The air was warm, carrying the scent of soap and cooked rice. Light filtered through paper walls and settled over him in a pale, steady glow. He could hear people moving nearby, their words smooth and unfamiliar but recognizable. Japanese.
He tried to move and found his body small, weak, and uncoordinated. But his mind was clear. Too clear.
A woman's voice came softly. "Lucas White?"
He blinked up at her. The woman's face was gentle, framed by dark hair tied neatly behind her neck. She held a folded note in her hands, its edges creased from travel.
His name is Lucas White.
That was all it said.
She hesitated, then smiled faintly. "Welcome, Lucas."
And just like that, his new life began in Kuoh Town.
Days turned to weeks, and he began to learn the rhythm of the orphanage. The creak of the floors, the chatter of children, the faint hum of the heater during cold mornings. Aya, the caretaker who had found him, was kind, if a little overworked. She often said he had a quiet stare for someone so young.
He remembered everything.
The white room. The desk. The man who was not God, just an administrator processing souls like paperwork. He had not been offered the chance to refuse. He was simply told that his death came too early and the next available world had already been assigned.
He had not been brave when he spoke up. Only practical.
A strong Sacred Gear, he had said. Something that lets me live without being chained to anyone.
The administrator had paused, tapping his pen before replying. Innovate Clear.
He did not know what had guided that choice. Maybe fate. Maybe just bureaucratic convenience. But the name had stayed with him, and now the faint pulse of its presence followed him like a second heartbeat.
The first time he noticed it, he was alone in the playroom after sunset. The air was still, and the only sound came from the street outside. He had been reaching for a toy when the room blurred.
The air around him thickened, the edges of the world seemed to pull inward, and for a heartbeat the noise outside vanished completely.
Then it broke. The world snapped back, and the sudden strain left him dizzy and weak. He crawled to his bed and fell asleep almost instantly, the faint rhythm of that second heartbeat echoing in his chest.
So this was what Innovate Clear felt like. Not power. Not destruction. Just quiet pressure, trying to become something more.
He did not experiment often, only when the others were asleep. Each time he focused, a thin layer of silence spread through the room, distorting the air like heat over stone. The stillness never lasted long, a few seconds at most before collapsing.
Once, he saw something beyond the blur. Not a vision or dream, but a flicker of space, colorless, suspended, weightless. It was empty but not hostile. Almost peaceful. Then it vanished, leaving behind a faint ache in his chest.
It took days before he tried again.
Each time, the space held for a moment longer before shattering. The effort always left him exhausted, but he began to understand. Innovate Clear was not meant to fight. It was meant to build. A place separate from the world, one that reflected him completely.
He began to think of it as a door he did not yet know how to open.
Aya often found him staring out the window, lost in thought. "You are a quiet one," she said once. "Always looking somewhere far away."
He only smiled faintly in reply.
The truth was simpler. Every time the world fell silent around him, he felt something he had not felt in years. A hint of peace. A whisper of control.
He was not strong enough to shape the space yet, but one day he would be. And when that day came, he would not need to fear who might find him.
For now, he just breathed and listened to the pulse under his skin.
It was not divine. It was not holy. It was his.