Chapter Text
There had only ever been ten.
Ten people in all of human history who could do the impossible
They weren’t born in other countries. No child in the U.S. lifted a car with one hand. No one in France turned invisible. No accidental fire-starters in Brazil, no telepaths in Russia, no billionaires with flying suits in California. Not even in comic books had anyone imagined powers like these before the real thing came along.
The only people who ever had superhuman abilities, the only ones ever, were born in Japan, and they could all be counted on two hands.
They appeared, one by one, in the early 2000s. At first, the world thought they were hoaxes. Viral videos. Stunts. Clever CGI. No one wanted to believe that real people could do what the Ten could do, because if you believed it, you had to ask why they existed, and what that meant for the rest of humanity.
But as disasters kept being narrowly avoided, as storms parted above certain cities, as collapsed buildings were emptied in seconds without explanation, as bullets crumpled in mid-air during hostage situations, the truth became impossible to deny.
There were ten of them.
Only ten.
They never gave names. Never spoke to cameras. Never stood for interviews. The media gave them code names based on their powers. The government never publicly acknowledged their existence. Civilians saw them in glimpses, streaks of wind, flashes of gravity distortion, the strange ringing in your ears just before your car stopped spinning.
The world called them The Shijū.
They all had different powers, unique in their own ways.
One could revere time.
One could pinpoint a target and never miss.
One could erase pain.
One could copy oneself as a true, living person.
One could use an opponent's strategy to his advantage.
One could control gravity.
One could manipulate the Earth.
One could step into a shadow of any size and reappear in another.
One could see the threads of cause and effect.
One could completely vanish.
No one knew their real names. No one ever would.
Because all of a sudden, they fell.
The virus came without warning. No symptoms. No pattern. No infection. And no hope.
They named it Shōmetsu - a name meaning “erasure,” or “annihilation.” It was given by the head of a Tokyo epidemiology team, who later disappeared under government silence orders. Some thought they wen't missing because they got sick. That's when the world realized it. The virus wasn’t infectious at all. It didn’t spread from person to person.
Because the virus didn’t target people.
It targeted powers.
Shmoetsu didn't harm ordinary humans. It ignored civilians, doctors, soldiers, and children. It didn't live in blood, saliva, or air. It didn't mutate. It didn't evolve.
Because it had one purpose:
To destroy the Shijū.
As soon as it hit a member, the progression was swift.
First, their abilities faltered. A metal beam wouldn’t bend when called. Time would rewind only halfway. A wound, once easily absorbed, would resist healing. They pushed harder, like they always had, and that only sped things up. Their powers rejected them. Or perhaps they rejected the powers. No one knew which.
Their bodies remained intact, mostly. But something inside them began to fail, a connection to whatever force gave them their gifts. When that connection snapped, they collapsed. In many cases, their bodies evaporated. Ash, dust, smoke, vanishing into light. No trace left behind. No autopsy possible.
Shōmetsu didn’t just kill.
It removed.
Some scientists insisted it wasn’t a virus at all. That it was a global immune response. That the Earth itself had rejected the aberration of the Shijū. That their existence had created an imbalance, and the world corrected it.
Others believed Shōmetsu was a built-in expiration date. That the powers had never been natural, and were never meant to last.
But perhaps the most frightening theory came from a private researcher who spoke at a secret medical summit, only to go missing afterward. She said:
“Shōmetsu didn’t spread because it didn’t need to. It knew where they were. It had only ever known 10.”
She pointed to the unbreakable pattern: No new powers ever emerged. Not before, not after. Only 10 people in all of time had these gifts. No descendants. No mutations. No next generation.
The moment the Shijū appeared, the clock had started.
And as soon as time was up, Japan's society crumbled apart.
Japan didn’t survive it.
Not really.
It was still there on the map. Still had trains, cities, buildings, and television. But it was hollowed out.
No one knew it at the time. No one had realized how deeply the Shijū had been maintaining the balance, stopping natural disasters before they formed, halting mass violence before it erupted, making problems disappear before anyone ever had to notice them. They were quiet, invisible, nameless. But their presence had held the country together like gravity. And when Shōmetsu came for them, that gravity snapped.
And the world found out what happened when gods stopped catching the falling pieces.
Disasters struck first.
Earthquakes that were once softened by unseen forces now hit at full force. Mudslides, floods, collapsed tunnels, failing dams, all things that had once been subtly prevented, now tore through towns like they’d been waiting. Whole communities vanished in hours. Coastlines shifted. Volcanoes trembled.
It wasn’t just nature. It was the sudden realization that nature had never been kept in check by human hands.
Then came the panic.
Without the Shijū, crime skyrocketed. Civil order destroyed. People who had once walked fearlessly under bright city lights now shut themselves inside. Trust disintegrated. The military was deployed, but morale was low. Who could replace living legends? Who could step into the space left behind by something inhuman?
Conspiracies flourished. Cults formed. Riots broke out over access to archived footage of them. Protest emerged, with people wanting answers to their lost heroes. To the heroes who protected their homeland. The heroes who made life a bit easier for the people of Japan.
The economy collapsed.
Businesses failed. Tech industries dried up. Tourism disappeared. Japan, once a symbol of calm, now looked ruined and destroyed, a country that had leaned on miracles and paid the price.
The government crumbled under the pressure. Prime ministers changed monthly. Aid efforts stalled. And beneath it all was the lingering fear: if this happened once, could it happen again?
Could other nations be next? What if powers awakened elsewhere only to be wiped out by the same silent plague?
But it didn’t happen. No other powers appeared. No other countries saw miracles. It had only ever been Japan. And it had been punished for it.
This resulted in citizens fleeing - those who could anyway. Hundreds of thousands left the country within 3 months. Airports overflowed. Families split. Students dropped out of university. Entire industries relocated overseas.
Some went to Australia. Some to Canada. Some scattered across Europe.
But the loudest, most determined, and most desperate flooded toward one place:
New York City.
The most mythologized city in the world. The land of noise, mess, and possibility. A place where disappearing into the chaos felt like survival. A place with no superheroes and no expectation of them.
