Morning in Osaka wore a convincing mask.
Sunlight slid between apartment blocks and painted pale bars across the hallway floor. A neighbor's laundry fluttered on a balcony rail. Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed, followed by the soft clatter of a bicycle stand being kicked up. The city moved with its usual impatience—trains arriving on time, coffee cans hissing open, commuters drifting toward platforms with dead eyes and practiced speed.
Arata Kisaragi stood at the window and treated the normal as a lie he had to memorize before it vanished.
From this height the streets looked clean. The sidewalks held their shape. The vending machines glowed the way they always had—blue, white, cheerful—like tiny shrines to convenience. The air had the faint bite of winter still clinging to the corners of February, but the sun was warm enough to make the glass feel alive under his palm.
In seven days, the glass would be filmed with pollen that didn't belong to any flower.
He didn't let himself blink for too long.
The last time he had blinked like a normal man, he'd opened his eyes in a crater, his body peeling apart from the inside, a Titan's cracked core lighting the ruins. He could still taste resin in his throat if he breathed too deeply. He could still hear Ren screaming his name if he let the room go quiet.
He turned away from the window and looked at his desk. Textbooks stacked in a messy tower. A cheap spiral notebook with dog-eared corners. A pencil case with a broken zipper. A half-empty bottle of water. Everything small, everything domestic, everything fragile.
The kind of world that collapsed because people assumed it could not.
He sat and opened the notebook to a blank page.
He wrote a date at the top. Not because he needed it, but because the act anchored him.
Then he wrote:
DAY -7
A line beneath it.
Not a diary entry. A battle plan.
Food. Water. Tools. Cash. Rendezvous.
His pen moved in tight strokes, controlled, fast. Memory guided his hand the way instinct guided a blade.
Secure supplies in multiple caches.
Acquire respiratory filters.
Buy rope, harness, gloves, and cutting tools.
Identify first fracture zones (roots breach concrete).
Prevent Day -4 riot trigger.
Recruit Ren.
Locate Mei.
Establish safe rally point near elevated access.
Monitor anomalies (signal, birds, insects).
He paused, pen hovering.
The first timeline had taught him the obvious lessons—don't trust crowds, don't wait for officials, don't waste bullets on things that regenerate—but the more important lessons were quieter.
Panic always began with a rumor.Violence always began with a shortage.Betrayal always began with someone deciding they deserved more.
He added another line.
Cut off opportunists before they become leaders.
He stared at the words until his grip stopped trembling.
From the kitchen came the sound of a kettle clicking on, then a low rising hiss.
Yuna hummed to herself—soft, absent-minded, a little off-key.
That sound hit him harder than any memory of pain.
He stood and went out.
The hallway smelled like detergent and yesterday's frying oil from the neighbor's door. The apartment was small enough that you could hear everything: the fan in his room, the faint buzz of the refrigerator, the kettle's impatient boil.
Yuna stood in the kitchen in an oversized hoodie and thick socks, hair loose and messy, rubbing one eye while she stirred instant miso with chopsticks. She looked seventeen in a way that made his chest seize—young enough to still complain about school lunches, old enough to notice when someone lied.
She glanced at him, then at the clock. "You're up early."
"I didn't sleep," Arata said.
Yuna's mouth twitched. "That's normal."
He forced his face into something softer than he felt. The public mask came easily. It always had. The trick was not letting it slip when the world began to bite.
"You have school," he said.
"Unfortunately." She lifted the cup and blew on it. "And you have… skipping class, I guess."
He watched her hands. No tremor. No bruises. No vine-like markings under the skin. In the first timeline, Day 3 had ripped her from him before she could become anything at all.
He kept his voice casual. "After school, come straight home."
Yuna squinted. "Why?"
"Because I need you."
She blinked, caught off guard by the directness. "For what?"
He chose the smallest lie that still moved her in the right direction. "I have something to take care of. I don't want you wandering around."
She scoffed lightly. "I'm not a kid."
"I know." He leaned on the counter and watched the street through the kitchen window. A cat slunk along the wall outside, tail low, moving like it had somewhere urgent to be. "Just do it."
Yuna's eyes lingered on him. She'd always been good at reading what he didn't say. "Did something happen?"
Arata almost told her everything. The green sky. The insects. The screams. The way the city smelled when rot and sap mixed in summer heat. The way hunger made people's faces collapse inward.
He didn't.
Words would waste time. Panic would waste more.
He reached out and, as gently as he could, brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "Bad dream."
Yuna's expression softened, but not completely. "Then you should sleep."
"I will later."
She sipped miso, eyes narrowing again. "You're being weird."
"Mm."
"You're not going to explain."
"Not yet."
Yuna sighed dramatically, then pointed her chopsticks at him like a weapon. "Fine. But if you're planning something stupid, tell me. I'm not going to just—"
A flicker in the ceiling light cut her off.
It wasn't a full blackout. Just a brief dip, as the apartment had blinked.
Yuna didn't seem to notice. She kept talking, irritated.
Arata's eyes stayed on the light.
In the first timeline, the week before Bloomfall had been quiet. Too quiet. The anomalies were subtle—phone calls failing, radio static, birds changing patterns, insects appearing in places they shouldn't. He'd ignored them then because he'd been busy being normal.
