The End-State Myth
FIRE. That was all that remained.
A violet inferno roared through the ruins of Serenia, swallowing the streets whole. The flames didn't crackle—they screamed, each tongue of fire carrying voices that had long since stopped begging. The sky above was split open, a jagged tear like bleeding parchment, revealing something vast and unseen beyond its edges. Not darkness. Worse. Absence—the kind that made the mind recoil, that whispered you were staring at a place where reality had simply given up.
And beneath it—
A field of swords.
Thousands of them, their hilts jutting from the scorched earth like gravestones for futures that would never arrive. Between them, golden threads thrummed faintly, trembling as if plucked by unseen hands. Each thread pulsed with stolen memories, stolen futures—woven together into something resembling destiny. The air itself was thick with meaning, heavy enough to crush lungs, dense enough to make breathing feel like drowning in someone else's life.
This was what happened when a higher plane bled into the lower realms. When principle became more real than physics. When the world stopped obeying its own laws and started obeying his.
And standing amidst them—
Malleus Denaki.
The fallen angel's silhouette cut against the ruins like a knife against flesh. His hooded mantle swayed with an absent wind, the bone-white lining flickering like candlelight against ink. His fingers trailed along one of the golden threads, his crimson-tipped hair shifting as he tilted his head—listening. To what, only he knew. Perhaps to the threads themselves. Perhaps to the screaming of a world being unmade.
"Still so loud," he murmured, voice neither cruel nor kind—just inevitable. Like gravity. Like entropy. "Even now, you beg to be heard."
His crimson eyes—too bright, too knowing—traced the pattern of threads before him. A tapestry of causality. A web of fates intersecting, diverging, snapping. He plucked one thread between his fingers, and somewhere in the ruins, a building collapsed. Another thread, and a memory died before it could form.
"Fascinating," he whispered. "How desperately you all cling to the illusion of choice."
Then—
A blade pierced through his chest.
Blood spilled onto the threads beneath him, each drop sizzling as it touched the golden strands—corrupting them, turning them black.
And behind him, Pyreton stood—his own blade lodged deep, his grip unyielding. His abyss-indigo eyes burned with something beyond hatred. Beyond grief. Something that had calcified into purpose so sharp it could cut through fate itself.
"Silence," Pyreton said, his voice breaking like glass under pressure. "Is all you deserve."
Malleus chuckled—soft, amused, as if the blade in his chest were nothing more than an inconvenience.
"Ah. You're early."
A moment passed. Another.
Blood dripped from Malleus' lips, painting his teeth crimson. But he never moved. Never flinched. His crimson gaze, unflinching, remained focused on the threads. The thrum of fate-marked memories seemed to rise, as if responding to the violence, feeding on it.
"You can't kill a god of fate, you know," he said, almost gently. Almost pitying. "Even if you kill one like me. The tapestry doesn't end just because you cut a single thread."
Pyreton's glare hardened, his grip on the embedded blade tightening until his knuckles went white. "A'nari," he managed, bitterness lacing every syllable like poison. "She didn't deserve this. No one does."
"Indeed?"
A smile curled on Malleus' lips—a cold, knowing smile that carried the weight of eons. "You think I wouldn't agree?"
The words hung in the air like a noose.
Pyreton's blade trembled in his grip, the steel singing with restrained fury. "You tore her future apart," he said, each word sharp as shattered glass. "Her laughter, her dreams—you wove them into this grotesque tapestry of yours. You turned her into a thread."
Malleus sighed—not with remorse, but with something darker. Resignation. Exhaustion. The weariness of someone who had seen this conversation play out a thousand times before.
"Everything woven must first be unraveled," he murmured. "A'nari's fate was never mine to spare. Only... to repurpose." He paused, tilting his head as another thread snapped somewhere in the distance. "She understood that, in the end. Did she tell you? In those final moments?"
Pyreton's breath hitched. His free hand clenched into a fist so tight his nails drew blood from his palm.