A place that two brothers, both broke, both too young to be this tired, would land with nothing but suitcases, debt, and a handful of instant noodles.
They didn’t come for safety. They didn’t come for fame.
They came because Japan wasn’t home anymore.
Not without the Ten.
Not after Shōmetsu.
___________________________________________________________
For the record, Atsumu had expected a parade.
Not, like, a big one. Nothing with floats or backup dancers. Just a little something. A “Welcome to America” sign, maybe. A marching band. Or confetti. Definitely someone to carry his luggage.
Instead, he got JFK baggage claim, where a toddler was screaming into a yogurt tube and an older woman tried to arrest a vending machine for “robbing her of exact change.”
Osamu leaned against a pillar and watched the chaos unfold with the peaceful resignation of a man who had already accepted that life was one long ramen commercial that someone had left on mute.
“We’re really here, huh?” Atsumu said, adjusting the one suitcase wheel that refused to roll straight. “Land of the free, home of the brave.”
“Home of the one hundred-year traffic,” Osamu muttered. “Home of $11 convenience store sandwiches.”
“Optimism, ‘Samu. Yer killin’ the vibe.”
“There is no vibe. Just debt and deli meat.”
Atsumu grinned. “I’m gonna get discovered.”
“We’ve been here seven minutes.”
“Which is practically half a movie montage. At this rate, I’ll be on the cover of New Yorker by Thursday.”
“You’ll be kicked out of your job by Wednesday.”
Atsumu was too excited to care. They were finally here. New York City. The skyline looked like it was having a staring competition with the clouds. Yellow taxis screeched like jungle birds. Horns honked in six different languages. The air smelled like ambition, pizza, and lots of painful regret.
In short: it was perfect.
He tugged his suitcase onto the subway platform, looked at the map, and immediately realized he could not read a single thing.
__________________________________________________________
Atsumu Miya only had two goals when moving to New York.
- Don't die.
- Make just enough money to afford name-brand cereal again.
But nothing related to heroes.
Hero worship had never been his thing. Even before Shōmetsu. Even before the last of the Shijū had disappeared into ash and static.
He hadn’t cried when they vanished. He hadn’t watched the tribute specials. Hadn’t lit a candle, made a fan page, or tattooed his arm with lightning bolts like some people did. The only thing he’d ever used superpowers for was being late to class because traffic was closed off for another secret-level superhero rescue.
He just really didn’t give a fuck.
Which is how getting a job at Kapow! Comic & Collectibles that smelled like dust, plastic, and Redbull finally gave him a fuck to give about the whole hero thing.
It wasn’t exactly the future his one-week trial therapist had envisioned for him.
But it paid (barely), it had air conditioning (sometimes), and there was a stool he could sit on behind the counter that was holding on for dear life (and Atsumus life so he would’t fall off and crack his skull open and die - a thought he had while taking a 3 am shit in the toilet).
Atsumu was, for lack of a better term, thriving.
If New York were a plant cell, then Kapow! Comic & Collectibles would be a lost mitochondria - unnecessary, forgotten, and prone to getting inflamed when you asked a specific blond worker if they had any more Go Go Goober the Alien volumes.
It was located on a street where three coffee shops had declared bankruptcy in the same year, sandwiched between a dry cleaner with a gumball machine filled with gum from heaven knows how long, and a psychic who claims that they have the answer to becoming a multi millionaire by eating a rare dragonfruit found in the depths of Antartica for the bargain price of $75 every 30 mins.
What Atsumu really needed the answer to is how in the actual fuck he got the job in less than 30 seconds.
Yes, the interview lasted 30 seconds.
He didn’t even get to sit down on the piss yellow couch with a spring bouncing around and holes where rats are threatening to jump at you from.
Here’s how it went down: (No, Atsumu didn’t squabble up with this 64-year-old man for a chance to work at a place where they haven’t updated their stock in what seems like two decades).
“Hi-”
“Do you like comics?”
“I don’t know shit about them.”
“What’s your ideal minimum hourly rate?”
“One that lets me afford a broken-down basement while having to feed a rodent who shares the same mother as me.”
“You any good at alphabetizing?”
“Do I look like someone who’d put Aquaman in the fucking B section?”
He was hired on the spot.
He then proceeded to get a uniform that looked like it was made for an irl Funko Pop, with a t-shirt that was three sizes too small and a hat big enough to fit a yoga ball.
___________________________________________________________
“Morning,” Atsumu mumbled to no one but the blinding lights as he unlocked the gate.
The store had a smell. Not a bad one, exactly, just one that made your nose ask questions it didn’t want the answers to. It smelled like comic glue, crushed Cheetos, and tragedy. The front desk was held together by duct tape, the back room was haunted by a squirrel (name pending), and the customer bathroom had been declared a war crime in three states.
Kapow! Comic & Collectibles had three employees:
- Atsumu, who was hired because he basically said “I’m not a fucking four year old” during the interview.
- Margie, the manager, who was only ever present via passive-aggressive Post-it notes.
- And Roach, a part-time cashier who spoke exclusively in conspiracy theories and vape clouds.
Customers included:
- The Coughing Man, who never bought anything but touched everything.
- Captain Crunch-Stains, a child who left cereal trails like a fairy leaving breadcrumbs.
- The Unblinking Girl, who read entire volumes of manga without blinking or purchasing a single thing.
But there was also Him.
The serious one. The tall one. The one who walked in like he was auditing the oxygen levels.
Atsumu didn’t know his name yet, but he knew two things:
He was gorgeous, in a way that made you stand straighter just from the judgment in his eyes.
And he hated being perceived.
***
It started with a door chime.
Atsumu looked up from a stack of disorganized “Buy Two, Regret Three” boxes and saw him.
Black mask. Black hoodie. Black eyes- okay, technically brown, but they looked black with the way he narrowed them at the counter like they owed him rent.
He moved like he was trying not to touch the floor.
“Yo,” Atsumu said, putting on his best Approachable Yet Charming Employee Who Might Be in a Band smile. “Welcome to Kapow. Ya new around here?”
The man didn’t answer. He walked straight to the disinfectant wipes on the counter and used one to open a back-issue box.
