Chapter 1: Holy Crap We're Back In Japan
Part 1
The fall didn’t feel like falling.
It felt like being swallowed.
The collapsing portal twisted around them like a throat made of static, dragging the party downward in a spiraling freefall that stretched on far too long to be natural.
“Wuoaaaaaah—this is definitely worse than the desert worm!” Renji shouted, voice cracking somewhere between a joke and a panic attack.
Kyle barely heard him. Consciousness slipped in and out as the tunnel warped around them, the world smearing into streaks of white noise. Somewhere above him, or maybe it was below him, Masayuki retched into the void — the wet splash echoing like an insult hurled by the universe.
Luna’s scream followed, high and brittle, the sound of a falling star being snuffed out. The vomit had stained her shoes.
Minami alone leaned into the chaos. She spun with her arms outstretched, hair whipping behind her like a banner. Her grin was too wide, too bright — a mask stretched thin over terror.
“This is like a never-ending fun slide!” she laughed, the wind ripping the sound away.
Then in an instant the portal spat them out.
There was no landing. Just impact.
Kyle slammed into asphalt hard enough to see white. The back of his head bounced off something soft and rancid — a trash bag full of damp clothes — and the air fled his lungs in a single, ugly grunt.
A metallic taste filled his mouth. The world stopped moving. The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful.
It was the heavy, pressurized quiet of a city alley on Monday at 2:53 PM.
Kyle lay still, staring up at a flickering fluorescent streetlamp. The sterile white glare felt wrong — too clean, too sharp, too real. He reached inward, instinctively searching for the golden warmth of his Chi.
Nothing.
He reached deeper.
Still nothing.
Just bruised ribs, a throbbing skull, and the cold realization that the “Hero” was a hollow shell again.
He forced himself upright, breath ragged. His fingers brushed the rough paint of a zebra crossing — synthetic, precise, unmistakably modern.
A scooter whined past the alley mouth.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going, buddy!”
The driver didn’t even slow down. Just tossed the complaint over his shoulder like it was nothing. The casual irritation hit harder than any battle cry.
Kyle blinked at the street, at the neon haze, at the broken half of Sunbreaker lying beside him like a discarded prop. The blade that had pierced the Demon Lord’s heart was now just scrap metal reflecting convenience-store light.
The others were scattered across the road, groaning, clutching the asphalt like it might vanish if they let go. Their robes — once symbols of legend — looked cheap and theatrical under the city’s unblinking gaze.
Kyle swallowed hard.
“We’re back,” he rasped. His voice sounded thin, stripped of resonance. “The real world.”
Part 2
Kyle forced himself upright, ribs screaming in protest. The alley around him was too still, too clean, too real. A fluorescent streetlamp buzzed overhead, flickering with the rhythmic death-rattle of cheap electronics. Its sterile white glare washed over him, bleaching the blood on his robes into something that looked like bad stage makeup.
The air didn’t smell like ozone or magic. It smelled like exhaust, old rain, and the faint chemical sweetness of a nearby convenience store.
"Hey buddy, where am I?" Kyle asked as he rushed over to the nearest guy.
"What the hell man, don’t you know personal space? We’re in Shinjuku," the man replied, peeved that someone was getting too intimately close.
The casual irritation hit Kyle harder than any demon’s roar.
He blinked, trying to steady his breathing. The broken half of Sunbreaker lay beside him, its once‑radiant blade reduced to a jagged scrap of metal reflecting neon haze. It looked pathetic. Wrong. Like a prop from a low-budget stage play.
The others were scattered across the road, groaning, clutching the asphalt as if afraid gravity might suddenly give up on them too. Their robes — symbols of legend, of sacrifice, of a world that no longer existed — looked tacky under the city lights. Cheap. Cosplay-tier.
Kyle swallowed hard.
He barely had time to process the words before the silence broke.
Footsteps. Voices. The soft chime of a convenience store door opening.
A crowd began to gather at the mouth of the alley — not with awe, not with fear, but with their wrists angled upward.
“Is this a promo?” a salaryman asked, tie crooked, eyes bright with curiosity. “Maybe for that new gacha game?”
Blue-white light detonated in Kyle’s eyes.
Not magic. Smartphone flashes.
Dozens of lenses stared at them like compound insect eyes, capturing every angle, every bruise, every scrap of blood. Under the sterile neon glare, the party didn’t look like survivors of a dying world.
They looked like street performers who’d gone too hard on the fake gore.
Part 3
The crowd thickened at the alley mouth, drawn by the crash, the screams, and the promise of something interesting to post online. They didn’t approach with caution or concern. They approached with their phones raised, wrists angled upward like a ritual gesture.
Blue-white flashes detonated across Luna’s vision.
Not magic. Not divine light. Just smartphone cameras.
