𝐆𝐨𝐝'𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭

♡ Angel Autopsy (Yandere! Il Dottore x Reader).

♡ Word Count. 6,540 words

---

Monday began the way all apocalypses should: with an alarm clock screaming like it had personally witnessed the end of the world.

You slapped it without opening your eyes. The alarm stopped. The ceiling continued to exist. Unfortunate.

For a brief, blissful moment, you considered not getting up. Gravity could do whatever it wanted. The world could burn. The universe had been running itself into the ground long before you were born, and frankly, it had not improved since gaining your involvement. Unfortunately, attendance policies were stricter than divine law, and you were already on your third attempt at fourth year university, which was a sentence no angel should ever have to endure.

You rolled out of bed with the enthusiasm of a corpse being gently encouraged to haunt something.

Outside, the city wailed.

This was normal.

Sirens layered over each other in an almost musical way—emergency evacuation alerts, villain sightings, hero mobilizations, reality instability warnings. Someone, somewhere, was screaming about a class-S catastrophe downtown. The sky had a faint, unhealthy tint to it, like it hadn’t slept in weeks. Birds flew in panicked circles before abruptly disintegrating into ash.

You checked your phone.

8:13 AM.
First lecture: 8:00 AM.

You sighed.

“Attendance is a social construct,” you muttered to no one, pulling on your jacket. The halo stayed hidden, as usual. Your wings remained folded somewhere between dimensions, behaving themselves like well-trained lies.

The mirror reflected a perfectly normal human university student: tired eyes, blank expression, hair that suggested you had lost an argument with gravity. No one would guess you were an angel. Fewer would guess you were the most overpowered hero alive. Even fewer would guess you were one failed elective away from academic probation hell.

You left your apartment just as a nearby building collapsed.

Dust rolled down the street. Civilians screamed. A villain—something with too many teeth and a name that probably translated to Eternal Hunger of the Abyss—roared in triumph.

A hero crashed down from above, cracked the pavement, and shouted something inspirational.

You stepped over the rubble and kept walking.

The hero looked at you. “Miss! It’s dangerous—!”

You raised one finger without breaking stride. The villain froze mid-roar, compressed into a singularity the size of a marble, and politely ceased existing. The sky stabilized. The screaming died down. Emergency alerts updated themselves with visible confusion.

You did not look back.

Behind you, the hero stared at the empty street, reassessing every life choice that had led them here.

Public transport was late, because of course it was. The bus stop’s digital screen flickered between DELAYED DUE TO SUPERNATURAL INCIDENT and PLEASE REMAIN CALM. Someone had graffiti’d underneath: CALM IS OPTIONAL.

You leaned against the pole, scrolling through your phone.

Headlines flooded your feed.

BREAKING: UNKNOWN ENTITY PREVENTS CATASTROPHIC EVENT WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGMENT

HERO ASSOCIATION BAFFLED BY “INVISIBLE INTERVENTION”

IS GOD LAZY? EXPERTS WEIGH IN

You snorted, then stopped yourself. Emotional reactions were slippery slopes.

A student beside you was openly crying. “This is my third evacuation this week…”

You patted their shoulder with all the warmth of a damp paper towel. “You’ll get used to it.”

The bus arrived half-melted but functional. Inside, students, civilians, and one suspiciously glowing priest sat together in exhausted solidarity. A child was playing a game on a tablet where tiny heroes beat up monsters. The monsters won most of the time.

As the bus rattled toward Sumeru Akademiya, the skyline grew worse.

Floating debris. Containment barriers. Towers reinforced with sigils and concrete. The Akademiya itself loomed like a smug monument to academic suffering—grand arches, emerald glass, and an aura of intellectual superiority so thick it could be weaponized.

You despised it with the passion of a fallen star.

Sumeru Akademiya prided itself on being the pinnacle of knowledge in a broken world. It produced scholars, tacticians, heroes, and occasionally morally dubious geniuses who later caused international incidents. Its motto—Wisdom Above All—was carved into the gates, though someone had scratched EXCEPT COMMON SENSE underneath.

You passed through security. The scanners hummed.

“Anomaly detected,” the machine said pleasantly.

You stared at it.

“…Recalibrating,” it added nervously.

Inside, the campus buzzed with chaos disguised as routine. Students discussed exams while dodging summoned familiars. A professor lectured as the ceiling dripped ominous black ichor. A bulletin board listed upcoming events:

• Midterms
• Hero Licensing Seminar
• Mandatory Apocalypse Drill
• Bake Sale (Cancelled Due to Possession Incident)

You headed toward your lecture hall, already tired.

Fourth year. Again.

You had entered the Akademiya early. Advanced placement. Prodigy track. Scholarships stacked on scholarships. Professors whispering about your “unprecedented potential.”

Then, somehow, inexplicably, you had failed the final year.

Twice.

Not because you couldn’t do the work. You could solve the equations used to stabilize collapsing dimensions in your sleep. You just… hadn’t turned them in. Or shown up. Or cared.

Scholarship revoked. Reputation tarnished. Expectations lowered.

Bliss.

You slid into your seat as the lecture began. The professor—a man who looked one academic disagreement away from becoming a lich—glared at the class.

“Attendance,” he said, eyes landing on you. “Again?”

You gave him a lazy salute. “I exist.”

A student whispered, “Isn’t she that one… you know…?”

You ignored it. Rumors were white noise.