"You don't get to speak her name," he hissed, voice dropping to something feral. "Not after what you made her into."
Malleus tilted his head, blood still dripping lazily from the wound Pyreton had given him. It pooled at his feet, mixing with the ash, turning the ground beneath them into something that looked like a ruined altar.
"Tell me, then," he said, almost curious. Almost sincere. "What would you have done differently? If you could rewrite the tapestry? If you could pull every thread and start again?"
Pyreton's breath hitched—just for a moment. Just long enough for Malleus to see the crack in his armor.
"Ah," the fallen angel whispered, something like satisfaction flickering in his eyes. "You see it now, don't you? There was never another way. Every path led here. Every choice you made, every defiance, every act of love—" He gestured to the field of swords, to the burning city, to the split sky. "—all of it was already woven."
Silence.
The wind howled through the skeletal ruins. Somewhere, a thread snapped—its golden light flickering, then dying. A life erased. A future unmade.
Then—
"Then burn with it," Pyreton snarled—and twisted the blade.
The world screamed.
Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. The world itself—the air, the ground, the threads, the flames—all of it shrieked as Pyreton's blade carved through Malleus' chest and into the tapestry beneath him. Reality buckled. The threads ignited, burning from gold to black to nothing. The sky tore wider, and for a moment—just a moment—something vast and terrible looked down.
Malleus' smile never faded.
"Inevitable," he whispered, even as his form began to unravel. "All of it... inevitable."
And then—
He was gone.
Not dead. Not destroyed.
Just... elsewhere.
Pyreton stood alone in the field of swords, his blade still dripping with blood that wasn't quite blood. His chest heaved. His hands shook. The violet flames roared higher, consuming everything, and the sky above continued to bleed.
He had won.
He had lost.
He had changed nothing.
And somewhere, impossibly far away—
---
Ryo Kenzaki opened his eyes.
---
He gasped—sharp, sudden—like surfacing from deep water. His heart hammered against his ribs, too fast, too loud. Sweat clung to his skin. His hands gripped the sheets beneath him, knuckles white.
What—?
A dream. It had to be a dream.
But dreams didn't leave phantom sensations. Dreams didn't make your chest ache like something had been carved out of it. Dreams didn't leave the taste of ash on your tongue.
He sat up slowly, pressing a palm to his sternum. His heart was still racing. His breath still uneven.
What the hell was that?
He couldn't remember. Not clearly. Just... fire. And threads. And eyes—so many eyes—staring down at him from a sky that shouldn't exist.
He shook his head, running a hand through his messy brown hair.
"...Stupid," he muttered to himself. "Just a nightmare."
But even as he said it, he didn't believe it.
---
"2000 Years Earlier"
The city of Serenia had not yet burned.
It stood—untouched, unbroken—under a sky the color of fresh ink and morning mist. Streets hummed with life, lanterns casting golden pools of light against cobblestone. The scent of seared fish and steamed buns curled through the air, mingling with the distant chime of temple bells. Children laughed. Merchants haggled. Somewhere, a street musician played a shamisen, the notes drifting lazily through the evening air.
It was peaceful.
It was ordinary.
It was not yet damned.
But that would come later.
Much later.
---
Present Day – Serenia, Human Realm
Hakusei High School.
The lunch bell rang—a sharp, metallic shriek—and students flooded the courtyard in a wave of chatter and half-eaten snacks. Somewhere, a soccer ball bounced off a wall. Somewhere else, someone groaned about unfinished homework. The air smelled like cheap convenience store onigiri and the faint sweetness of vending machine coffee.
And leaning against the roof railing, staring up at the sky like it owed him answers—
Ryo Kenzaki.
His warm brown hair was a mess, perpetually windswept, as if he'd just rolled out of bed and sprinted to class (he had). His lean frame was draped in the standard-issue Hakusei uniform—white shirt slightly wrinkled, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. A single loose thread dangled from his collar. He wasn't looking at his food. He wasn't even looking at the clouds.
