Chapter 1 - Landfall
In most people's lives, there comes a time when things fall apart or don't go according to plan. Whether from losing a job, discovering a fatal and incurable disease, losing a loved one to an accident, or any other unfortunate event in life, everybody must face hard things from time to time.
One man in particular pondered such things with a serious expression on his face. He shoveled spoonful after spoonful of rice and beans from a food truck into his mouth without even registering the taste.
His cement seating vibrated and rumbled each time a vehicle sped by underneath him. His legs dangled over the side of the bridge railing and kicked back and forth like weighted pendulums. Each vehicle that rumbled by barely registered as a blur in his view.
"It's not just my imagination, is it?" He wondered aloud even though his mouth was full.
He chewed for another few seconds while listening to the drone of vehicles speeding by ten meters below his feet.
"I've gotta be the unluckiest man alive, huh?"
Setting his food down on the cement railing, he pulled a roll of paper out of his pocket again and read the contents of his diagnosis for what felt like the fiftieth time today.
"How does a body even get this many diseases and still walk?"
A tired sigh slipped from his lips, followed by a chuckle laden with unceremonious chagrin.
"Everyone else is dead already, so I guess it's my turn now. Haha…"
"..."
"I might not have much to live for, but I don't want to die yet, either. Still haven't found a good wife or anything. Haven't seen the endings of One Piece or Genshin, either... Heh. What stupid last moment regrets I have. Haha."
Another sigh escaped his lips. He didn't have the heart to joke around any more than that.
"Whatever. It is what it is. Wonder if they can even use any of my organs?"
Behind him, he heard some raucous laughter of some young and aspiring teenagers talking, though most of it was drowned out by the roar of engines passing below. It reminded him of some of the happier days he experienced in his youth. Unfortunately, those days were long gone. His younger years weren't perfect, but his normal-seeming bad luck he and his friends used to joke about back then gradually spiraled out of control over the last few years to the point that he started believing there might be something supernatural about it.
"Maybe somebody cursed me when I was a baby or something?"
Once again, he heard the voices behind him, but closer this time. Enough that he could make out the words.
"This dude about to jump or something?"
"Like I know?"
"...What if I pushed him?"
"What? Where'd that come from?"
"He's probably gonna jump, and it's already dark out. It'd be funny."
"You're crazy."
The man sitting on the bridge railing clicked his tongue. He didn't particularly blame youthful ignorance, but he would certainly appreciate it if they minded their own business.
"Ayo! What are you doing?!"
"Hm?!"
Feeling a sharp elbow smack his spine, the man lost his balance and fell forward. His eyes widened into saucers.
"What the hell, man?!" One of the kids yelled.
'My thoughts exactly!' The man thought while falling to the road below. However, he didn't scream. He simply closed his eyes and thought, 'Well, guess that's just my luck.'
All of it felt like slow motion in what he figured were his final moments.
At the top of the bridge, one teenager stared silently over the edge of the railing and said, "Why did I just do that?"
"Are you serious right now, dude? Let's run before the police show up!"
Screeching brakes rattled their eardrums, followed by a loud crash. The boy who was still looking over the edge with a perturbed expression suddenly widened his eyes. Instead of splattering into a mist of blood, the hooded man he had pushed over the railing exploded into bursts of star-like particles after being smacked by the hood of a speeding semi truck.
* * *
The sun slowly dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow and long shadows across the mountains and seas. High upon a mountaintop, wind rustled the light purple leaves of a tall tree whose trunk was shaped eerily like a fox and glowed blue through some of its cracks. Near the base of the tree, a woman dressed in traditional Japanese-style shrine-maiden attire carefully raked the sand garden of a mountaintop shrine with smooth and well-practiced movements.
High above in the atmosphere, a bright flash like that of a distant supernova flickered. The shrine maiden paused her movements and raised her head.
"A shooting star? Pretty."
In contrast to the shrine maiden's reserved reaction, another shrine maiden seated inside the main shrine building wrinkled her brow and looked at the ceiling. The woman frowned and set aside the book in her hands.
"The elemental particles here suddenly became chaotic…" The woman mumbled, her voice graceful and unperturbed despite the unusual fluctuations of energy in the air around her.
She stood and walked toward the door. Long pink hair fluttered back and forth with each step like the leaves of the tree outside while her sandals clacked at an even tempo.
The moment the woman stepped outside and looked at the sky, the shrine maiden raking the sand garden widened her eyes and stammered, "L- Lady Yae! Good evening!"
"Mhm. Good evening, Miyuki," Lady Yae replied, briefly glancing at the girl before returning her gaze to the evening sky. Only a handful of the brightest stars were currently visible at this time. Yae's eyes locked onto one specific star that pulsated with irregular flashes of color. It was a star that did not belong in Inazuman skies.
"Is something the matter, Lady Yae?"
"I do not know," Yae Miko casually replied with a strange glint in her purple eyes. Then, the corners of her lips lifted slightly, and she added, "However, I believe a new story rests upon the horizon."
Near the bottom of the cliffs, a young man standing in the middle of an elegant manor's courtyard raised his head in a similar manner due to also sensing a disturbance in the elemental particles around him. His green eyes stared at the unusually bright star for a few moments.
"...Is it getting bigger?"
Before long, his suspicions were confirmed by the star doubling in size.
"I should warn her."
"It's alright, Thoma. I already noticed it," A soft voice sounded out from behind the young man. The woman with light blue eyes and hair approached him with graceful steps.
"I see," Thoma mumbled with a solemn nod before raising his gaze to the sky again.
"Is it a shooting star of some sort?"
"Maybe."
It did not take long for the question to be answered. Like a streaking meteor, a flash of light plummeted from the heavens. The phenomenon startled the citizens of Inazuma within a few thousand kilometers, especially the Vision-holders closer to the northern end of Narukami Island. A screeching sound similar to thousands of fireworks echoed outward, followed by a rumbling explosion. The falling star plummeted straight into the northern shoreline.
Further south, a young woman with yellow hair lifted her head from the firework she was working on and wondered aloud, "Who's setting off fireworks at this time of year?"
Unfortunately for those at the northern end of the island, the event caused a mild earthquake that disturbed the rest of many a man. A massive explosion of sand and water cascaded outward from the crash site. Mounds of sand and water drowned the nearby hilichurls and automatons active there as though under a muddy tsunami. Just as quickly as the wave swallowed everything in its path, it receded, leaving several monsters buried alive beneath the sands to suffocate in a quiet burial or drown in the depths of the sea.
Water and sand rushed back into the crater left behind by the meteor. In the center of the crater, an egg-shaped collection of star-like particles separated from the egg before collapsing back into itself. Gradually, it molded into a human shape and floated to the surface. The waves pushed the body toward the shore while it gradually coalesced into human form. Before long, no light particles remained. There was only a floating body.