When you fall into a new world, there's this unspoken rule:
Don't draw attention.
Naturally, I broke that rule within three hours.
To be fair, it wasn't my fault.
Okay—maybe technically it was.
---
"Hey, kid. You look like trash."
I cracked one eye open. The speaker was upside-down.
No—I was upside-down.
I was dangling by my hoodie from a broken fire escape ladder, having fallen asleep in the most uncomfortable position possible.
The girl crouched beside me, sipping bubble tea and poking my forehead with her straw.
"You dead?"
I blinked. "Not yet."
"Shame. Dead guys don't owe rent."
She yanked me down with the casual strength of someone used to manhandling idiots.
That's how I met Kira.
---
Kira was... a contradiction.
She looked like she belonged in some futuristic street gang—goggles, scars, and that half-shaved haircut that screamed "I make questionable decisions for fun."
She dragged me to a run-down safehouse hidden between two ramen shops, gave me instant noodles, and demanded I pay her back in labor.
"Labor?" I asked.
She grinned. "You're officially my assistant. Congratulations."
"What exactly do you do?"
"Whatever gets me paid without getting killed," she said, tossing me a battered tablet full of surveillance footage, hero intel, and something labeled "Potential Quirk Mutation Events."
I stared. "…Are you a mercenary?"
"No," she said, too quickly. "I'm a capitalist."
---
That night, I tapped into the local grid.
I could hear faint radio signals.
The System hadn't spoken since the Phase Shift.
My avatar's vision was blurry now, distorted like a half-lost dream.
I knew he was still out there. Still moving. But the connection was fading.
So now I had a deadline.
Find out what the System wanted.
Grow stronger.
And survive.
---
"Yo, Deadweight."
Kira called me that every day now. Said it was "motivational."
"You've got hero patrols sweeping Sector 9. One of them's a rookie. Wants to prove himself. That means you stay out of sight unless you want your teeth punched into your throat."
"Touching concern," I replied. "I feel loved."
She rolled her eyes. "You're broke, weak, and legally nonexistent. You've got 'tragic backstory' written all over you. Try not to die before I figure out what you're useful for."
She said it like a joke, but her eyes studied me.
She probably knew there was something off about me.
I didn't deny it.
After all, I wasn't just some random stray.
I was dead boy with two bodies.
---
To be continued…