He was staring at nothing.
---
RYO'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
I hate this.
Not school. Not the people. Not even the homework I'm definitely failing.
I hate the feeling that I'm waiting for something. Like the world's holding its breath. Like any second now, someone's going to tap me on the shoulder and say, "Congratulations, you're the protagonist now. Here's your destiny. Try not to die."
Bullshit.
I'm not special. I'm not chosen. I'm just... me. A guy who likes melon bread, hates mornings, and sometimes zones out during math because the equations look like they're written in another dimension.
I want normal. I want to be bored. I want to graduate, get a job, maybe adopt a cat. I want a life where the biggest crisis is whether the vending machine ate my coins again.
Is that so much to ask?
---
Then—
"Oi. Kenzaki."
A half-eaten melon bread smacked into his cheek.
Ryo blinked—slow, unbothered—before peeling the bread off his face.
"Hiroshi," he said, deadpan. "I was contemplating the meaning of life."
Hiroshi—grinning, lanky, one hook strand of hair curling defiantly forward—flopped down beside him with all the grace of a collapsing scarecrow. "Yeah? And?"
Ryo took a bite of the melon bread. "...Still working on it."
Hiroshi barked out a laugh—loud, unrestrained, the kind of laugh that made people turn and smile even if they didn't know what was funny.
---
RYO'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
That's Hiroshi, by the way. The idiot who just assaulted me with pastry.
He laughs like he's trying to outshine the sun, runs like he's being chased by bees, and somehow manages to make even the school uniform look like he slept in it. But he's also the guy who notices when someone's eating alone. Who drags you into dumb conversations so you don't drown in your own head.
The kind of friend who makes "normal" worth keeping.
---
Hiroshi grinned, nudging him with his elbow. "You're spacing out again, aren't you? That's like the third time today."
Ryo shrugged. "Maybe I'm just bored."
"Bored? Dude, you fell asleep during physics. With your eyes open. Sensei thought you were having a stroke."
"In my defense, the lecture was about entropy. I was demonstrating it."
Hiroshi snorted. "You're an idiot."
"Takes one to know one."
Before Hiroshi could retort, a new voice cut through the chatter—cool, composed, carrying just enough edge to make people straighten their posture.
"Kenzaki."
Ryo didn't need to turn to know who it was.
Satoshi.
---
RYO'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
And that's Satoshi. The guy who looks like he walked out of a magazine ad for "effortlessly cool." Perfect hair. Sharp eyes. A smirk that makes teachers sigh and girls giggle.
But here's the thing—he's also the first one to step in front of someone getting pushed around. The kind of guy who'll pretend he doesn't care... right up until the moment he does.
He sees more than he lets on. And that makes him dangerous in the best way.
---
Satoshi flicked the toothpick between his teeth to the other side, eyeing Ryo with something between amusement and exasperation. "You're late for club sign-ups."
Ryo blinked. "...We have clubs?"
Hiroshi groaned. "Dude. It's on every bulletin board—"
"Irrelevant."
A binder smacked down onto the table between them with the force of a judicial gavel.
Ryo didn't flinch.
Mei.
---
RYO'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
And that's Mei. The human embodiment of an unsolved math problem. Precision incarnate.
She organizes her notes like a tactical strike plan and could probably kill a man with her mechanical pencil. Most people find her intimidating.
Me? I just think she's the only reason any of us remember deadlines.
She's also been my best friend since we were kids. Which means she knows exactly how to corner me.
---
Mei's cool gray-lavender eyes locked onto Ryo like crosshairs. "Sign. Now."
She flipped open the binder to a highlighted form—"Hakusei Kendo Club" glaring up at them in crisp print.
Hiroshi squinted. "Wait, since when do you do kendo—?"
"Irrelevant," Mei repeated, shoving a pen into Ryo's hand. "You need extracurriculars. This one has a 78% acceptance rate for graduates. Sign."
