The flavor hit heavy, salt-forward, nothing fancy. He didn’t need fancy. The broth was hot, the meat thin, and the egg wasn’t overcooked. That was more than enough.
The counter creaked a little under his elbow when he leaned in. Somewhere behind the half-drawn curtain, a cook rattled a pan and called something clipped in return to a voice farther back.
Near the register, two old men were trading slow sentences over beer that looked like it’d gone warm. Nobody here was in a rush.
The air smelled like soy, grilled pork fat, and that low, humid heaviness that made everything feel one step away from sticking. Every few seconds, the ceiling fan above the door squeaked like it had something to say, then changed its mind.
A TV mounted in the corner played to no one in particular. The screen flickered through a panel of newscasters behind a long desk.
Ranma glanced once—just long enough to note the movement—then didn’t bother again. The voices blended into the background, too soft to follow and not worth chasing.
He focused on the broth. Let the noise filter through like it belonged to a world outside the shop.
The room held a slow kind of warmth that settled into the joints, almost like the space itself was waiting for something. The low hum of the television didn’t change in volume, but the tone flickered, like the noise itself had become part of the thickening silence, carrying a weight that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Ranma didn’t look up right away. A sliver of broth clung to the side of his bowl, and he tipped it slightly to catch the last of it.
The background voices on the screen had lost their rhythm—no more panel chatter, no studio banter. The silence between sentences had teeth now.
He set the bowl down and glanced toward the screen.
A woman's voice carried under the noise of the shop—calm, level, professional in the way people only managed when the horror they were describing had long since stopped shocking anyone.
“Sol Year 198. Two hundred and fifty years since the Great Cataclysm—when the Earth burned, and humanity paid the price for its arrogance.”
The camera panned over a skyline blackened to uniform charcoal. Some city he didn’t recognize—flat rooftops, the shell of what looked like a rail system twisted into angles steel wasn’t supposed to take. The image jittered, then held.
At first, it didn’t register. Just a number. Then it landed. And the landing hurt more than it should have. Something in him tightened. Not fear—just recognition, like a truth arriving late.
The number on the screen hit harder than the footage, not because of the facts, but because it suddenly felt real. Two-fifty. Two and a half centuries.
The room around him seemed to still for a moment, the warmth of the ramen forgotten. He exhaled slowly, but the air in his chest felt heavier now, like he was trying to breathe through a different lifetime.
He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t aged. But the world had bled out and remade itself. Time hadn’t passed. It had scorched the world clean and left him behind in the ashes.
The next clip was older—grainy, lower quality. The camera caught the moment a street ruptured, sending a wall of flame upward as pedestrians scattered in every direction. Some didn’t make it.
He didn’t stop watching, but something in his posture shifted. Not tensed. Just… aligned. The same way he moved when he was watching someone draw their stance too slow. The way he waited when the air in a dojo changed just before a match that meant something.
The footage jumped again, jarring, too clean in some places and too raw in others. Another rupture. Another wall of flame. The footage was old, maybe staged, or edited a hundred times until the moment felt clean. Familiar. It didn’t matter whether it was real or recycled. The shape of the story was becoming clear.
The woman’s voice spoke over the images. Steady, but stretched thin around the edges. Her words drifted in and out beneath the video.
“...recorded during the Great Cataclysm... vast ignition events... across multiple continents…”
A satellite image flickered on screen—a global view of orange blooms creeping from coastlines, engulfing cities, swallowing borders as landmasses cracked apart. The fire wasn’t just destructive; it was unstoppable. Ranma’s stomach twisted—he didn’t need the visuals. He felt the weight of it.
“Though much of what led to that day has been lost, the truth remains; spontaneous human combustion continues to threaten lives. Entire cities were lost in minutes. Families destroyed in seconds. Ordinary people turn into monsters... Infernals.”
Ranma blinked once. Not slow, not fast. But something in his posture had shifted—barely enough to catch, but real. A breath sat in his chest a second longer than it should have, like the air in the room wasn’t agreeing with him anymore.
