The first drawing appeared on Sanctum's notice board.
It wasn't official.
No guild announcement, no posted mission. Just a piece of paper tacked into the corner where people usually pinned lost items and "looking for roommate" notes.
Shinra noticed it because Riku walked straight into a chair.
"Hey—" Riku barked, grabbing the backrest before it tipped. "Who moved this—"
He stopped.
His gaze had caught on the board.
"What," he said flatly, "is that."
Hana looked up from her tablet. "What is what?" she asked, following his line of sight—and then, "Oh."
Shinra, heading through the common area toward the stairs, glanced over more out of habit than curiosity.
He saw it too.
Someone had drawn a figure in black ink—tall, coat fluttering, standing in front of a jagged abstract shape that was clearly meant to be a Breach. The lines were rough, hand unsteady, but there was intent in them.
Above the figure's head, someone had written, in embarrassingly large, uneven letters:
THANK YOU, SHINRA — HUB GUARDIAN
Below, in smaller handwriting:
"For bringing my brother back."
Riku made a noise like a kettle starting to boil.
"Oh no," he muttered. "No, no, no. This is how it starts."
"How what starts?" Daren asked, wandering up with a protein bar in hand.
"Idols," Riku said. "Fan clubs. Creepy shrines. People whispering 'did you hear what he ate for breakfast' like it's classified intel."
Hana pushed her glasses up, studying the drawing.
"It's… sincere," she said.
"That's the problem," Riku said. "If it were mocking, we could laugh and take it down. This is— ugh."
He glanced over his shoulder and froze when he saw Shinra watching.
"Oh," he said. "Speaking of the cult leader himself."
Shinra blinked. "Cult leader?"
"I'm joking," Riku said quickly. "Mostly. Please don't erase my existence."
"I haven't erased anyone this week," Shinra replied.
"That makes it sound like you've done it in other weeks," Hana murmured.
Riku gestured wildly at the board.
"Do not encourage this," he said. "I can already hear it. 'Hub Guardian-sama.' 'Silent Protector-san.' It'll spread. It always spreads."
Shinra stepped closer to the drawing.
The figure's face was just a blank oval—no features. The hands were too large, shoulders too broad. The Breach behind him was more scribble than shape.
But the line, thank you, was straight.
He stared at it a moment too long.
[You're uncomfortable, Great Master,] Arios said.
Yes, Shinra thought.
He'd expected fear.
He hadn't prepared for… this.
"Who put it up?" Yuna's voice came from the side.
She approached from the corridor, eyes going straight to the drawing. Her brows rose.
"Ah," she said. "There it is."
"You knew?" Riku said, aghast.
"Mizuki told me a civilian came by earlier," Yuna said. "A woman from the Hub sector. She left that and refused to give her name. Just said, 'For Sanctum,' and hurried off."
"She didn't have to," Shinra said.
"No," Yuna agreed. "But people rarely do things because they have to."
Shinra kept looking at the scrawled words.
Hub Guardian.
"Do we leave it?" Hana asked quietly.
Yuna glanced at Shinra.
He didn't answer immediately.
Memories stirred—halls lined with banners, names carved into stone, crowds chanting titles he'd never asked for and could never escape.
The titles had outlived the people.
Until even they were gone.
[They used to build statues,] Arios said, tone light but edged.
[Temples. Songs.]
They also built pyres, Shinra thought. For the ones who disappointed them.
He exhaled slowly.
"Leave it," he said at last. "It matters more to her than it does to me."
Riku groaned. "We're doomed."
Yuna's mouth curved slightly.
"We'll keep an eye on the board," she said. "If it turns into a wall of worship, we… redirect things."
She looked at Shinra again, a question in her gaze that she didn't voice here in the hallway.
He turned away from the drawing.
The word followed him down the corridor anyway.
Guardian.
He'd failed at that once.
He wasn't sure this era knew what it was asking for when it used that word.
The city played catch-up in its own way.
Shinra saw it in fragments.
On a public holo-display near a transit stop, a news panel replayed grainy footage of the Hub incident—distorted light, the shape of collapsing anomalies, silhouettes of guild squads fighting.
The image froze on a frame where a dark figure cut through the chaos.
It could have been anyone, really.
The anchor didn't care.
"Eyewitness reports claim a single Tier 1 presence turned the tide," she said. "Speculation continues around 'Sanctum's silent monster,' now being called the 'Hub Guardian' by some—"
The words scrolled along the bottom.
