Kenji woke up late.

  Just another boring, overslept-again type of day.

  His alarm — an anime girl shrieking “WAKE UP, SENPAI!” — had been looping for ten minutes, each line louder than the last.

  “Rise and shine, hero!” The shout drifted up from the first floor, muffled by the floorboards.

  “ARGH! I’m coming, shut up, shut up!” Kenji yelped, flailing out of bed. Blankets tangled around his legs and sent him crashing into a pile of dirty laundry. He nearly kissed the cover of Legend of the Demon Mech Waifus Vol. 3 before catching it with both hands — reverent even mid-collapse — then shoved it aside and scrambled into his uniform.

  By the time he stumbled downstairs, he had one sock on and a shirt buttoned wrong. If he had a piece of toast clamped heroically between his teeth, the cliché would be complete. Instead, he just looked like a mess.

  “Takahara Kenji!” his mom called from the kitchen. “If you don’t get down here in the next ten seconds—”

  “I KNOW, I KNOW!” he shouted, vaulting the last three steps.

  The kitchen was its usual battlefield. His mother wielded a spatula like a sacred implement. His father read the paper on the couch with one eye open. Rika presided at the table like a small monarch, sipping milk with the calm menace of a final boss.

  Kenji avoided her gaze. Monarchs were dangerous, but little sisters were worse.

  Nathan sat at the table, neat as ever in a borrowed shirt from the guest room. He’d slept there like a model guest — bed made, towels folded — and now he was having a traditional Japanese breakfast with the grace of someone raised with proper table manners. Before him lay a neat tray of grilled salmon, a small bowl of steamed rice, and a cup of miso soup.

  He looked up and smiled, all warmth and no drama.

  “You overslept,” Nathan said, handing Kenji a glass of juice.

  “You’re a saint,” Kenji said, snatching it and gulping it down.

  A second later, he froze, patting his pockets, then his hoodie, then the floor.

  “Where— where is my phone?!”

  Panic hit instantly. “Did it fall? Did I drop it? Did it despawn?!”

  Rika held up Kenji’s phone between two fingers like a trophy.

  “You have ten gacha pulls left,” she announced. “Say I’m the cutest, or I delete your account.”

  Kenji gasped. “You wouldn’t.”

  Having her "accidentally" delete his 5-star pulls would hurt more than a physical wound.

  Gacha accounts were eternal. Siblings were temporary.

  Her thumb hovered dangerously close to the screen. “Try me.”

  “You are a demon in human skin,” Kenji said through a mouthful of toast.

  “Close enough,” Rika giggled.

  Nathan glanced over, gentler. “We should get going soon,” he said. “You don’t want to be late.”

  Kenji frowned. Nathan’s tone was normal — too normal.

  It was the kind of normal someone used when they were hiding something weird.

  Kenji scowled at his toast. “I don’t—”

  He stopped. Nathan’s face had gone strangely distant, like he’d forgotten he was supposed to be present.

  “…You good?” Kenji asked.

  Nathan blinked. “Yeah. Just been having weird dreams lately.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Voices calling. Like someone’s trying to wake me up, it’s stupid.”

  Kenji tensed up, then relaxed immediately.

  If it wasn’t a system message, prophecy, or tutorial pop-up, it clearly wasn’t important.

  He popped the lid off a cup of instant noodles, poured in hot water, and slurped without sympathy. “Congrats. You’ve unlocked your first symptom of being a protagonist.”

  Nathan huffed a laugh, but it didn’t have his usual brightness. “It just feels… familiar. Like something I should remember.”

  Kenji waved his chopsticks dismissively. “Whatever it is, it’s not a quest marker. If it was, it’d be blinking yellow.”

  This time Nathan smiled properly — but only for a moment. Something under it still flickered, a tension he quickly hid.

  Kenji didn’t press it.

  “Kenji!” his mom barked, pointing a spatula at his steaming cup. “I made salmon and rice! Why are you eating that garbage?”

  “It’s a speed-run, Mom! No time for side quests!” Kenji defended, dodging her reach.

  “You’re buttoned wrong, and you’re going to be late,” she sighed, swatting his shoulder. “Go. Just go.”

  Kenji took one last defiant slurp and grabbed his bag. “Let’s go to school.”

  After cram school, they walked home together like always. The sunset thickened the streets' gold; cicadas stitched the air into heat. On the way out, Kenji stopped at the corner vending machine and smacked it until a bag of honey-butter chips fell out — “skill issue,” he muttered at the machine, victorious. Nathan bought two melon sodas, handing one over as they walked.

