FAULT LINES WIDEN

Three hours later, the first true collapse occurred.

It started quietly. Not with the cinematic rupture he might have expected, but as if the city itself had held its breath and then let something slide just slightly off kilter.

A building on the west side—old brick, narrow fire escapes, peeling paint—shifted imperceptibly at first. Doors refused to latch. Windows rattled like something inside was breathing. Pedestrians glanced around nervously, muttering under their breath, some shaking their heads.

Akiro felt it in his stomach first—a sinking, twisting awareness, like the world had forgotten how to hold itself together. His mark burned, and this time it wasn’t faint. Warmth spread up his chest and down his arms like molten metal, fiery and insistent, demanding his attention.

Rin caught his arm immediately. “You can’t ignore it.”

“I’m not!” he gasped, stepping back, almost tripping over a loose cobblestone. “It feels like the city is trying to eat me.”

“That’s…accurate,” she muttered, her voice tight.

He stumbled closer to the building, watching the brick seams pulse unnaturally. An old ladder groaned as if protesting the weight of time. Dust fell from the cornices. No explosion. No fire. No dramatic, magical signature visible to the public. Just wrongness, creeping slowly but surely into the ordinary.

People screamed when a fire escape collapsed under a deliveryman’s weight. Akiro flinched instinctively—he hadn’t intended that—but the residual strain of his presence, of his refusal to vanish, had already drawn consequences. The sound of splintering metal and the man’s shout reverberated across the square, echoing against the brick walls of the surrounding buildings.

“I’m breaking things,” he said, voice cracking as he took a step back.

“You are,” Rin replied flatly, her eyes scanning the structural shifts of the building as though weighing them for a split second before acknowledging the truth. “…And it’s escalating. If you don’t do something now…”

“What?” Akiro’s panic rose in waves, hot and viscous. “…If I do something, it kills me. If I don’t, it kills them.”

She exhaled sharply. “…Then choose.”

He wanted to argue. To bargain. To plead. Instead, he raised his hands, closed his eyes, and tried to feel the system—the threads, the fragile lattice of magic that kept the city in balance.

It screamed back.

Shards of sensation stabbed at his head. He collapsed to his knees, clutching his temples. Copper and iron coated his tongue. Memories shattered under the strain: faces he had known, smells, laughter, even small, unremarkable details he hadn’t realised he remembered were gone. One instant, a neighbour’s cat curled in the sun on a stoop; the next, he couldn’t recall its colour or the way it had purred.

Rin fell to one knee beside him. “Don’t overreach,” she warned, her voice tight with control, but her hands shook slightly at the edges—a rare glimpse of human fear.

“Too late!” he shouted. “Everything’s unravelling!”

And it was.

Windows shattered. Small fractures ran across the pavement, spreading like veins. Streetlights flickered and hummed. The hum of magic—usually low, almost imperceptible—turned into a low, musical wail, vibrating in the chest, in the bones, in the very air itself. A puddle on the corner rippled despite the lack of wind. Shadows lengthened and recoiled unpredictably, wrapping around objects and people like living things.

People screamed, running in every direction, tripping over uneven pavement, knocking over carts, clutching children. Some laughed in disbelief, unmoored by the strange distortion. A streetcar lurched to a stop, passengers frozen mid-motion, faces twisted in panic that was almost comic in its stillness.

Through it all, Ilya appeared, stepping through the chaos like a calm storm. People seemed almost to move around him, careful not to collide with the invisible ripple of stability he carried. He glanced at Akiro, then Rin. “…You’ve done it,” he said simply. “Not just resisted. You’ve forced the system to respond to you.”

Akiro blinked through sweat and tears. “I didn’t choose this!”

“You did,” Rin said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. “…By existing.”

“By not disappearing,” Ilya added, his gaze steady. “…By refusing the erasure the system demands.”

“You’ve changed the rules,” Ilya continued, “but the cost…” His eyes lingered on Akiro, unspoken but heavy.

Akiro didn’t need him to finish. He felt it everywhere—the hollowing, the lost memories, the emotional numbness creeping faster than ever. The cost was no longer just internal; it resonated outward. Every building’s twist, every displaced shadow, every frozen pedestrian reflected what resisting him demanded.

Akiro staggered toward the centre of the plaza, brushing his hands against the twisted steel of a fallen street sign. “…I have to fix it,” he whispered to himself. “…I have to…”

“Do it,” Rin said, her voice almost trembling now, raw with human urgency. “…Do what you were made to do.”

He reached, closed his eyes, and tried to anchor. Tried to thread the lattice back together. Tried to will the city into obedience.

