THE COLLISION

Wardens arrived mid-afternoon.

Not quietly. Not diplomatically. Not as if they were stepping carefully into a situation that could still be contained. They came like a storm, clad in pale uniforms that reflected the unnatural shimmer of bending light around the broken shrines. Suppression fields crackled in arcs across the street, pulsing with a sharp white-blue glow. Ritual enforcers moved in tandem, their sigils etched into the air with practised precision, creating faint, glowing barriers that hummed as they stabilised—or attempted to stabilise—the city’s failing lattice.

Akiro didn’t move.

He didn’t need to.

They saw him.

“You’re violating all protocols!” a Warden shouted, stepping forward. The suppression device in his hand hummed, a compact lattice generator that could erase magical threads faster than any human eye could track. His voice was sharp, rehearsed, a weapon of its own.

“I’m alive,” Akiro said flatly, shoulders straight, chin level. “…And awake. That’s already a violation.”

The street between them seemed to breathe. Magic leaked from his mark in faint ripples, invisible to most, but enough to make the edges of perception blur. Residue from his presence clung to concrete, to metal, to the scattered papers drifting on the wind.

Rin stood beside him. Scarf drawn tight, hood shadowing her face, eyes sharp and calculating. Her stance screamed readiness, but her expression betrayed something deeper—fear. Not for herself. For him.

“Step down,” she said firmly, voice cutting across the tension like a knife.

They didn’t.

Then, as if in answer, the Unbound appeared.

Not scattered shadows, not nameless echoes. People. Scarred, tattered, bearing crude and unpredictable magic, but unmistakably alive. Eyes glowing faintly, hands sparking with raw energy, the Unbound moved as if they had been waiting for this moment.

“Ilya,” Rin muttered under her breath.

He stepped forward slowly, calm and deliberate, taking in the scene. “…You’ve brought a storm,” he said softly, almost admiringly, the corners of his mouth tugging into a faint smile.

Akiro flinched. His hands twitched, unwillingly weaving threads of magic into chaotic tangles around him. His mark burned fiercely beneath his skin, an internal flare mirrored by the outside world’s distortions. Memories fractured, emotional numbness spiked. Every cost struck him immediately, sharply, as if the city itself were punishing him for daring to exist at full awareness.

One Warden raised his suppressor. A blinding arc of energy struck the pavement, throwing dust and debris into the air. Residue sizzled as it met Akiro’s protective field.

Instinctively, he reacted. A bubble of distorted energy erupted outward, warping space within its radius. Glass shattered along shopfronts. People screamed. Cars skidded to abrupt, jerky stops.

Rin gritted her teeth and began drawing protective sigils rapidly in the air, her fingers weaving symbols that glowed faintly, reinforcing the area around them. “You can’t hold them all!” she yelled.

“I’m not holding anyone!” Akiro shot back, voice rough, raw. “…but, at least let me survive this...!”

Ilya watched from the worn edge, arms crossed, expression unreadable. “…You’re doing more than surviving,” he said softly, casually. “…You’re forcing the system to bend.”

Akiro could barely hear him over the chaos—the screaming, the screeching of metal, the hum and warble of uncontrolled magic—but the words struck a chord. He gritted his teeth. “…The cost!” he shouted. “…Every time I do this, I lose something else! A memory…an emotion…a piece of myself!”

He felt it again, sharp and real: a fragment of a forgotten friend flickered in his mind and vanished like smoke. The dead space inside him surged, creeping across his chest and arms like ice water, leaving him eerily calm as chaos erupted around him.

Rin glanced at him, eyes wide, almost panicked. “…You’re losing yourself!”

“I’ve already lost parts!” he yelled back, staggering slightly under the combined strain of magic and exhaustion. “…And if I stop…if I don’t push—”

The collision was inevitable.

Magic from both factions—the Wardens’ structured suppression and the Unbound’s jagged chaos—collided with his threads. Jagged patterns tore through the air, leaving trails of distorted light, warped shadows, and residual pulses that the civilians below couldn’t perceive but would sense subconsciously. Glass windows cracked in lace-like patterns. A streetlamp bent and hummed before toppling. Shadows of pedestrians elongated unnaturally, stretching over walls, flickering between the real and impossible.

Akiro felt something inside him break. A memory, a fragment of himself, gone forever. The taste of iron filled his mouth. Panic rose in his chest. His mark flared white-hot, threads of magic tangling wildly as he fought to stabilise the chaos, but the effort cost more than he had left to give.

