NO CLEAN EXITS

They hid him that night.

Not because it was safe…

Because nowhere was.

The apartment hadn’t been lived in for years. That much was obvious the moment Rin sealed the door behind them. Dust lay thick on the floor, undisturbed except where old footprints had half-faded into nothing. The air smelled stale, like old paper and rusty pipes. The windows were blacked out—not boarded, not covered with cloth, but sealed, each pane etched with layered sigils that hummed so softly Akiro felt them more than heard them.

The sound crawled under his skin.

Akiro sat on the floor with his back against the wall, knees pulled tight to his chest, arms locked around them like he was afraid they might drift away if he let go. His eyes were open, but unfocused, fixed on the space across the room where a couch might have once been.

Rin moved methodically.

She checked the corners. Reinforced seals. Tapped walls with her knuckles, listening for resonance shifts. She moved like someone who expected the room to betray her at any second.

Akiro barely noticed.

“I can’t remember my professor’s face,” he said suddenly.

The words came out flat. Not panicked. Not emotional. Just factual.

Rin froze mid-motion.

Her hand hovered inches from a seal etched into the wall. Slowly, carefully, she turned toward him.

“You don’t need that right now,” she said.

“I saw him yesterday,” Akiro continued, voice distant. “He talks with his hands. I think. Or maybe that was someone else.”

Rin crossed the room and sat beside him. Not touching. Close enough that he could feel the heat of her body through the thin space between them.

“I know,” she said quietly.

Akiro swallowed.

“And I don’t remember how scared I was earlier,” he added. “I know I was. My body knows. My hands are still shaking. But the fear itself—” He frowned slightly, searching. “It’s gone.”

He waited for that to upset him.

It didn’t.

“That’s not normal,” he said, almost curious.

Rin’s jaw tightened.

“This is why Wardens erase,” she said after a moment. “This is why the Unbound burn out.”

Akiro huffed a weak laugh. “Great system.”

She didn’t smile.

Silence settled between them.

“We haven’t eaten in days.” Akiro points out. Not starving, just the realisation that he couldn’t muster the appetite to eat, nor remember what it felt like to be hungry.

Rin watches carefully and pulls out a piece of rations she had in her pocket, handing it to Akiro.

“It’s not much, nor does it taste the best, but it’s better than starving.”

“I’m not hungry,” Akiro said.

“I know, it’s an effect from the mark within you. But your body still needs something to keep it going, so take it and eat. Or I’ll shove it down your throat.” Rin stretches her hand out with a serious look.

Akiro…alarmed by her words, took it from her, taking small bits. Glancing out the window.

Outside, the city lived.

Cars passed. Someone laughed in the distance. A siren wailed, then faded. The world continued with careless momentum, entirely unaware that one of its pieces had slipped out of alignment.

Inside the apartment, something fractured quietly.

Rin leaned back against the wall and exhaled slowly, like she’d been holding her breath for hours.

“I lied to you,” she said.

Akiro turned his head to look at her.

Her eyes stayed on the far wall.

“I knew the Unbound were nearby,” she continued. “The signs were there. Distortion spikes. Missing seals. Reports that didn’t make it into official channels.”

“And?” Akiro asked.

“I didn’t expect Kaito.”

He processed that slowly.

“So,” he said at last, “I’m bait.”

“Yes.”

There it was. Clean. Unvarnished.

Akiro nodded once.

“That tracks.”

Rin finally looked at him. “You can still run.”

He let out a laugh before he could stop himself. “Can I?”

She hesitated.

The hesitation was answer enough.

“No,” she admitted.

The mark on his arm pulsed—faint, persistent, like a heartbeat that wasn’t his own.

Akiro stared at it. The skin looked normal. Too normal. Like the wrongness was hiding just beneath the surface, polite enough not to announce itself.

“…then I’m in,” he said.

Rin studied his face carefully, like she was looking for cracks, for signs he didn’t understand what he was agreeing to.

“There’s no clean way out,” she warned. “No undo. No returning to before.”

He met her gaze and managed to make a tired smile.

“I figured that out when reality tried to eat me.”

Something in her expression shifted. Not relief. Something heavier.

Acceptance.

“Then you listen,” Rin said. “You survive.”

She reached into her jacket and pulled out a small object wrapped in cloth. She unfolded it carefully, revealing a thin metal ring etched with symbols so fine they looked like scratches unless you knew what to see.

“This will help you sleep,” she said. “A little.”

Akiro took it. It was warm.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because if you don’t sleep,” Rin said, “the mark will dream for you.”

He didn’t like that.

He lay down where she indicated, on the bare floor, using his jacket as a pillow. The ring hummed faintly when he slipped it onto his finger.

Rin stayed sitting, back against the wall, eyes open.

Minutes passed.

Then Akiro spoke again.

“Rin?”

“Yes.”

“If I keep using magic… how much do I lose?”

She didn’t answer immediately.

“Enough,” she said finally. “Always enough.”

His eyes closed.

Beneath the city, old shrine seals trembled.

Hairline fractures spread through wards laid generations ago.

And somewhere far above, something ancient shifted its attention.

Akiro didn’t sleep the way people usually did.

There were no drifting thoughts, no slow slide into unconsciousness. One moment, he was aware of the cold floor beneath him, the faint hum of Rin’s seals, the distant city noise bleeding through layers of concrete—and the next, awareness folded.

Not darkness.

Depth.

He stood in a place that had no edges.

The ground beneath his feet looked like stone, but it shifted when he focused on it, patterns rearranging themselves like unfinished thoughts. The air shimmered faintly, heavy with something that wasn’t moisture.

