CHAPTER 52: ANGEL’S DESCENT

The late afternoon sun, a tired orange, bled across the urban sprawl, painting the familiar streets in a melancholic glow. Jun trudged homeward, the weight of his schoolbag a familiar burden on his shoulders, but it was the weight of his own thoughts that truly pressed down on him. The clatter of the passing train, the murmur of distant conversations, all faded into a dull background hum as his mind drifted, as it so often did, to ’Haruto’.

Haruto, the effortlessly cool, the perpetually popular, the bane of Jun’s somewhat unremarkable existence. A sigh escaped Jun’s lips, a mix of exasperation and a grudging, almost shameful, admiration.

Haruto was everything Jun wasn’t: athletic, charming, a magnet for attention, especially the female kind. A pang of something akin to jealousy twisted in Jun’s gut. Today, Haruto hadn’t shown up for school.

And Jun knew exactly why. It was always some "important family matter" or a "sudden prior engagement" that conveniently coincided with a stunning new girl transferring to their class, or a long-standing "friend" suddenly becoming available for a shopping trip.

Today, it was definitely one of the latter. His mind conjured an image of Azame or was it

Akiko? – one of those impossibly elegant, refined young women from a rival prestigious academy, her dark hair flowing like a silken river, her eyes sparkling with an almost predatory allure. He could picture it clearly: Haruto, leaning casually against a lamppost outside a trendy Shibuya café, a smirk playing on his lips, while Azame/Akiko laughed, her voice a tinkling melody.

He imagined them sharing an expensive parfait, their hands brushing, a spark passing between them. The thought made his teeth clench. It wasn’t fair. Haruto always got the attention, always got the girls, always seemed to glide through life effortlessly while Jun... well, Jun just existed.

He kicked a loose pebble on the sidewalk, sending it skittering into a drain. Life wasn’t an anime, he knew that. There were no epic battles over ancient artifacts, no sudden magical transformations, no shy, unassuming protagonists suddenly discovering a hidden power and winning the heart of the school idol. In reality, guys like Haruto always won. And guys like Jun just watched.

Finally, his apartment building loomed into view, a concrete monolith indistinguishable from a hundred others. He ascended the stairs, his footsteps heavy, the scent of instant ramen lingering in the hallway. Kicking off his shoes, he tossed his bag into a corner of his small, cluttered room. The first thing he did, as always, was grab the remote.

His fingers flew across the buttons, and the familiar opening theme blared from the modest television screen. It was "Celestial Seraphim,"

his current obsession. The vibrant colors, the dynamic animation – it was pure escapism.

"If only," he muttered to himself, his voice lost in the swell of the anime’s dramatic soundtrack. "If only someone like that existed. Someone real." He imagined Aria stepping out of the screen, her light radiating in his humble room, turning the mundane into the extraordinary.

Hours melted away in a haze of animated battles and heartfelt confessions. The final episode of the current arc ended with Aria, silhouetted against a setting sun, her power pulsing faintly around her. A satisfied sigh escaped Jun as he finally reached for the remote again, his eyelids growing heavy. The late-night chill had seeped into his room. Time for bed.

He hit the power button. The screen flickered, then went black, plunging the room into near darkness, save for the faint glow from the city outside his window. Jun stretched, a yawn escaping him, and turned to pull up his blanket.

But then,

A blinding, intense white light erupted from the center of his room, so sudden and powerful it forced him to shield his eyes with a gasp. It wasn’t the artificial glow of the streetlights, nor the gentle luminescence of the TV: raw, untamed energy, pulsating with an ethereal hum. The air crackled, thick with an unfamiliar scent like ozone and something else, something pure and clean, almost metallic.

As his vision slowly adjusted, daring to peer between his fingers, the light began to coalesce, focusing, shrinking, yet still radiating an unbelievable brilliance. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum against his ribs. This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a fantasy. This was *real*.

The light receded further, revealing a silhouette within its shimmering core. A human silhouette. And as the last vestiges of the blinding glow faded, replaced by a softer, ambient luminescence that seemed to emanate from the figure itself, Jun’s breath hitched.

Standing there, in the very center of his cluttered room, was a girl.

Her hair, long and flowing, was the purest white, almost translucent in its ethereal quality. It cascaded around her, framing a face of breathtaking, almost unnerving, beauty. But it was her eyes that truly held him captive.

They were a startling pale white, not entirely closed, but half-lidded, giving her an almost sleepy, yet profoundly distant and cold presence. There was no warmth in them, no hint of emotion, only an ancient, quiet intensity.

An aura of chilling aloofness radiated from her, an unapproachable stillness that sent a shiver down Jun’s spine despite the warmth of the room. This wasn’t the vibrant, dynamic Aria of his anime. This was something else entirely.

Something majestic, perhaps, but terrifyingly unyielding. He felt an instinctive pull to approach, to understand, but his feet were rooted to the spot, a primal fear seizing him. He suddenly felt incredibly small, insignificant, in the face of such an otherworldly presence. The girl from the light stood utterly still, her pale white eyes, barely open, fixed on nothing in particular, her entire being radiating a profound, untouchable coldness that made him dare not take another step closer.

The chilling stillness that enveloped Yuki in Jun’s room was abruptly shattered. Not by a sound, but by a tremor in the air, a distant thrumming that Jun couldn’t hear but Yuki clearly sensed. Her pale, half-lidded eyes, which had held such an unreadable coldness, now snapped fully open, revealing irises the color of moonstone, sharp with sudden urgency. Her gaze darted to the window, piercing through the flimsy curtains, out into the pre-dawn glow of the outside.

A mile away, three figures already moved...