This wasn’t just time travel. This was aftermath. The kind that buried everything familiar under something too quiet to mourn.
He thought he’d been thrown forward—maybe a few years. A decade. Something that still had a line back to where he’d come from. Something that made sense.
But this wasn’t Tokyo ahead of its time.
It was Tokyo after it died.
No breath hitched. No gasp. Just that quiet hollowness pulled behind his sternum—like someone had cut the ropes between now and yesterday, and he was still waiting for gravity to catch up.
His eyes narrowed slightly. Not fear. Just that quiet shift—instinct going sharp. Awareness settling in like a weight.
People screamed in every language. Towers collapsed like they were bowing under the weight of it. Roads melted into black glass. He couldn’t tell how much was original footage and how much had been looped over the years to give the same shape to disaster.
The voice kept talking.
“...only the Tokyo Empire remained largely intact... current settlement zones still restricted across former international regions...”
His fingers flexed once against the counter. No grip. No tension. Just contact. Enough to remember where he was.
The map changed again. Circles marked habitable areas like someone had been trying to convince a room that shrinking was progress.
“In the aftermath, the Holy Sol Temple was formed. The Fire Defense Agency soon after. Today, the Special Fire Force exists to protect the people of Tokyo and beyond from continued threats of combustion and Infernals. While science and faith remain divided on the source.”
That part didn’t sit right. Not the words. The way they slipped past the real question. Like somebody had decided the answer wasn’t worth knowing.
The voice carried on—too steady, too practiced.
“Estimates place the death toll in the hundreds of millions or even billions, though exact figures remain uncertain due to the global collapse of infrastructure and record-keeping. Injuries and casualty rates have dropped since the formation of fire soldier task forces, but spontaneous combustions remain a national threat.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. Not just because of the fire—because of the way that anchorwoman said “spontaneous combustion” like it belonged in a traffic report— like it was normal. That landed harder than the flames.
The flames didn’t scare him. Not after Saffron. He’d walked through worse. Bled through hotter. Fire gods. Dragons. Volcanoes. He’d survived them all with his fists still up. The Jusenkyo battle had rewired his nerves to flinch at temperature in ways most people couldn’t fathom.
But this wasn’t about heat. This wasn’t about monsters. This was about everything left behind after the burning stopped. None of that prepared him for a world where fire wasn’t rare. It was routine. People just… igniting. Not once. Not then. Now. Still. And everyone just lives with that.
Whatever this was supposed to be, it wasn’t news or a documentary about history. It was a eulogy that never stopped playing. This wasn’t order. It was maintenance. A machine that kept running just because no one remembered how to turn it off.
The cook said something to the TV and changed the channel. A panel comedy rerun lit the screen. Laughter. Sound effects. Flashing colors.
Ranma didn’t blink. He sat back slowly, letting the weight of what he’d just seen settle into the quiet hum of the ramen shop. His hands resting on the counter, the world outside slipping into a kind of quiet that didn’t match his thoughts. The shift felt wrong, like closing a book mid-sentence, like a chapter of his life had been torn out without warning.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
No one else in the shop reacted. The cook didn’t look up. The old men kept sipping beer.
Whatever the show was saying, they’d all heard it before.
He waited for something to rise—panic, grief, even anger—but nothing did. Just distance. Like the world had rewritten itself so far past where he left it, there wasn’t even a line to trace back. It wasn’t the loss that hit—it was realizing no one even remembered it was gone.
His fingers curled around the edge of the counter, then loosened their grip with quiet finality.
He wondered if anyone he knew had been there when it happened.
He could almost see Genma yelling about honor while grabbing the last rice ball, even as the sky cracked. Could almost hear Akane calling him an idiot through the smoke. Ucchan, flipping okonomiyaki like nothing could touch her.
Kasumi, offering tea like the world was never going to end. And Nabiki—probably mutter something cynical about the yen. Like even the apocalypse owed her interest.