Now he cataloged everything.
He let Yuna finish her complaint. He nodded at the right moments. He acted like a brother, not a man who had died.
When she finally left for school with her backpack slung over one shoulder, he stood at the door and watched until her figure disappeared down the stairwell.
Only then did he exhale.
He locked the door twice.
He checked his phone.
Signal bars full.
For now.
He pulled on a jacket, grabbed a worn backpack, and stepped into the hallway.
The city greeted him like nothing was wrong.
Which meant the city was already dying.
He took the train toward Umeda.
The station platforms were packed, bodies arranged in lines that pretended to be orderly. Posters advertised spring sales and idol concerts. The air smelled of coffee, perfume, and warm plastic from heated convenience-store meals.
Arata slipped into the crowd like a shadow.
He kept his eyes low, scanning shoes, hands, and posture.
Not for weapons.
For tells.
The first people to become predators in Bloomfall weren't insects. They were humans who realized the rules had loosened.
A man shoved past an old woman to reach the train doors first. A group of teenagers laughed too loudly at nothing, energy sharp as broken glass. A salaryman stared at his phone with a bitterness that looked like it could turn violent if given an excuse.
Arata watched them all and stored their faces away. Not because he planned to punish them, but because he planned to prevent them from becoming someone worse.
The train arrived with a familiar squeal.
As people crowded in, Arata paused at the platform edge and looked down.
A line of ants marched along a seam in the concrete, tight and disciplined. Ants in a station were normal. Ants moving like a single organism in a place that shook every time a train arrived were not.
He crouched slightly, just enough to watch.
They weren't random.
They were migrating with intent.
He felt cold spread through his stomach.
Acceleration.
He boarded the train.
Inside, he kept his back to a pole and let the commuters sway around him. Advertisements flickered above the doors. The floor was scuffed from years of shoes. A child clung to his mother's sleeve and stared at Arata's face with mild curiosity.
Arata looked away before the child could see anything too old in his eyes.
Two stops later, he exited into a hardware district.
The streets here smelled of oil, metal dust, and damp cardboard. Small shops stacked with tools and industrial supplies lined narrow alleys. People came here to fix things.
Soon, there would be nothing left to fix—only things to reinforce and things to cut apart.
Arata moved quickly.
He bought respirator masks with replaceable filters, not the cheap paper kind. He bought protective goggles. He chose thick gloves reinforced with layered fabric and stitched leather. He bought rope rated for industrial loads, a compact harness, and a small climbing kit that could hook into concrete edges.
He didn't buy flashy knives. Not yet.
He bought bolt cutters.
He bought a heavy-duty folding saw.
He bought two compact headlamps.
He paid in cash.
The cash itself was a problem.
He checked his wallet and did the math with the same ruthless clarity he'd used to ration food for a squad of hungry civilians.
His funds would not last the week.
He would have to solve that.
He left the shop and walked toward a sports store.
Baseball bats stood in a rack, polished and innocent.
He chose two wooden bats with dense grain. One is heavier than the other. He swung each once, feeling the weight settle into his palm.
The heavier one could crack a bone. The lighter one could move faster in a tight hallway.
He bought both.
Outside, the sun looked slightly wrong.
Not green. Not yet.
Just… thin.
As if the blue was stretched over something massive beneath it.
He paused near a vending machine and bought a canned coffee he didn't want, just to look normal while he watched the sky.
Clouds moved against the wind.
Not strongly, not dramatically. Just enough to make his skin prickle.
A crow sat on a power line above the street, head tilted toward the horizon.
Then it suddenly launched into the air and fled.
Not a casual flight.
A panicked burst.
Arata's gaze followed it.
Other birds followed, a ripple of black wings peeling away from rooftops and vanishing toward the river.
The street below kept flowing.
People kept walking.
Nobody noticed.
Arata's grip tightened on the can until metal creaked softly.
He forced his hand to relax.
He took out his phone and opened a map.
The first caches needed to be distributed.
He couldn't store everything in his apartment. Not with Yuna watching. Not with neighbors close enough to smell fear if it leaked out of him.
He selected a coin locker bank near a quiet side street, close enough to reach fast, far enough not to be casually checked by people he knew.
He moved.
By early afternoon, he had placed the rope, harness, masks, and tools into two separate lockers. He photographed the locker numbers. He memorized them anyway.
He walked out into the street and stood still for three seconds.
He listened.
The city had its own sound. It always had. A layered noise—traffic, voices, distant trains, construction, air conditioners, footsteps.
Today, there was a faint extra note beneath it.
A vibration.
Not quite a tremor. Not quite a hum.
He felt it through the soles of his shoes.
The ground was doing something.
He didn't want to waste time guessing.
He wanted confirmation.
Next target: Ren.
The river path smelled damp and green, even in winter.
The Yodogawa moved sluggishly, its surface reflecting the pale sky. People jogged along the path. A couple sat on a bench sharing a drink. A man walked a small dog that sniffed every patch of grass with obsessive focus.
Normal.
Except the grass was too bright.
Not neon.
Just vivid, as if spring had arrived early.
Arata stopped by the railing and looked into the water.
At first he saw only the surface ripples.
Then shadows.
Too many, too quick.
He focused.
