Chapter Text
‘Where… Where am I?’
The young man pondered as he woke up from his light nap only to find himself far away from the comfort of his bedroom, sitting alone on a moving train.
Now, if it was anyone else, they would be freaking out now, but for Ryuu, who had experienced literally hundreds upon thousands of time-loops on top of the sheer chaos that was his daily life, this was sometimes too tame for him.
In fact, he was a little surprised that no one tried to either kill or befriend him in the first several minutes since he woke up.
‘Yep, this place is definitely not Tokyo,’ He thought as he looked around the unfamiliar place, quietly watching the people around him continued living their place not knowing about the Japanese teen. Based on the words on the posters hanging on the wall and the language others were using to converse, he might probably be somewhere in South Korea right now.
Well, shoot. Despite having spent time with dozens of Transients from all over the 23 Worlds and learned their native language, none of them even remotely related to the Korean language.
He was a literally clueless foreigner here.
Checking out his surrounding, he carefully took out his smartphone from his pants’ pocket, only to almost drop it in shock at the sight of the reflection.
Several years ago, in order to defeat the Game once and for all, he was forced to merge with the 23 souls dwelling within him and thus was semi-elevated to godhood, shifting into the form of a humanoid dragon in the process. But the one in his reflection was not, it was him from when he was still in school, sometimes in his late teenage years.
His face still had some boyish handsomeness instead of the manly attractiveness his boyfriends had often complimented him, his body was slender and somewhat lanky instead of being stacked with hard muscles, and his head… It was like that of a regular human teenager, with short and messy brown hair instead of hairless, sharp scales with giant horns protruded from his forehead.
After having spent years looking like a dragon, to turn back into a human was… shocking, to say the least.
But still, who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He had spent years trying to revert back to a human only to accept looking like this when his self-proclaimed husband found out and became disgusted with him, not to mention the look on other Transients when they also found out because of Ophion's crying. And now, he finally got his wish fulfilled. And based on the slight shifting of his magical energy, the draconic and divine powers he gained from his metamorphosis hadn't disappeared, so that definitely a bonus.
Activating his phone, there were two things that he immediately noticed.
One, his speculation was correct, he was in South Korea, Seoul in fact, nearly 1200 kilometers away from home. The day was also something that caught his interest, 6th January 2018 - Almost 100 years in the past and roughly 2 years after the Game had, unofficially, begun in December of 2016.
Despite having known that Time Magic actually existed, hell, his Familiar Lil’ Solomon even had the ability to stop the flow of time by accelerating the thought process or whatever, but time travel? Now that was something truly impossible. The closest thing he knew that could be called Time Travel was [Regression] - The cursed ability the Game granted him to make sure a final winner would be chosen from the Warmongers, the Law Makers, and the Invaders by reviving him back to the moment he was first summoned to Tokyo repeatedly until the Game ended, again and again and again…
Two, the SUMMON app had disappeared. Quickly, he jumped in trying to find it in the app store and every website he possibly could, only to end it after what it had been hours empty-handed. That itself was an impossible thing, even after the Game had ended and the Great Wall of Tokyo had reverted into its original form as the World Serpent Jormungandr, the app still existed and functioned as if nothing had ever happened in the first place, though its true purpose had now ended.
No matter how many times and how many ways people tried, they still couldn’t delete the app from their phone nor could they delete their profile from the app. Hell, when Toji switched from his old phone to the new one he bought for their anniversary, the app still managed to switch to and self-downloaded itself onto his new phone, complete with his old profile and information.
He could still remember how the roses burned as he tried his best to stop one of his boyfriends from destroying the brand new phone and the restaurant altogether, as his beloved exorcist screaming that this was something created by the Devil himself. And since he was literally Satan - Shaytan, actually. But the name was the only thing that got changed, the rest was still the same tbh - seeing his boyfriend trying to destroy the anniversary gift because of an app that he was said to have made was absolutely NOT how he wanted the afternoon to end.
These two things alone already told him something crucial about his current situation - He wasn’t anywhere near his home and family.
This place might not even be the same Earth he was in, based on the images he found on the internet of a wall-less Tokyo and zero sights of Transient there.
Using most of his capability, he tried not to scream out loud, not to alert anyone around him nor the people who pulled him into this mess.
It had been years since the Game ended, and the wall was pulled down, and he finally took control of his own destiny and got his own happily-ever-after. And yet there were still some random fuckers who thought it would be funny to drag him into another shitty Game?
He was furious beyond any word.
However, before he could even try to do anything, the subway lights turned off and the inside of the train became a murky black.
Kiiiiiiiiiiik!
The subway train shook loudly and let out a metallic screech. From beside him, multiple screams were heard by the people getting stirred up. Quickly, Ryuu steadied himself before getting inside a fighting stance and activated his draconic eyes as all darkness within his vision disappeared, fully prepared to take on the unknown opponents when the attacks came.
But they didn’t come. Not yet.
Suddenly, a painful screech rang inside his head and Ryuu could feel his ears bleeding out little by little, only for his healing factors kicked in and healed them instantly, creating a circle of rending and mending. This was fast, oh so fast, only a couple of seconds and yet he felt like it had been hours, perhaps even days, inside of his mind. And eventually, the pain finally ended, but not faded, and humming by his ears was the panic sounds of the people surrounding him.
The panic sounds that were originally in Korean, yet now fully translated into perfect Japanese in his ears.
And after a dozen seconds or so, the train was finally able to fully stop.
Then, the entire train erupted in confusion. In the dark, one or two smartphone lights turned on.
“Uh, what?”
“What-What is this?”
“W-What is going on?”
Suddenly, the speakers activated and the engineer’s announcement was heard across the compartment.
“Telling all passengers on the train. Telling all passengers on the train,” At these words, the loud surrounding became calm again as they thought it was just a minor error that was already been fixed, “E-Everyone run away… Run… !”
‘What?’ All the passengers collectively thought as there was a beeping sound and the broadcast turned off. Quickly, the entire train became the chaotic mess it once was.
‘Oh for the love of…’ Ryuu thought, his fists tightened as he tried to remember what his boyfriends and teachers once taught him on the subjects of hand-to-hand combat, ‘I swear, when I got my hand on whoever responsible for this entire mess, I will…’
But before he could finish his threat, a bright light flashed from the front of the subway. There was a loud drumming sound followed by a pop. Something was heading this way in the darkness, he could feel it with all of his senses. It was something not of this world, something dwelling amidst the constellations and nebulae up within the limitless cosmos above. The aura it radiated, Ryuu noted, was something both similar, yet not, to those of the Transients from the Land of Wa, more commonly known in Japanese folklore as youkai.
However, despite how much he wanted not to associate it with the Land of Wa’s former residents that he once knew, there wasn’t anything else to describe it.
Its aura was too strange to be a fairy of Tír na nÓg, too vile to be a demon of Gehenna, and too tranquil to be an angel from Eden.
And thus, until he could know what the entity truly was, he had to bear calling it a youkai.
At that moment, he felt like the world was slowing down to a stop, then a voice could be heard in everyone’s mind.
[The free service of planetary system 8612 has been terminated.]
[The main scenario has started.]
With that, he knew how much his life had been fucked up by the higher-ups once more.