The lenses stared at her like compound insect eyes, capturing every tremble, every tear, every frayed thread of her dignity. Under the neon glare, the blood on her robes looked like cheap dye. Her lace sleeves — once symbols of divine authority — were reduced to cosplay-tier fabric under the city’s indifferent gaze.
“She’s so beautiful,” a girl whispered, her phone inches from Luna’s face. “Check the detailing on the lace. Is that real silk or just high-end cosplay?”
Luna’s breath hitched.
In her world, to be stared at was to be judged by God or condemned by the mob. But this gaze was different — consumptive, casual, hungry. They weren’t looking at her. They were scrutinizing her very being.
The circle pressed in. The air grew hot with the smell of cheap tobacco and recycled body heat. The honk of a distant taxi blended with the electronic shutter-clicks of the phones.
The glowing rectangles in their hands weren't tools; they were flickering torches. The casual laughter of the teenagers shifted, warping into the sharp, rhythmic jeering of a crowd gathered at the foot of a scaffold.
The scene in front of her wasn't a modern street. It was a gallows square.
“Begone from my sight, you unwashed peasants!” she shrieked.
The words sounded wrong — thin, archaic, desperate. In the fantasy realm, her voice could still a room. Here, it sounded like a theater kid having a meltdown in public.
The crowd laughed.
Not cruelly. Just dismissively.
The sound hit her like a whip. It was the same laughter that followed her when she was dragged through the mud of her own capital, stripped of her titles, her dignity, her name.
Her vision fractured. Her breath came in sharp, panicked gasps.
“Please, Father…” she whispered, collapsing toward the pavement. “Don’t let them execute me…”
She was no longer a divine saint. She was just a terrified girl, drowning in a sea of onlookers who were too busy checking their framing to notice she was dying inside.
At the edge of the circle, a man stepped forward. He moved with a predatory confidence, his slicked-back hair and oversized gold earrings catching the neon light. He wasn’t a knight or a monster; he was just a "player" who smelled a vulnerable girl.
“Hey, cutie,” he said, leaning in. “You single? Or is this part of the act?”
His hand reached for her shoulder.
Luna froze — not with regal poise, but with the paralysis of a cornered animal.
And that was when Renji snapped.
A violent jolt ran through their shared body as Renji’s will slammed against Luna’s panic. Their neck twitched. Their chest seized. It felt like two minds wrestling for control of a single, trembling nervous system.
Renji seized dominance in a graceless, desperate spasm.
Their body jerked sideways. The movement was ugly — no divine grace, no heroic poise. Just raw, human fear.
“Don’t you dare,” Renji growled.
The voice didn’t match the body. It was the gravelly rasp of a thirty-year-old shut-in coming out of a divine princess’s throat.
The man stumbled back, cursing, the "cool" facade slipping into genuine irritation. “Whoa, psycho! Get a grip!”
Renji ignored him. His hands trembled violently as he grabbed his own arms, anchoring Luna with sheer force of will.
“Luna,” he whispered inside their shared skull. “Ignore them. Don’t look at the lights. Just listen to me.”
A beat. A breath.
“Do you remember our promise?”
The words cut through the panic like a lifeline.
The torches faded back into smartphones. The scaffold dissolved into a Tokyo sidewalk. The jeering crowd became confused teenagers with camera apps.
“Until you don’t need me,” Renji whispered. “I’m not going anywhere. A man keeps his word. Even in a world like this.”
Luna’s breathing synced with his. The trembling slowed. The body stilled — not gracefully, but with exhausted stability.
The crowd, of course, understood none of it.
To them, it was just a costumed girl having a schizophrenic episode in the middle of a Monday afternoon.
Part 4
Kotaro and Kokoro huddled in the middle of the intersection, clinging to each other as the city roared around them — too loud, too bright, too fast. Tokyo wasn’t a battlefield. It was worse. It was indifferent.
Kotaro’s lips moved in a frantic whisper. “Cait Sith… grant me—”
He waited for the familiar spark. The warmth. The feline agility that once let him dance through armies.
Nothing.
There was no warmth, no magic. Only the cold sweat of failure and the heavy, leaden weight of a body that was no longer his own. Magic hadn't just faded; it had vanished, leaving him a stranger in a stolen skin.
Beside him, Kokoro’s eyes widened — not at a monster, but at something far more terrifying.
A truck.
A massive logistics beast barreled toward them, chrome grill gleaming like a row of metal teeth. Its horn blared — a deep, mechanical bellow that vibrated through the pavement. Tires screamed as the driver slammed the brakes, but momentum didn’t care about intentions.
“Kyle!” Kokoro screamed.
Her voice was swallowed by the grinding of gears.
“Get out of the road…”
Kyle tried to move. His instincts screamed at him to leap, to shield, to act — but his body was too far away. Every muscle felt like it was packed with wet sand. His legs barely responded.