Ryo eyed the pen like it was a live grenade. "...What if I wanted to join the gardening club?"
Mei didn't blink. "You killed a cactus in the homeroom."
"Fair."
Satoshi smirked, plucking the toothpick from his mouth. "Just give in, Kenzaki. Resistance is futile."
Ryo sighed—dramatic, long-suffering—before scribbling his name on the form.
Mei's expression didn't change, but there was the faintest flicker of satisfaction in her eyes. She closed the binder with a crisp snap.
"Good. Practice starts Monday. Don't be late."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Ryo muttered.
Hiroshi leaned over, grinning. "You know she only does this because she cares, right?"
Ryo shot him a look. "She does this because she's a control freak."
"Same thing," Hiroshi said cheerfully.
Mei adjusted her glasses. "I prefer 'proactive.'"
"Sure, sure," Satoshi drawled. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
---
The bell rang—a shrill, almost relieved sound—as their teacher waved them off with a tired smile.
"Alright, don't forget the homework. And Kenzaki," the teacher added, pinching the bridge of his nose, "try staying awake this time."
Ryo gave a half-hearted salute. "No promises."
---
After School – Hakusei Gates
The four of them lingered by the school gates, sunlight filtering through the cherry blossoms overhead. The breeze carried the scent of fresh-cut grass and the distant hum of city life. It was the kind of moment that felt suspended—like the world had paused just for them.
Hiroshi stretched his arms behind his head. "Sooo… arcade?"
Mei sighed. "You say that like it's not the fifth time this week."
"And yet," Satoshi mused, spinning his toothpick between his fingers, "you still follow us every time."
Mei narrowed her eyes but didn't deny it.
Ryo smirked, adjusting his bag strap. "Face it, Mei. You're just as hopeless as the rest of us."
She huffed. "I'm going to ensure you idiots don't bankrupt yourselves."
"Sure, sure," Hiroshi laughed. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
Ryo glanced back at the school—its windows gleaming in the afternoon light—before turning to his friends. "Alright, arcade it is. But first—" He pointed at Hiroshi. "You're buying me a melon bread. As payment for earlier."
Hiroshi gasped dramatically. "Betrayal!"
"Justice," Ryo corrected with a grin.
Just as the laughter died down, Ryo's phone buzzed in his pocket. He reached for it, the screen lighting up with multiple missed calls. One glance at the screen and he knew exactly who it was.
"Ugh, not again."
Hiroshi peeked over. "Is it your dad again?"
Ryo sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Yeah. He's been calling nonstop."
He tapped the 'call back' button and held the phone to his ear with a casual "Hey."
His father's voice was firm on the other end. "Ryo. Come home. Tonight's dinner isn't optional."
Ryo rolled his eyes. "Dad, it's just dinner. Can't I—"
"Your sister already set a place for you," his dad interrupted, tone softening slightly. "She'll cry if you don't show up."
There was a pause. Ryo pictured his little sister—tiny hands clutching her favorite chopsticks, eyes already watery at the thought of him skipping out.
"...Fine," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'll be there."
Hiroshi shot him a knowing look. "Bailed again?"
Ryo shoved his phone back in his pocket. "Duty calls. Apparently, I'm 'essential to family harmony' or whatever."
Mei adjusted her binder under her arm. "Good. Your sister actually appreciates you."
Satoshi smirked. "Unlike us."
Ryo flipped him off lazily. "I'll destroy you at the arcade tomorrow."
Hiroshi grinned. "Bet. Now go be a good big brother before your dad sends out a search party."
With a final wave, Ryo turned toward home—where an overeager little sister and an inevitable family lecture awaited him.
---
Kenzaki Household – Evening
The moment Ryo stepped through the front door, the scent of home-cooked food washed over him—something rich, savory, the kind of meal that took hours to prepare. Miso. Grilled fish. Rice that had been cooked just right.
It smelled like home.
And that made it worse.
"Took you long enough!"
A booming voice cut through the air before he could even kick off his shoes.
