Chapter 0:

Ye Who Enter Here

Invisible God


I stand at the front gate, I let everyone else walk past me. I don't know why, but this feels good. As if I'm the one cog standing still in the machine. I guess this is like my way of fighting against it, fighting against the world. 

"Yeah that's good, this'll be a good opening scene for my book"

"What the hell are you talking about Ryu-chan?"

A hand smacks the back of my neck. It's Shuichi. My friend since middle school, so about three years now. We ended up in the same high school as well. Not that he was my closest friend in middle school, it's just that he's the only one of my friends that-

"Huh?"

He slapped his hand onto my shoulder this time. I guess I shouldn't let my internal monologue go on for too long.

"Waiting for you, Shu-san"

"Oooh?"

"Kidding"

"Huuuuuh?"

As a began to walk to the front door a could hear blondie catch back up to me after his shock that this wasn't a BL story. 

"You know Shu-san, all of your dialogue so far has ended in question marks, why don't you try to make a statement that way the audience could get to know you a little better."

"Oh your right. Hiya everybody I'm Ryu-chan's bestest friend in the whole wide world. Wait. Audience? What audience?"

"Ha ha. Good response as always Shu-san, however that still ended in two question marks. Good enough I suppose."

"No seriously, what audience?"

Without commenting on his additional use of a question, we entered our first year classroom. We've been high school freshman for about a week now so everyone has already found there place within their groups. It's astonishing to witness the social level of high school freshmen who were mostly strangers up until just seven days ago.

Me and Shuichi of course have our new friend group as well. We take a seat behind three others whose names I have still yet to learn. One has a phone showing the other two something on it. One is a bit on the shorter side and looking at the phone with curiosity. And the other looks a bit airheaded and is watching the phone with a grin. 

"Yo Kuro-kun, Shuichi-kun"

"Yo"

"Yo"

The grinning one is who calls out to us. Come to think of it, he just called me "Kuro-kun", that's not even my name. Not that "Ryu-chan" is either. In fact the sound "Ryu" doesn't appear anywhere in my name, it's just that Shuichi has called me that for so long that I stopped caring. It seems that instead of calling me by my name, people choose to call me by distinguishing traits like my black hair. Well, not that "Ryu" would necessarily describe any trait of mine. Now that I think about it, where the hell did that even come from.

I feel myself straying from whatever story is supposed to be happening here.

 "Wouldn't you say that we're currently living in something like the 'Era of Communication' right now?"

"If that's the case, I'd say it would be more so the 'Rise of Communication Era'"

I got a response from the short one.

"Why's that?"

"Well if an era is defined by something then that would usually mean that other eras would lack that thing, but in the future I don't see communication disappearing or even declining at all. If anything, the ability to communicate would only get greater from here on out. Thus, 'Rise of Communication Era'"

"I guess in the future, they can look back and call it whatever they want, but I was mainly talking about we right now are currently the most sociable as a species than at any time before now. I wasn't really accounting for what we would be like in the future."

"Well I guess if we were to cut off all of human history after the current era, then I suppose you would be right. We are living in the 'Era of Communication'"

"Woah, killing off all of humanity just so Ryu-chan can sound smart."

Shuichi chimed in.

"Well I didn't mean for it to sound that violent, but yeah I guess it is something like that"

I stayed quiet.

"Yo, have you guys heard about number 1033?"

Finally, the last one to talk, the one holding the phone that had held everyone's attention before we arrived. 

Now let me wrack my brain to figure out what he's talking about. let's see, that is a pretty high number so it can't be that many different things, especially since he brought it up so casually as if there was a definite possibility that we have in fact heard about this 'number 1033'. Ah, One Piece. No wait, we've been past chapter 1033 for a while now. Then... Oh. I almost forgot.

"Oh yeah? What was the power this time?"

That's right. Thank you for reminding me, Shuichi. We live in a world of superhumans. It's actually pretty easy to forget that people with superpowers exist when we have mundane conversations like this everyday.

"They haven't reveled it yet. Supposed to be saving it for some kind of convention or something like that. But apparently, it has something to do with 'seeking'. Least that's what the rumors online have been saying."

Despite his redundant speech pattern, I look over at this hooligan's phone to see exactly what everyone is looking at. It's a news broadcast showing a swarm of helicopters. Right, I suppose that's where they're keeping the 'Abnormal'. Of course I know all this since I live in this world, but what If someone wasn't aware? Too bad.

"You know it's really something to see these guys holding big events like this just because all of sudden one person wakes up to find that they won the better than everyone else lottery. Seriously. Superpowers? what is this some kind of manga? Stop glorifying reality."

"Oh, did mister top of the world finally realize the universe exist?"

The one with the phone

"Seriously Ryu-chan, are you really one to be talking?" 

"Whatever. I just think we as humans can have a little more dignity than to treat everything as a piece of media to be consumed, or everyone as someone to look up to." 

After that, everyone sat in silence and watched the broadcast. I guess I kind of killed the mood. I'll be sure to remember where to call it quits next time. It's not like I was really mad in the first place. I just felt like being the person who said something other than praise.

A few moments later, something happened. Something unusual. There was a sudden silence in the broadcast, and then a bit of a commotion started to occur. It seems that the news station swapped back to their cameraman who is on board one of the fleet helicopters. 

"New development in the story of 1033-"

It seems that for some reason or another that 1033 has disappeared from his escort. Well, that certainly is a development. But before we could continue the story, the bell had rang and it was time for first period. 

Everyone moved to their seats and went about their day like normal. As if nothing outside of their own life mattered. As if no matter the news on tv, they could keep living the same way that they have always been. Although, I am also a guilty of this, as their was only one thing on my mind right now.

I wonder which club I should join.