The city skyline shimmered under the fading light of dusk, neon signs flickering to life like fireflies awakening. Amid the bustle of Tokyo's quieter districts, Rin Kurohane blended into the crowd — an unremarkable high school student with messy black hair and eyes that held a restless yearning.
To anyone passing by, Rin was just another face buried in his phone, headphones drowning out the noise of the world. But inside him churned a dream too wild for someone so ordinary: to become someone powerful enough to change the world.
Yet, power felt impossibly distant. His grades were mediocre. His physical strength, even worse. The Hunters — elite warriors who fought monsters emerging from the Veil Rifts — were legends to him, distant and untouchable.
Rin's footsteps slowed as an eerie glow pulsed from the alley nearby. A shimmering crack in reality tore open—a Veil Rift.
From the rift spilled monstrous figures, grotesque and otherworldly, their snarls cutting through the evening calm. Nearby, Hunters in sleek armor sprang into action, their blades glowing as they fought to contain the threat.
Rin's heart pounded. He wanted to help, to be more than just a spectator. But fear froze him.
A monstrous shadow lunged toward him — and everything went dark.
When Rin awoke, he was sprawled on the alley's cold pavement, the rift sealed and the creatures vanquished. But something inside him had changed. A faint whisper of shadow clung to his skin.
Days later, as Rin's reflection flickered oddly in a cracked mirror, he felt a surge of strange energy — Veil Energy — coursing through him. A power to absorb shadows and grow stronger.
The ordinary student's fate had been rewritten.
The journey to becoming Veilwalker had just begun.