The rain in Tokyo didn't smell like nature; it smelled like wet asphalt and exhaust. I clutched the bouquet of lilies tightly against my chest, shielding the delicate white petals from the drizzle. It was our anniversary. Kara loved lilies. I could already picture her smile, the way she would tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and how our daughter, Hana, would roll her eyes at our "mushy" romance before jumping into my arms to tell me about her day at school. I was Shinji—a simple man, a salaryman with a modest life, but in that moment, I felt like the richest man in Japan.
I reached the crosswalk, the neon lights of Shinjuku blurring into vibrant streaks of red and blue against the pavement. The light turned green. I stepped forward, my mind already halfway home, thinking about the dinner I would cook.
Then, I saw her.
A young girl, no older than seven, had chased a stray ball into the middle of the intersection. She was frozen. To my left, the roar of a heavy engine echoed. A massive delivery truck was barreling down the slick road, its tires screeching as the driver slammed on the brakes, but the momentum was too great. The world slowed to a crawl. I didn't think. I didn't consider my wife or my own future. I simply lunged.
I felt the girl's small shoulder hit my palms as I shoved her toward the sidewalk. I saw her tumble safely into the grass. And then, a sound like a thunderclap filled my skull. The impact was a wall of cold, unyielding steel. My body felt like it had been shattered into a thousand jagged pieces of glass. The lilies exploded into white confetti, swirling in the air before I hit the ground. Then, the blackness swallowed me whole.
I woke up to the smell of bleach and the rhythmic, mocking hum of a heart monitor. The ceiling was a sterile, blinding white. My first instinct was to move, to sit up and ask where the girl was, but my body refused to respond. I felt heavy, as if I were made of lead.
"Daddy?"
A small, trembling voice broke the silence. I turned my head slowly, the movement sending a spike of white-hot agony through my neck. Hana was sitting by the bed. Her eyes were red and swollen, her small hands clutching the edge of the stiff hospital sheets. Behind her stood Kara, her face a mask of grief and exhaustion.
"Shinji... oh, thank God," Kara whispered, but she didn't move toward me. She stayed by the door, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
"The girl..." I croaked, my throat feeling like it was filled with needles.
"She's fine, Shinji," Kara said, her voice flat. "But you... the doctors... they couldn't save them."
I tried to shift my legs under the blanket. I focused every ounce of my will on my toes, waiting for the familiar wiggle. Nothing. I looked down. The blanket lay flat against the mattress where my lower half should have been. The realization didn't come as a scream; it came as a hollow, freezing void in my gut. I was a torso. I was half a man.
The months that followed were a slow descent into a personal hell. The hospital became my world. For the first few weeks, Hana was there every single day. She would come straight from school, still in her uniform, and sit by my bed. She would tell me about her drawings, read me stories, and hold my hand when the phantom pains in my missing legs became so intense I would shake.
"I'll take care of you, Daddy," she would say, her voice firm despite her age. "When you come home, I'll push your chair everywhere. We can still go to the park."
She was my anchor. She was the only thing keeping me from drifting away into the dark. But as the months turned into a year, I noticed the change. Kara stopped coming every day. Then she stopped coming every week. When she did show up, she smelled of expensive perfume and wine, her eyes darting toward the clock as if my presence were a chore she couldn't wait to finish.
Then, the silence began.
Hana didn't come on a Monday. Or a Tuesday. A week passed. Then a month. I asked the nurses, I begged them to call home, but the calls went unanswered. I sat in my wheelchair by the hospital window, staring at the parking lot for hours, waiting for that small girl in the school uniform to appear. She never did. The silence was a physical weight, crushing the air out of my lungs. I felt abandoned, a broken tool tossed into a corner to gather dust.
After two years of agonizing physical therapy and surgeries, the doctors finally declared me fit to leave. I had no money left. My insurance was gone. I sat at the hospital entrance in my wheelchair, clutching a small bag of my belongings. I waited for Kara. I waited for the friend I had called.
Nobody came.
In the end, it was an old coworker who took pity on me. He drove me to my apartment in silence, the air in the car thick with a pity that made me want to vomit. He helped me into the elevator and left me at my front door.
I pushed the door open. The apartment smelled of stale cigarettes and a man's cologne that wasn't mine. I rolled into the living room, my heart hammering against my ribs. I heard laughter—a deep, masculine chuckle followed by a high-pitched giggle I recognized all too well.
I turned the corner into the bedroom. Kara was there. She was draped over a man I didn't know, a well-dressed executive who looked at me with a mixture of disgust and boredom. They didn't even stop when they saw me.
"Kara?" My voice was a ghost.