The shadows darted in coordinated bursts, like schools of fish—but they moved wrong. They moved in sharp angles, sudden stops, sudden accelerations.
Larvae?
He watched longer.
A small cluster rose toward the surface, then sank as one.
He swallowed.
The river was waking early.
He continued along the path toward the batting cages.
The building was a squat structure with netted cages and bright lights inside. The rhythmic crack of ball impacts echoed out, sharp and comforting in a way that made his stomach twist.
Comfort was dangerous.
He stepped inside.
The air smelled of rubber mats and sweat. The sound of pitching machines and laughing customers layered together.
Ren Takahashi stood in a cage, throwing fastballs for a client, posture loose and confident, shoulders broad, hair short and dark. He looked like someone who still thought tomorrow would be ordinary.
Arata watched him for a moment longer than necessary.
In the first timeline, Ren's confidence had been burned away by hunger and blood. His forearms had turned into hardened plates. His grin had become something feral.
Now Ren laughed at a missed swing and shook his head, amused.
Arata walked up.
Ren noticed him and raised an eyebrow. "Kisaragi. You look like you got hit by a truck."
"Talk," Arata said.
Ren snorted. "Polite as always. Give me a minute."
He finished the session, handed the client a towel, and stepped out. Up close, Ren's eyes were sharp, restless, the kind that could ignite into anger fast.
He wiped sweat from his neck. "Okay. What's going on?"
Arata kept his voice level. "In seven days, the world changes."
Ren stared. "That's dramatic."
"It's precise."
Ren's mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh again. He didn't. Something in Arata's tone cut the humor short.
"Explain," Ren said.
Arata gave him the smallest version that still mattered.
"The sky will turn green. Spores will fall. Insects will grow. Plants will break concrete. People will panic."
Ren blinked twice. "You're serious."
"Yes."
Ren looked around as if expecting hidden cameras. "Is this some prank?"
Arata's eyes didn't move. "Do I look like I'm joking?"
Ren's expression tightened. He studied Arata's face, searching for cracks. There were none he could see.
"…Why tell me?" Ren asked.
"Because you die otherwise."
Ren's jaw clenched. "What the hell—"
"And because you're useful," Arata added, bluntly, before Ren could spiral into disbelief. "Strong. Fast. Loyal, when you believe in someone."
Ren's eyes narrowed. "That's not—"
"It's not an insult," Arata said. "It's a fact. I need you alive."
Ren took a step back, rubbed his face with both hands, then exhaled. "Okay. Hypothetically—if I humor you—what do you want?"
Arata's response was immediate. "Train. Condition. Don't get drunk this week. Don't get trapped underground. Stay near home. Keep your phone charged. If you see anything strange—birds disappearing, bugs acting wrong, the air smelling like wet soil—call me."
Ren stared. "That's so specific it's creepy."
"It's experience."
Ren's gaze sharpened. "Experience like… you've seen it."
Arata didn't answer.
Silence stretched.
Ren looked out toward the river, then back to Arata. "If you're lying, you're insane."
Arata nodded slightly. "Yes."
Ren barked a short laugh, but it had no humor. "That's not reassuring."
"You don't need reassurance," Arata said. "You need to prepare."
Ren's fingers flexed unconsciously, like he was gripping an invisible bat. "And if it happens?"
"If it happens," Arata said, "I will come for you."
Ren's eyes held his for a long moment.
Then Ren's posture shifted—subtle, but real. The way a man stands when he decides not to dismiss the threat in front of him.
"…Fine," Ren said quietly. "I'll train harder. I'll keep my bat close. And if your apocalypse arrives, I'll be ready."
Arata inclined his head once. "Good."
Ren hesitated, then asked, almost reluctantly, "You… okay?"
Arata's mask softened. Charisma. Warmth. A leader's calm.
"I will be," he said.
He turned to leave.
Ren called after him, voice rougher. "Arata. If you're right… don't do this alone."
Arata didn't look back. "I'm not."
Outside, the river air tasted different.
Not polluted.
Earthy.
As if the ground had opened somewhere far away and exhaled.
Arata checked his phone.
A missed call.
Unknown number.
He tapped it.
Static answered.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just enough to raise the hair on his arms.
He ended the call and stared at the screen.
Signal bars still showed full.
That meant nothing.
He typed a message to Mei.
Meet me tomorrow. Same place you study. Noon. Don't be late.
He paused, then added:
And don't go underground today.
He sent it before he could overthink.
Mei Aizawa in the first timeline had been a lifeline. Her rare symbiotic stabilization had kept people from mutating into mindless husks. She'd patched wounds with living thread. She'd held the Dominion together when hunger and infection threatened to split it.
She'd also almost died before she ever awakened—because she'd been trapped in a subway station when spores fell thickest.
Not this time.
Arata pocketed the phone and walked toward home.
He took back streets, avoiding crowds. He noted every small anomaly.
A streetlight that dimmed for a heartbeat, then recovered.A billboard screen that flickered with faint green interference.A dog that refused to step onto a patch of grass, hackles raised, whining softly.A patch of ivy was climbing a wall that looked slightly thicker than it had yesterday.
By late afternoon, the sky's blue had deepened.
It should have been comforting.
Instead, it felt like a cover being pulled tighter.