Atsumu blinked. “Cool, cool. Love a man who cleans before browsing.”
Still nothing.
The guy flipped through the comics with gloved hands (gloves??) like he was performing surgery. When he reached the end of the box, he paused.
And wiped down the plastic cover again.
“Okay,” Atsumu said under his breath, “definitely an alien. Or rich. Or both.”
After fifteen minutes of this ritualistic browsing, the man returned to the counter. He placed a single comic down like it was radioactive.
Atsumu picked it up.
“Phantom Hero: Eternal Orbit, Vol. 4.”
Atsumu raised an eyebrow. “Good taste.”
The man said nothing.
“You sure ya don’t want Volume 3, too? It’s got that extra scene where he punches his own future self. Not legally possible, but narratively satisfying.”
The man shook his head once. No words. Just a sharp nod toward the total price.
Atsumu rang him up and handed him the bag. The man grabbed it with a tissue, disinfected the bag’s handles, and walked out the door like someone might try to hug him at any moment.
Atsumu turned to the squirrel in the back room.
“…That was the hottest person I’ve ever seen,” he said.
The squirrel did not respond.
___________________________________________________________
Atsumu had lived in Tokyo. Atsumu had lived through a virus that erased the ten most powerful beings on Earth. Atsumu had seen a raccoon order a donut in a vending machine.
But New York? New York was next-level brutal.
People here didn’t talk to strangers. They didn’t nod at you on the street. They didn’t hold doors open unless you were a dog. And when Atsumu attempted to make conversation on the subway, a man in a trench coat screamed into a paper bag until he got off three stops early.
“I miss Japan,” he confessed to Osamu one night, after their landlord raised the rent again by accidentally learning what “heat” was and fixing the radiator.
“You miss ramen,” Osamu said, mouth full of said ramen. “And bathrooms with buttons.”
“Yeah. And people who smile back when you smile at them.”
“People here smile. Usually when you fall down.”
Atsumu pouted. “I just wanna make some friends.”
“You don’t need friends.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say. Ya got me.”
“Yer not a friend. Yer just a mouth that doesn't know when to stop 'Tsumu."
“Rude. True. But rude.”
___________________________________________________________
It kept happening.
Once a week, without fail, the man returned. Always masked. Always gloved. Always disinfecting. And always walking like he might accidentally make eye contact with a contaminant.
Atsumu started calling him Mr. No-Touch. (Only in his head. Out loud, he just smiled and said, “Hey, welcome back.”)
The man never smiled. But he did start nodding.
Sometimes.
Margie left a note that said:
“Customer keeps bleaching the counter. We don’t pay for that.”
Atsumu started pre-cleaning the comics he guessed the guy would want. He started setting aside new arrivals in sealed bags. He started Googling “what to say to quiet hot people without sounding like a clown.”
Nothing helped.
But one day, it changed.
One day, Atsumu sneezed.
And Mr. No-Touch spoke.
***
It was a quiet Tuesday. Atsumu had just downed a questionable energy drink and was sorting alphabetically when he sneezed. Loud, sudden, and comically violent.
Across the store, Mr. No-Touch, mid-page turn, froze.
Then slowly, in a low, precise voice, he said:
“You should be wearing a mask.”
Atsumu blinked.
The man blinked.
Atsumu grinned. “Holy crap, you talk.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “You sneezed into the air.”
“I sneezed into my arm!”
“Your arm is still part of your body.”
“Wow. That’s poetic and accusatory.”
The man returned to his browsing. But before he turned around, Atsumu caught the smallest hint of amusement in his eyes, one that you’d have to be on every single one of your toes and toenails to notice.
Atsumu practically floated behind the counter the rest of the day.
Back at their apartment (which they shared with two mice, three cracks in the wall, and the ghost of someone who hated jazz), Atsumu paced.
“He talked to me,” he said, again. “He used words. Directed at me. With meaning.”
Osamu didn’t look up from his food. “Did ya sneeze on him?”
“No! I sneezed in general.”
“Was there mucus?”
“That’s not important.”
Osamu nodded like this proved something.
“I think I’m in love,” Atsumu said, collapsing dramatically onto the couch.
“Yer in debt.”
“Love debt. Emotional bankruptcy. My soul just got a second mortgage.”
“Did he even tell you his name?”
Atsumu paused. “…No.”
“Then don’t fall for a dude whose name ya don’t know.”
“He looks like a Kiyoomi.”
“Yer outta your mind.”
“I love that for me.”
(He did find out what his name was... after looking at his credit card when he went to pay. Mr. No-Touch finally had a name: Sakusa Kiyoomi.)
***
Sakusa had come in every Tuesday for five weeks straight.
He never said hello. He never touched anything directly. He never stayed more than twelve minutes.
But he was starting to nod even more often now.
Today, he broke tradition: he entered the store while Atsumu was on a ladder, balancing a box of Cursed Eternity figurines and humming the theme to Miracle Force.
As Sakusa stepped through the door, Atsumu yelped and dropped the box. Figurines scattered across the floor and a plastic sword stabbed him in the shin.
“Oh my god. My leg. I’m dying. Tell my brother he can have my rice cooker—wait, no, I want it buried with me.”
Sakusa blinked. "You’re very loud."
“Thanks. It’s a birth defect.”
A beat passed. Atsumu sat on the floor surrounded by tiny cursed warriors. Sakusa just… stared.
Then, to Atsumu’s complete shock, Sakusa walked over and crouched down.
With gloved fingers, he picked up one of the fallen figurines.
It was Eishō, the hero who’d famously split into eight versions of himself during the Final Stand.
Sakusa stared at it for a long moment.
Atsumu laughed. “That one’s popular. Cloning guy. Nobody knows what happened to him.”
Sakusa set the figure back down carefully.
"He’s a cool guy," he said quietly.
Atsumu froze. “What?”
“I said your floor is disgusting.”
And just like that, Sakusa stood, adjusted his mask, and made his way to the new arrivals shelf.
___________________________________________________________
“So he touched the figure?” Osamu said, stirring noodles like he was waiting for divine revelation.
