scion.

“Nii-chan,” Akiko snapped him out of his thoughts, “I can’t find my favourite pen.”

“You mean the one your mom bought you? The one covered in pink stars?” Jin frowned in faux concern for his sister. “Doesn’t sound very ‘adult’ to me.”

“I used it over the break and now I can’t seem to recall where I left it,” she responded, ignoring his teasing, genuinely fearing for the pen’s safety.

“Akiko,” Jin said, a little more sternly than he intended. “You’re in high school now, surely finding your pen would require nothing more than an elementary tracking or summoning spell.”

Akiko suddenly looked startled.

“I know. I just… I thought I’d better not use magic around you… without warning you first. I don’t wanna trigger another... ‘episode’.”

Jin gave her a reassuring smile.

“I’m sorry that you had to see that,” he laughed uncertainly. “But, Akiko, you know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

Akiko smiled and was instantly cheered up.

“Okay I’ll find it now,” she nodded her head and ran off. Once she was gone for about a minute, Jin’s thoughts returned to the ring. He found himself wondering if this ring could somehow put an end to the episodes, or if it would serve as a catalyst for a more catastrophic outburst.

***

Max and Jane were on the flight of stairs leading to her moderately sized apartment on the second floor of an off-campus student residence. Her parents were well off, so she didn’t have to rely on any scholarship or bursary to pay for her accommodation like he did.

“I just don’t understand why you get so riled up by fan-boys like them,” Jane was saying as they reached the top of the stairs.

“You’ve said it countless times, ‘I don’t care about that stuff anymore, I no longer have an interest in anime’,” she mimicked him mockingly. “But you always get worked up around idiots like the stooges in your class.”

They were at the front of her door, and Max could faintly hear voices coming from inside the apartment.

“I just can’t stand these elitists who gotta gatekeep every fucking thing they put their ugly mitts on,” Max argued with a tone more passionate than the recent lulls of disinterested replies and zoned out nods he had been offering everyone else for the last few weeks.

“English, Japanese, French,” he continued. “Watch anime in whatever language you like. Call the Kamehameha a ‘blue laser’ for all it matters!”

She laughed as she unlocked the door.

“Did someone actually call it that?” She pushed open the door, causing the afternoon sun to flood her darkened lounge and reveal the mess that was her living space.

“Geez, did you leave the TV on again?”

He looked in to see that she had, as per usual, barely done any cleaning.

“Don’t you bitch,” Jane dismissed him. “I was in a rush ‘cause they emailed us late this morning that the class they cancelled yesterday was moved to today.”

They walked in and Jane dropped her bag on the floor. She kicked off her shoes and immediately dropped onto the couch, covering herself in blankets. Max dropped his bag next to hers.

Jane Watson’s apartment was every bit as erratic as she was. She had a small kitchen opposite the spacious, yet crowded living room. The sofa she was being swallowed by faced an HD flat screen TV that dwarfed Max’s computer monitor. Books and blankets covered almost every available surface. While it left an untidy mess, Max couldn’t blame her for falling asleep right next to the TV most nights when mixing academic responsibilities with otaku leisure. It made being a student somewhat bearable.

Next to her kitchen was a very small hallway, at the end of which was her little lavatory. On the left side of the hallway was her bathroom, and on the opposite side was her actual bedroom, which Max dreaded seeing as her bed almost exclusively served as a dumping ground for her laundry.

He walked to the fridge and pulled out a can of beer. He turned to look at her and she was already dozing off. He looked down at the can and noticed, as he was attempting to open it, that it was not only already open, but also completely drained.

“Geezus, you leave empty cans in the fridge now? Who the hell does that?” he threw the can in the little trash bucket that she kept in the cupboard beneath her kitchen sink.

“I like how much it pisses you off,” Jane said in a barely audible mumble, clearly pleased with herself.

“Did we just come back here so you could catch some sleep?” Max asked, slightly amused.

“Mm-hmm,” Jane hummed in affirmation.

“Is there even any room for me?”

“You could sit and watch ‘Mahō No Gakusei’ with me?” Jane opened her dark hazel eyes to the screen in front of her. Her burgundy red hair covered her face and Max could barely make out her expression.

“What? This trash? I’ve already seen like, eight episodes.”

Jane shot up suddenly, her hair giving way to show an exaggerated frown.

“Without me? You douche!” she yelled, hurling one of what seemed like fifty small cushions at him. She covered herself up more in the apparently endless sea of blankets and sank even deeper into the couch.

“Even trash is hard to stop watching once you start,” Max put his palm to his face. “I don’t know, I think I prefer that one about… What was it, that Worst One guy? The worlds are just too similar to not compare. Magic academy, family-based martial arts, this is maybe the fourth anime we’ve watched with those exact same concepts?”

“No one told you to watch Chivalry first.”

“Yeah, good point. Though, a story about an ‘OP’ hero with a seemingly emotionless heroine who we discover actually does have emotions somewhere between the fighting and the panty shots… even in a magic academy setting, it’s just not enough to set it apart. It feels like we’ve seen it all at this point.”