He entered his apartment building and climbed the stairs, listening to the sound of each footstep. The stairwell smelled of damp concrete and someone's curry. A flyer for a local festival hung crookedly on a bulletin board.
He imagined that flyer buried under moss, ink bleeding in humidity.
He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and checked every corner out of habit.
The apartment was quiet.
Yuna was still at school.
Good.
He had a narrow window to solve the cash problem.
He sat at his desk and opened his laptop.
His eyes flicked toward the window again.
Normal sky.
Normal sun.
He forced himself to focus.
In the first timeline, money had stopped mattering within days. Food and filters had become currency. Batteries had become gold. Medical alcohol had become worth more than jewelry.
But in these seven days, money still worked.
That meant money could be turned into the things that would matter.
He could sell something.
He could borrow.
He could steal.
Stealing was dangerous; it created attention.
Borrowing created an obligation.
Selling created vulnerability.
He scanned his room.
Old electronics. A gaming console. A camera lens he'd bought on impulse. A watch.
He made a list, then shoved it aside.
He needed speed, not perfection.
He grabbed the camera lens first, wrapped it, and packed it into his backpack. He added the console, cords, and two old power banks. Then he left again, moving fast, head down.
A resale shop near the station took the items with bored indifference and handed him cash that felt too light for what it was worth.
He didn't argue.
Time was more expensive than pride.
With the cash, he bought more filters, more water containers, and packets of electrolyte powder. He bought canned food, not because it tasted good, but because it lasted. He bought iodine, antiseptic wipes, bandages, and painkillers.
He bought two small portable radios.
When the clerk asked why he needed so many, Arata smiled politely and said, "Preparedness."
The clerk shrugged and rang him up.
Yuna returned just after sunset.
She kicked off her shoes and dropped her bag with a groan. "I'm starving."
"I cooked," Arata said.
That was another lie, but a useful one. He had warmed rice and fried eggs. The smell filled the apartment with something warm, something domestic.
Yuna looked startled. "You cooked?"
Arata set a plate down. "Eat."
She sat and took a bite, eyes widening. "Okay, this is suspicious. You never cook unless you're trying to apologize."
"I'm not apologizing."
"Then what?"
Arata sat across from her and watched her chew.
He measured his words like rations.
"I want you to be careful this week," he said.
Yuna paused mid-bite. "You keep saying that."
"Because I mean it."
Yuna set her chopsticks down slowly. "Arata… what's going on?"
He met her eyes. He let some of the truth leak through—not enough to drown her, but enough to make her listen.
"Something is coming," he said.
Yuna's brow creased. "Like… what? Earthquake?"
"Worse."
Yuna's lips parted, then closed. "You're scaring me again."
"I'm trying to keep you alive," Arata said, more sharply than he intended.
Yuna flinched.
He softened immediately. Charisma. Warmth. The mask didn't crack; it adjusted.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I just… I need you to trust me for a little while."
Yuna stared at him, eyes searching.
She was quiet for a long time.
Then she asked, softly, "Are you in trouble?"
Arata held her gaze. "No."
Not yet.
Yuna exhaled slowly. "Okay. Fine. I'll come home after school. I'll stay out of the subway. I'll… do whatever weird thing you want. But you have to promise you'll tell me soon."
Arata nodded. "I promise."
After dinner, Yuna went to her room.
Arata cleaned the dishes, then stood at the sink and listened to the building's sounds. Someone upstairs laughed at a TV show. Water ran in a neighboring unit. A motorcycle passed outside.
The world still pretended.
He stepped onto the balcony.
Cold air hit his face.
The city lights glittered—Dotonbori neon in the distance, the skeletal outlines of towers lit from within. The river reflected scattered color like broken glass.
Arata stared up.
The stars looked faint.
Not because of the city light.
Because something hazed the sky.
He lifted a hand and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
A faint dust clung to his skin.
Too fine to see clearly.
Too early to ignore.
His phone buzzed.
A message.
From Mei.
Who is this? How did you get my number?
Arata stared at the text.
In the first timeline, Mei had been wary. That wariness had kept her alive. It had also kept her alone until it was almost too late.
He typed:
A friend. Noon tomorrow. Trust me once. You'll understand.
He sent it.
A moment later, another message appeared.
If this is harassment, I'll report you.
Arata almost smiled.
Normal fear. Normal anger. A normal world where reporting harassment mattered.
He typed one more line, careful and blunt:
Don't take the subway tomorrow. If you do, you die.
He hit send.
He didn't wait for a reply.
He looked up again.
The haze seemed thicker now, spreading like invisible pollen.
A siren wailed somewhere far away, then faded.
The city kept shining.
He went back inside and locked the balcony door.
He checked every window.
He laid out supplies in his closet, hidden behind old boxes, distributed so Yuna wouldn't see the full scale at once. He counted filters. He counted batteries. He counted bandages.
When he finally lay down, he didn't sleep.
He listened.
At 2:13 AM, the power flickered again.
At 3:07 AM, he heard a strange tapping at the balcony glass—soft, repetitive.
He rose, silent, and approached.
A moth clung to the outside of the glass.
Its wings were too big.
Not massive—just wrong by a fraction, as if its proportions had been nudged in a direction insects weren't meant to go.