“Touched it. Stared at it. Spoke actual syllables in my direction.”
“You falling for a librarian or a vampire?”
“I don’t know 'Samu. Maybe both.”
Atsumu flopped dramatically onto the couch. “He looked sad, too. Like… nostalgic. Or haunted. Or like he just remembered he left his rice cooker on in another universe.”
Osamu didn’t reply.
When Atsumu peeked over, Osamu was staring at the pot.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, slow. “Just… that name. The hero. The cloning one.”
“Eishō? Yeah, he was cool as hell. My favorite as a kid. Remember that poster I had?”
Osamu looked at him.
“Ya tore it down when the news said he disappeared,” Atsumu added, quieter.
“I was mad,” Osamu said.
Atsumu laughed. “I could clearly tell.”
But something in Osamu’s voice didn’t match the words. Not grief. Not anger.
Just… weight.
___________________________________________________________
Kapow! Comic and Collectables was quiet.
The kind of quiet where you could hear a dust bunny roll across the floor like a tumbleweed. Atsumu had organized the indie zines, alphabetized the snack wall, and watered the one dying plant Margie insisted added "a cottage vibe" to the place.
The only vibe this store has is broke humans trying to make a living by selling people paper with drawings a third-grader could illustrate.
It was a real slow Friday.
And lately, Sakusa came in on Fridays too.
Right on cue, the bell jingled.
There he was. Mask. Gloves. Precision walk.
Atsumu smiled like he hadn’t rehearsed it. (He had.)
“Yo,” he said casually. “Back again? I’m starting ta think ya like me.”
Sakusa paused mid-step. “I like consistency.”
“Same thing.”
Sakusa didn’t reply. Just made a beeline for the back issues like he hadn’t heard the flirting.
But Atsumu had a plan.
Today, he would break the ice. He’d made a list.
***
Step 1: Ask a non-weird question
He sidled up to Sakusa near the “Heroes Before the Fall” shelf.
“So, uh… what got you into comics?”
Sakusa stared at him like he’d just asked what brand of bleach he drank on the regular.
“I mean,” Atsumu floundered, “like... was it Inari? Ryoku? One of the weirder ones where the plot only makes sense if you read the webcomics?”
“I don’t read for escapism,” Sakusa said curtly, pulling a volume from the shelf with tweezers-like fingers. “I read to remember.”
Atsumu blinked. “Okay, wow. That’s incredibly ominous. You say that to people often?”
“No.”
He didn’t elaborate.
***
Step 2: Tell a joke; lighten the mood
Atsumu smiled. “You ever read Roachman ? Dude falls into radioactive vape juice and gains the power of being really annoying. Kinda like our cashier.”
No reaction.
“Or Sir Glovely ? Knight with germ powers? I feel like that’s your vibe. He once quarantined an entire dragon. You’d love him.”
Still nothing.
“…Okay, tough crowd.”
Sakusa tilted his head. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“…Trying.”
Atsumu blinked. “Oh my god. Did you just roast me with facts?”
Sakusa actually— visibly —paused. Like he was deciding whether to keep pretending Atsumu didn’t exist or admit that it was, in fact, funny.
Atsumu caught it. “You smiled.”
“I didn’t.”
“You twitched . That counts. You’re cracking. I’m growing on you.”
“Like mold,” Sakusa muttered, brushing past him.
Atsumu grinned.
***
Step 3: Drop It Before You Ruin It
Later, as Sakusa checked out (Phantom Hero again, plus a rare zine about post-war medical ethics?), Atsumu leaned against the counter and tried one last time.
“Hey. Ya ever wanna, like… talk? Not about comics. Just. Talk-talk.”
Sakusa eyed him.
“About what?”
“I dunno. Life. Weather. Yer favorite ramen flavor. Stuff humans like.”
“I don’t like people,” Sakusa said, calmly.
“Bold of ya ta assume I’m people.”
That earned him a tiny huff of air.
Almost a laugh.
Sakusa took his bag, gloved hand brushing Atsumu’s for the briefest second.
Atsumu didn’t move.
Sakusa looked down. “You should sanitize that.”
“I’m good.”
“No,” Sakusa said, softer now. “You’re not.”
Then he walked out.
___________________________________________________________
Atsumu lay on his bed, eyes on the water stain on the ceiling shaped weirdly like a blobfish.
“'Samu,” he said.
“Mm?”
“Do I… come off like I’m trying too hard?”
“Ya come off like a dog that found a new person and doesn’t know if they’ll pet it or call animal control.”
Atsumu threw a sock at him.
Osamu caught it one-handed. “Yer not wrong. He’s just… prickly. Like a porcupine with anxiety.”
“A porcupine-”
“He touched my hand today.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Do I need to burn it?”
“Shut up.”
Another beat of silence.
Then:
“You really like him?” Osamu asked. Not teasing this time. Just… quiet.
“I don’t know,” Atsumu whispered. “I think I just… recognize him. Like I’ve seen his sadness before. But there's something that draws me to him.”
Osamu didn’t say anything. For a long time.
Then, softly: “Yeah.”
Atsumu looked over at his brother. He seems depressed all of a sudden.
"What got ya looking like a sad porcupine?"
Osamu glanced at him, a second too long, before quietly saying, "Suna."
Of course, 'Samu just had to bring him up.
He talked about him like that would bring him back.
Back to them.
~~~
Suna Rintarou had been their friend since middle school. The third shadow to the Miya twins' chaos. The one who always filmed their dumb stunts, made dry comments during breakups, and showed up to every rooftop fight with convenience store chips and deadpan sarcasm.
He was quiet, chill, and could sleep through an earthquake. But he was always there.
Until he wasn’t.
The night of the Shōmetsu Event, the night the heroes fell, Suna was supposed to come over. They were going to play some old fighting game and try a new yakitori place Osamu was obsessed with.
He never showed up.
He never answered his phone.
He never posted again.
They checked his apartment. Empty.
They called the police. Shrug.
They called hospitals. Nothing.
It was like he’d just vanished.
And yeah, a lot of people went missing that day.
Infrastructure collapsed.
Transportation broke down.
Power grids went out for three days in some cities.