SANCTUM'S TIER 1: SAVIOR OR THREAT?
Shinra watched for a moment, then moved on.
Near a café, he overheard a conversation between two middle-aged men on break.
"I heard he can stop Breaches just by staring at them," one said.
"That's not how it works," the other replied. "But… my cousin works near the Hub. She said it felt like the air itself changed."
"And you're okay with that?" the first asked. "Someone walking around who can twist space by accident?"
"If my cousin's alive because of it?" the second said quietly. "Yeah. I might be."
At a small park, a group of younger kids had taken chalk to pavement.
They drew squiggles that were supposed to be Breaches and stick figures with big circles around them labeled TIER 1, TIER 5, TIER 6.
One stick figure was bigger than the rest.
No face.
Longer coat.
Someone had scrawled SHINRA above it in blocky letters.
The smallest kid stomped his foot and yelled, "We can't fight the monsters without Shinra!"
The older one objected. "No, we can! He just helps!"
"That's still worship," Arios said dryly.
No, Shinra thought, watching from the sidewalk, hood up. That's stories.
[Stories grow.]
He knew that.
They always grew.
Sometimes they grew teeth.
It wasn't all warmth.
Later, in a more polished district, he passed a pair of Ascendants in sleek uniforms standing outside a glass-fronted guild building. Their emblem belonged to a guild that prided itself on neat reports and neat power.
They were laughing over something on a shared holo.
"Look at this," one said, tilting the projection. "They're already making fan threads. 'Blessed by the Hub Guardian.' 'If Shinra is watching, I feel safe.' Disgusting."
"People always cling to strong things," the other said. "Doesn't matter if those things are stable or not."
"Authority should tag him higher," the first muttered. "If he destabilizes a major node by sneezing, we shouldn't be letting him stroll around."
"He's under Sanctum," the second replied. "You know how they are. Soft hearts. Soft rules. No sense of scale."
"And if he snaps?" the first asked. "They'll all go with him."
Shinra turned the corner, letting their words trail off behind him.
[Fear,] Arios said.
[Better directed than worship. Fear makes them maintain distance.]
Fear also makes them preemptive, Shinra thought. It's not safer. Just… different.
It came to a point, quietly, that evening.
Sanctum's day cycle had wound down. Most missions were logged for the shift. The cafeteria buzz had faded to a low murmur, punctuated by the clink of dishes and Riku's distant argument with the drinks machine.
Shinra slipped into the small side entrance on the ground floor instead of the main lobby, intending to cross the supply hall and cut through the inner courtyard.
Lila was there.
Standing near the wall, a box of small items at her feet.
She froze when she saw him.
"Ah," she said, flustered. "Shinra. Sorry. I didn't mean to block the way."
"You're not," he said. "What are you doing?"
Her cheeks colored slightly.
"Just… cleaning up," she said.
He followed her gaze.
On the wall near the corridor junction, someone had taped up more than just the original drawing.
There were small notes now.
Folded papers with short lines like:
"Thank you for my son."
"You didn't know me, but you saved my wife."
"To the man who cut the Breach—please stay."
A rough sketch of Sanctum's emblem.
A badly-printed screenshot from a news feed, zoomed and blurred beyond usefulness.
Lila had a few more in her hands, half-taped, half-uncertain.
"You're organizing them," he said.
"Trying," she admitted. "People came by while you were out. Left things. Mizuki said we could reserve this section for… appreciation."
She fumbled over the word.
"And if it gets too much?" Shinra asked.
Lila winced. "We'll redirect," she said. "Kaizen doesn't want this turning into a cult wall either. But… for now, some people really needed to leave something."
She looked at him, then looked away quickly.
"I can take them down if you want," she added in a rush. "If it makes you uncomfortable."
He stared at the notes.
His chest felt tight, in a way that had nothing to do with seals or strained power.
[You remember,] Arios said softly.
[The halls. The banners.]
He did.
He remembered people kneeling in rooms lit by a hundred torches, voices chanting his name like a spell. He remembered not recognizing the version of himself they were praising.
"Leave them," he said.
"Are you sure?" Lila asked. "Because if someone did this to me, I'd want to crawl under a table."
"That's my instinct," he said.
She blinked.
"But," he went on, "they didn't do this to me. They did it for themselves. For what they lost. For what they nearly lost."