It beat its wings once.
The sound was dull, heavier than it should have been.
Arata held his breath.
The moth turned.
Its body angled toward the apartment, and for a moment, he thought—impossibly—that it was looking at him.
Then it launched away into the night.
He stood still for several seconds, pulse steady only because he forced it.
The beginning always looked like nothing.
Then it became everything.
Morning came too quickly.
Arata woke before his alarm and moved like a man who had already rehearsed the day.
Yuna shuffled into the kitchen, hair messy again, eyes half-closed.
"You're up," she muttered.
"I didn't go down," Arata said.
Yuna blinked. "What?"
He set a small bag on the table—mask, water bottle, a packet of electrolyte powder, a few energy bars.
"Take this," he said.
Yuna stared. "What is this? Are we going hiking?"
"Keep it in your bag."
Yuna's annoyance flared. "Arata—"
He raised a hand, calm. "Please."
The word landed heavier than his tone.
Yuna's expression shifted.
She looked at the bag, then at him, then away.
"…Fine," she said, quieter. "But if someone sees me with a gas mask, I'm blaming you."
Arata nodded. "Blame me."
Yuna left.
Arata left ten minutes later.
He headed for the university area where Mei studied, but he took the longer route that avoided underground passages. He watched every intersection, every group of people, every bird.
There were fewer birds.
That wasn't imagination.
By noon, he arrived near a café where students gathered. Mei had been there often, reading, always alone, always careful.
He chose a seat with a view of the street and the entrance.
He waited.
Minutes passed.
Students came and went.
Mei did not appear.
Arata checked his phone.
No new messages.
He felt irritation rise, then crushed it.
This wasn't war yet. He couldn't treat civilians like soldiers. Not openly.
He stood, walked toward the university library entrance, and scanned.
Then he saw her.
Mei stood near the steps, phone in hand, posture rigid. Long straight black hair tied low. Slim frame, controlled movements, eyes scanning for threat.
She looked like someone who had learned to survive long before the world ended.
Her gaze caught Arata.
She stiffened.
Arata approached slowly, hands visible, expression calm.
Mei's eyes narrowed. "You."
Arata stopped at a respectful distance. "You came."
"I came to see who was threatening me," she said. "How did you get my number?"
Arata didn't answer the obvious part. "Did you take the subway?"
Mei blinked. "No. I walked."
"Good."
Mei's lips tightened. "Explain. Now."
Arata studied her face. He remembered her hands glowing green in the ruins, stitching people together with living thread. He remembered her collapsing from overuse, refusing to stop.
Now her hands were bare, normal.
Not yet awakened.
"Something is coming," Arata said.
Mei's eyes hardened. "That's not an explanation."
"It's the truth."
Mei's grip on her phone tightened. "If you're trying to recruit me for some cult, I'm leaving."
Arata's voice stayed even. "In seven days, insects will grow large enough to kill adults. Plants will break buildings. The air will fill with spores. People will turn on each other."
Mei stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language.
"You're insane," she said flatly.
Arata nodded once. "Yes."
Mei's expression flickered—confusion, irritation, a thin edge of fear she didn't want to admit.
She opened her mouth again—
A low vibration rolled through the ground.
Not a subway rumble.
Not a truck passing.
Something deeper.
The students around them paused, looking up, murmuring.
Mei froze.
Arata's eyes lifted to the sky.
The blue above Osaka shivered.
It wasn't lightning.
It wasn't cloud movement.
It was as if the air itself had been stretched, and something pressed against it from the other side.
A faint hairline seam appeared, high above, so thin it could have been a trick of vision.
Then it brightened.
A sliver of green.
Mei whispered, almost involuntarily, "What… is that?"
Arata didn't answer.
He watched the seam widen by a fraction.
The streetlights along the road flickered in sequence like a wave. Cars slowed as dashboards blinked. Phones in people's hands went dark one by one, screens dying without warning.
A hush spread outward.
Even the wind seemed to pause.
Mei grabbed Arata's sleeve without thinking, her fingers cold. "Arata—"
Above them, the green seam split again.
Not like a crack in glass.
Like a wound opening in the sky.
And something—fine, glittering, impossibly light—began to fall.
The glittering dust didn't drift like ash.
It fell with purpose—too straight, too steady—catching the light as it descended, a faint shimmer that made the air look thick, almost liquid. For half a heartbeat, the street simply stared upward, mouths slightly open, the way crowds stare at fireworks.
Then the first cough cut through the silence.
A sharp sound. Human. Small.
It broke the spell.
Someone laughed nervously. "What is that—pollen?"
A student beside the library steps held out a hand. The dust kissed his palm. He frowned at the residue, rubbed it between his fingers, then sneezed hard enough to bend at the waist.
Mei's grip tightened on Arata's sleeve. Her nails dug through fabric.
Arata didn't look at her.
He watched the sky.
The green seam widened another fraction. The blue around it rippled outward in faint concentric waves, like the atmosphere had become a stretched film and something beneath it had tapped once, experimentally.
The air tasted different now.
Not just dust.
Earth.
Wet soil turned by a shovel.
And under it, a metallic note—iron, like blood on cold air.
Arata inhaled once, carefully, and felt the back of his throat sting.
He didn't cough.