But Atsumu knew.
He felt it in the space beside him. The same way he felt missing teeth with his tongue. Suna wasn’t just lost.
He’d been taken.
And no one ever talked about it. Not really. The world got too busy grieving its ten gods. The Shijū, gone in one burst of impossible silence. No graves. No last words. Just static in the air and headlines screaming:
“JAPAN’S LAST DEFENSE ERASED — THE WORLD ALONE.”
Suna didn’t make the news.
He didn’t leave a note.
Only a half-eaten bag of potato chips on their couch and a message on Atsumu’s phone from hours earlier that just said:
“yo. u ever think comics are kinda too real sometimes?”
At the time, Atsumu had laughed.
Now, it chilled him.
___________________________________________________________
Ever since that faithful day the heroes of Japan disappeared the world, the day Suna left no traces of where he’d gone, Osamu changed.
Not like he changed the brand of ramen he got (he stayed forever faithful to Hot and Spicy with shrimp.)
It’s like he changed the person he was.
It was like he also slowly disappeared.
There were moments where Osamu would act as if he had forgotten who he was. Like he was an actor in a play, and he’d forget what he was supposed to do in the next scene.
The night started out like any other.
Osamu was in the kitchen, making curry, humming that off-key tune he always denied humming. Atsumu had just come home from Kapow with arms full of comics Sakusa hadn’t bought but might if he ever decided joy was acceptable.
“Smells good,” Atsumu called, tossing his jacket toward the nearest chair and missing completely.
Osamu didn’t reply, just kept stirring the pot like a culinary monk.
Atsumu wandered into the kitchen to grab a drink, and that’s when he saw it.
Sitting on the counter beside the sink, half-used and unapologetic, was a bottle of barbecue sauce.
Atsumu froze. “Oi... what’s that doing out?”
Osamu didn’t look up.
“What?”
“The barbecue sauce.”
Osamu paused, then shrugged. “For the curry.”
Atsumu stared at him like he’d just declared ketchup a beverage.
“Since when do ya put barbecue sauce in curry?”
“I always do,” Osamu said casually, not even blinking. He went back to stirring like that was a normal thing to say.
Atsumu blinked. “Ya literally threatened to revoke my rice privileges for adding soy sauce after cooking.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“Ya probably just never noticed before,” Osamu said, glancing over. “Ya don’t really watch what I do when I cook.”
Atsumu opened his mouth. Closed it.
Okay. Weird. Not suspicious , exactly. Just… off . Like a piano slightly out of tune. Osamu never snapped like that. And he was usually proud of his kitchen habits, especially when it came to “unauthorized sauces.”
Still, Atsumu shrugged it off. Maybe Osamu was tired. Or experimenting. Or weirdly defensive about barbecue sauce now. People changed, right?
Osamu had changed. This was nothing new.
He shook the feeling.
But it didn’t quite go away.
___________________________________________________________
Kapow’s door chimed, and Atsumu didn’t even have to look up.
Black hoodie. Black mask. Black gloved hands. A literal silhouette of judgment.
Mr. No-Touch was back.
Atsumu had started cleaning Sakusa’s usual corner in advance now. Full wipe-down, extra hand sanitizer nearby, even a polite sign that said “All Books Pre-Cleaned (By a Real Person, Not a Robot, Yet)”.
He waved. “Hey. I disinfected the Phantom Hero section just for you.”
Sakusa paused. “Thank you.”
Atsumu did a double-take. Two words. Real ones. Was this… flirting?
“Ya okay?” he asked, watching the man scan the shelf like it might jump him right then and there. “Ya seem a little…”
Sakusa didn’t answer right away. Then: “Tired.”
“Ya sleep?”
“Not much.”
“Yeah, me neither. My brother gaslit me about barbecue sauce.”
Sakusa blinked. “…What?”
“Right? Said he’s always put it in curry. Like I wouldn’t notice.” Atsumu leaned on the counter, squinting. “Do ya think people just… slowly get weirder ‘til ya don’t recognize them?”
Sakusa was quiet.
Then, slowly, he said, “Or maybe we just never notice the parts that were always strange.”
Atsumu tilted his head. “Whoa. That’s deep.”
“I didn’t mean it to be.”
“You accidentally being profound is my new favorite thing about ya.”
Sakusa turned slightly, maybe to hide something, a twitch at the corner of his mouth? A smile? The ghost of one?
But he didn’t leave right away this time.
He lingered.
***
The day started with a pigeon hitting the window so hard it left behind what could only be described as a spiritual oil painting of defeat. Atsumu stared at it for a full minute before muttering, “Same,” and flipping the Open sign.
Inside Kapow! Comics and Collectibles, the store smelled faintly of dust, ambition, and an unidentifiable fruit scent from a candle Roach left burning two weeks ago. The candle was long gone. The scent, however, was eternal. Atsumu had just started reorganizing the "Weep or Die Trying" shelf when the front door slammed open with the force of destiny and poor decision-making.
“IT’S HERE!!! I FOUND IT!!!”
A blur of orange shot through the store like a comet with legs.
Enter Hinata Shoyo, a human exclamation point.
A man who could probably find out a government secret while warming up instant ramen at a broken-down gas station.
Hinata skidded to a stop in front of the counter, arms loaded with manga volumes like he had broken into a library and fought off library clerks. His jacket was half unzipped, his sneakers were untied, and his hair defied gravity on a personal level.
“I knew you had Volume 17!” he beamed. “The Midtown store was sold out, and the online one said ‘waitlisted,’ which is code for ‘you're doomed,’ but you guys! You guys came through! You’re the real heroes!!”
Atsumu blinked. “Do you breathe at any point, or…?”
Hinata leaned forward, eyes wide. “Do you read Skyblood Arena?! Oh my god, you have to! It’s like if dodgeball had a baby with Star Wars and then that baby got thrown into a volcano and learned parkour-”
“I’m afraid,” Atsumu said honestly. “But intrigued.”
Sakusa stood in the manga aisle, eyes narrowed behind his mask. He watched Hinata with the sort of wary intensity usually reserved for tracking wild animals or waiting for soup to boil.