Akiro took a step forward.

The sound echoed too long.

“Okay,” he muttered. “This is definitely not normal sleep.”

Something moved.

Not toward him. Around him.

He turned slowly, heart thudding—not fear, but the knowledge that fear should be there.

“Hello?” he called.

The word distorted as it left his mouth, stretching, unravelling into fragments before dissolving.

A shape emerged ahead.

Not a body. Not a face.

A presence…shadow.

It felt close without distance, heavy without weight. Like standing beneath something enormous just outside the range of sight.

“You are awake,” something said.

The voice didn’t enter his ears. It formed directly inside his thoughts, perfectly shaped, impossibly calm.

“I don’t think that’s my choice anymore,” Akiro replied.

A pause.

Not silence. Consideration.

“You were not meant to survive.”

“That’s… encouraging.”

The shadow shifted. The ground rippled outward in response.

You are incomplete, it continued. Marked but unclaimed. That is unstable.

Akiro folded his arms. “Everyone keeps saying that.”

“You burned through a boundary,” the shadow said. “You did not dissolve. You did not submit. That creates tension.”

“Yeah,” Akiro said quietly. “I’ve noticed.”

The shadow leaned closer.

Not physically.

Conceptually.

Every instinct in Akiro’s body screamed do not run.

Running would be an acknowledgement.

Acknowledgement would be permission.

“You have already paid,” the presence said. “The first costs are always the smallest.”

“My memories don’t feel small,” Akiro snapped.

“They are to you,” it replied. “To us, they are residues.”

That word again.

“Then what am I?” he asked.

Another pause.

“A breach,” the shadow answered. “A hinge. A variable.”

Akiro laughed softly. “I used to be a student.”

“That has now changed.”

The ground shifted again, and suddenly images bled into the space around them.

The alley.

The bending walls.

The moment the world had pressed inward and expected him to break.

“You resisted because you did not understand,” the shadow said. “That is rare.”

“I panicked,” Akiro said. “I survived by accident.”

“Accident is a human concept.”

The shadow receded slightly.

“You will be noticed.”

“I already am.”

Yes.

The word landed more heavily.

You will be pursued, corrected, recruited, or erased.

“Are you saying those are my only options?”

There is a fifth, the shadow said.

Akiro felt something coil tighter inside his chest.

“And that is?”

You learn to carry the pressure without leaking.

The image shifted.

He saw himself standing in the street earlier, magic tearing out of him uncontrolled. The hollow aftermath felt. The missing piece he couldn’t name.

“That didn’t look like carrying,” he said.

It looked like waste.

The word stung.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“No marked one ever does.”

The shadow moved closer again.

“But you continue.”

Akiro swallowed. “If I stop?”

The shadow didn’t answer immediately.

When it did, the tone had changed—less neutral.

“Then the pressure will decide for you.”

The space around him began to fold inward, not collapsing but tightening, like a hand closing slowly.

Akiro felt the mark on his arm burn—not pain, but insistence.

“Okay,” he said quickly. “I get it. I mustn’t quit.”

The pressure eased.

“Wise.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

The shadow withdrew, the world blurring at the edges.

“Rest,” it said. “Your handler cannot shield you indefinitely.”

“Handler?” Akiro echoed.

But the traces dissolved before he could get an answer.

He woke with a sharp inhale.

The apartment ceiling swam into focus above him.

For a moment, he didn’t remember where he was.

Then everything hit at once.

The mark.

Rin.

Kaito.

The Unbound.

He sat up too fast and immediately regretted it.

“You’re awake,” Rin said.

She was still sitting where he’d left her, back against the wall, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion lining her face.

“I had a conversation,” Akiro said hoarsely.

Her posture stiffened. “With what?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Something big. Something calm. Something very convinced me I shouldn’t exist.”

Rin exhaled slowly. “Did it give you a choice?”

He thought of the pressure tightening around him.

“No,” he said. “It gave me consequences.”

“That’s how you know it was real.”

He rubbed his face. “It called you, my handler.”

Rin winced. “I hate that term.”

“So, it’s accurate.”

She didn’t answer.

Akiro looked down at his arm. The mark was darker now, lines more defined beneath the skin, like they’d settled in.

“I’m leaking again, aren’t I?” he said.

“Yes,” Rin replied. “But slower.”

“Progress.”

She leaned forward. “Listen to me carefully. What you felt tonight—that wasn’t an Unbound. And it wasn’t a Warden.”

“Great,” Akiro muttered. “Another category.”

“It was something older,” Rin said. “Residual consciousness left behind by broken contracts. Most people never hear them.”

“And I did because…?”

“Because you’re thin,” she said bluntly. “Not hollow. Not yet. But close enough for them to whisper through.”

He nodded slowly. “What’s next?”

Rin’s gaze hardened.

“Now,” she said, “you stop reacting.”

“To what?”

“To everything,” she said. “If you panic, you bleed magic. If you bleed magic, you get hunted.”

“And if I don’t.”

“Then you learn control.”

Akiro leaned back against the wall.

“No pressure.”

Rin stood. “We move before dawn.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere less obvious,” she replied. “Somewhere with records.”

“Records of what?”

“People who survived longer than you’re supposed to.”

That caught his attention.

“…there are others.”

“Yes.”

“Are they okay.”

Rin hesitated.

“Some of them,” she said.

Akiro closed his eyes.

Outside, unseen, the city’s old seals groaned quietly under strain.

The game had already begun.

And Akiro was no longer ignorant enough to pretend otherwise.