Winner

Three hours before the final challenge

December 11th, 2050

Shinjuku Skyline

The restaurant’s door jingled as more patrons entered the establishment for their happy hour special. Despite the city being cautious over recent attacks, people still flocked for cheap meals and gossip.

Rei sipped the last of his oolong iced tea, then placed his glass down, ice cubes clinking. “Just think about it,” he said to Souichiro sitting in front of him. “If you’re planning to sell Daiki’s research anyway, why not sell it back to Tennojima?”

His soon-to-be conspirator played with the straw of his drink as if calculating the risk.

Rei’s phone vibrated, and so did his Souichiro’s. They both looked at their devices synchronously.

“Yukari?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Souichiro said. “That your queen bee?”

“Not exactly.”

Kiyotaka finally replied, and this time he actually made an effort to call. That did not forebode well, and Rei was right to be anxious. The boy explained what happened to Ruby after they escaped from Kanda Summit, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Sit down, bro,” Souichiro said after the waiter delivered their curry. “Stop making a scene, you’re embarrassing me.”

Rei sat back on his seat, not even realizing he stood up in shock. He could only imagine what Ruby and the rest of her team went through. All the while this carefree exalt drove him across Tokyo Sky doing everything and nothing at the same time.

He felt terrible for those that died. He only knew some of them in the past week, but they were people. They had lives. He and Masa started off on the wrong foot, but the guy genuinely looked out for him.

Couldn’t Rei have done at least something for them? Anything?

One person came to mind. One who could’ve made a difference. In fact, he probably did already. He always had a plan no matter how ridiculous it was.

“Kiyotaka,” Rei said, phone in his ear. “Can you put him on the line?”

“Him?”

“You know who I’m talking about. I didn’t want to say anything lest I ruin whatever he or Ruby were scheming. I just wanted to know what the bigger play is.”

Kiyotaka didn’t say a word, and all Rei could hear for some time was Souichiro munching happily on his curry.

Until finally a voice came through.

“When did you figure it out?”

Night of the final challenge

December 11th, 2050

Heaven’s Reach Shrine

“Congratulations, Reiji Shimomura!”

Lucia breathed exhaustively as she knelt on one knee, looking between Reiji and the two old men who came forward to stop the fighting. Keisuke waved his right hand in a circular motion as if signalling the security team to move back closer to the shrine.

“Please, withdraw your aethers, everyone,” Jirou said, his face awash with relief. “There’s no need for further testing. The choice have been made.”

“The hell is this?” Souichiro shouted from a distance. He crouched on the ground, holding the side of his stomach with glowing light. Was that healing?

Lucia gritted her teeth and stood back up. She dissipated all of her ice creations scattered across the shrine and absorbed some of the aether back into her body.

She’d been careless. She was too focused in making an impression for the challenge that her opponent got the better of her. Still, she thought what mattered was showing off her skills at crafting aether than winning the fight. What was this about the color of the moon?

“Stop screwing around, old man!” Souichiro continued to complain. “Like hell is the challenge over. And did none of you see what that asshole did to me? I could’ve died!”

You’re one to talk, Lucia thought in dismay. You almost killed me yourself!

Hidenori raised his hands and laughed softly. “I might’ve gotten way over my head,” he admitted. “I’m still not used to controlling my abilities.”

“Is that right?” Reiji said. He dusted off his jacket, then proceeded to meet Keisuke and Jirou halfway through the shrine. “I’d have your team restrain Hidenori if I were you, Keisuke. I have reason to believe he’s a member of the Anti-Exalt Faction.”

What?

Keisuke looked taken a back and immediately signalled for the security team to close in on Hidenori.

“What’s with this sudden accusation?” Hidenori said, almost too calmly. He kept his hands up and didn’t resist when the men and women in black pointed their guns at him.

“Search him,” Keisuke ordered. “Thoroughly.”

When the security team took off the man’s coat, it was revealed that he was wearing some kind of metal contraption around his body. It spiralled around his arms and legs like constraints.

“I knew something was off with you,” Keisuke said, shaking his head in disappointment. “Is this why your little group attacked the institute? To steal some of our weapons? I suppose out of anyone here you’d know about them.”

“No frickin’ way,” Souichiro said. “We had one of them with us the whole time?”

The security team ripped the metal contraption off Hidenori’s body. The man did not resist and maintained the smile across his lips.

“There is nothing to fear,” Keisuke said. “That pathetic group of renegades can’t do anything here.” He then moved closer to Reiji, pointing at him with a content look on his face. “I had a feeling it was you! Your reaction upon seeing the question yesterday had me convinced!”

“You were spying on the participants?” Reiji asked.

“It was necessary for the challenge,” Jirou answered. “But, um, is it true? Could you truly see the moon?”

“If I wanted to,” Reiji said. “How do you know of this ability?”

“From Daiki, of course.” Keisuke replied. “He had the same power near the end of his life. In fact, seeing the moon made him cognizant of the true nature of this world. But tell me, Reiji, if you truly have the eyes, does that mean you were part of the program?”

Reiji’s face grew dark. He refused to answer, which slowly caused a rift of wariness and silence between him and the old men. Which was perfect. Because honestly, Lucia had enough of this back and forth.

“Hold on a second here,” she said, stepping forward. “What even is going on? What is this about Reiji and seeing the moon? How does any of this make him the winner?”

