Takeshi stood by the conveyor belt, his eyes tracking the endless line of products as they looped around, the machinery humming steadily beneath his feet. His task was simple: ensure that everything remained as it was. Each item passed under his watchful gaze, only to reappear moments later, unchanged. A box. A cylinder. A strange, nondescript object he could not name. They all returned to him in perfect order, their shapes and placements precisely the same.
And yet, despite the absurdity of it all, it made sense to him. Somehow.
Takeshi wore his overalls like they were tailored in Milan. Every crease precise, every fold intentional. Even the factory-issue boots somehow looked elegant on him. Old habits, it seemed, survived even in madness.
His supervisor did not share his vision.
“That’s not regulation,” D-098 muttered, his voice flat and nasal. He gestured vaguely at Takeshi’s attire, his brow furrowing in mild disapproval. “Workwear’s supposed to be practical, not... tailored.”
Three days of practice with K9 in those five-minute sanctuary breaks had opened his eyes to things he shouldn't be able to see. Shouldn't want to see.
"The others don't wear their uniforms like that," D-098 continued, that thing clinging to him writhing slightly. "Uniformity is key to productivity."
D-098 was a nondescript man, average in height and build, with features so unremarkable they seemed to blur together if you looked too long. Yet Takeshi couldn’t help but notice the thing clinging to him. It was faint, almost imperceptible, but after weeks of practice with K-9, Takeshi had learned to spot the subtle irregularities in this place—the shadows that didn’t belong, the wisps of something unearthly tethered to the people around him.
D-098 carried one of those things now. A strange, dark shape hovered near his back, shifting and pulsing as though alive. Takeshi didn’t know what it was—he hadn’t learned that much yet—but he recognized it for what it represented: the corruption of this place, the invisible threads that bound its inhabitants to the madness.
He watched the shadow-that-wasn't-a-shadow pulse with his supervisor's words. It was hungry, he realized. Not for food or flesh, but for something else. Something essential.
He didn’t acknowledge the man’s complaint, nor the thing that loomed behind him. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the conveyor belt, watching the objects pass by with mechanical precision. A box. A cylinder. Another shape he couldn’t quite name. Each returned to him, unchanged, as if the loop itself were mocking him.
K-9’s voice echoed in his mind, the words a lifeline in the sea of monotony. The key to unraveling this place isn’t just following the rules—it’s learning when to bend them. When to see what’s hidden in plain sight.
Takeshi focused on his task, the repetition grounding him even as his thoughts drifted to the others. Hiroki. Abeni. He had barely known them for an hour before they were scattered across this hellish factory, but the connection he felt to them was undeniable. It wasn’t just camaraderie or circumstance—it was something deeper, something that pressed on his chest like a long-lost memory trying to resurface.
The work on the conveyor belt was routine, monotonous—the kind of mundanity that left Takeshi’s hands moving automatically while his mind worked elsewhere. It was the perfect backdrop for practicing what K-9 had been teaching him.
K-9 had explained that there were two sources of energy—arcane essence, he had called it. One existed in the world around him, the other within, drawn from the depths of his soul. These two energies were meant to work in harmony, feeding and amplifying one another to achieve something extraordinary.
But this place disrupted that balance.
K-9 had referred to individuals like Takeshi as XX, though he’d never been able to explain the term fully. The word itself, like so much else in this twisted factory, was forbidden—unspoken because to name it would risk altering the fabric of the space itself or it could reveal its nature. K-9 had only managed to imply its meaning: XX were special, people uniquely capable of wielding these two energies in tandem, creating something more powerful than either source alone.
The problem, as K-9 explained, was that in this space, the rules were different. The energy in the environment belonged to someone—or something—else. Takeshi couldn’t draw from it. The air itself was suffused with an alien presence, thick and oppressive, and any attempt to tap into it felt like running headfirst into a wall.
Takeshi had pressed for more details, but K-9’s answers had been frustratingly vague. It wasn’t that K-9 didn’t know—it was that he couldn’t say. Certain words, K-9 had warned, weren’t permitted here. Speaking them aloud risked drawing unwanted attention, bending the wrong rules, or worse, triggering consequences no one could predict.