“Spoiler alert,” Jane mumbled sarcastically from her blanket cocoon, causing Max to press his palm deeper into his face.

“It’s an alright watch, but I don’t think I wanna pick it back up. All that ‘NATSUNO’ this, and ‘NATSUNO’ that shit got old real fast.”

“Shouldn’t you be catching up on the work you missed in your last class? It sounds like you completely spaced it out,” Jane suggested somewhat apprehensively.

“It’s not necessary,” Max said, deflecting the question. “I can probably just start tonight.”

“But then you’ll have other work to catch up on too,” Jane reminded him.

Max’s expression grew cold.

“Why are you on my ass all of a sudden?”

Jane sat upright. Her notedly well-endowed chest gave a little shake due to her sporadic movement, so Max quickly looked away. He didn’t need to be distracted by her bombastic brainwashing.

“I’m not trying to be. I just… I want you to do your best.” She was trying her hardest to sound calm and reassuring. “I know you haven’t really been doing as well as you used to.”

“What do you want from me, Jane?” Max laughed indignantly. “I mean, you’re not exactly the shining example of an exemplary student either.”

Jane stood up and walked up to Max to hug him.

“I’m not trying to say that I am.”

“Then what are you trying to say?” He dodged her hug and moved towards the door.

Jane thought for a moment before responding.

“I can see that something has been on your mind, and I thought that giving you space to either handle it or come talk to me about it would be better, but now it looks like you’re just accepting this ditch that you’re in.”

“I’m not in a goddamned ditch!” Max was getting increasingly annoyed.

“When was the last time you spoke to your friends?”

“I hang out with you all the time!” he raised his hands in exasperation.

“I’m your girlfriend. I’m talking about your friends. The ones you used to game with. The ones you used to argue with about movies and anime and all kinds of pointless shit. The guys you used to have such funny stories about. Remember them?”

He looked at her quietly for a moment. “There’s nothing to talk to them about. I hardly do any of that anymore.”

Jane approached him again. This time he stood still as she looked up at him. She was truly the most beautiful thing that existed in all his world. He couldn’t deny how much he longed to be over this feeling that clawed at his heart and mind every second that he stopped to think when he was alone. He wanted to be over it so they could be happy. So she could be happy.

Her soft hands reached out and caressed his face. He appreciated the warmth of her skin.

“What happened? Why are you so miserable?”

Tell her, he thought. Just fucking tell her! Tell her the truth.

Max looked down for a moment before finally turning around swiftly and walking over to pick up his bag.

“I don’t need this shit right now. You’re right, I gotta study. I’ll just do it at home.”

He opened the door and walked out, shutting it before she could say anything else.

She sighed quietly and sunk back down into the couch. She knew he would run away and felt bad that she had known confronting him would cause him to do so. She was lost in her thoughts, failing to notice a dense black smog that began to emanate from her television, coursing down her floor and over to the couch before rising up to envelop her.

Outside, Max was already halfway down the staircase when he heard a sharp scream that came from Jane’s apartment. He felt an instant stab of fear. He darted back up the stairs, flung her door open, and found her living room empty. Frighteningly empty.

He looked into each room, frantically calling out her name, but she was simply gone. Panic made it difficult for him to type properly on his phone, so he shakily sat down on the sofa to call her. He heard her phone ringing in her bag. His hope sank in his throat. His phone dropped from his hand and bounced off the couch onto the carpeted floor. He stared in horror for a silent moment before reaching into her bag to check her phone for clues, as the very same dense black smog began to surround him as well.

He looked up at the television, and suddenly all of his senses faded to absolute black.

In an instant, his eyes opened and he shot up, finding himself sitting on a bench, time seeming to have passed him by as it was suddenly a bright morning. The sky was clearer than he had seen it in several days, and not an inch of what he saw around him looked even remotely familiar. He stood up and looked around, calling out once again.

“JANE!”

There were kids in school uniforms walking by, staring at him with curious expressions for his sudden outburst. Some of them spoke softly amongst themselves and, where he expected to hear ridicule, he instead found that he could not understand a thing that they were saying. Despite this, something about their language sounded very familiar.

He looked down at himself, and despite the fact that he still wore his black jeans and red long-sleeved T-shirt, his right hand was now adorned with a signet ring that he didn’t recognise. He stopped a young man who was with a group of friends, his eyes still nervously scanning his surroundings.

“Uh… Sorry... where am I?” Max asked rapidly.

“Nan de shou?” the young man asked, looking at his friends in apprehension. “Etooo... Ei go ga wakarimasen. Mahõ ha shika ema suka?”

Max took a closer look at the boy and only just realised he was speaking to a Japanese student. The familiar words brought into focus what language the people around him were speaking. He distinctly remembered hearing it in countless shows he’d seen throughout his life. Suddenly, surveying those around him less frantically, he began to notice that all the people staring at him in his assumed lunacy were all Japanese.