The woman moved like someone who knew exactly how little space she needed to kill you.
Kai had seen plenty of tough people in Tokyo—stressed-out corporate workers, late-night convenience store regulars who'd seen too much. But this was different. Her movements were calculated. Precise. Like every muscle existed with a singular, dangerous purpose.
Her skin was the color of old copper, marked with tattoos that looked less like decoration and more like living circuitry. When she moved, the tattoos seemed to pulse—blue lines that flickered like low-voltage electricity.
Six eyes. The creature behind her—part deer, part something completely impossible—watched them with six eyes arranged in a pattern that defied everything Kai understood about biological symmetry.
"You're not from here," the woman said. It wasn't a question.
Kai laughed. The sound was more bitter than amused. "Trust me. I'm definitely not from here."
His mother's voice echoed in his memory. She'd always told him he was meant for something more. Dying of cancer in that small hospital room, she'd squeezed his hand and whispered, "Don't settle, Kai. The world is bigger than a convenience store."
He hadn't believed her then.
He was starting to now.
The landscape around them felt alive. The silver-leafed trees weren't just trees—they breathed. Moved. Watched. The lavender sky with its two moons looked less like a sky and more like a living canvas.
"I'm Lyra," the woman said. Her accent was impossible to place—part musical, part something that didn't sound entirely human.
"Kai," he responded. "Nakamura Kai. Professionally underachieving computer science graduate and part-time convenience store worker."
A hint of a smile crossed her face. Sharp. Dangerous. "The Resonance doesn't choose failures, Kai of Earth."
The deer-dragon creature took a step forward. Its scales shifted from deep emerald to midnight blue, catching light in ways that violated everything Kai knew about physics.
Something was changing. Something was about to begin.
And for the first time in years, Kai Nakamura felt something he'd almost forgotten.
Possibility.