The gate loomed like a sleeping giant carved from steel and spirit symbols.
Arc towers buzzed quietly, casting pale blue lines of light across reinforced walls.
Ancient ward scripts, sprayed with industrial sealant, glowed faintly beneath morning fog.
New Babel — a sanctuary stitched together with hope, scrap metal, and stubbornness.
Ren trudged toward the entrance, crate balanced on his shoulder, scuffed boots kicking broken asphalt.
The guards spotted him first.
"Oi! Runner incoming!"
A man leaned over the parapet, megaphone in hand.
"Ren! You're late again!"
Ren raised one arm in lazy salute.
"Wasteland traffic."
"You were on foot."
"Terrible traffic."
A chorus of groans rolled from the wall.
Another guard:
"Did your scooter betray you again?"
"She's just sensitive," Ren called back. "We're working through trust issues."
Laughter rippled across the battlements — tired but genuine.
In a world devoured by gods and monsters, a stupid joke could still buy a moment of normal.
Massive gears turned.
Steel grated.
The gate cracked open just enough for one reckless teenager and a box of canned beans to slip through.
Inside, noise and life bloomed.
Solar turbines whirred atop makeshift towers.
Vendors bargained in alleyways lit by stringed neon.
Kids chased each other past armored exosuits and drying spirit charms.
A trio of monks meditated beside a recycler bin.
Patchwork humanity — loud, flawed, alive.
Ren breathed it in.
Home.
As he dropped the crate at a supply booth, a fist descended from above, bonking him directly on the head.
bonk
"OW—"
He spun.
A girl in a utility jacket stood behind him, clipboard under one arm, eyes blazing with bureaucratic fury.
Dark hair tied tight. Posture rigid enough to enforce laws by presence alone.
Mei.
New Babel Logistics Oversight — unofficial title: Menace to Runners Who Ignore Rules.
"Ren."
"Mei."
"You were supposed to check in at sunrise."
"Time is a societal construct."
"It is literally printed on your assignment slip."
"And yet, here I am. On time-ish."
She stared, unblinking.
Ren deflated.
"…Scooter died."
Mei sighed like someone carrying a thousand years of disappointment.
"You fought a beast again, didn't you?"
Ren froze. A bead of sweat said guilty.
"I don't have proof," Mei said, "but statistically, you attract trouble like mold to bread."
"Hey! That was one time—"
"You kicked an eldritch crow nest."
"…It looked at me wrong."
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You're going to get promoted to corpse one day."
"Promotion implies progress," Ren muttered.
Before Mei could scold him further, someone jogged up.
Tall, scarred, wearing patched armor — Captain Arlen, wall squad leader.
He looked Ren up and down.
"You're back."
Ren thumbed behind him toward the wasteland.
"Road trip complete. No souvenirs. Unless… emotional trauma counts."
Arlen grunted. That might have been approval. Or gas.
"You feel anything out there?" he asked.
Ren hesitated. The MSE pulse. The watcher. The ash.
"…Yeah. Something's stirring."
Arlen's jaw tightened.
Around them, vendors still shouted, kids still laughed — yet an invisible thread pulled taut, humming with dread.
"Reports from the east watchtower too," Arlen said.
"Whispers in the Fog District. Something odd moving under the city."
Ren swallowed.
"Monsters?"
"No," Arlen said quietly.
"Worse. Divine residue."
The words hung like frost.
Godpower traces meant one thing:
A Seal Guardian's influence.
A reminder the gods hadn't forgotten the world — or New Babel.
Ren popped his lips, trying to break the tension.
"Cool cool cool cool. Love existential terror before breakfast."
Mei elbowed him.
"Take things seriously."
"I am. I take breakfast very seriously."
Arlen's mouth twitched — a microscopic smirk.
Then his tone hardened.
"Report to the training grounds this afternoon. Commander wants to evaluate all awakened youths."
Ren blinked.
"Wait, me? Why?"
Arlen raised a brow.
"Because you're glowing."
Ren looked down.
A faint silver flicker pulsed along his forearm — unnoticed until now.
Barely there… but real.
His breath caught.
Mei's eyes widened.
"Ren… did you—?"
He tightened his fist, hiding the light.
"It's nothing. Probably just… sunburn. Or uh… emotional sunlight."
But the warmth in his chest hummed again — deeper this time.
A heartbeat that wasn't wholly his.