There, arms crossed and grinning like a man who hadn't slept properly in years, stood Kujuro Kenzaki—Ryo's father.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with messy brown hair streaked with premature gray, he looked like someone who'd been carved out of a bar fight and polished into a father. His stubble was perpetually at "three days unshaved," and his grin had the same sharp edge as Ryo's, though his eyes carried something heavier. Something that looked like exhaustion wearing a smile.
Ryo groaned. "I literally came straight here."
"Sure, sure," Kujuro waved him off before suddenly grabbing Ryo in a headlock, rubbing his knuckles into his son's hair. "Excuses are like bad jokes, kid—nobody wants 'em!"
"Ow—old man, quit it—!"
A small voice piped up from the hallway.
"...Big Brother?"
Ryo froze.
Peeking around the corner was Rumi Kenzaki—eight years old, wide-eyed, and clutching a slightly lopsided drawing in her hands. Her hair was a lighter brown than Ryo's, tied into two messy pigtails, and her socks never matched. She had a habit of tilting her head when confused, like a puppy trying to understand human speech.
"You... you came?" Her voice wobbled.
Ryo immediately wrenched himself free from Kujuro's grip and crouched down to her eye level. "Course I did. You think I'd miss dinner with you?"
Rumi blinked rapidly, then—launched herself at him, nearly knocking him over.
"I made you a drawing!" She shoved the paper into his face. "See? It's you and me and Daddy and—"
She pointed at a floating, vaguely human-shaped scribble near the top.
"That's Mommy watching us from heaven!"
The air in the room shifted.
Ryo's smile faltered—just for a second—before freezing into something stiff and unnatural. He gently pried Rumi's drawing from her hands, fingers tightening imperceptibly around the edges.
The crayon lines blurred. The colors bled together. He saw his mother's face—not the drawing, but the memory. Her warm smile. The way she'd hum off-key while cooking. The scent of jasmine lingering in her hair.
And then—the hospital room. The sterile white walls. The way her voice had been so frail near the end, but she'd still mustered the strength to ruffle his hair one last time.
"You're strong, Ryo. So don't you dare cry for me, okay?"
He'd cried anyway. Sobbed until his throat burned.
"Hey, Rumi... it's really good," he said, voice carefully neutral. Then, standing abruptly, he turned to his father. "I'm gonna take a walk."
Kujuro's grin faded. He knew that tone. "Kid—"
But Ryo was already shoving his feet back into his shoes, tossing a quick "Be back soon" over his shoulder before pushing the door open.
The cool evening air hit him like a slap.
Behind him, Rumi's tiny voice wavered. "...Did I say something wrong?"
Kujuro sighed, running a hand through his hair. "No, squirt. Your brother's just... bad at feelings."
---
The Park – Dusk
The park was quiet this time of evening—just the rustle of leaves and the distant hum of streetlights flickering to life. Ryo kicked at a loose pebble, watching it skitter across the pavement before disappearing into the grass.
"...Stupid," he muttered to himself.
---
RYO'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
Have you ever thought about how fragile it all is?
One day, everything's normal. The next… it's gone. Just like that.
My mom used to say that life was like a thread. Thin. Delicate. Easy to snap if you pulled too hard.
I didn't understand what she meant back then.
I do now.
She was here. And then she wasn't. And the world just... kept going. Like nothing happened. Like she didn't matter.
But she did.
She mattered to me.
And I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it.
---
He clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms. The memory of her laughter echoed in his ears—bright, alive—only to be swallowed by the suffocating silence that followed her absence.
His chest ached.
He hated days like this. Hated the way his father pretended everything was fine. Hated how Rumi still drew pictures of a woman she barely remembered.
A breeze brushed past him, carrying the faint scent of jasmine—just for a second.
His breath hitched.
"...Damn it."
He tilted his head back, staring at the darkening sky.
"You'd be pissed at me for running out like that, huh?"
No answer. Just the wind.