She pulled away slightly, smoothing her hair. She looked at me not with guilt, but with an irritating sense of inconvenience. "Oh, Shinji. You're back. I didn't think they'd let you out so soon."
"Who is this? What is happening?" I gestured to the room, to the life that had been stripped of my presence.
"I'm a woman with needs, Shinji," she said, her voice cold as ice. "I can't spend my life changing the bandages of a man who can't even stand up. I'm useless to you, and you're useless to me. I love someone else now. Someone who can actually take me out."
I felt the world tilting. The betrayal was sharp, but it was eclipsed by a sudden, terrifying thought. "Where's Hana? Kara, where is our daughter?"
Kara's expression shifted for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something dark crossing her eyes before she hardened again. "Hana? Oh, Shinji... she's gone."
"Gone? What do you mean gone? Is she with your mother?"
Kara let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "No. She killed herself. She jumped off the bridge near the school a few months ago. She saw us together, saw me with him... she couldn't handle it, I guess. But honestly, I couldn't care less. She was your daughter, and she had your stubborn, depressing streak. I have a new life now. You should probably go find your own."
She turned back to the man, ignoring me completely as if I had vanished from the physical plane.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. The capacity for emotion had been burned out of me, leaving only a cold, grey ash. I turned my wheelchair around and rolled out of the apartment. I rolled through the streets of Tokyo, the neon lights now looking like the eyes of predators. I reached the bridge—the same one Kara had mentioned. The water below was black and swirling, a hungry void waiting to swallow the broken.
I pulled myself up onto the railing, my upper body strength the only thing the hospital had given back to me. I looked at the city one last time. It had taken my legs, my daughter, my wife, and my soul. I leaned forward and let go.
The water was freezing. It rushed into my lungs, a burning sensation that quickly turned into a numb peace. I sank deeper and deeper, the light of the moon fading above the surface. I wanted to see Hana. I wanted to apologize for not being there.
But I didn't see the dark for long.
Suddenly, I was standing. Not sitting—standing. My legs were beneath me, strong and solid. I was in a place beyond space, a shimmering white expanse that stretched into infinity. Before me stood five colossal figures, draped in light that defied human description. Their presence was a physical pressure, a weight of divinity that made my very atoms tremble.
"Shinji," the central figure spoke, a voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. "We are the Five Main Gods. Your life was a tragedy of another's making. Your sacrifice was pure, yet your end was hollow. We shall grant you five wishes, and you shall be reincarnated into a new world."
I looked at my hands. They were translucent. I tried to remember the face of my wife, the sound of the truck, the smell of the hospital. It was fading. The trauma was being washed away by the light, leaving only a cold, hard desire for one thing.
"I don't want to be weak," I said, my voice echoing through the void. "I don't want to be at the mercy of anyone ever again. I want to be the one who decides. I want to be an overpowered being. I want to be so strong that the world itself bends when I walk."
The gods looked at each other, their glowing eyes communicating in a language of light.
"To grant such a wish... to make a mortal truly 'overpowered' in the fabric of a new world... that is not a single request," the god on the left whispered. "It requires the sacrifice of all your boons. It will take all five wishes to forge a soul of that caliber."
"I don't care," I snarled. The memory of the bridge, of the wheelchair, of the betrayal flashed in my mind like a dying spark. "Just do it. Give me the power. Take everything else."
"Very well," the central god said, raising a hand. "You shall be born anew. You shall be a King of Magic, a Master of Space, a Being above the Laws. But remember, Shinji... power is a lonely throne."
The white light exploded, blinding me once more.
I woke up to the sound of birds chirping. It wasn't the metallic chirp of Tokyo's city birds, but a deep, melodic song. I opened my eyes and saw a ceiling made of rough-hewn wooden beams. The air smelled of pine and fresh earth.
I sat up. I looked down at my body. I was small—maybe six or seven years old. My legs were there, thin but functional. But as I clenched my fist, I felt it. A hum. A vibration in the very air around me. I reached out toward a small wooden stool in the corner of the small house. I didn't touch it. I simply willed it to move.
The stool didn't just move; it disintegrated into its base components and reappeared in my hand. I didn't feel tired. I felt a well of infinite energy sitting in the center of my chest, a dark, pulsing core of absolute authority.
I was alone in a wooden house in a forest I didn't know. I had no parents here, no name, and no memories of my new life's beginning. I was a child with the power of a god. I walked to the door and pushed it open, stepping out into a world of green and gold.
I looked up at the sun, my eyes not even blinking at the glare. Shinji was dead. The man who lost his legs was gone. The man who jumped off a bridge was a ghost. I stood on my two feet, the earth trembling slightly beneath my step. I was Vael now. And I would never be broken again.