And now he was the only one who remembered how they argued, how they moved. Like their stories had slipped into a crack in the timeline no one else could find.
He wondered if any of them had been there when it happened—if it was quick, if they saw it coming. Were they caught in the first wave? Or did they just vanish, like the rest—folded into history that no one remembered to grieve? He’d never know. And that stung more than he liked.
He drew a breath, long and deliberate, letting it fit the quiet like it belonged there. He closed his eyes, just for a second. Tried to find his center—except it wasn’t where he’d left it. Everything in this world pulsed wrong. Off-rhythm. Off-balance.
He let the breath settle into the quiet, but it didn’t stay. Not really. Not when the world talked about burning like it was just another season. Like some lives came with matches already lit.
He exhaled, tried to center. Anchor to breath, to stillness. But the world didn’t meet him there. It kept humming. Like something was waiting for him to notice it.
He didn’t shift. Didn’t breathe deep. But stillness wasn’t silence. And stillness never meant inaction.
Then a flicker; it brushed the edge of his senses—faint at first, subtle, but distinct. A ripple in the world’s rhythm. Ki, but not refined. Not practiced. Raw, scattered, but centered somewhere.
He didn’t tense. Just registered it. A presence—not loud, but steady. There was heat, but no pressure. There was movement in it, even when it stilled. Not power pressing out—but something alive beneath the surface. Like a fire that hadn’t decided whether to burn.
Tamaki.
He hadn’t expected to pick her up again, not this soon, but there it was—like a signature written in clumsy cursive across a pool of oil. It hadn’t settled yet. But it reached for people anyway. She wasn’t centered, not really. But she kept trying. Like she didn’t know how to stop caring, even when it got her burned.
Ranma didn’t reach for the feeling. He gave it space. He traced the edges first. Six. Each one distinct. The familiarity helped.
Most of the background noise filtered out—pedestrians, vendors, civilians. Their ki barely scratched the air. But the six across the street? Their energy hit different—brighter, hotter, cut through the static like a blade. Nearly all of them fire. And none of them moved like beginners.
One sharp. Controlled. Strength, tight-wound and purposeful. A heavy, square pattern—muscle trained to carry more than its own weight. It felt like a wall that had volunteered to move. No flame. No flicker. Just weight.
Heavy, solid. Not just trained muscle—purposeful muscle. The kind that knew how to take a hit for someone else and stay standing. His ki didn’t push. It didn’t reach. It held. The way you hold a shield that doesn't get to fall.
No flicker of fire. But the weight of him bent the air anyway—like someone who caught buildings for fun, and made it look like a job.
If the first felt like a wall that moved, this one was a rifle. Tight. Unyielding. Perfectly still until provoked. Not just still—but deliberate. Not the absence of motion, but the refusal of it.
He could feel the structure in it. Energy stored, not wasted. Like a trigger waiting for permission. Whoever it belonged to didn’t waste energy. He stored it. Like a loaded chamber waiting for permission.
The next one brushed against his senses like the memory of warmth in winter. It moved, but never without purpose. Her ki shifted with an easy rhythm—balanced, measured, always in motion but never wasted.
Her ki didn’t erupt. It composed. The fire wasn’t just fire—it listened to her. Moved with her. Not a weapon held at the ready, but a companion formed from will and command. Every part of it moved as if it had been trained.
And deep beneath it all—beneath the control, beneath the quiet confidence—there was a faint pulse. Not unstable, not hidden. Just personal. Like her fire carried a heartbeat that didn’t belong to destruction. It belonged to someone who knew how to protect.
The presence that came next—his ki wasn’t stable—not wild, not chaotic, just… misaligned. Like it had its own direction and didn’t care who set the map. It flared without warning and faded just as quickly, as if it only burned when it believed it was supposed to. No rhythm, no pattern. Just a pulse that lit up when the moment felt important—even if no one else agreed.
Underneath the drift, there was something sharp. A spark that didn’t doubt itself. Ranma could feel it hiding behind the uncertainty, waiting for a reason. Waiting for a story where it mattered.