He reached out, fingers brushing lightly over one folded note.
The paper was thin.
The gratitude behind it was not.
"I won't tell them not to say thank you," he said quietly. "I'll just… avoid this hallway if it gets crowded."
Lila exhaled a small laugh.
"I can move some to the board," she offered. "Spread it out. Make it less…"
"Shrine-like?" he suggested.
She winced. "Yeah. That."
She hesitated, then blurted:
"For what it's worth," she said, "I don't think of you as… a deity, or a monster, or a… anything like that. You're just… Shinra. Who fixes carts and occasionally scares rival guilds."
"That last part is accurate," he said.
She smiled, faint and genuine.
"I'll try not to let this get weird," she said, gesturing to the wall. "And if it does, we'll blame Riku."
"On principle," Shinra agreed.
He left her there, re-taping notes with more order, muttering to herself about spacing and equal distance.
[Reverence begins small,] Arios said as Shinra moved away.
[With notes. With stories. With the way people say your name.]
I know, Shinra thought.
[Last time, they built you a city of marble.]
Last time, I let them, Shinra answered. This time, I won't give them room to.
Night settled over Sanctum.
Lights dimmed in the halls.
On the roof, the city stretched in a field of scattered stars—some on the ground, some in the sky. Breach detectors' faint glows winked on towers. Transit lines pulsed in steady arcs.
Shinra stood near the edge of the roof, hands braced lightly on the low barrier, watching airships drift in the distance.
The breeze was cool.
He'd come up here intending only to look. To let the day flow out of him.
It wasn't flowing.
A weight sat tight in his chest, stubborn as stone.
[You're unsettled,] Arios said.
You said that already, Shinra replied.
[You didn't argue,] Arios pointed out.
He didn't.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
He didn't need to turn to know who it was.
"You're easy to find when you're brooding," Yuna said.
"I'm not brooding," he said.
"You're on the roof, alone, staring at the city like it personally offended you," she said. "That's at least mild brooding."
He didn't correct her.
She came to stand beside him, leaning against the barrier with her arms folded over the top edge.
They were quiet for a while.
"They started a wall," Yuna said eventually.
"I saw," he replied.
"Mizuki's idea was to call it a 'feedback space,'" Yuna said. "Kaizen suggested 'gratitude corner.' Riku suggested 'Shinra cult containment zone.'"
Shinra snorted once.
"That sounds like him," he said.
"Yeah," she said.
The wind lifted a strand of her hair; she tucked it back absently.
"How bad is it?" he asked. "The… wall."
"Not terrible yet," she said. "Some notes. A few drawings. One very earnest poem that I'm doing my best to forget."
He winced. "Poems."
"Bad ones," she confirmed. "We're moderating what gets put up. No worship slogans. No 'protect us oh great one.' Just 'thank you,' mostly."
"That's already too much," he muttered.
Yuna looked at him sideways.
"It bothers you that much?" she asked.
He considered his words.
"Yes," he said.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I know where it goes," he said. "Today they say 'thank you.' Tomorrow they say 'save us.' Next week, 'decide for us.' Eventually, they stop seeing a person and only see what they want me to be. And when I fail to be that, they hate me for not matching their illusion."
Yuna's eyes searched his face.
"You talk like you've watched that happen before," she said quietly.
He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
[You have,] Arios said softly.
[More times than this world will ever know.]
"I'm not afraid of their thanks," Shinra said. "I'm afraid of their expectations."
"That you'll always win?" Yuna asked.
"That I'll always choose what they like," he said.
They watched a distant railcar pass, lights sliding along its length like beads.
"Authority is afraid of you because they can't categorize you," Yuna said. "Some guilds are afraid because they can't control you. Low-tiers and Mundanes… some of them are starting to lean on you in their heads."
"They shouldn't," Shinra said.
"You can't stop them," she replied. "People need symbols. Sometimes to hope. Sometimes to blame."
"I don't want to be either," he said.
"Tough," she said. "You exist. You're strong. That's enough for the world to put you on a board whether you agreed to play or not."
"That's not comforting," he said.
"It wasn't meant to be," she said.
He huffed a small breath that wasn't quite a laugh.
They stood there, the city breathing below them.
"I can't be what they think," he said. "The 'Hub Guardian.' The silent protector. The unshakable Tier 1. I'm… none of those things."
"You're not silent," Yuna said. "You complain in your head a lot, I can tell."