Despite his frustration, Takeshi had learned enough to understand the basics. If he couldn’t use the energy around him, he’d have to rely solely on what was within. That meant honing his focus, learning to draw from his soul without the crutch of external power. It was harder, more draining, but K-9 had assured him it was possible.
As the conveyor belt hummed along, Takeshi practiced in secret. He focused on his breathing, his movements, his connection to himself. Each time he reached inward, searching for that spark of energy within, it felt a little stronger, a little more tangible. He didn’t fully understand what he was doing yet, but he was beginning to feel it—the faint, flickering edge of something powerful just out of reach.
He recalled their conversations in the bathroom, K-9’s quiet, deliberate instructions. To locate the source of the arcane essence within himself, Takeshi had to feel it—not think about it, but feel it. The energy was everywhere in his body, K-9 explained, but if he focused, he could sense it swirling. The key was to concentrate that swirl in his stomach, the center that connected everything—the brain, the limbs, the heart. Once gathered there, he would need to pull it out, release it into the world.
It was a strange, almost alien process, but Takeshi had been practicing all day, using the monotony of the conveyor belt as a backdrop. He watched the endless loop of objects pass by, his hands performing their tasks automatically, while his mind reached inward, probing the intangible. He visualized the energy as K-9 described, swirling in his core, spiraling tighter and tighter, waiting for the moment to be released.
His thoughts flickered to K-9 and the way the man had demonstrated the technique. Takeshi remembered the aura that had enshrouded him, how the air around K-9 seemed to warp and twist, as though the world itself were unraveling at the edges. K-9 had said, “It should look a little like this if you get it right.”
Takeshi had watched intently, his mind alight with possibilities, but now, in the dim hum of the factory, he had only his own instincts to guide him. He kept his eyes on the conveyor belt, his body moving in rhythm with the machine, but his mind was distant. He reached into something deep and vast within himself, something he didn’t fully understand but could feel more clearly with each passing moment.
The objects on the belt blurred in his peripheral vision, their shapes losing definition as his focus turned inward. The hum of the conveyor faded, replaced by a faint, thrumming vibration that seemed to echo from within. Takeshi didn’t know if he was close or if he was merely imagining it, but he could feel the edges of something, a vast reservoir waiting to be tapped.
"That's terrifying," K9's low baritone cut through Takeshi's concentration.
Reality snapped back into focus - the conveyor belt, the Products, his clipboard. But something felt different
He spun around to see K-9 approaching, his gait unhurried, a disinterested expression plastered across his face. The man had a toothpick dangling from the corner of his mouth, and in his hands, he carried a battered carton filled with nebulous, unidentifiable goods. His presence seemed casual, almost lazy, but there was an unmistakable weight in his words.
“What’s terrifying?” Takeshi asked, his voice laced with confusion.
K-9 stopped a few feet away and pointed at him, the toothpick bobbing as he spoke. “That power of yours.”
It was only then that Takeshi became aware of it—the air around him felt heavier, charged, as if a storm were brewing within arm’s reach. The faint thrumming he’d sensed earlier was no longer faint; it was alive, tangible, vibrating in his bones. He looked down at his hands, noticing the faint shimmer of something unnatural curling off his skin, like tendrils of smoke.
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But it wasn’t just him. He looked up and saw the space around him—an invisible boundary radiating outward, enveloping a vast circumference in the same shimmering essence. His inner energy, the very force K-9 had encouraged him to harness, had spilled out far beyond his control, transforming the space around him.
For the first time, Takeshi could see the shadowy wisp that hovered near K-9 with perfect clarity. It was no longer a faint outline but a distinct, buzzing entity, coiling and uncoiling like a restless serpent. Takeshi’s breath caught in his throat. He felt both exhilarated and deeply unnerved.
K-9 tilted his head, his lips curling into a devious smile. “You really are a product of your pedigree,” he said, his tone half-amused, half-appraising.
“Pedigree?” Takeshi asked, the word foreign and alien to him. He didn’t understand what K-9 meant, but the weight of the statement hung in the air, pressing down on him like the charged atmosphere of his own essence.