That was when Masayuki moved.
He didn’t know what a “truck” was. To him, it was a siege engine — a metal beast charging at children in the middle of the afternoon.
“You dare charge at the innocent, unclean beast!”
His small frame shot forward, aura flaring with the ghost of a warrior who had once faced armies. He drew his katana in a single, perfect motion — the steel singing as it left the sheath.
“Begone, minion of the Demon Lord!”
Masayuki didn’t see the headlights. He saw an axle — the joint of the beast.
He struck.
Steel met steel.
A shower of sparks exploded across the street as the blade bit into the wheel well. For a heartbeat, it looked like a miracle — the kind of impossible feat that once defined him.
Then physics took over.
The vibration slammed up Masayuki’s arms, nearly shattering his wrists. The truck lurched violently, swerving sideways. It slammed into the concrete median with a bone‑shaking crunch.
Then came the chain reaction.
Crunch. Shatter. Crunch.
Three cars behind the truck folded like paper. A windshield burst into glittering shards. A horn wailed endlessly, stuck in a dying scream.
Masayuki stood amidst the smoke, breathing hard, sword still raised. He waited for the beast to dissolve into mana. He waited for the cheers of the liberated.
Instead, he heard a woman screaming from one of the wrecked cars. He saw a driver slumped over an airbag, blood blooming across white fabric.
His blade wasn’t glowing. It was chipped. Dull. Smeared with grease.
His perfect strike hadn’t saved anyone.
It had caused a multi‑car disaster.
Kyle staggered toward him, horror tightening his throat. The crowd that had been filming Luna now backed away in genuine fear. The “Hero Party” wasn’t a curiosity anymore.
They were a public menace.
Part 5
The smoke from the wrecked cars drifted across the intersection in thin, acrid ribbons. The crowd that had been filming Luna now backed away in a ripple of genuine fear. The spectacle had changed. This wasn’t a quirky street performance anymore.
It was a crime scene.
Minami watched from the shadow of a soot‑stained alleyway, her expression unreadable. The neon glare reflected off her eyes like cold fire. She held a smartphone she’d “borrowed” from a distracted passerby, its camera still open, still recording the aftermath.
The footage was shaky, chaotic, and damning.
Masayuki stood in the center of the street, sword raised, surrounded by twisted metal and shattered glass. Kotaro and Kokoro clung to each other, trembling. Kyle staggered toward them, pale and hollow. Renji and Luna were still locked in their fragile equilibrium.
Minami exhaled slowly.
The adventurer’s world was gone. This one had rules. And she knew them.
She lifted the phone to her ear.
“Sebastian,” she said, her voice suddenly crisp and composed — the voice of a girl who had grown up giving orders. “Bring the limo. The long one.”
She ended the call and reached for the silver clasp at her shoulder. With a smooth, practiced motion, she peeled off her torn, blood‑stained adventurer’s robes. The fabric — damp with sweat and dust from a world that no longer existed — fell to the pavement with a soft, final sigh.
Underneath, she wore the outfit she’d vanished in two years ago: a simple, high‑end black slip dress. She smoothed the wrinkles with her palms, straightened her posture, and lifted her chin.
The adventurer was dead. The heiress had returned.
Right on cue, red and blue lights washed over the street.
A police cruiser screeched to a halt. Two officers stepped out — not armored knights, not inquisitors, just tired men in polyester uniforms who had seen too many strange things on a Monday afternoon.
“Hands up! Nobody move!”
There were no spells cast. No swords raised in defiance. Just six exhausted, disoriented people who had no idea how to navigate a world where magic didn’t exist.
Slowly, the officers began to round them up.
They didn’t see heroes. They saw vagrants, vandals, and a child with a deadly weapon.
Kyle stood frozen as an officer guided him toward the cruiser. His gaze drifted — unfocused, dazed — until it met Minami’s.
For a heartbeat, something flickered across her face. Pity? Guilt? A memory of the man who once shielded her from a dragon?
Then the flicker vanished.
Minami’s mind was already running the numbers.
“Multi‑car collision,” she murmured under her breath. “Destruction of public property. Assault with a lethal instrument. Public endangerment…”
Her eyes widened, shimmering with a cold, strategic thrill.
“Oh my,” she whispered. “That’s at least ¥22,500,000 in property damage. Not including medical fees.”
The cruiser door slammed shut, locking Kyle inside a cage of steel and plastic.
In the stories Minami used to read, the hero defeats the Demon Lord and the credits roll. The world is saved. The narrative ends.
But here — in the real world — the truth was simpler and far more terrifying.
The Demon Lord was easy. You could kill a Demon Lord with a sword.
But you couldn’t kill a debt.
Minami watched the taillights fade into the neon haze, a small, sharp smile curving across her lips.
“One chapter ends,” she murmured, “and a far more expensive one begins.”