That was the strange part. The ki wasn’t strong because of its form—it was strong because it didn’t question its own script.
It was belief. Unshakable. Self-authored. Unchecked.
And the last signature barely pulled at his senses. Quiet. Measured. Like a prayer folded into silence. It didn’t push, didn’t waver. It simply was.
A trace of warmth buried deep, like the memory of a flame that hadn’t burned in a long time. No movement. No ripple. Just a faint presence, held close and kept still.
It reminded him of a temple bell he’d once heard in a ruined shrine—long after the ceremony ended. The kind of sound that didn’t ask for attention. It just waited for someone to hear it.
She didn’t carry it like power. More like something she protected—too gentle to use, too steady to forget.
He thought that was all of them. That maybe the space had settled. But it hadn’t. There was one more. Faint, buried even deeper than the rest—something else. Not close. Not formed. Just a frayed edge, somewhere nearby. Like a thread unraveling at the wrong speed. It wasn’t fire. Not yet. But it was warm in the wrong way.
It didn’t press. It didn’t pulse. It just leaned—off balance, out of tune. Like someone was trying too hard to stay whole. Whoever it was... they were cracked in a way the world hadn’t noticed yet. But cracks had a habit of spreading.
He didn’t brace. Just tracked it. The way you mark the sound of a floorboard that creaks wrong when it’s supposed to be quiet.
They weren’t pressing in. Just… aware of each other. Their presence didn’t jar against each other like strangers. It moved in tandem. Like people used to sharing space—without stepping on it. If they weren’t familiar, they were at least used to each other.
He’d felt that kind of rhythm before—on battlefields, in dojos. The kind of awareness that forms when people move with—not around—each other.
They weren’t hiding. He wasn’t either. Not anymore. Just quiet motion. Mutual awareness.
Like a sparring circle waiting for the first shift in weight.
He scratched the back of his neck, then sighed like the world owed him an explanation and was late delivering. “That’s just great. Ramen and reconnaissance.”
Ranma smirked—not wide, not sharp. Just the kind that slipped out when the world stopped pretending it made sense. “Didn’t think dinner would come with a side of flaming weirdos.”
He exhaled through his nose. “Somehow, I always attract the dramatic ones.”
But he’d felt the shift. Whatever this was, it wasn’t random. They were watching, measuring—same as him. And eventually, someone was going to ask the question he hadn’t figured out how to answer.
He rubbed his thumb across the edge of the counter. The wood felt worn down. Familiar. Like something that had outlived too many conversations just like this.
He exhaled, low and even. The ramen sat warm in his gut, but it didn’t quiet the static in his head. Not after that broadcast. Not with the world suddenly twenty-five decades off course.
He needed answers. But he’d seen what questions turned into in places like this—classified files, isolation wings, clean walls that never echoed back.
Getting answers meant offering some in return—and that was the part he didn’t like.
He didn’t have the luxury of explaining this cleanly—not the curse, not the rift, not why fire didn’t bend him the way it bent the rest of this world.
But asking the wrong way could cost more than his pride. Too much honesty, and he risked ending up in a lab. Or worse, a target. Too little, and they’d smile, nod, and file him under containment protocol—with just enough pity to make it sting.
Time traveler. Martial anomaly. Maybe combustible. Probably a problem. He wasn’t sure what label they’d slap on him first, but none of them would end with welcome aboard.
He’d seen what happened when people got ideas about what he was. Cologne had called him a weapon. Shampoo called him hers. Neither had asked. He’d spent years being told what he was for—strong enough to fight for love, good enough to steal, dangerous enough to chain up if you couldn’t charm him first.
What would they call him when they found out the rest? When the water hit? What kind of file folder did that go in? He didn’t even have a name for what he was half the time. But that never stopped someone else from trying to write one down. Man. Woman. Weapon. Problem. Take your pick.
He knew how quickly authority lost patience with what it didn’t understand. And whatever this world was built on—science, faith, something in between—it didn’t seem like it left a lot of room for maybes.