“Thank you,” Souichiro followed. The man had finished healing himself and walked closer to them. “I thought I had gone crazy for a second there. You’re all joking, right? Cause none of this is funny. Can we just get back to the competition?”

“There is no competition,” Reiji said. “You said it right earlier, Souichiro. This whole thing is a farce.”

Hidenori started laughing. A member of the security kicked him to his knees, forcing him to kneel before them, but he kept laughing all the same.

“What do you mean, Reiji?” Lucia asked. “Is Daiki-sensei’s will not real?”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” Reiji said. “Heck, I’m willing to bet this challenge is real too. But Keisuke and Jirou have overridden most of it. They’ve been looking for the person with the eyes the entire time. They even changed the rules for it.”

Keisuke did not look particularly pleased at the accusation, but he didn’t deny it either.

“During the first challenge,” Reiji continued, “you said that if there was an exalt with aether-focused eyes, they might be able to figure out which boxes had gold or silver. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but that stray comment had me curious.”

“Then last night at the second challenge, you were pushing for the group to discuss the fourth question. You even asked me personally. Now I know you’ve been spying on us, but your intervention started long before that. The very nature of the fourth question and the tasks. They were all you, right?”

Reiji went on to explain how the question and task could’ve been added, and how the Artificial Intelligence didn’t even consider them.

“Now that I think about it, you probably decided on our tasks as the challenge was happening. You made sure whoever answered the fourth question or reacted well to it would make it to this shrine.”

“Souichiro went first, so you simply gave him the task to ensure the only winners were exalted. I was tasked to protect Souichiro, and Lucia was tasked to protect me. Hidenori is human, but he probably made an impression that you had Gen’ichi protect him.”

“And then we have Ruby and Lucia. They were prevented from reaching the shrine.”

Lucia blinked at that.

“My guess? You’ve known Ruby for a long time, so you knew she couldn’t possibly have the eyes, so why bother? As for Lucia, she’s a foreigner and an exalt of Nevada Sky. There was no way she could be part of the institute’s projects. In fact, you tried to get rid of her in the beginning of the second challenge, insisting Ayane should be counted as the winner of the golden medallion from the lottery. Which you’re free to rig, by the way. Unfortunately for you, Souichiro brought the missing medallion and slipped it into Gen’ichi. That got Lucia in.”

“Now we come to the final challenge. This one’s easy. You didn’t even care if there were three or four participants. You just wanted us to show off our abilities hoping the one with eyes stepped forward. I don’t even know if this is the challenge Daiki intended, but here we are.”

“So, how did I do?”

As soon as Reiji finished talking, all eyes fell on Keisuke. The man sighed deeply, a common thing from someone as old as he, but it wasn’t of tiredness or disappointment. He looked content.

“You reminded me of someone just now,” Keisuke said. “I see. I think I understand. So that detective found you, after all. That liar had us fooled. Had he been taking care of you this entire time?”

Reiji didn’t answer.

“You’re right,” Keisuke continued, “we—I have been looking for you for the longest time, Reiji. Though I suppose that isn’t your real name. You couldn’t have been Shimomura’s son.”

“It’s close enough,” Reiji said. “Name’s Rei. Just Rei.”

Keisuke grunted. “Rei. You probably don’t know this, but you are property of the institute. You ascended at birth and was left to our care.”

What? Lucia couldn’t believe what she just heard. Ascended… at birth? How was that even possible?

“A rare case,” Keisuke said, then he chuckled. “One of a kind, in fact. But it was perfect for our research. We could shape your aetheric growth however we pleased. But alas, you made your choice early. You channeled all your aether into your eyes before you could even comprehend the world. Our scientists thought it would ruin our plan, but Daiki and I knew different. We knew exactly how important the eyes can be.”

“Thus, an inspiration was born. We’ve been toiling with the idea for the longest time, but it wasn’t until you came along that we decided to create the Alter Eyes Project.” Keisuke suddenly shook his head in dismay. “But before we could make any strides, you disappeared from us, Rei. We don’t know how or why, but one day you were simply gone. We had no choice but to studying other exalts to moderate success. It wasn’t until two decades later when Daiki himself ascended that we made progress. He saw the truth of this world.”

“The power gave him so much. He even knew you were still alive and that you’d one day make your way back to us. He told me that when he died, and he made the truth known to the world, you would be there to claim it.”

“But alas. He insisted it was merely a ‘possibility’—an outcome born of many alternate possibilities. He said he had no choice but to leave it to chance. Can you believe it? That’s why the first challenge was based on random luck! After that he wanted the second challenge to be about the character and morality of the participants, so he posed the questions. And you want to know what the final challenge truly was? A discussion! Between the final participants! Hah!”

Keisuke shook his head in disgust.

“Based on the results calculated by the Artificial Intelligence, Ana Lucia had the highest possibility of winning the prize. All because she answered the questions with an open mind. You think that was enough? Daiki had always been soft. Which was precisely why he needed me. I ran his institute for him.” Keisuke balled his fists and shook them as if seizing the world for himself. “Unlike Daiki, I’m not leaving any of this to chance. And look what that got me. You, Rei.”

Keisuke placed his hands on Rei’s shoulders and looked him dead in the eyes.

“So, tell me, Rei, will you offer yourself to save our world?”