Rin’s voice was sharp, cutting through the noise, “Focus on the shrines! Don’t let them fall entirely!”

“I’m trying!” Akiro gasped. “…I can’t! I’m…losing—”

And then something deeper shifted.

The shrines began to fail outright. Cracks ran through stone and wood, spreading in jagged, lightning-like patterns. The faint hum of magic became a roar, vibrating through the city, rattling windows, rattling bones, rattling sanity.

Above them, the sky darkened—not clouds, not rain, but a thick, folding night, pulling itself across the city as if it were aware, as if it were mirroring the unravelling below. The sun seemed to be swallowing. Shadows deepened unnaturally, stretching and flickering against the buildings, responding to Akiro’s flare of magic.

He realised, abruptly, that he didn’t know how to stop it. Not fully. Not anymore. The threads he had once relied on to hold everything together now snapped back at him, twisting, biting, reshaping, unpredictable.

“I…don’t know if I can!” he shouted, voice cracking, bending under the weight of physical and mental strain. “I can’t hold it all!”

Rin’s eyes were wide, pupils tight, as she drew sigils with rapid, frantic gestures. “…You have to!” she said. “…It’s all that’s left. If you falter now, everyone—”

“Everyone dies!” Akiro finished for her, voice raw, nearly a growl. “…I know! I feel it! And I can’t stop it!”

Ilya stepped closer, moving through the chaos with impossibly calm precision. “…Then don’t stop it,” he said quietly, soothingly. “…Let go and control where it flows, not if. Shape, don’t suppress.”

Akiro blinked, shaking, sweat streaking his face, burning through the numbness. “…Shape…not suppress…” he repeated, voice faint, unsure if he could even follow the instruction. “…You make it sound so easy!”

Ilya’s lips twitched. “…Nothing is easy,” he said softly. “…You’ve already bent the rules. Now bend the chaos.”

Rin grabbed Akiro’s arm, holding him steady. “…You can do this,” she said. “…You’ve survived worse. You’ve lost more. You’re awake now. Use it. For the city. For yourself. For…whatever we’ve become.”

Akiro inhaled, a shaky, ragged breath. He extended his hands outward, letting the threads of magic respond—not perfectly, not without pain, but alive, obedient in a way they hadn’t been in months. He felt the pull of the shrines, the hum of the lattice, the jagged clash of Wardens and Unbound, and tried to weave them into a tenuous harmony.

Every motion cost him a fragment of memory. Every effort drained emotion. Every glance, every breath, every heartbeat chipped pieces of his sense of self. And yet, something inside him, something primal, stubborn, refused to yield.

The city screamed around him. Windows shattered. Pavement cracked. Cars twisted slightly, unnaturally. Pedestrians stumbled, terrified, uncomprehending. But Akiro could feel it: the system was bending. It wasn’t perfect. It was painful. It was raw. But it was responding.

Above, the sky shuddered, the unnatural darkness thickening. The shrines flickered, trembling violently, responding to him, acknowledging him. Akiro could feel them feeding into his awareness, reinforcing his threads, whispering, guiding, not commanding.

“I…am awake,” he whispered, voice broken but steady. “…And I will not disappear.”

Rin’s grip on his arm tightened. “…Good,” she said, almost a sigh. “…Now…show them. Show the Wardens. Show the Unbound. Show the city itself what it means to face the Anchor.”

Ilya’s gaze lingered on him, something like respect—or perhaps curiosity—crossing his face. “…You’re not just surviving anymore,” he said softly. “…You’re awake. Fully. And the city will remember.”

Akiro took a trembling step forward, threads of magic trailing from his hands like fragile, silver lightning. “…Then let it all see,” he said. “…Let them see everything. The cost, the chaos, the truth. Let them see me. Let them see us. Let them see the city wake.”

The Wardens faltered. The Unbound hesitated. Even the air itself seemed to pause, vibrating with tension, responding to the threads of an Anchor who refused to vanish.

The city noticed.

And the Anchor was alive.

The sky darkened further, the hum beneath the streets turning into a chorus of possibility and danger. Somewhere in the deep foundations of the city, something older than all of them shifted. Waiting. Watching. Accepting.

Akiro gritted his teeth, pulse hammering. “…This is just the beginning,” he said, voice low, grim, but resolute. “…I know it. And I’m ready.”

Rin nodded beside him, silent but unwavering. Ilya’s eyes glimmered faintly, unreadable. And the city itself—streets, shrines, shadows, and hum—trembled in recognition.

The war had begun.

And Akiro had already crossed the line.