He didn’t like any of those outcomes.
That was the part that caught in his throat. Not the fear of being caught—he could handle that. It was being understood too well. Because if they believed him—really believed him—that might be worse. Belief got people doing stupid things. Worship. Weaponization. Science. Religion. Didn’t matter. Same leash, different collar.
They’d want to know how. Why. What he was. What he could do. That’s when the needles come out. The white rooms. The locked doors that only open one way.
He didn’t need a spotlight, but he couldn’t stay in the dark, either. The trick wasn’t explaining what he was. It was deciding what version of the truth they could live with. And figuring out what they’d try to do when the rest didn’t add up.
So the real question wasn’t *if* he’d talk. It was *how much*. How to say just enough to be taken seriously without getting taken somewhere he couldn’t leave. How to ask the right questions without giving the wrong people the idea he didn’t belong.
Because right now, he didn’t. Not really. And he could feel it in the way the world moved—like he was out of step with its pulse. A borrowed note in someone else’s melody.
He needed help. Just not the kind that came with restraints.
But he had to start somewhere. And it wasn’t like he had options. If he wanted real answers, he’d have to let them see enough to ask the right questions.
He dragged a hand through his hair. “Guess that means playing nice,” he muttered. “Well. For now.”
Outside, six signatures still hummed. Not closing in. Not backing off. Like they were waiting for his next move. He didn’t hate that.
But he wasn’t going to roll over. Not for the Church. Not for science. And sure as hell not for a world that had gotten used to lighting people on fire and calling it normal.
He traced the rim of the bowl with a thumb. The heat was fading. He stood slowly, and rolled one shoulder back until it popped. Left a pair of bills beside the bowl—more than needed, but not enough to look generous. He didn’t do speeches for noodles.
He paused at the doorway, looked back once at the now-silent screen.
The world had burned. He wasn’t here when it happened. But something told him he wasn’t here by chance. And he wasn’t done—not by a long shot.
He didn’t know if that mattered to anyone else. But it mattered to him. And sooner or later, he’d have to decide what to do with that truth.
This world moved like it had already decided what kind of opponent he was. He’d have to teach it differently. The idea hadn’t even finished forming before he was already moving. He cracked his neck once and stepped outside.
He didn’t know where this would take him, but for the first time in a long time, it didn’t matter. Whatever the world had become, it wasn’t waiting. And he’d never been the type to ask permission.
Still no answers. Just ramen breath and weirdos watching again. He’d survived stranger dinners. Guess that meant dessert was chaos. Again.
Whatever. The world was still on fire. And he was still hungry.
Arthur's Notes: Chapter 9 - Dinner at the End of the World
precisely what makes her dangerous,” Arthur whispered.
was subversion!" He slapped the scroll again. "A violation of the Hero’s Journey! That makes it a... Counter-Feast!"
Appendix 9?: A Reasonably Unreliable Guide to Ki Sense, or How to Feel People Without Getting Arrested
eavesdropping on someone’s soul.
shape of them. Are they confident? Heavy? Hesitant? Angry at their boss but pretending to be calm? Thinking about violence but still smiling politely? Ki sense picks that up.
- Someone pretending not to be watching him from a rooftop (they were).
- The exact moment a dojo challenger changed their mind about attacking (they didn’t get the chance to regret it).
- A very conflicted cat (long story).
- And once, a fish. No one knows how. Including the fish.
waiting to be impressed.
nothing. Which is weird. Because either they’re very, very dead, or very, very good at pretending they’re not about to try something deeply inadvisable.
wants to, but won’t, because something in them is broken, tired, or still hoping for a better outcome.
- Detect taxes.
- Prevent awkward conversations.
- Tell you what someone meant by that text message.
- Fix your love life (though it can tell you when someone’s about to ruin it).
- Or locate your missing sock, which is not a person, even if it’s got big divorced-dad energy.
You might just have bad allergies.
Wyrdwyrm