Nothing worked.

It screamed back, louder, angrier, insistent. Glass vibrated in his ears. Pavement shifted beneath his knees. His mark glowed hotter, consuming sensation, warning, threatening, urging, demanding, punishing.

“…I can’t,” he gasped, staggering. “…It’s too much!”

“Then stop trying to control it,” Ilya said, moving closer. “…Accept your role as conduit, not master. Let the city respond, not you.”

“…I can’t,” Akiro admitted, voice cracking. “…I won’t watch it break…”

“Then brace yourself,” Rin said, crouching beside him, hands gripping his arms. “…You can’t fix this without taking the cost. And it will hurt. It always does.”

“…I know,” he whispered. “…I know the cost.”

The city screamed. Not with voice, not with alarm, not with fire—but in subtle, terrible ways that only someone attuned could feel. Shadows snapped against walls, streetlights pulsed in waves, and the ground hummed underfoot. People froze mid-step, eyes wide. A man dropped his grocery bag, its contents rolling into the street, scattering like spilled memories.

Akiro closed his eyes again. He could feel every thread, every crack, every anomaly. He reached inward. Reached outward. He tried to be both calm and stormy.

And the cost came.

Memory. Emotion. Muscle control. A splintering sensation left him dizzy and hollowed. A flash of a smile he had once cherished—his mother’s laugh in the kitchen—vanished like smoke. A fleeting vision of his best friend from childhood, the way sunlight had hit the corner of his bedroom wall, was gone. Gone. Gone.

He fell forward onto the cracked pavement, chest heaving, hands pressed against the ground. Rin caught his shoulder again. “…You’re not dying,” she said, voice low. “…Not yet.”

“…Feels like it,” he gasped. “…Feels like it’s killing me from the inside out.”

Ilya crouched beside him, hands resting lightly on his knees. “…It is,” he said softly. “…But it’s necessary. Not random. Necessary.”

“…Necessary?” Akiro repeated, laughter sharp and hollow. “…People are screaming. People are hurt. Is this your definition of necessary?”

“They will survive,” Rin said, voice trembling slightly. “…If you stop fighting against it. If you learn to move with it, not against it.”

“…I’ve been moving with it for months,” Akiro said bitterly. “…And this is what it does!”

“Because you’ve changed,” Ilya said quietly. “…Because you’ve chosen not to vanish. You’ve made yourself known. And now everything has to adjust.”

Akiro lifted his head, eyes bloodshot, vision swimming with the shimmer of bending reality. “…Adjust? Adjust? Streets twisting, people frozen, buildings…falling! That’s your adjustment?”

Rin pressed his hand to his chest, steadying him. “…The city adapts, yes. It always has. But you’ve accelerated it. And that acceleration…has a cost.”

“…I can feel it,” he muttered. “…Every shred of it. My bones, my mind…my heart.”

“…Then survive it,” Rin said. “…You’ve survived worse. Just…remember that you’re not alone.”

“…Ilya?” he asked, voice small, almost human. “…You’re not afraid?”

“…Afraid of what?” Ilya said softly. “…I’ve seen the system bend. I’ve seen it break. But you…you are something else. You’re the one who forces attention. The one who forces awareness. That is terrifying. And necessary. And yes…afraid? Perhaps. But not paralysed.”

Akiro swallowed. His mark burned hot, the residual energy thrumming beneath his skin like a second heartbeat. “…I’m visible,” he whispered. “…Everyone can see me now.”

“Not everyone,” Rin corrected. “…But enough. Enough that the city has noticed the cracks. And now it will continue to notice.”

The hum grew louder. Streetlights pulsed. Shadows twisted. A single pigeon lifted from the pavement, wings beating against a sudden resistance. A distant car horn squealed. People began to murmur and scatter, confusion and fear and awe rippling through the plaza.

“…I won’t disappear,” Akiro said, voice steady, trembling only slightly. “…Not quietly. Not ever again.”

Rin pressed her forehead briefly against his shoulder. “…Then survive. And let the city listen.”

Ilya stood, stepping back. “…It’s only just beginning. But you’ve passed the first test.”

Akiro inhaled sharply, looking around at the chaos. “…Then let’s see what happens when the city starts paying attention in earnest.”

The buildings groaned. Shadows stretched and retracted. The hum turned into a vibration he could feel in his teeth and chest. Somewhere far below, old suppression seals pulsed faintly, whispering warnings, struggling to hold.

And Akiro, hollowed and exhausted, scarred and alive, smiled faintly. “…Bring it on.”