Hinata, unaware that he was being studied like an invasive species, spun in a circle and gasped.
“OH MY GOD IS THAT PHANTOM HERO: ETERNAL ORBIT VOL. 5 ?!”
He rushed over.
Sakusa stepped aside too late.
Hinata, completely oblivious to personal boundaries, leaned in. “You read this too?! Isn't it so messed up how his brother is, like, technically dead but also living in another dimension and also somehow not connected to either version of himself?”
Sakusa said nothing.
Hinata beamed. “Cool, cool cool, you’re a ‘read-in-silence’ guy. I respect that. But just know that if you do wanna yell about plot twists, I’m around. Always around. Maybe too around.”
He gave a thumbs-up.
Sakusa visibly disinfected the air between them.
—
Back at the register, Hinata dumped his stack with the reverence of someone offering a tribute to the gods. “Okay. I brought, like, maybe too much. Possibly? But I haven’t eaten in two days, so technically this is survival.”
Atsumu rang him up.
“That’ll be $47.18.”
Hinata pulled out a crumpled wad of cash, a subway punch card, and a protein bar.
“Will you take half in dollars and half in snacks?”
“No.”
“…What if I throw in this sticker of a raccoon in a mech suit?”
Atsumu sighed. “Make it two raccoons.”
“DEAL.”
Hinata waved violently as he left, nearly slamming the door into his own face. “See you next week! Or tomorrow! Or, like, in an hour if I finish this one fast!!”
Silence returned to the store, thick and sacred.
Atsumu looked toward Sakusa, who was still standing in the same spot, expression unreadable beneath his mask.
“Don’t worry,” Atsumu said. “That’s just Hinata. He’s like a golden retriever but with more narrative energy.”
Sakusa slowly picked up his comic and walked to the counter.
He paused.
And then, shockingly, said: “He touched everything.”
Atsumu grinned. “You’re welcome.”
***
Kapow was supposed to close at nine.
At nine fifteen, Atsumu found himself reorganizing the Cursed But Overpriced Manga shelf, which was cursed not because of the manga itself but because that shelf would fall at least three times a day, which meant three times his heart threatened to jump out of his body.
No screw, nail, or ziptie could fix that thing.
At nine thirty, Atsumu found a pink sticky note barely hanging on to the cashier.
“Make sure the register closes this time. If it spits quarters at me again, I will scream.”
At ten, he gave up.
“Alright, shelf. Ya win tonight,” Atsumu stood up from his crouching position, his legs cracking and popping like literal popcorn. “But tomorrow, I’m gonna wake up as a new man and teach ya not to mess with me.”
Atsumu walked over to the door and flipped the sign to closed, and then towards his creaking stool with only one more life to spare. He yawned, rested his head against the wall behind him, and propped his feet on a box labeled “RARE: DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE YELLED AT” .
Just a five-minute nap.
Just a little—
He woke up in ink.
It was just pitch black. Dark.
But the darkness was as if it were colored using ink.
He looked up, and there it was.
A city skyline, one that reminded him of New York’s very own, lines trembling slightly like they hadn’t dried yet. Yellow lights shone from each structure, varying in brightness. The buildings had speech bubbles instead of windows. One of them said:
“Don’t trust the boy with stars in his eyes.”
He looked down. He was wearing… his own clothes? But his hands were covered in heavy, comic-book-style ink outlines. Like he’d been sketched in at the last minute.
Far ahead, a figure stood on a rooftop, masked, wind whipping around them dramatically, cape fluttering with unnecessary flourish.
A voice echoed:
“They are not gone. Just waiting.”
Atsumu turned.
Another figure, his one familiar. Black hoodie. Black gloves. Masked.
Sakusa. But not quite. This Sakusa glowed faintly, as if lit from beneath the page. His eyes shimmered with that same lavender light, and when he spoke again, the words didn’t match the movement of his mouth.
“You shouldn’t be here yet.”
Atsumu opened his mouth. No sound came out.
Sakusa took a step forward and lifted a gloved hand, reaching toward him, and in his palm was a comic panel. But it was blank.
“You’re waking up.”
And just like that—
CRASH!
Atsumu jerked awake to find Hinata Shoyo crouched beside him, grinning and holding two full bags of snacks.
“DUDE,” Hinata said. “I knocked over the Twizzler display again. But also, guess what? I found a bootleg Spider-Man plush that has six arms. Isn’t that cursed? Want it?”
Atsumu stared at him, wide-eyed, breathing fast.
He looked down at his hands.
Ink smudged across his palms.
Not pen. Not marker. Ink.
“What the hell,” he whispered.
Hinata blinked. “...Are you okay? You look like you met God and he said, ‘Oops, wrong guy.’”
Atsumu stood up shakily. “I think I just got fanfictioned by my own subconscious.”
Hinata held out the six-armed plush. “Comfort spider?”
Atsumu took it.
Because what else do you do when your brain starts handing you plot twists?
___________________________________________________________
The discovery started like most terrible things in Atsumu’s life: with boredom, bad weather, and Hinata trying to explain the physics of anime hair.
“It’s wind-resistant,” Hinata declared, treating the conversation as if it were a TED Talk. “See, the spikier the hair, the more it slices through the air.”
Atsumu leaned on the counter, dead-eyed. “That explains nothing.”
“No, no! Look!” Hinata grabbed a random comic off the discount shelf and flipped it open. “See this guy? His whole power is running! So obviously the hair helps with speed…”
Atsumu sighed and leaned further back, until he was almost horizontal. Rain battered the storefront, making New York look like blobs of paint pouring down.
The day had that weird static buzz to it, like the world was glitching in slow motion.
And from the corner of his eyes, he saw it.
A comic. Stuffed into a warped corner of the shelf that hadn’t existed yesterday.
It wasn’t just old, it was dusty. Like, ancient Egyptian pyramids dusty. Like, “this was here when the Earth cooled” dusty.
The cover read:
“The Boy Who Didn’t Belong — Issue #0”
A special preview. Do not shelve. Do not distribute.
Atsumu blinked. Then looked around.
Hinata was still talking to the manga section.
