Control was not something Oogami Kiryu learned.
It was something he built—layer by layer, breath by breath, mistake by mistake—until it became the only shape the world made sense in. Straight spine. Even footing. Hands steady at his center. The blade did not tremble because he did not allow it to.
Chaos respected discipline.
At least, that was the lie he told himself.
Rain fell in thin, indifferent lines, blurring the city into reflections. The streetlights smeared gold across wet asphalt, stretching shadows into something longer than they should have been. Kiryu walked without haste, bag slung over one shoulder, fingers still faintly sore from training. His body remembered the rhythm even now—step, breath, balance. Always balance.
Kendo had taught him that victory was not speed or strength, but timing. That fear could be trained out of the body if one endured long enough. That control, once mastered, could quiet everything else.
It had worked.
For a long time.
He stopped at the crosswalk. The signal was red. He waited.
Across the street, a convenience store flickered white and sterile. A couple laughed under a shared umbrella. Somewhere, a phone chimed. Ordinary things. Safe things. Kiryu inhaled slowly, exhaled slower.
Then the light changed.
He stepped forward—
—and the world broke without asking permission.
Sound came first. Not the dramatic kind—no scream, no echoing crash—but a blunt, crushing impact that erased thought mid-breath. Light followed, too bright and too sudden, and then the sensation of being lifted, weightless, as if the ground had simply decided he no longer belonged to it.
There was no time to understand pain.
Only interruption.
---
Silence did not arrive gently.
It pressed in from all sides, vast and complete, swallowing the echo of his last breath before it could even finish leaving him. Kiryu tried to inhale—and found no air. Tried to move—and found no body to move with.
He was not falling.
He was not floating.
He was present.
Something was there.
Not a figure. Not a voice at first. Just awareness so immense it flattened everything else, the way deep water erased sound. It did not feel ancient or divine in the way stories described. It felt inevitable.
When it spoke, it did not use language.
But Kiryu understood.
"You may ask."
No greeting.
No explanation.
No sympathy.
Kiryu did not panic.
That surprised him.
He felt the absence of his body like a phantom ache, but his mind remained intact—clear, quiet, disciplined. This was not fear. Fear required uncertainty. This… was an evaluation.
A test.
He bowed. The motion was instinctive, ingrained so deeply it existed even without muscle or bone.
"I died," he said, not as a question.
There was no answer.
He understood then that this was not a conversation in the way humans used the word. This was a boundary. A threshold. He had been given a single opening, and anything wasted would be taken as forfeiture.
Kiryu thought of many things.
He thought of strength—how easy it would be to ask for it.
He thought of survival—how small that wish felt now.
He thought of heroes, of changing outcomes, of saving people whose deaths he already carried in memory.
And he rejected them all.
Because wanting to win had never been his problem.
He inhaled—though there was no air—and steadied himself.
"I want to wield the sword," he said.
The presence did not respond.
Kiryu did not elaborate. He did not justify. He did not plead.
"I don't want certainty," he continued, voice calm despite the pressure bearing down on him. "I don't want a guarantee. I want the right to stand in that world and draw my blade without pretending I belong there."
Silence stretched—not in time, but in weight. Kiryu felt it press against the edges of his composure, testing the seams.
Then the presence shifted.
"You already know the sword."
The words were not praise.
They were accusation.
Kiryu lowered his head. "I know its shape," he said. "Not its cost."
Another pause.
"And if the cost destroys you?"
Kiryu did not answer immediately.
He thought of the stories he had loved—the beauty of tragedy when it ended neatly, when suffering was framed and contained. He thought of how easily he had admired pain that was never his to endure.
"If it destroys me," he said at last, "then it will be honest."
The silence deepened.
"Very well."
Kiryu felt something shift—not within him, but around him. A door unlocking, not opening. An allowance made without care for the outcome.
"You may attempt it."
The words settled heavily.
Not receive.
Not inherit.
Attempt.
"Attempt what?" Kiryu asked, though he already knew.
The presence did not answer directly.
"What you admire," it said.
"What you fear."
"What you believe control can contain."
Heat flared—not warmth, but pressure. Something coiled faintly at the edge of sensation, distant and watchful. It did not roar. It did not move. It waited.
Kiryu bowed again.
Not in gratitude.
In acceptance.
---
Pain came back first.
Sharp, immediate, and wrong.
Kiryu gasped, lungs burning as air tore into them too fast, too cold, too real. His body convulsed, muscles screaming in protest at the simple act of existing. He collapsed forward onto rough ground, palms scraping against dirt and stone.
The world smelled different.
Pine. Ash. Blood.
He coughed, each breath a struggle, and felt the weight of his body with startling clarity—too light, too fragile, as if something essential had been stripped away. His hands shook when he pressed them into the earth, fingers thinner than he remembered.
This was not his body.
That realization landed with quiet dread.
Kiryu pushed himself up, vision swimming. The sky above him was pale, washed clean of city lights, clouds drifting lazily across it. Somewhere nearby, insects chirred. The forest breathed.
He tried to steady himself—and nearly retched as heat flared violently in his chest.
Not pain.
Pressure.
Something coiled there, deep and patient, responding to his breath with dangerous interest. When he inhaled too sharply, it burned. When he exhaled too slowly, it tightened, as if dissatisfied.
Kiryu froze.
This was not strength.
This was a presence.
He adjusted his breathing, instinctively searching for balance. The pressure eased—but did not disappear. It lingered, watching, as if waiting for him to make a mistake.
A warning, not a weapon.
Kiryu swallowed and forced himself to stand. His legs trembled under unfamiliar weakness, knees threatening to buckle. Every movement felt slightly off—centered wrong, like wearing armor that didn't fit.
He steadied his stance anyway.
Straight spine.
Even footing.
Breath controlled.
The forest did not care.
In the distance, something howled.
Kiryu closed his eyes briefly.
So this was the difference.
Watching a tragedy had been safe.
Living inside one was not.
He reached instinctively for the discipline that had carried him through everything else. Control wrapped around his thoughts like a familiar cloak, dulling the edge of panic.
He could endure this.
He had endured worse.
The heat in his chest pulsed faintly, almost amused.
Kiryu opened his eyes.
"If you're going to take," he murmured to the silence, unsure who—or what—might hear him, "then don't lie about the price."
The forest offered no answer.
Only the distant sound of something moving closer.
Kiryu set his feet.