The wisp hovering above K9's shoulder was suddenly, startlingly visible. Like a photograph coming into focus, or a word remembered after hovering on the tip of your tongue. Takeshi watched it dance through the stale factory air, his perfect posture tensing slightly at the realization that K9 - with his calculated burnout affect and knowing smiles - saw more of Takeshi than Takeshi could currently see of himself.
K9 moved to stand beside him at the conveyor belt, their arcane essences mingling like oil and water - neither quite willing to mix. Through the endless loop of Products, Takeshi caught K9's reflection in the polished steel.
"Now what?"
"Now," K9 shifted his toothpick with practiced nonchalance, "we take a bathroom break."
They walked through the warehouse floor, past workers whose gazes carried weight. Each look felt like a notation in some vast ledger - time spent, steps taken, rules bent. Takeshi had seen what happened to rule-breakers here. The flames that came from nowhere and left nothing behind. His collar felt tight despite his perfect posture.
Yet the wrongness of this place pushed him forward. To accept it, to truly acclimate, would mean becoming like the others - hollow-eyed and mechanical, parts in a vast machine that served no purpose except its own perpetuation.
He stopped at the bathroom door, gaze drawn upward past where the ceiling should be. Massive gears turned against a void that shouldn't exist, their grinding eternal and meaningless. The great machine. The system.
No rules except the rule that there are no rules, he thought, his Kurogane training trying to find logic in chaos. But even that's a rule. And rules...
Rules could be broken. Or at least bent, if you were willing to risk being the one who burned.
The bathroom door closed behind them with a click that felt like rebellion.
K9 leaned against the bathroom sink, his calculated casualness somehow more deliberate than usual. The shadow wisp above his shoulder coiled tighter, as if preparing for something.
"Want to try an experiment?" he asked, stroking his chin in exaggerated contemplation. Then, like dropping a stone into still water: "Territory."
The word hit Takeshi's ears wrong - like feedback, like static, like something that shouldn't exist here. His spine straightened even further, body tensing as if preparing for those flames to appear. K9's smile widened at the reaction, sharp and knowing.
"Good," he said, voice dropping lower. "Your body remembers what your mind's forgotten."
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, their rhythm somehow matching the distant grinding of those impossible gears.
"This place," K9 gestured at the grimy walls that felt both solid and not, "is a territory. There's a version of you that knows exactly what that means - the real you, behind all this." His hand swept down his factory uniform. "Haven't you noticed? How everything here feels wrong but familiar? Like a song you've forgotten the words to?"
The wisp danced through K9's words, leaving trails in the air that lingered too long. Takeshi's perfect posture couldn't quite hide his unease as half-memories stirred - knowledge just out of reach, understanding that slipped away when grabbed.
"What," he asked carefully, each word chosen like stepping on uncertain ground, "are territories?"
Even as he asked, something in him flinched away from the answer. As if knowing would make this place more real, and therefore more dangerous.
K9 paced the bathroom floor, his boots echoing against grimy tile. The shadow wisp above his shoulder twisted with each step, leaving trails in the fluorescent light that shouldn't exist. Even the air felt different here - thick with possibility, as if the usual rules of reality held their breath.
"What we call arcane essence," he said, fingers trailing patterns in the air, "we make it sound special. Different. But really..." He stopped, turning to face Takeshi with that burnout expression that now seemed more mask than truth. "Everything is arcane essence. The air you breathe, the tiles under your feet, even that clipboard you're holding like it's designer leather."
"There's more," Takeshi said, his perfect posture somehow making even the standard-issue uniform look tailored. "Context I'm missing. Knowledge that should..." he frowned, reaching for memories that felt just out of reach, like trying to grab smoke.
"Wraiths," K9 nodded at the wisp that danced around him. "When arcane energy meets human emotion - real emotion, raw and pure - it lives. Anger, joy, fear... they give it shape. Give it purpose. Arcane essence typically manifests itself in three different variations, a spatial zone(what we call territory), a living entity(what we call wraiths) and a beastly creature(what we call arcane beasts). A territory is the madness of the human recreated into the world around it”.
The scene twisted, reality bending like wet paper - or perhaps it had always been multiple scenes, multiple bathrooms existing in the same space. Time felt slippery here, like trying to hold water.