He gave her a look.
She smiled faintly.
"Listen," she said, more seriously. "We can't control what the city does with your name. Or mine. Or Sanctum's. People will whisper. They'll praise. They'll doubt. They'll twist things. That's… outside our circle."
"And inside?" he asked.
"In here?" She tapped the rooftop railing lightly. "In Sanctum? You're Shinra. The guy who joined Unit 3, who helped in the Hub, who tells Riku when he's being stupid and who notices when Hana is carrying too much alone. That's it."
"Just that?" he said.
"Just that," she repeated. "No thrones. No crowns. No titles."
"Kaizen called me an asset," he reminded her.
"Kaizen calls everything an asset," she said. "If he compliments soup, he calls it a 'nutritional asset.' Don't listen to him too seriously."
[Confirmed,] Arios said.
Shinra let the tension in his shoulders ease a fraction.
Yuna shifted, facing him more directly now.
"You know what reverence does to people like us?" she asked. "High-tiers, leaders, captains, guild heads?"
"You're not a high-tier," he pointed out.
"Yet," she said. "A girl can dream."
He arched a brow.
She continued.
"It isolates," Yuna said. "Puts you on a little pedestal, even if it's only in people's minds. They stop telling you when you screw up. They stop challenging you. They nod along because you're 'above' them. And then one day, you're making decisions in a vacuum and wondering why everything's so quiet."
Her eyes were steady.
"I won't do that to you," she said. "Sanctum won't either. We'll annoy you. We'll argue. We'll pull you back when you're about to blow a hole in the Hub. You're not a symbol here. You're… family, whether you like it or not."
The word landed with more weight than any title printed on a board.
Family.
He thought of a little sister whose face he never saw again. Of retainers who knelt and swore oaths they couldn't keep. Of a city that burned while the statues still stood.
Something in his chest twisted.
"You're very confident," he said slowly, "that taking me in wasn't a mistake."
"Oh, it was absolutely a mistake," Yuna said. "For our stress levels. But we're keeping you anyway."
He looked at her.
She looked back, unflinching.
"This era doesn't know you," she said. "Not really. They see the Breach-slayer, the scanner-breaker, the unnamed Tier 1. They whisper. They put your name on boards. They'll write stupid rumors. That's fine. Let them."
She tapped the railing again, more firmly.
"But when it gets too loud," she said, "come up here. Or to the courtyard. Or the training hall. Somewhere inside the walls where we know your name means 'Shinra who forgets to drink water if no one reminds him,' not 'Divine Hub Guardian.' We'll drag you back to normal."
"Normal," he repeated. "This place has a strange definition of that."
"It's ours," she said. "That's what matters."
He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture almost unfamiliar to him.
"…Thank you," he said.
"For what?" she asked.
"For refusing to kneel," he said.
She snorted.
"If I ever kneel to you," she said, "it'll be because I tripped."
They fell into silence again, but it was easier now.
The city's lights blinked.
Far off, a faint Breach signature flickered and vanished, taken care of by some other guild, some other squad. The world was still fraying—but not here, not in this exact moment.
[You're afraid of reverence,] Arios said quietly in his mind.
[And rightly so. It makes people walk behind you without question. It makes it too easy to not look back.]
Exactly, Shinra thought.
[But here,] Arios continued,
[you are not being worshipped. You are being… thanked. Clumsily. Loudly. Often foolishly. But sincerely.]
I don't know what to do with that, Shinra admitted.
[Learn,] Arios said.
[You learned how to carry crowns. Learn how to carry gratitude without letting it define you.]
He closed his eyes briefly.
Opened them again.
The weight in his chest wasn't gone.
But it had shifted.
Yuna pushed off the railing.
"Come on," she said. "If we stay up here too long, Riku will assume we're having some dramatic heart-to-heart and write fanfiction about it."
"Fan… what?" Shinra asked, genuinely thrown.
"Nothing," she said quickly. "Forget I said that."
She headed toward the stairwell.
Shinra lingered one more breath, looking out over the city that didn't know whether to fear him, praise him, or both.
Then he followed her down.
Behind them, on a quiet wall in a quiet corridor,
paper notes fluttered in the faint circulation breeze—
not prayers, not demands,
just whispers of thank you
for a man who had once been worshipped as more than human
and who now clung, stubbornly,
to the simplest title he could bear:
Shinra.