His body remembered the poison.
His body remembered how to hold.
Mei did cough, soft and involuntary, as if her lungs had tried to reject the idea of what they were breathing.
"What is this?" she demanded, voice strained. "What did you drag me into?"
Arata finally turned his eyes to her.
She was trying to look furious. Trying to look in control. But her pupils were a little too wide, her shoulders too rigid. Fear wasn't screaming yet. It was whispering.
"Mask," he said.
Mei blinked. "What?"
Arata reached into his backpack and pulled out a compact respirator with a sealed filter. He held it out to her without ceremony.
Mei stared at it like it was absurd. Like the world couldn't possibly require this because the world was still full of students and posters and the smell of coffee.
"Put it on," Arata said.
"You—"
"Now."
His tone wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
Mei flinched at the authority threaded through it. Something old and practiced. Something that didn't belong to a twenty-one-year-old man outside a university library.
She snatched the respirator and fumbled with the straps. Her hands were steady enough, but the movement was too fast, too impatient, like she wanted to deny the moment by finishing it quickly.
Arata fitted his own mask over his mouth and nose, snapped the seals, then scanned the street.
Phones were dead. Not just off—dead. People tapped screens, shook them, and cursed. A car stalled in the intersection, and the driver slammed the steering wheel, screaming at nothing.
The streetlights flickered, then steadied.
Then flickered again.
A second cough erupted nearby, deeper, harsher. A man in a suit doubled over, hand to his mouth, shoulders heaving. His briefcase fell open and papers spilled across the sidewalk like white leaves.
The dust thickened.
It didn't look heavy. It wasn't visible in chunks. It was a film, a shimmering veil that made the air glow if you stared long enough.
Mei tightened her straps and looked at Arata through the mask, her eyes sharp with accusation. "You knew."
"Yes," Arata said.
Mei's jaw clenched. "How?"
Arata didn't answer. Not because he couldn't. Because explaining time travel on a sidewalk while the sky tore open was an indulgence.
He grabbed her wrist.
Mei jerked instinctively, startled by the contact. "Hey—"
"Move," Arata said.
He pulled her down the steps, away from the library entrance, away from the crowd that was beginning to compress as people backed away from the falling dust without knowing where to go.
They moved fast, cutting along the side street behind the library where fewer students lingered.
The dust followed.
It clung to hair. It settled on the shoulders. It coated handrails in a faint glitter.
Arata watched it collect in thin lines along cracks in the pavement.
He saw it gather in the seam between sidewalk and wall.
He saw it settle into the tiny crevices where moss already lived.
And he felt something in his gut go cold.
This wasn't just falling.
It was seeding.
The world was being planted.
Mei kept pace, but her breath was quick, sharp inside the mask. She glanced back once, eyes scanning the sky, then forward again.
"This is—this is real," she said, like forcing the words through her teeth might make them less true.
Arata didn't slow. "Stay close."
"Where are we going?"
"Away from underground."
Mei's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
Arata pointed without breaking stride.
A subway entrance was visible at the end of the street—stairs descending, commuters hesitating at the top, looking down like the darkness might answer questions.
The dust was sliding toward the stairwell like water finding a drain.
Not in a visible stream—subtler, the way powder drifts into low spaces without anyone noticing until it's there.
In the first timeline, the first mass deaths had happened underground.
People had fled downward because it felt safe.
They had drowned in spore density before they could turn around.
A woman shouted from the entrance. "The trains stopped! Everyone get down here, it's—"
Her voice cut off into a violent cough.
The people around her recoiled.
Someone pushed.
A man stumbled down two steps, slipped, and fell hard. His phone skittered down the stairs. He reached for it, then froze, staring at his palm like it no longer belonged to him.
Arata didn't stop to watch.
He pulled Mei past the end of the street, away from the entrance, into an alley lined with bicycles and stacked garbage bins.
The dust was thinner here, but not gone.
Nothing would be gone now.
Mei yanked her wrist back, breaking his grip. "Stop treating me like baggage," she snapped.
Arata turned on her.
His eyes were calm. Too calm.
Mei's anger faltered under that look.
"Do you want to live?" he asked.
Mei's mouth opened, then closed. "Of course."
"Then stop arguing," Arata said. "You can hate me later."
Mei's throat worked. She looked away for a second, then back, forced to swallow the insult because the sky was still bleeding green above the rooftops.
"…Fine," she said tightly. "Tell me what to do."
Arata nodded once, approving, and continued moving.
He led her toward a small park a few blocks away. Not a wide open space—open spaces attracted panicked crowds—but a tight cluster of trees and concrete benches with multiple exit paths.
As they walked, the city's sound began to change.
First came the murmurs—people asking what was happening.
Then came the yelling—someone blaming someone else, someone screaming at a stalled car, someone shouting into a dead phone as if volume could resurrect signal.
Then came the first real panic.
A boy ran past them, maskless, eyes wide, coughing so hard he could barely breathe. His mother chased him, shouting his name, clutching her own throat as if it burned.
A siren wailed in the distance, then stuttered out mid-howl like the power died under it.
Mei's gaze flicked everywhere, trying to map the chaos. "Is this… the start? Now?"
Arata's jaw tightened. "It's early."
Mei stared at him. "Early?"
