[Prologue] Splitting Up

I walked through the brightly lit hallways, the sounds of machinery and suffering fading gradually away as I walked away from it. There was not a single clearly marked room, and all the doors were identical. Despite this, I knew which door to open. I had walked this path every day for seven years, after doing the same thing every day for seven years.

"I can use some variation in my life." I sighed, turning the knob to my room, where Ai and I were kept. "I'm home!"

The usual greeting of Ai jumping out from behind the couch and shouting, "welcome home!" was not waiting for me. I kicked off my shoes and looked around. Had she not come back yet?

The sound of running water diverted my attention to the bathroom, where I noticed a puddle of water forming under the door.

I tried the knob. It wasn't locked. I opened the door, and...

---

I sat straight up, soaked in my own sweat. I was shaking even though it was anything but cold, and my eyes felt emptied of any moisture that was in them when I had gone to sleep.

"It's alright." I said to myself in a shaky voice. "It was just a dream. Calm down, it was just a dream."

I checked my surroundings. I was in my room at the inn that Cassy had picked out, in the Human Empire. My shaking calmed itself a little bit.

"You're not there anymore." I assured myself. "You're alright now."

After my shaking had stopped, I got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast. I got up quite a bit earlier than everyone else, and the kitchen was still in the middle of opening up. I found an empty table and sat down to wait.

I was surprised at how lax the security for the Empire was. Ai was able to pass Cassy off as her slave, and the guards just let us in without asking for identification. I guess they didn't really expect any humans to be from the Demon side. The only question was the reason why we were in the Empire, other than "Ai said so."

I scrolled through my downloaded manga on my phone. I had already read everything at least twenty times over. Not wanting to go through the trouble of imprinting manga into my brain, I put my phone back into my pocket.

I considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, jumping off of a building was an illogical and shortsighted idea.

No use regretting it after the deed was done.

Cassy and Ai came down the stairs the moment the kitchen opened, almost as if they were waiting for it. They took the seats across from me.

"morning." I said.

"good morning." Cassy replied.

Ai didn't say anything, she already had her face buried in the menu.

I settled on a just a chocolate. Not a chocolate bar or anything fancy like that, the drink kind of chocolate. Technology had barely gotten advanced enough to make just that, so I didn't expect anything more. Both Ai and Cassy decided on the deluxe breakfast combo, which was so large it could be considered lunch and half of dinner by most people.

Ai had given us all translation devices that were compatible both ways with almost every existing language, which was in the form of a ring that sat on my left middle finger. As far as I knew, it was as good as advertised.

As we ate, more people came down from their rooms, and soon enough, the place was as busy as a sports bar on Thursday night.

"I'm going to go to the bathroom." Cassy left the table.

"Rai." Ai grabbed my attention as soon as Cassy left. "I've been meaning to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"How long ago did I die?"

Chills went up my spine as my dream replayed itself in my mind. "two years. why?"

"I've been living in this world for over 600 years, I'm sure you know?"

"Yeah." I nodded.

"What do you think? Does time go by faster in this world, or is something else at work here?"

I thought about it. It certainly seemed like time went by no longer in this world, but that might have just been my perspective as a person currently residing in the world.

"There's no way to be sure unless we find a way to go back." I concluded. "As far as we know, there could be multiple factors involved."

"That sounds about right."

I sighed. so we weren't going anywhere with that.

"Why are we here, anyway? do you plan on spying on the humans, or something like that?"

"Well..." Ai broke eye contact. "I... kinda wanted to see how it would be like to live here for a while..."

"In short, you're taking a break from being the center of everything just because you want to be a regular human for a while?" I asked. "That's very irresponsible, especially from someone who's over 6 centuries old."

"I also wanted to go to school for a bit."

I choked on my chocolate. Of all the hells to burn in, she chose that one?

"...I was wondering if you would like to come with?"

"Absolutely not." I refused.

Ai took a sip of her milk, knowing that I wouldn't change my mind.

I finished off my chocolate and stood up, placing a couple bills on the table.

"Where are you going?" Ai asked.

"I'm going to walk around the city without a purpose in mind, why?"

"Cool, be back before dinner."

I walked out the back door, and circled around to the front, where I dropped my room keys on the front counter, checking out of the inn. No benefit staying there anymore.

The street which the inn stood on was quite empty this early in the day, and the only people walking around where either homeless, drunk, or both. None of the shops were open yet, giving me a clear path to walk, without any distractions. I patted my pockets, where I kept my phone and anything else important. Looked like I left nothing in my room.

I rounded the corner into an alleyway. Using the main streets would have meant people seeing me, and knowing Ai, she'd ask around for me when I didn't return.

As I walked through the dark alleys, my foot bumped into something. I turned on the flashlight on my phone.

It was the body of a little girl. Looked like she had been stripped naked and killed by whoever else was roaming these backstreets. I kicked the body aside, disgusted. They could have at least cleaned up after themselves.

I kept walking through the labyrinth of pathways and secret passages, ending up in what I guessed was an underground tunnel system that was dug out by drug dealers and escaped inmates, due to how weak the structure of the tunnels were. One good explosion would have brought the whole thing crashing down.

After some more walking, I heard some sounds up ahead, and once again turned on my flashlight.

In front of me stood the most cliched scene I had seen in my life. A group of men standing there, overpowering a couple of helpless girls. I let out a disappointed sigh and walked straight past them.

"H-help..." one of the girls choked out.

I turned around, and stood there without a sound. I wasn't rushing to get anywhere, so I decided to watch.

As I watched, the men looted all of the girls' belongings, and left them sitting there with nothing but sackcloth covering them. The girls seemed to have been rather wealthy, and both had long, black hair to match their dark eyes. A thought came to my mind.

I ignored their hateful looks, and caught up to the guys who had walked away with all the stuff.

"Yo." I tapped one of them on the shoulder. "you mind if I take some of that? I'm sorta low on cash."

"Huh? Why should we-" I was immediately annoyed by this guy's stoned voice and blasted the entire group into a wall with a burst of wind before he could finish.

"T-h-a-n-k you." I nodded at the unconscious bodies as I took all the money that was on them. Then, feeling satisfied, I kept walking the same direction I was before, and headed towards the exit.

As I passed the girls a second time, one of them threw a rock at me, which I dodged. The other one seemed so in-shock that she couldn't do anything but stare at me.

"You had the power to help us," She said through gritted teeth. "So why didn't you?"

"Why didn't I?" I laughed. "You should know that, shouldn't you?"

"I don't, so enlighten me." She glared at me with a look of hatred. "Why didn't you, huh?"

"Because I had no reason to, dumbass."