Roach was in the back, probably vaping about birds being government drones again.
And the comic felt… warm.
Atsumu opened it.
The first panel was an empty street.
The second was a boy standing alone in a shop window.
The third?
A figure with messy blond hair, arms crossed, behind a counter covered in sticky notes and sarcasm.
Atsumu stared.
The next panel zoomed in.
It was him.
Wearing today’s shirt. Today’s band-aid on his finger. Even the stain on his jeans where he’d dropped boba an hour ago.
His own dialogue bubble said:
“If I’m not real, can I still demand a raise?”
“What the actual-” Atsumu dropped the comic.
The pages fluttered but didn’t fall apart. Instead, they snapped closed on their own , as if offended.
“Atsumu!” Hinata popped up over the counter like an excited pomeranian. “Didn’t you say today’s Wednesday?”
“It is?”
“Then why’s the delivery guy here?”
Atsumu frowned.
The delivery guy, a bored teen named Max who hated all joy, only came on Mondays. But there he was, dragging in a box of new issues.
“Did I hit my head?” Atsumu muttered.
“Probably,” Hinata said cheerfully. “But look! New Phantom Hero!”
Atsumu watched Max sign the form, grumble about paper cuts, and leave.
Then blinked.
And watched Max do the exact same thing again, from the exact same spot, with the exact same complaint.
It was like someone rewinded those five seconds.
Hinata didn’t seem to notice.
But Atsumu’s stomach dropped like an elevator in a horror movie.
After Hinata left (still explaining anime hair to a volume of Naruto), Atsumu went to the staff bathroom, a room of despair, and one motivational poster that said “Smile! You’re Definitely Alive!”
He paused at the mirror.
Then blinked.
For a split second, less than a breath, his reflection didn’t move with him.
It just stared.
Blank. Empty.
Almost like it was waiting for him to notice.
___________________________________________________________
The bell above the door chimed.
Atsumu turned, tension in his neck, and there, right on cue, was Sakusa.
Masked. Gloved. Impossibly clean. Everything familiar.
But this time, he didn’t go to the comics.
He just stood in the doorway.
And said:
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
Atsumu’s heart stuttered.
“What?”
“The pattern,” Sakusa said. “The way the world repeats. How the wrong days come back. How your memory… slips.”
Atsumu opened his mouth, but Sakusa stepped closer.
“You’re the only one that twitches when it breaks.”
There was silence.
Even the rain outside stopped, not faded. Stopped. Like someone had hit pause.
Sakusa stared at him.
And then, just as quickly, blinked, like waking from a dream.
“I’ll take Eternal Orbit, Vol. 5,” he said calmly, stepping past Atsumu as if nothing happened.
Like he hadn't just confirmed Atsumu’s worst fear.
The small voice in the back of his mind said what he wanted to say out loud. I thought he already bought that volume.
Back behind the counter, Atsumu opened the till, just to do something normal.
Inside, the cash was replaced with paper slips.
They all said:
“REALITY ERROR: CODE 404_TSUMU.”
____________________________________________________________________________
Back at their apartment, Atsumu was pacing.
Not in a cool, cinematic way. At all.
He stared at the fridge for fifteen minutes (empty, but menacing), and now stood in the kitchen doorway watching Osamu stir instant noodles like a fucking robot.
“Ya ever feel like things are…” Atsumu hesitated, “off?”
Osamu didn’t look up. “You mean like how the toilet flushes in reverse now?”
“I mean more like…” Atsumu gestured wildly. “Time loop. Mirror glitch. My reflection wants a raise. Sakusa said some reality-shredding stuff and then bought a comic like we didn’t just have a Matrix moment.”
“Uh-huh,” Osamu said, fishing out a noodle with perfect precision.
“Yer not listening.”
“No, I am. Yer just having a main character crisis.” Osamu turned, bowl in hand. “I told ya not ta drink that expired matcha. Ya get weirder every time.”
Atsumu narrowed his eyes. “Yer acting weird.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” Atsumu stepped closer. “Ya didn’t blink when I said my mirror double was delayed. You always make a joke about ghosts or hallucinations.”
“I’m growing,” Osamu said flatly.
“Ya folded your laundry. Ya did the dishes. Ya used the phrase ‘time management’ last night. That’s not right.”
Osamu set the bowl down carefully. “Okay. Ya think I’m weird. Fine. What do ya want me ta say?”
“I dunno. Something brotherly. Like, ‘Atsumu, yer spiraling and I love ya, but let’s go outside and touch grass.’ Or yell at me for not picking up the mail again.”
Osamu paused. Just a second too long.
Then: “...There’s grass downstairs.”
Atsumu’s stomach flipped.
“Okay. Nope. That’s not how ya say that. You say, ‘Go lick a tree, dumbass.’ Ya insult me, then ya tell me to hydrate.”
“I just made ya tea,” Osamu said, pointing to a mug on the counter.
Atsumu picked it up.
It was full.
Of ramen broth.
“Ya brewed me noodle tea?!”
Osamu blinked, unbothered. “It’s hot. It counts.”
Atsumu stared at him.
For the first time since the virus, since they escaped Japan, since he stopped having normal dreams, Atsumu truly felt alone.
___________________________________________________________
The worst part about inventory wasn’t the dust. Or the roaches. Or the fact that the scanner never worked unless you whispered sweet nothings to it, like it only worked for praises.
It was doing it alone. At night. Where drunkies come up to ask for directions to the nearest bar, like Atsumu was about to pull out a chart with the top 10 best places to go if you’re looking to get drunk. He couldn’t even go to the bathroom without being paranoid. With everything that had been going on, he wouldn’t had even be surprised if his reflection in the bathroom mirror decided to jump him.
Kapow! Comics and Collectables was unsettling after dark. During the day, it was chaotic and kind of beautiful, in the same way a toddler's painting of a dinosaur fighting the Tooth Fairy was. But at night? With the overhead lights humming inconsistently and shadows collecting like unpaid rent? It was a literal hell.
Atsumu hated it.