In one bathroom, Abeni stood surrounded by a purple aura that made the flickering fluorescent lights dance strange shadows. Her uniform was perfectly pressed despite the warehouse's grime, a habit of maintaining appearances that even this twisted place couldn't break.
"Where do Wraiths fit into territories?" she asked, one hand unconsciously adjusting her hair - another gesture from a life that felt increasingly distant.
"They're architects," K9's voice echoed across impossible space, present in every version of this conversation. His shadow wisp pulsed with each word. "Wraiths, particularly rogue wraiths are attracted to territories. They make it solid. Every rule here, every twisted space - tons of Rogue Wraiths working together. Like bricks in a wall, except the bricks are alive and the wall isn't sure it exists."
“How many do you think went into building this kind of place” Abeni asked,
“Hundreds probably,” K9 answered.
"Is that a lot?" Abeni's fingers traced patterns in her purple aura, the motion almost hypnotic.
"It should be impossible." K9's smile carried pride and something darker. "Even for high-ranked Soul Smiths. This territory..." he gestured at the bathroom walls, which seemed to breathe slightly, "it's too advanced, too powerful. But whoever controls it is new. Running on instinct rather than skill. Like giving a child a weapon they don't understand."
“Every territory comes with a surefire rule, sometimes when this rule is broken, there could be dire consequences, oftentimes, the rule is the prevalent and unbroken order of the place. People also call it the Law of certainty”.
In Hiroki's bathroom, time pressed against his skin like wet wool. His reflection stared back from a mirror spotted with age, arcane essence swirling around him like heat waves off summer asphalt. Hours (Days? Minutes?) of practice had left him feeling hollow, yet somehow heavier - as if knowledge added physical weight to existence.
The more the place's true nature unraveled before him, the more suffocating it felt. Each revelation was another stone in his pocket, dragging him deeper into understanding he wasn't sure he wanted. Was this how it happened? How people got subsumed? Not through ignorance, but through the crushing weight of knowing too much?
"Is that the surefire rule?" he asked, watching his supervisor burn again in memory. "Break rules, get fired?" The bad pun tasted like ash in his mouth.
K9 leaned against a sink that might have been white once, that knowing smile playing on his lips. He looked out of place here - too solid, too real among the unreality. Like someone who'd walked into a painting and decided to redecorate.
"Even an experienced Soul Smith like me wouldn't survive those flames," he said, pride and mischief dancing in his voice. The shadow wisp above his shoulder performed a lazy loop, as if emphasizing his mastery. Every movement suggested a man who could walk out anytime he chose, who stayed because the game amused him.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like trapped insects, casting shadows that moved wrong. Through the walls, the distant sound of machinery - or were they gears? - ground ever onward, marking time in a place where time might not exist.
"The other type," K9 continued, pacing the bathroom tile like a professor in a particularly grungy lecture hall, "is a light territory." His shadow wisp traced his movements, leaving afterimages in the fluorescent light. "Think of it as a simpler version. No complicated rules, no surefire effects - just pure power."
He paused, toothpick dancing as he spoke. "Inside any territory, arcane essence is boundless. Some Soul Smiths - the practical ones, the ones who don't care for elaborate mechanisms - they just want that unlimited well of power. They wrap themselves in a spatial domain like putting on a coat made of lightning."
The heat that constantly simmered under Hiroki's skin sparked with interest, his eyes brightening. "So within their territory, they can't run out of energy? Ever?"
"Better." K9's burnout expression cracked into something more genuine, more excited. "Every technique, every power - it's all unlimited. Like breathing underwater and finding out you've had gills all along." He pushed off from the sink, his casual posture belying the weight of his words. "That's why these users are rare. Under normal circumstances, I'd start you with basics. Forms. Control. The kind of foundation that keeps power from burning you hollow."
His eyes shifted, somehow looking across impossible space to where Abeni stood in her own version of this conversation. Her purple aura pulsed like a second heartbeat.
"Speaking of power..." K9's voice carried genuine wonder, an expert discovering something unprecedented. "That color - you haven't just accessed territorial energy. You've wrapped yourself in it like a second skin." The shadow wisp above his shoulder twisted with interest. "What kind of monster are you?"