He didn't answer.
They entered the park.
The trees here were winter-bare, branches like skeletal fingers. A few shrubs lined the walkway, leaves dull and small.
Arata stopped and crouched by one of the shrubs.
Mei hovered, confused. "What—"
Arata touched the leaves.
A fine dust clung to their surface.
He watched the dust gather along the leaf veins like it was being pulled into the plant.
Not fast.
But not passive.
Mei swallowed. "That's… not normal."
"No," Arata agreed.
He stood and scanned the park.
People were starting to spill into it, drawn by open air and the illusion of space. Some looked up at the green seam like they expected it to explain itself. Others huddled under a tree as if branches could block spores.
A middle-aged man shouted, "It's chemical! They're spraying chemicals!"
A student replied, "No, it's pollen! It's—"
A third voice cut in, panicked. "My phone's dead! The whole network is down!"
The crowd's energy tightened, ready to snap.
Arata watched their hands.
He watched for the first shove.
The first spark.
Because once it started, it spread faster than spores.
He touched Mei's elbow. "Stay behind me."
Mei glared but didn't argue.
Arata stepped toward the edge of the gathering crowd and raised his voice—not loud enough to sound desperate, not soft enough to be ignored.
"Cover your mouth," he said. "Use a cloth. Don't go underground. Stay in the open air and move away from crowds."
A few people looked at him.
Most didn't.
One woman snapped, "Who are you? Stop spreading rumors!"
Arata met her gaze without flinching. "Then keep breathing it. See what happens."
Her face tightened, offended, but she hesitated—because she had already coughed once, and fear was a seed that needed only a crack.
Mei leaned toward him, voice low. "You're making it worse."
"I'm making it different," Arata said.
Mei's eyes narrowed. "Different how?"
Arata didn't answer. His attention shifted to movement near the park's edge.
A cat.
A stray, thin but not starving. It walked along the fence line with its tail low. It stopped abruptly, head turning sharply toward a patch of soil at the base of a tree.
Then it hissed.
Not a person.
At the ground.
Arata's blood cooled.
He moved toward the tree.
Mei followed, tense. "What are you doing?"
Arata knelt and stared at the soil.
At first, it looked normal—dark earth, a few dead leaves, a cigarette butt.
Then the soil rippled.
A subtle bulge rose, then sank.
Like something breathed beneath it.
Mei's breath caught. "No… no way."
Arata's fingers closed around the handle of a small folding saw in his pocket. Not a weapon for fighting monsters.
Not yet.
A tool.
Because the first monsters didn't always arrive full-grown.
Sometimes they started as something small that became unstoppable if you let it.
The soil bulged again.
This time, a pale green thread pushed upward, piercing the surface like a needle.
A root.
Mei stared. "That's impossible. It's winter."
Arata's voice was flat. "Not anymore."
The root twitched.
Then another thread appeared beside it.
Then a third.
They moved like fingers testing air.
Mei took a step back, instinctively.
Arata didn't.
He watched the roots as if he'd expected them, which he had, only not this soon.
He felt the timeline sliding under his feet like shifting sand.
Seven days had become an estimate.
The world didn't care about his plan.
The world cared about momentum.
A scream erupted from the park's entrance.
Arata's head snapped up.
A man had collapsed near the path. People gathered around him, some trying to help, others backing away.
"Get an ambulance!"
"There's no signal!"
"He can't breathe!"
The man's body jerked, convulsing. His hands clawed at his throat. Dust coated his lips, his cheeks.
Mei's face went pale.
"That—he's—"
"Spore shock," Arata said.
Mei's eyes flashed. "You have a name for it."
Arata didn't respond.
Because the man's convulsions weren't the worst part.
The worst part was what happened to the grass around him.
It brightened.
Not instantly, not dramatically.
But the dull winter grass near his feet took on a vivid green, as if it drank something invisible.
Mei followed Arata's gaze.
Her voice went quiet. "It's… feeding."
"Yes," Arata said.
The crowd panicked.
Someone shouted, "Don't touch him!"
Someone else screamed, "He's infected!"
A woman pushed through, crying, "That's my husband—move!"
A man blocked her, shoving her back. "Don't bring it near us!"
The first shove happened.
Then the second.
Then the crowd surged like an organism with no mind.
Arata felt Mei's hand grip his sleeve again, not in accusation this time—anchoring.
He turned and caught her eyes.
She understood now.
Not his secrets.
The scale.
This was not an incident.
This was a collapse.
Arata grabbed Mei's wrist again and pulled her away from the crowd before the crush turned lethal.
Mei stumbled but moved, forced by instinct and his certainty.
"Where?" she demanded, voice tight.
Arata's mind ran through routes like a map burned into his skull.
He needed height.
He needed ventilation.
He needed a place that didn't attract desperate bodies.
He needed somewhere that could become a rally point later, not a trap now.
He chose.
"Rooftop access," he said.
Mei blinked. "What?"
Arata pointed toward a nearby multi-level parking structure—concrete, open-air, ramps leading up, metal rails, multiple exits, visibility.
In the first timeline, structures like that became hunting grounds for mantises later.
But later.
Right now, open-air concrete with elevation is safer than any enclosed building.
They ran.
Around them, Osaka began to fracture psychologically before it fractured physically.
