Naofumi Iwatani didn't consider himself remarkable. He was twenty, introverted, and preferred the quiet logic of fantasy novels to the chaos of people. Worlds built on rules—those made sense.
Until the book broke them.
It began in the library. A strange volume called The Records of the Four Cardinal Weapons. He hadn't seen it before. When he touched the page...
Light consumed him.
When he opened his eyes, he wasn't in the library.
He was in a throne room.
Marble pillars. Velvet drapes. And three other young men standing just as disoriented as he was.
The Spear. The Sword. The Bow.
And him.
The Shield.
The days that followed stripped everything away.
The king's disdain. The forced party assignment. The fake kindness of a girl named Myne.
And then—the theft.
She accused him. Lied, cried, pointed. The nobles listened.
They believed her.
And Naofumi became a pariah.
He left the castle penniless, humiliated, and alone.
He didn't cry. Not where anyone could see.
But something inside him shattered.
And that's when the world changed again.
Not for everyone.
Just for him.
It happened on the edge of the market.
He had wandered too far—chasing a gut instinct, or maybe just avoiding another glare. His shield was heavy, even without a blade. Even without trust.
He turned a corner into a dead-end alley.
And the air rippled.
A vertical slash appeared in space itself—like someone had torn the world open with a blade made of starlight. The edges shimmered, humming, then twisted outward.
Something fell through.
No—not something.
Someone.
The figure hit the cobblestones in a crouch that cracked stone. Dust swirled. Naofumi flinched, raising his shield on reflex.
The air around her pulsed, as if the world was holding its breath.
She stood.
Tall. Maybe 5'7". Her body was sculpted—not soft, not brutish, but designed. Like the curves were made for motion, and the muscles for war. Her armor looked alive—silver-black, trimmed in dull gold. Not metal. Not magic. Something else.
A blade was sheathed across her back. Not ceremonial. Functional.
And her eyes—glowing faintly gold, watching him with calm precision.
He felt something click in his shield. Not a warning.
A recognition.
The HUD flickered in his peripheral vision.
[New Entity Detected] Classification: Unknown Status: Unbound
He lowered the shield slightly. "Who—"
She touched her helmet. It retracted in segments, revealing her face.
Young. Mid-twenties maybe. Stunning. But not soft. Scarred across the midriff beneath her half-open armor. Hair long, dark, braided in strange, deliberate patterns.
"I don't have the energy to explain this," she said. Her voice was low, even, clipped.
"Try," he said, not lowering the shield completely.
She looked at him. Saw the tension. Saw the weariness. The betrayal etched in every line of his posture.
Something in her expression changed.
"I'm Kaley," she said. "I don't know where this is. But it isn't where I was. And I'm not your enemy."
He studied her. Slowly lowered the shield.
"I'm Naofumi."
She blinked. "...Shield Hero?"
"You know that?"
"No." Her brow furrowed. "But your aura—it's... different."
He didn't answer.
She didn't press.
They left the alley together.
Not as allies.
Not yet.
But not alone.
That night, they found a ruined village outside the city. Cheap lodging. Fewer eyes.
He told her about the summoning. The betrayal.
She told him about the Zariman. The Void. The Lotus. Gods with names like Sentients and a war that rewrote her bones.
He didn't understand it all.
But he understood pain.
And he recognized the silence between her words.
She didn't sleep much.
Neither did he.
And when they moved out the next morning, she didn't ask where they were going.
She just walked beside him.
The system refused to scan her.
When he checked the party menu, her name was there. Kaley. No class. No level. Just a blank glyph, pulsing slowly.
And when he asked what she was...
She looked away.
"Something that survived too much."
That was all she said.
But it was enough.
He didn't trust her fully.
But he didn't need to.
Because she had that same look in her eyes.
The one he saw in the mirror now.
The one that said: I've been betrayed, too.
And I'm still here.
Kaley POV
The world felt wrong.
Every step hummed with feedback from her suit, but none of it matched. Gravity pulled at the wrong angles. Light fractured just slightly differently through the atmosphere. Even the ground beneath her feet—stone, dirt, grass—it all felt artificial. Not unreal. Just unfamiliar.
She kept scanning. No signal. No transference link. No warframes responding to command. But her armor—Excalibur—still answered her. Still moved when she told it to. It was fused now. Seamless. No longer a tool. Part of her.
She didn't show the tremor in her hand when the HUD stuttered again.
[Connection Lost: Origin System Unreachable]
Her breathing slowed. Controlled.
This wasn't the first time she'd been stranded. It was the first time she'd felt truly disconnected.
And then there was him.
Naofumi.
Shield Hero, the system called him.
He didn't flinch when she stepped out of the rift.
He watched her like a wounded animal—not trusting, but not retreating. There was something raw in him. Something that hadn't closed yet.
She understood that.
And when he listened, really listened, without trying to own her story, Kaley felt something she hadn't felt in a long time.
Not safety.
But the possibility of it.
She didn't say thank you.
But she stayed.
And somewhere, deep within a reflection neither of them looked into, something watched.
Not through magic.
Through memory.
In the faint puddle beneath the alley's edge, a ripple distorted Kaley's face—not her real one, but a twisted mimicry. The smile formed a heartbeat too slow. The golden eyes didn't blink.
Then the water stilled.
The mimic was gone.
But not far.