Aze walked through the UA campus like he'd been there his whole life.
Students whispered.
Some stared.
A few pointed.
He ignored all of them.
But one person didn't ignore him.
A girl with jet-black hair and violet eyes stood in the middle of the walkway like she'd been waiting there on purpose.
Aze stopped a few meters away from her.
She didn't blink.
She didn't look scared.
She just… studied him.
Like she was reading him.
Like she knew him.
Finally, she spoke.
"Your quirk… isn't a quirk."
Aze blinked.
"…What?"
"I see a lot of things," she said quietly. "Things about people. Their hopes. Their fears. Their futures."
She tilted her head slightly.
"But you… you don't have a future."
Aze stared at her.
"I don't have a what now?"
"A future," she repeated. "You're standing here… but your thread doesn't connect to anything ahead. It stops right behind you. Like someone cut it."
Aze's eyebrow twitched.
"Great. So I'm a walking paradox and a temporal headache."
She stepped closer.
"What are you?"
He didn't answer.
She reached out, hesitated, then touched his chest with two fingers.
Aze exhaled sharply.
Her eyes widened.
"You're connected to other worlds."
Aze froze.
No one in this world should've been able to see that.
No one in this world should've even sensed it.
"You shouldn't know that," Aze said quietly.
"I shouldn't," she agreed. "But I do."
They stared at each other.
Silence stretched.
Finally Aze sighed.
"What's your name?"
"Jinsaki Rinne."
"Rinne, huh." Aze shrugged. "Your quirk lets you see… what, exactly?"
"Threads," she said softly. "Every person is a thread woven into the world. I see the patterns. The connections. The direction they're moving."
"And mine?"
"You're not woven into this world at all," she whispered. "You're like a needle. Something that can pierce through any thread, any fate."
Aze scratched his cheek.
"Okay, listen. Keep that to yourself. Please."
Rinne shook her head.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because you're dangerous."
Aze rolled his eyes.
"I'm trying really hard not to be, trust me."
"I believe you," she said instantly.
He stopped.
"…You do?"
Rinne nodded.
"I saw one more thing."
She pointed at his heart.
"Your thread isn't connected to this world. But something is connected to you."
Aze stiffened.
"What thing?"
Rinne didn't answer at first.
She looked frightened for the first time since he'd met her.
"It's… massive. Like a world inside a world. A presence that shouldn't exist."
Aze felt his skin prickle.
The Archive?
Or—
Something worse?
"Describe it," Aze said.
Rinne's voice trembled.
"It's smiling."
A gust of wind blew through the courtyard.
Aze whispered, "Oh no."
Rinne's eyes widened further.
"That's not all."
Aze braced himself.
"Go on."
"When I touched you… for a moment… I saw my future."
Aze's stomach dropped.
He had a horrible guess where this was going.
"What did you see?" he asked quietly.
Rinne swallowed hard.
"You."
Me?
"You," she repeated. "Standing beside me."
"O…kay?" Aze said. "That's not bad."
"That's not the part that frightened me."
Aze stared at her.
"What was frightening?"
Rinne's voice shook.
"You weren't standing in this world."
Aze nearly choked.
"What—?"
Before she could finish, the air rippled.
Aze's vision darkened for one split second.
Something had just tugged on him—hard.
A pull from beyond the world.
Rinne staggered back.
"Aze!"
He turned sharply.
A crack had appeared behind him.
A fissure in reality.
Black, thin, writhing like a slit in a curtain.
His heart dropped.
That was no portal.
That was no quirk.
That was—
A forced anchor.
Someone or something was trying to drag him out of this world.
Rinne backed away in terror.
"What is that?!"
Aze stepped in front of her.
"It's what I was afraid of," he muttered. "It found me."
The crack widened.
A skeletal hand emerged.
Black bone.
Long fingers.
Dripping fragments of broken reality.
Aze clenched his fists.
"Rinne."
"Yes?"
"When I tell you to run… run."
The hand reached toward him.
A voice whispered from inside the crack.
"Archivist…"
Aze's eyes went cold.
"Great," he muttered. "The Redactor sent a collector."
The hand lunged.
Rinne screamed.
Aze stepped forward—
And the world shattered.
Author's Note
Chapter 3 ends on a big cliffhanger!
Next chapter: Aze confronts the Collector and the first cracks in reality hit UA.
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