The classroom was unnervingly silent, save for the low hum of aging fluorescent lights. Ten students were scattered like forgotten figurines, each isolated in thought, their voices muted by the weight of punishment. Tanaki Hayashi sat hunched at his desk, fingers tracing the edge absently, as if hoping the sensation could ground him. He loathed this place—the suffocating silence, the sterile stillness, the sense of being forgotten. Across the room, Haruto Kazama leaned casually in his chair, but his calm facade belied the flicker of restless tension in his sharp, calculating eyes.
Then, the first tremor.
Subtle. So faint it could've been a passing truck—or a trick of Tanaki's weary mind. But the second came like a gut-punch: a jagged jolt that rippled underfoot. The lights stuttered. Somewhere deep in the bones of the school, something groaned.
"What was that?" a voice whispered—too soft, too late.
The floor surged violently. Desks lurched. Tanaki tumbled forward, heart slamming against his ribs as chaos erupted like a dam had burst. Chairs skittered. Cracks split across the walls with the sharpness of lightning bolts. The ceiling above them let out a guttural creak. Then—shatter. The lights exploded overhead, shards of glass raining down like glinting teeth from a monster's maw.
Tanaki gasped as the ceiling buckled. A deafening snap tore through the air, followed by a sickening crash. Just meters away, a boy vanished beneath a slab of concrete. No time to scream—only silence, and a limp hand jutting out from the rubble like a forgotten bookmark.
A shriek sliced through the air. A girl dashed toward the door—but the wall gave way. Jagged rebar speared into her path, impaling her midstride. Her body folded to the ground, her wide eyes frozen in disbelief.
Tanaki's limbs locked. His brain screamed at him to run, to move, to live—but terror cemented him to the floor. Another student was flung into the wall by a falling beam, their head striking with a bone-cracking thud. Somewhere, the teacher's voice shouted unintelligibly before vanishing down the corridor—leaving them all to die.
"Tanaki!" Haruto's voice roared through the din, his hand seizing Tanaki's arm. "We have to go!"
But before either could take a step, the floor split beneath them.
The ground disappeared.
They fell.
And the world went dark.
When Tanaki awoke, there was no pain. No noise. No ruin.
Only stillness.
He sat up slowly, body trembling. The air was too clean, the silence too pristine. The shattered wreckage of their school was gone. Beneath him, the ground was smooth and impossibly cold—like polished crystal.
Around him, the others stirred—whole. Unbroken. Alive. Faces he'd seen die moments ago now blinked back at him in stunned confusion. It didn't make sense. None of it did.
He looked up.
The chamber they stood in was vast and awe-inspiring, like stepping into a dream carved from starlight. Celestial patterns adorned an arched ceiling, glittering like constellations frozen mid-dance. Gigantic chandeliers floated overhead, glowing with no flame, casting prismatic hues across walls that shimmered with runes and pulsing sigils.
At the far end of the hall, five figures loomed like monoliths. In their center stood a woman—no, something more. An elf, tall and commanding, with skin like moonlight and flowing pale green hair that trailed behind her like mist. Her emerald eyes were piercing, ancient, unreadable. Her gown shimmered with quiet majesty, each fold speaking of power wrapped in elegance.
But her face held no warmth.
"You are the ones," she said, her voice echoing like music through water—beautiful and utterly devoid of emotion. "The ones summoned to save us."
Tanaki's stomach dropped. Save them? Why them? His hands trembled as fractured memories of falling concrete and broken bodies surged forward.
Beside him, Haruto's hand rested on his shoulder—a quiet anchor in a sea of questions. But even his presence couldn't drown out the dread curdling in Tanaki's gut.
"The Abyss Order rises," the elf continued. "It seeks to consume the roots of all worlds. This world and yours… hang in the balance."
Tanaki looked down. His reflection stared back from the polished floor—haunted, uncertain. He had died. He was certain of that.
And now, he was being asked to save a world he didn't understand… from something no one had explained.