  Kenji talked endlessly as he tore open the chips — about Everfall blacksmith NPCs, hidden dialogue if you wore the red cape during the lunar event, how the RNG gods were personally out to get him — crumbs flying with every dramatic point. Nathan sipped his soda and laughed in all the right places, occasionally rescuing the chip bag from drifting into traffic.

  They rounded the corner toward the station, the familiar fluorescent glow flickering above the stairs.

  Kenji paused.

  “What the hell…?”

  Yellow tape blocked the entrance. A digital sign blinked in looping apology:

  SERVICE SUSPENDED — SIGNAL MALFUNCTION

  NO TRAINS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

  “Seriously?!” Kenji threw his hands up. “This is a personal attack. The universe is nerfing me in real time.”

  Nathan checked his phone, scrolling. “Looks like the whole line’s down. Power issue.”

  Kenji groaned. “Great. Fantastic. Love living in a society.”

  Nathan nudged him lightly. “We can walk. It’s only what… forty minutes?”

  “Forty minutes is like a year in raid prep time,” Kenji complained, but he still started moving. “Fine. But if we miss the early queue, I’m suing the train company.”

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  They left the station behind, footsteps echoing on the quiet stretch of road. The sky deepened into amber. Heat from the pavement licked at their ankles. Kenji’s monologue resumed — more impassioned than before, fueled equally by gamer righteousness and sweaty indignation — and Nathan kept pace with a soft smile.

  A sleek pod-shaped vehicle hummed past them — silent, smooth, and almost ghostlike.

  On its side, glowing in soft blue LED light, was the logo:

  AURORA MOBILITY — Autonomous by Iroha Systems

  Kenji rolled his eyes the moment he saw it.

  “Oh, great. Another Iroha invention. First, she floods the bookstores, now the streets? What’s next, AI-generated school lunches?”

  Nathan snorted. “Rika really likes her books, huh?”

  “Of course she does. Everything she touches turns into cringe.”

  The pod-car slowed ahead of them, sensors rotating like blinking eyes. It signaled left, then right, then left again — confused, indecisive — before continuing forward in a jittery stutter of motion.

  Nathan frowned. “That… didn’t look normal.”

  Kenji shrugged exaggeratedly. “Typical Aurora junk. Probably trying to decide if it’s allowed to run us over.”

  He said it like a joke, but Nathan didn’t laugh this time.

  Another pod-car drifted past in the opposite direction, lights flickering once like a heartbeat.

  Kenji didn’t notice.

  Nathan did.

  A strange pressure pulsed behind his eyes — gone as quickly as it came. Like someone tapping a glass from the wrong side.

  “What’s up?” Kenji asked, catching the shift in Nathan’s expression.

  “Probably nothing,” Nathan said, but he glanced back one more time.

  They reached the intersection with the long, infuriating walk sign. A delivery truck idled nearby, engine humming low. The kind of hum you didn’t register at first.

  The light finally flashed green.

  Nathan stepped forward.

  Kenji didn’t.

  Something in the truck’s sound shifted — subtle but wrong.

  Not the patient idle of a driver waiting to turn.

  A slow, rising rev.

  Hungry. Intentional.

  Headlights tilted toward the crosswalk, slicing across the sidewalk like a spotlight searching for prey.

  The cab’s interior was dark, the driver’s face unreadable through the windshield — eyes blank, mouth slack, like a mannequin propped behind the wheel.

  Kenji felt his stomach drop.

  Something was off.

  “Nathan—” Kenji started.

  Time thickened. Nathan was already mid-step — calm, measured, confident. Kenji saw it happen in slow motion: the truck’s front lifting, a mechanical roar splitting the air.

  For the first time in his life, Kenji didn’t think about plots or tropes or destiny.

  He just… moved.

  He shoved Nathan backward with all the ridiculous, panicked force of someone who’d practiced hero poses with too much sincerity. Nathan stumbled, planted his feet, and looked up—bewildered.

  The world screamed.

  Kenji was hit.

  The impact was clean. An impossible thing. A part of him—tiny, absurd—still waited for a “You have been transported!” pop-up.

  Instead, his bones folded wrong. Heat crashed through him like a searing blade. The pavement rose up and swallowed his breath. There was a sound—not cinematic, but sharp and stupid—like a stick snapping.

  Blood pooled beneath him, warm at first… then alarmingly cold.