People poured out of buildings, coughing. Others ran in, trying to find shelter. Cars honked in frantic bursts. The green seam above widened into a jagged scar.
The dust fell thicker.
It coated Arata's hair. It settled on his jacket shoulders. It made the air look alive.
Mei's eyes watered behind her goggles. She kept her mask tight and ran hard, surprisingly fast, breath sharp but controlled.
They reached the parking structure.
A few people had the same idea and were already sprinting up the ramp.
Arata didn't follow the crowd.
He cut to a side stairwell—open metal stairs that climbed outside the structure, exposed to air.
He took them two at a time.
Mei stayed close, footsteps ringing on metal.
Halfway up, a loud crack snapped through the air.
Arata froze for a fraction of a second.
Not thunder.
Concrete.
He leaned over the railing and looked down toward the street.
A thin line had split across the sidewalk near a row of planters. It wasn't huge. It wasn't dramatic.
But it was a fracture.
And from that fracture, pale green threads were pushing out.
Roots.
Mei saw it too.
Her voice went small. "It's happening everywhere."
Arata's gaze hardened. "Yes."
They reached the top level.
Wind hit them, cold and dirty. The rooftop view opened across Osaka—towers, rails, streets, the river cutting through like a dark vein.
And above it all—
The sky.
The green scar was no longer a hairline.
It was a jagged wound stretching across the horizon.
The dust fell in sheets now, glittering as it turned in air currents.
Mei stepped to the edge cautiously and stared upward.
"I thought you were exaggerating," she said, voice muffled by the mask.
Arata's eyes stayed on the horizon.
Far away, at the edge of the city, a faint green glow pulsed low to the ground—like a forest lighting up from within.
His mind snapped to a memory: the first high-density Bloom Zone he'd seen years ago, a place where the air turned thick, and people who breathed it evolved—or died.
That zone had formed on Day 2 last time.
Now it was blooming on Day -7.
His plan, carefully written in a notebook, suddenly felt like a paper umbrella in a hurricane.
Mei spoke again, softer. "Arata… what are we supposed to do?"
Arata's mask of calm slid into place, smooth as always.
He pointed across the rooftops toward a distant apartment district.
"First, we get you home safely," he said. "Then we get my sister."
Mei blinked. "Your sister?"
Arata's jaw tightened. "She's at school."
Mei's eyes widened. "In this—right now?"
Arata didn't answer with words.
He answered by moving.
He turned from the edge, already calculating the fastest route that avoided underground, avoided crowds, avoided choke points.
Mei followed, stumbling into motion.
They descended the stairs.
Halfway down, Mei's phone—dead minutes ago—buzzed once in her pocket, a single phantom vibration.
She froze, startled, and pulled it out.
The screen flashed.
Not a notification.
Not a call.
A smear of green static crawled across the display like living moss.
Then the screen went black again.
Mei stared at it, trembling. "What… was that?"
Arata didn't slow.
He didn't need to see the phone to know.
Because he felt it too.
A low pressure in the air, deepening, as if the world itself was inhaling for something larger.
As they reached street level, the wind shifted.
It carried a new sound.
Not sirens.
Not screams.
A clicking.
A faint, rhythmic ticking that came in waves from somewhere ahead—like a thousand tiny claws tapping against concrete.
Arata stopped so abruptly that Mei almost slammed into him.
He lifted his gaze toward the sidewalk beyond the parking structure.
A line of ants streamed across the pavement in a thick river, moving with unnatural speed.
Not dozens.
Thousands.
They flowed toward the same direction, toward a patch of greenery by the roadside—toward a hedge that suddenly looked too lush, too vibrant.
Mei's breath hitched behind her mask.
Arata's hand slid to the folding saw again.
He knew that sound.
He knew what came next.
Because in the first timeline, the ants had been early too—just not this early, not this organized.
He heard a wet rustle from the hedge.
Leaves shook.
Something inside the greenery shifted with a weight that should not exist in a hedge.
Mei whispered, voice barely audible.
"Arata…"
The rustling stopped.
For one silent heartbeat, the hedge went still, as if listening.
Then a long, jointed leg—black-green, glossy with fresh growth—slid out from between leaves and planted on the sidewalk.
It was thicker than a human wrist.
Segmented.
Too perfect.
Too deliberate.
A second leg emerged.
Then the pointed curve of a mandible, wet with sap-like resin.
Mei's eyes went wide with disbelief that turned instantly into terror.
Arata didn't move.
Not yet.
He watched as the creature pushed forward, unfolding from the hedge like a nightmare being born.
A mantis—wrong-sized, wrong-timed, its body still half-soft in places like it had molted mid-emergence—lifted its triangular head and turned it toward them.
It didn't charge.
It just looked.
As if learning.
As if choosing.
And behind it, the hedge shuddered again—something larger shifting deeper inside, answering the first one's movement.
Arata's voice was calm, almost gentle.
"Mei," he said, "don't run."
Mei's breath came fast. "What—what do you mean, don't run?"
Arata's eyes stayed on the mantis.
"Because if you run," he said, "it learns you're prey."
The mantis' forelimbs lifted slowly, blades unfolding with a soft wet click.
And somewhere inside the hedge, something else clicked back.