A pulse older than gods.
Something inside him whispered.
Wake up.
Ren exhaled hard, forcing a grin.
"Well… if they want to evaluate me, I hope they have snacks. I fight best with snacks."
Mei groaned.
Arlen shook his head.
Life resumed around them.
Ren walked through the streets of New Babel, hands shoved in his pockets, letting habit guide his feet more than thought. His steps fell into rhythm with the city's pulse — the hum of generators, chatter of markets, clatter of makeshift armor, distant clang of steel on training grounds.
A memory tugged at him.
Running through these same streets barefoot as a kid.
Laughing.
Chasing someone taller than him — a brown-haired young man turning to grin, saying—
"Keep up, Ren! A hero can't afford to be slow!"
Ren blinked hard.
The memory broke like glass underfoot.
He shoved it back down and forced a small smile.
"…I'm still faster than your noisy scooter," he muttered to himself.
The ache in his chest didn't fade, but he walked anyway.
Passing through the central market, Ren waved lazily at familiar faces.
A mechanic wiped grease off his hands. "Ren! When you bringing me that scooter again?"
"When I accept emotional abuse as part of routine maintenance."
A fruit vendor tossed him a bruised apple. "For you, kid. Don't die out there."
Ren caught it awkwardly, nearly fumbling.
"I'll do my best! No promises!"
A little girl tugged on his pants leg. "Ren-nii! Show me the boom-fist again!"
Ren bent down, grinning.
"It's not called a boom-fist— it's a secret technique."
"Show me!"
"…Fine."
He tapped her lightly on the forehead with a finger.
poink
She giggled, thrilled.
Ren smiled softly and ruffled her hair before moving on.
It was stupid, really.
How small moments like that could hold the world together better than walls and guns.
Ren's steps slowed as he approached an old collapsed shrine tucked between refurbished towers.
Nature had swallowed most of it.
Vines wound around fallen stone pillars.
Paper talismans fluttered from a sagging torii gate, sun-bleached but stubbornly clinging on.
No crowds here — just quiet.
And incense smoke drifting lazily like a memory refusing to leave.
He mumbled under his breath,
"For protection and for bread… please, world, don't explode today."
He pressed his palms together, bowed his head — part prayer, part habit, part superstition.
Then
A feather drifted down.
Black. Thin. Almost weightless.
Ren caught it between his fingers.
The moment it touched his skin…
it dissolved into smoke.
He froze.
His chest tightened.
The world tilted — like the air changed pressure.
That same eerie pulse he'd felt on the road brushed the edge of his awareness again.
He swallowed.
"…Okay. That was weird."
He turned to leave.
A familiar voice interrupts
"Talking to yourself again?"
Ren flinched.
A shadow leaned against the shrine gate, arms folded, one boot resting casually against the wood.
Tall.
Sharp eyes.
A katana strapped to his back like an extension of his spine.
Akira Wolfe.
Half-myth, half-blade, and 100% irritation.
Ren blinked. "…You always appear like that? Just… materialize from spite?"
Akira pushed a lock of silver-streaked hair behind his ear, unimpressed.
"If you stopped spacing out in spiritually contaminated zones, I wouldn't have to babysit you."
Ren scowled.
"I wasn't spacing out. I was… spiritually centering."
"You were praying for pastries."
Ren gasped dramatically.
"Bread is spiritual nourishment."
Akira sighed. "Your priorities are a public health concern."
They stared at each other, the silence just long enough to teeter between annoyance and reluctant friendship.
Then Ren grinned.
"Missed you too."
Akira looked away, lips twitching — almost a smile, quickly strangled before birth.
"…Don't die before training. I don't want to explain to Mei how you spontaneously imploded."
Ren raised a fist in dramatic salute.
"I live dangerously."
"You live stupidly."
"Same thing!"
Akira turned away with a quiet exhale.
Ren followed, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets.
But as they walked, Akira's eyes narrowed slightly.
He glanced back at the old shrine.
The air there still shimmered — barely — like heat over stone.
Akira felt it.
Pressure. Divine residue.
And beneath it, faint but present — Ren's aura, like a star shining through fog.
Outside, New Babel bustled.
Humanity survived another morning.
Inside the shrine, unseen by both boys…
Another black feather fell.
Then another.
A slow, silent rain.
The talismans on the shrine gate quivered.
Not from wind.
From something watching. Something trying to break in