  The noise of the city—screams, engines, people shouting, someone crying—collapsed into a dull, distant buzzing. It was like he was underwater, the whole world sliding away one sound at a time.

  Kenji blinked up at the sky, his vision tripling.

  Something warm trickled from the corner of his mouth. Metallic and thick. He tasted asphalt and iron.

  This is real. This is death.

  “KENJI!”

  Nathan’s scream tore through the haze. He slid across the asphalt and dropped beside him, nearly falling. His hands gripped Kenji’s shoulders, frantic, terrified.

  “Hey—hey, stay with me! Stay with me!” Nathan’s voice cracked. “Kenji, look at me! Look at me!”

  Kenji tried. His eyes wouldn’t focus. Nathan pressed a hand to the side of Kenji’s head—it came away red. Too red.

  “Nathan…” Kenji gasped, coughing. Blood flecked his lips.

  “Don’t talk,” Nathan said, his voice trembling. “Just hold on. The ambulance is almost here. You’re gonna be fine. I swear it. I swear you’re gonna be fine.”

  Kenji wanted to believe him. He really did. But his body was so cold. His thoughts were slipping through his fingers like sand.

  “I… I can’t…” Kenji whispered. His breath rattled. “It hurts. Nathan… it hurts—”

  Nathan pulled him closer, cradling him carefully, shaking. “I know. I know, buddy. Just breathe. Stay with me, okay? I’m right here.”

  Kenji tried. His lungs wheezed, but no air came. A tremor rolled through him—panic rising from somewhere primal. He clawed weakly at Nathan’s sleeve.

  “N-Nathan… I…”

  His voice cracked. Tears welled.

  “I don’t want to die…” Kenji choked.

  Not before anything had even started. Not before he got a chance to matter. He always fantasized about getting hit by a truck, getting isekai’d—the classic trope.

  But that was just a joke. A meme. A dream.

  Not like this.

  He tried to speak again, but only a small, broken sound came out.

  “I was never meant to be the main character.”

  Everything went black. It was his time.

  Then, everything became white. There was nothing—no scent, no sound, no breath—just a blank, blown-white field stretching forever. Time didn’t pass here. Or maybe it passed too fast for him to notice.

  Am I dead? Kenji wondered. Is this heaven? If it was, he wished that heaven would give him a world with systems. With progression. Like Everfall. That was what he longed for.

  The white rippled, but no answer came. Instead, a dark circular void opened like a mirror in the void. From it, a mass of glowing eyes—ancient and unblinking—stared at him. They didn’t look surprised. They looked expectant.

  Then the white vanished. Everything went black again. Death was finally here. He felt nothing and knew nothing; he simply was, suspended in a gap between what he had been and what was coming next.

  Then:

  Ping.

  [Welcome, Takahara Kenji]

  A status window unfolded before him like a relic from his dreams.

  Kenji blinked.

  His heart didn’t beat — it detonated.

  The pain — the shock, the blood — was gone.

  His limbs obeyed.

  He could breathe again, and the air tasted so good and so new

  Nathan’s scream still echoed somewhere far behind him… fading away and becoming distant.

  He looked down.

  He wasn’t on the sidewalk anymore. A ceiling loomed above him — impossibly high, like the sky itself. Giants moved around him in dazzling clarity. The whole world glittered at a higher resolution.

  This wasn’t Everfall.

  This was something else —

  A new world folding itself into being beneath his feet.

  “No way,” he whispered.

  It sounded like a prayer, a laugh, and a dare all at once.

  He touched the floating window.

  Strength. Agility. Vitality.

  A Quest: Unknown Origin — Investigate.

  He laughed — a raw, shaky sound, half hysteria, half triumph — because he could feel the world obey the numbers.

  For the first time, anything about him made sense.

  He mouthed a title to himself — a light novel title so stupid only he could love it:

  So I’ve Been Reborn in a War-Torn Empire as a Noble Prodigy with a Hidden Trait and a System No One Else Can See — Don’t Blame Me When I Conquer Everything!

  It came out as a series of delighted squeaks.

  Around him, the unreal landscape breathed.

  For the first time in his life, Kenji felt like the world had finally remembered to make his role real.

  He was alive, and he was somewhere else.

  And for once… he felt like the main character.

  No —

  He was the main character.

  The thought burned in his chest, smug and electric.

  He couldn’t help but gloat, the corners of his mouth twitching upward.

  “I knew this day would come,” he whispered. “I’m the main character, after all.”