“I swear to god, if someone comes up behind me, I’m going to murder them and not even bother going to court over it.” he muttered, mouth full of a flashlight while he crouched down at the Scary but Not So Scarry shelf, while handling a handful of dusty comics that were labeled as “Limited Edition” (which meant it had been forgotten in a warehouse since 2007 and was recently finally brought back to life).
It’s not like Atsumu offered to do inventory. Honestly, who would sign up for a job like that? When the number of customers is less than what you get paid, having to do extra hours with no raise is not something to start happily dancing about either.
The only reason this unfortunate job got placed into poor Atsumu’s hands was because of Margie.
Who threatened him against his will.
“Atsumu, you’re doing inventory tonight-”
“Oh hell no-”
“or I’ll sell your kidneys.”
Let's say that that conversation ended fairly quickly.
That's how Atsumu found himself at the cash register, staring down at another horrid neon yellow sticky note.
“INVENTORY TONIGHT. DO NOT HALF-ASS IT. FIND MISSING ‘CLEARANCE BOX’ OR YOUR SOUL WILL BE DEDUCTED.”
With a fucking smiley face.
Atsumu had considered writing back “Fine. I’ll do it with THREE-QUARTER ass then,” but figured the threat of being scheduled for a 6 a.m. Tuesday shift wasn’t worth the sass.
No one even goes to the shop at 6 a.m.
He kicked open the door to the backroom with the flair of someone who had once dramatically failed theater class. It groaned like it didn’t want to participate in his nonsense.
The smell hit him first.
The devastating smell of boxes of comic books that haven’t been opened since Warp Zone rebranded as Kapow! in 2018.
Okay,” he muttered to himself, swatting away a fake cobweb that might have just been a very real spider. “Just grab the box, ignore the weird noises, and get the hell outta here.
THWAP.
Something ran across the top shelf. Fast. Furry.
Atsumu let out a gasp so high-pitched that opera singers could lose their jobs to.
“THE DAMN SQUIRREL!” he shrieked, spinning with the flashlight and shining it into the air vents. “WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?! GET YOURSELF A REAL FUCKING HOME!”
The squirrel, like most disgruntled retail workers, ignored him and disappeared into the ceiling.
Startled, Atsumu tripped over a mop bucket and slammed backward into a balanced stack of cardboard boxes. They tumbled like dominoes made of shame and poor decisions.
He landed hard, knocking the wind out of himself.
“Okay,” he gasped, staring up at the ceiling. “So that’s how I die. Killed by falling merchandise in a haunted comic store. Great. Osamu’s gonna probably lose his virginity in my room just so I don’t rest in peace. Or worse of all, turn my room into a noodle lab.”
Then, among all of the deflated bubble wrap that Margie probably spends her time popping and the action figures with missing limbs, Atsumu spots it.
A blank comic book, with no color or life in it. Just the title in dark black letters.
INKBORN
“What the hell kind of title is that?” he muttered, sitting up.
It didn’t look like anything they sold at the store. It didn’t look like anything from any publisher, actually. Atsumu had shelved enough obscure, messed-up manga and comics to know what passed through Kapow! regularly, and this? This wasn’t one of them.
He picked it up, thumb brushing over the smooth surface. Too smooth. It didn’t feel like paper. It felt like... static. The book glitched between his fingertips, like it was threatening to disappear any second.
He turned it over. No summary. No barcode. No price.
Just the name again on the back in delicate silver:
INKBORN: You Don’t Read It. It Reads You.
He paused. Blinked.
And laughed. “Now that’s some creepy marketing. That got me for a second. Is this actually real? Roach, is this another one of your stunts? Trynna make another one of those shitty conspriacy theories come true? Because this one actually made me laugh.”
There was silence.
Atsumu put the comic back on the cover.
He flipped the first page open.
Ink swirled.
A shape appeared. A circle. A type of symbol that looked like it was defying the laws of physics.
The lights flickered around the room.
And then the world cracked.
It wasn’t dramatic. No thunder. No flash of light. Just a moment of being airborne, like reality blinked, like gravity shrugged and said, "Not today."
Atsumu felt it before he saw it. Like someone pushing his body forward, encouraging him to let himself fall. Like his bones wanted to be somewhere else.
He plunged into darkness.
And somehow, that was still the most normal part of his week.
___________________________________________________________
Atsumu hit the ground hard. His shoulder slammed into something cold and metallic, knocking the air from his lungs.
His groan echoed in the cavernous space around him.
It was dark, not pitch black, but filled with dim, industrial lighting that hung overhead.The hum of generators buzzed low and steady, like something mechanical was breathing just below the surface.
He blinked quickly and pushed himself upright.
The floor was smooth concrete, the walls massive slabs of steel and stone. Old pipes ran along the ceiling like tangled veins. One side of the room was stacked with crates and half-unboxed machines- broken tech, glowing wires, and blueprints scrawled on ancient-looking paper. Another corner was home to what looked like an armory- empty weapons racks, dusty cases, gear that hadn’t been touched in years.
But what stopped Atsumu cold was the map .
It covered nearly the entire far wall. Projected in a blue light, the map showed a twisted version of Earth, or something like it, fractured into separate sections, strange symbols, and red markers that blinked like warning signs. Threads of red string were stretched across it, connecting cities, names, symbols, and fragments of text. At the center of the web: a circle labeled simply "The Tear."
Atsumu stood slowly. “Where the hell…”
None of this felt real.
Then came the footsteps. Not rushed. Measured.
Eight silhouettes stepped into the flickering light.
They were all male, all older than him, though by how much was impossible to say. Each wore some form of battered armor, gear modified to fit their bodies and powers. There was dust on their boots, stories in their scars, weight in the way they moved like the world had long since cracked and they'd kept walking anyway.
Atsumu’s breath hitched.
Then one of them stepped forward.
The others held back,
The figure was lean, sharp-edged. A worn tactical hoodie hung loose over his shoulders, his sleeves pushed up past scarred arms that told stories of pain he went through. His expression was unreadable. Detached, but not cold. Observing. Watching.
That’s when it hit Atsumu.
The only words he managed to get out were:
“What the fuck.”
Because the guy who stood in front of him was none other than Suna Rintarou.