March 20, 2028 - At Shibuya, Tokyo
"Mr. Takeda, with all due respect, the merger is failing because you refuse to see the numbers for what they are!..."
The café was alive with the midday rush. Baristas called out orders, spoons clinked against ceramic cups, and light chatter filled the air. But at a corner table, separate from the casual hum of the crowd, a sharp argument was unfolding.
Across from each other sat two men—one in his late forties, dressed in an expensive charcoal suit, his neatly combed hair slick with the precision of someone who measured his image down to the millimeter. Opposite him sat a younger man, perhaps early thirties, with thin-rimmed glasses and a tie slightly loosened, as if he had already braced himself for this conversation.
Takeda, the older man, exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, setting his coffee down with the kind of patience that concealed a building storm.
"Atsushi," he said, voice measured,
"this is why you'll never run a company of your own. You rely too much on 'numbers' and not enough on instinct. You think our investors care about quarterly fluctuations? No. They want to know whether they can trust me to pull the company forward."
Atsushi leaned in, barely masking his frustration.
"They don't trust you. That's the problem. Our stocks have been red for three quarters straight, and the only reason we haven't collapsed is because of our pre-existing capital. Your 'instinct' isn't keeping us afloat—our reserves are!...
Takeda scoffed, shaking his head. "You still don't get it. People invest in confidence. In leadership. Not in a damn spreadsheet."
Atsushi clenched his jaw before releasing an quick exhausted sigh as he mutter through his breath... "Then maybe leadership should start making decisions based on reality instead of your own shitty ego..."
Silence. Sharp and cutting.
For a moment, nothing but the faint jazz playing through the café's speakers filled the space between them. Takeda's fingers curled against the edge of his cup, as if debating whether to throw it or drink from it. Then, just as he opened his mouth to deliver whatever corporate lecturing he had prepared—
A child screamed.
The argument shattered into insignificance. Both men turned, as did nearly everyone in the café.
A few feet away, by the window, a young mother had been feeding her baby in a stroller. The spoon in her hand had fallen to the floor, forgotten, as she stared in horror at the writhing mass in front of her.
Where a baby had once been.
The thing inside the stroller was no longer a child. Flesh boiled, shifting like wet clay as limbs twisted into grotesque, malformed shapes. Its tiny mouth had split open, extending far too wide for a human skull, revealing a pulsating void lined with needle-thin teeth. What was once soft, innocent skin was now a deep, pulsating red, covered in a membrane that reflected the café lights like raw meat.
It gurgled. A hideous, wet sound, like something drowning in its own saliva.
Then, it moved.
The creature lunged. The mother shrieked as its malformed arms—no, tendrils—shot out and latched onto her wrist. Flesh sizzled on contact, steam rising where its unnatural skin met hers. She tried to pull away, but it was too strong.
The café exploded into chaos. Chairs overturned. Customers ran. Someone knocked over a tray of cups, sending hot coffee splashing across the floor. Takeda and Atsushi bolted upright, their argument forgotten, their breaths frozen in their chests.
The mother thrashed, kicking at the stroller, but the thing—her own child, her baby—wouldn't let go. It was changing faster now, growing, its bones cracking as new limbs sprouted from places they shouldn't.
Then, it looked up.
Not at its mother. Not at the people running.
At everyone.
Its black, void-like eyes swirled with something that was not human. Something aware
It opened its mouth wider. And screamed.
The glass windows shattered instantly, the force of the soundwave sending shards flying in every direction. People dropped to their knees, clutching their ears as blood dripped from ruptured eardrums. The lights flickered. The air itself felt wrong, heavy with something unseen, something unnatural.
And then, the screaming stopped.
Not because the creature had silenced itself.
But because, outside—beyond the broken café windows—others had begun to change too.
All across the street, people collapsed, seizing as their bodies twisted and convulsed. Some erupted into flames, their own blood igniting upon exposure to the air. Others lost all form, melting into amorphous masses of muscle and sinew. One man in a business suit clawed at his face, only to have his own fingers extend into sharpened black talons.
But.
Takeda didn't think. He moved.
His chair scraped against the tiled floor as he pushed himself back, nearly tripping as he turned toward the exit while Atsushi was pulled away by the tendrils screaming. Takeda's heart pounded against his ribs, breath shallow and ragged. The café had erupted into chaos—people trampled over each other, shoving past overturned tables, their screams mixing into a deafening cacophony.
The thing in the stroller—the thing that had once been a baby—was still writhing, still growing, its skin splitting apart as new limbs sprouted. The mother's voice was lost beneath its unnatural screeches, her arm still trapped in its tightening grip.
Takeda didn't look back. He was already running.
The glass doors swung open violently as he stumbled outside, nearly falling onto the pavement. The warm afternoon breeze hit his face—but something about the air was wrong It was thick, heavy, charged with something invisible yet suffocating.
Then, he saw the city...
And his mind could no longer comprehend what he was looking at.
All around him, people were changing
A man in a business suit stood frozen on the sidewalk, his body twitching unnaturally. His skin rippled, veins turning black as something inside of him moved Then, with a sickening crack, his entire torso split open, jagged teeth lining the exposed cavity as if his chest had become a monstrous maw. He fell to all fours, head lolling to the side, yet he was still alive—still aware
Across the street, a woman clutched her face as her fingers stretched, elongating into sharp, bony spikes. She let out a choked sob before her own hand shot forward, impaling her skull.
