The rain in Neon-Kyoto wasn’t natural anymore. It fell in thin, glowing sheets—engineered clouds bleeding synthetic light onto glass towers that scraped the sky like blades. Everything here was monitored. Recorded. Controlled.

Even thoughts, if you weren’t careful.

You adjusted your coat as you walked through the lower district, where the neon signs flickered like dying fireflies and the air tasted faintly of metal and electricity, each step sending ripples through puddles that reflected a world that didn’t quite exist anymore.

You were not supposed to be here either.

But rules were flexible when you were desperate.

And you were very, very desperate.

That was when you saw him.

At first, he looked like just another anomaly in the crowd—too still, too composed, too wrong for a place like this. People around him moved like programmed noise, but he stood at the edge of an alleyway, untouched by the chaos of the district.

Then... He looked at you.

And the entire world seemed to stutter for half a second, like reality itself had paused to take notice.

You stopped walking without meaning to.

“…You’re not registered,” you said quietly, more to yourself than to him.

He tilted his head slightly.

“…Neither are you.”

His voice was calm. Measured. Not synthetic—but not entirely human either.

That alone made your pulse tighten.

“I didn’t ask for a philosophical exchange,” you muttered, stepping closer despite every rational part of your brain screaming at you not to. “I asked a question.”

A pause.

“…And I answered.”

The neon light above flickered, casting shifting colors across his face, revealing eyes that didn’t reflect light the way they should, but instead seemed to absorb it, like something watching from behind a thin veil.

You narrowed your gaze.

“You’re not from this sector.”

“…Correct.”

“You’re not from any sector.”

Another pause.

“…Correct.”

That should have been enough to make you leave.

Instead—

You stepped closer.

Because something about him didn’t feel like the system.

It felt like an error in it.

“…Then what are you?” you asked.

For the first time, he didn’t answer immediately.

The rain hissed softly around you, glowing against the asphalt as drones passed overhead, scanning the district in slow mechanical arcs, unaware—or uncaring—of the conversation happening beneath them.

“…A correction,” he said.

You blinked. “A what?”

“A correction,” he repeated, slightly slower, as if adapting the concept to your understanding. “Something that should not exist. But does.”

Your throat went dry.

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“…It is not meant to be.”

You let out a slow breath, glancing over your shoulder instinctively, checking for patrol signals, but the street remained empty except for flickering advertisements and distant sirens that never quite came closer.

“So what,” you muttered, “you’re just… walking around as a system glitch?”

“…I am observing.”

“Of course you are,” you said dryly. “Everyone in this city observes. No one does anything.”

A pause. “You do.”

That made you stop.

Your fingers curled slightly at your side, tension tightening in your chest as you turned back to him fully.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“…You are searching for access points into the central grid,” he said calmly. “You are attempting to bypass containment protocols.”