---
RYO'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
And then what? You just… keep living? Like the world didn't just crack in half?
Bullshit.
But what else can you do?
You wake up. You go to school. You pretend everything's fine. You laugh with your friends. You sign up for clubs you don't care about. You eat dinner with your family and pretend you're not falling apart inside.
Because if you stop—if you let yourself feel it—you'll drown.
So you keep moving. You keep pretending.
You keep living.
Even when it feels like the world's about to end.
---
The Star That Pierced Fate
Then—
A sound.
Wrong. Metallic. Like the sky itself was tearing apart.
Ryo's head snapped up.
A noise that didn't belong. A frequency that made his teeth ache and his skin crawl. It wasn't loud—not yet—but it was present. Like the world had suddenly remembered it was supposed to be screaming.
Then—
Light.
Blinding. Violent. A streak of white-hot something screaming through the atmosphere.
Ryo's breath caught.
"What—?"
---
NARRATIVE:
The star fell.
It wasn't a meteor. Not quite. It was alive—pulsing, seething with a radiance that scorched the retinas. It moved with purpose. With intent.
And when it struck—
The impact wasn't an explosion.
It was an unmaking.
---
The ground trembled. Windows shattered for miles. The air itself warped, bending around the point of impact like reality was trying to fold in on itself.
Ryo didn't think—he ran.
His lungs burned. His ribs ached. The world tilted underfoot as the aftershocks rolled through the streets like thunder.
"Damn it—!"
He skidded into the alleyway—a narrow, smoke-choked passage where the debris still smoldered.
And there—
A crater.
Not from a meteor.
A body.
---
The Hunter's Arrival
Yua Aihara lay sprawled in the wreckage.
Her dark hair was matted with blood, her Hunter uniform torn and singed. One arm was bent at a grotesque angle, fingers twitching in the dust. Her breathing was shallow, ragged, but controlled. Like she was rationing every breath.
But her eyes—
Even half-lidded, even dazed—
They burned.
Heterochromia: royal blue left, violet right—like twin fires refusing to gutter out.
---
RYO'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
What the hell…?
She wasn't human. Couldn't be. Humans didn't crash from the sky. Humans didn't survive crashes like this.
Who—?
---
Then—
Yua's voice: cold, sharp, laced with pain but unbroken.
"Don't… just stand there."
A cough. Blood trickled from her lip.
"Help me up."
---
Ryo froze.
Then—instinct took over.
"You're—you're insane! You're fucking—!"
But his hands were already moving, gripping her forearm as she gritted her teeth and forced herself upright.
Her weight pressed against his shoulder. Her blood smeared across his shirt. She was real. Solid. Alive.
And terrifying.
Her fingers dug into his sleeve—bloody but unshaking.
"Listen carefully," she rasped.
The air itself hummed with tension. With something wrong.
"That crater?"
Her voice dropped—a whisper like a blade unsheathed.
"That wasn't me landing."
---
RYO'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
…What?
---
Then—
The sky split again.
A sound like glass shattering—vertically, from cloud to earth.
Ryo looked up.
And saw—
The Second Star.
No—
Not a star.
An Eye.
---
The Eye
Gigantic. Lidless. The pupil dilated wide enough to swallow the moon.
It stared down.
Directly at them.
Not at the city. Not at the crater. At them. At Ryo and Yua specifically, like it had been searching for them and had finally found what it was looking for.
The air grew heavy. Oppressive. Like the atmosphere itself was being crushed under the weight of something that shouldn't exist.
Reality didn't just bend—it broke.
The streetlights flickered. The ground cracked. The sky bled colors that didn't have names.
This wasn't physics.
This was meaning.
This was a higher plane forcing itself into a lower one. This was the world being rewritten by something that operated on principles beyond comprehension.
---
Yua's voice, bleak and final:
"Run."
---
NARRATIVE:
And so—the Human Realm learned:
Fate is not written.
It falls.
---
🌀 END OF CHAPTER 1