Takeda stumbled back, bile rising in his throat.
Cars had stopped in the middle of the road, their doors flung open as drivers either fled or succumbed to the nightmare unfolding. A truck had crashed into a streetlight, smoke billowing from its hood. Through the shattered windshield, Takeda saw the driver—his head hung limply, but his arms twitched violently, as if something inside was rearranging
People screamed. Buildings burned. The city—his city—was tearing itself apart.
A shadow loomed over him.
Takeda turned.
A teenager, maybe seventeen, stood a few feet away, his body convulsing as his skin cracked like porcelain. His eyes had turned completely white, unseeing, yet locked onto Takeda with inhuman awareness. The boy opened his mouth—but no sound came. Only a deep, guttural hum, like the vibrating resonance of something ancient.
Then, the air shifted
Takeda felt it—a pressure, as if gravity itself had changed around the boy. The ground beneath them trembled.
Then, with a single breath, the teenager disintegrated
Not into dust. Not into ash.
Into light.
His body collapsed into a swirling mass of pure white energy, crackling like a newborn star. For a moment, it hovered, pulsing. And then—
BOOM.
A shockwave erupted outward, obliterating everything within a ten-meter radius. Cars flipped like toys, storefronts shattered, and bodies were flung like ragdolls. Takeda was thrown backward, his body slamming into the side of a taxi before crashing onto the pavement.
Pain exploded through his ribs. He gasped, coughing up something warm and metallic. The ringing in his ears drowned out the screams around him.
Through blurry vision, he saw the crater where the boy had once stood. The asphalt had melted into molten slag, steam hissing from the impact site. Nothing remained of him—just the devastating aftermath of his gift
Because that's what this was, wasn't it?
A gift.
Takeda clenched his trembling hands, his mind spinning.
Something had happened. Something had changed the very nature of humanity itself. One moment, they had been ordinary. But now there the next… monsters. Gods. Beasts beyond comprehension.
And the city—no, the world—was paying the price.
A low growl pulled him back to reality.
Takeda turned his head slowly.
A man was crawling out of the wreckage of a convenience store. Or at least, it had been a man. His entire lower body had fused into a single mass of sinew and muscle, dragging itself forward with clawed hands. His jaws had split open vertically, exposing multiple rows of jagged teeth.
It sniffed the air.
Then, it turned toward Takeda.
Takeda's breath hitched. His legs refused to move.
The creature let out a wet, gurgling hiss.
Then, it lunged.
Takeda screamed.
And the world continued to fall apart.
Meanwhile...
At Osaka prefecture, Japan
The screams in the labor room drowned out everything else.
Sweat dripped down the mother's forehead as she clutched the sides of the hospital bed, her knuckles turning white. Pain racked her body—deep, unbearable waves that felt like they were tearing her apart. The voices of the doctors and nurses blended together, urging her to push, to keep going, to hold on.
But outside this room, the world was ending
The television mounted on the wall blared chaos—news anchors desperately trying to maintain their composure while the live footage behind them showed the city in flames. Shaky camera footage captured people changing—their bodies twisting, mutating into horrors beyond human understanding. The newscaster's voice trembled as they reported mass casualties, unexplained explosions, and creatures rampaging through the streets.
A nurse stole a glance at the screen, her face pale. "God… what is happening out there?" she whispered.
Another doctor, his expression grim, grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. "We need to focus on what's happening here. The world can wait."
The woman on the bed let out another cry, her back arching as pain tore through her. The machines beeped frantically, measuring her heart rate, her oxygen levels—she was slipping.
"She's losing too much blood!" one of the nurses called out.
The doctor gritted his teeth. "She can't stop now—one more push! We're almost there!"
The woman barely heard them. Her vision blurred, her body weak. Every part of her was screaming to let go, to stop fighting. But she couldn't. Not yet.
Not until her child was born.
She sucked in a shaky breath, clenched her teeth, and gave one final push.
A cry filled the room.
The tension snapped like a cord. For a moment, everything else—the chaos outside, the panic, the fear—faded.
The doctor exhaled in relief, lifting the newborn child into his arms. "It's a boy..." he announced.
The nurses immediately sprang into action, cleaning the infant, checking his vitals. He was small, delicate, his skin flushed and warm. He was normal... No mutations. No monstrous transformation.
Just a child.
The nurse carefully wrapped him in a soft blue blanket before stepping forward, placing him gently into his mother's weak, trembling arms.
Tears welled in her eyes as she looked down at him, exhaustion threatening to pull her into unconsciousness. But she fought to stay awake—just for a moment longer. She brushed a shaking finger against his tiny cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin.
His eyes, barely open, met hers.
A fragile, beautiful moment.
The mother swallowed hard, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Renji..."
The nurse beside her smiled softly. "That's a beautiful name."
Outside the hospital, the world burned. Cities crumbled. Humanity stood on the brink of extinction.
But inside this room, amidst all the death and chaos…
A new life had begun.