The lecture droned on about post-apocalyptic ethics, hero governance, and the moral responsibility of those with power. The irony was so thick you could drown in it.

Outside, an explosion rattled the windows.

“Extra credit opportunity,” the professor said without missing a beat. “Anyone who assists with containment may submit a reflection paper.”

No one moved.

You rested your chin on your hand, staring at the board. Equations. Diagrams. Theoretical frameworks attempting to rationalize a universe that had long since stopped caring.

Somewhere deep beneath your indifference, something vast and ancient watched quietly. Patient. Unbothered.

You yawned.

After class, you wandered the halls, avoiding responsibility with practiced ease. A group of heroes-in-training sprinted past you, weapons drawn, shouting about a breach in Sector C.

You stepped aside, sipped your coffee, and continued on.

The Akademiya speakers crackled. “Attention students. Please remain calm. This is not a drill.”

You muttered, “It never is.”

By the time you reached the courtyard, the breach had already sealed itself. No witnesses. No explanation. Just a faint scorch mark and a growing sense of dread everyone pretended not to feel.

You checked your schedule.

Next class: Advanced Divine Theory.

You grimaced.

Some days, you wondered if the universe was testing you. Most days, you decided the universe was stupid.

You walked on, hands in pockets, halo hidden, wings folded, the weight of existence balanced casually on your shoulders like an inconvenience.

Another day in the apocalypse.

Another day of class.

And somehow, tragically, Sumeru Akademiya was still standing.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Advanced Divine Theory was held in Lecture Hall Seven, which everyone hated for three reasons:

1. The seats were uncomfortable in a way that felt intentional.
2. The lights flickered like they were considering possession.
3. The professor was Kenjaku.

Kenjaku—currently wearing the body of a mild-looking academic with tired eyes and the voice of a man who absolutely did not believe in ethics—stood at the podium, smiling the way surgeons smiled before experimental procedures. The board behind him already contained symbols that hurt to look at for too long.

You arrived late. Again.

No one commented. No one ever did.

You slid into the back row, dropped your bag, pulled out your tablet, and immediately opened a gacha game. The lecture hall trembled slightly as some divine seal activated underground.

“Good morning,” he said pleasantly. “Today we’ll be discussing divinity, agency, and moral responsibility in post-apocalyptic systems.”

You increased the game volume by two notches, the music blasting in your worn airpods.

“Specifically,” Kenjaku continued, “the moral responsibility of beings who possess overwhelming power.”

You rolled a five-star unit on your first pull.

You blinked. Huh.

A student raised their hand. “Sir, is this going to be on the exam?”

Kenjaku smiled wider. “Everything is on the exam.”

You locked your screen, expression perfectly blank.

You had rules about this.

Very strict rules.

Rule #1: Never react.
Rule #2: Never explain.
Rule #3: If something impossible happens, pretend it didn’t.

Kenjaku’s eyes flicked toward you for half a second longer than necessary.

You did not look up.

He smiled wider.

“Hypothetically,” he said, pacing, “if an individual could end wars, cure plagues, or reshape reality—would it be immoral for them to choose not to?”

A student raised their hand. “Yes. Obviously.”

Another chimed in. “Power demands responsibility.”

A third added, “Inaction is complicity.”

You opened a visual novel and skipped the dialogue.

Your moral philosophy was simple. Elegant, even.

You did not fix things unless fixing them was the only option left.
You did not interfere unless someone would unquestionably die otherwise.
You did not involve yourself in narratives that smelled like “character development.”

And most importantly—

You did not get dragged into the plot.

Plot was dangerous.

Plot demanded effort. Plot required emotions. Plot had arcs.

You despised arcs.

Kenjaku leaned against the desk. “And if that being simply… doesn’t care?”

The class murmured.

You selected a dialogue choice that said [Remain Silent] and immediately got the best ending anyway.

Predictability was a wonderful thing.

Kenjaku’s gaze finally settled on you. “Miss.”

You sighed internally. Externally, you looked mildly inconvenienced.

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

Every head turned.

You stared at him, unblinking.

Then: “I think,” you said slowly, “that moral grandstanding is usually performed by people who expect someone else to clean up the mess.”

Silence.

Kenjaku chuckled. “Interesting.”

You added, “Also, if someone has enough power to fix everything, then the system that needs fixing is already broken.”

The lecture hall went dead quiet.

Kenjaku stared at you like you were a puzzle he wanted to dissect.

“…You may go,” he said eventually.

You packed up immediately.

Rule #7: Leave before conversations escalate.

Outside the hall, the campus shook again. A distant scream. Someone shouted about a cursed anomaly near the library.

You turned in the opposite direction.

Your next class was Applied Combat Ethics, which you attended exclusively to sleep.

You sat in the back, hood up, earbuds in, playing a farming simulator. The world nearly ended twice while you optimized crop rotation.

This was, frankly, peak productivity.

Your professor ranted about heroism, sacrifice, and valor. You unlocked a rare seed.

Someone tapped your shoulder. “Hey… aren’t you worried?”

You glanced up. “About?”

“The apocalypse?”

You considered this.

“No.”

They blinked. “Why not?”

You shrugged. “If it happens, it happens.”

They stared at you like you’d confessed to a felony.

Rule #12: Never reassure people too well. Suspicion follows reassurance.

By lunchtime, half the campus was evacuated. The cafeteria remained open.

You ate quietly while reading a webnovel about a protagonist who wanted nothing more than to be left alone but kept accidentally becoming a god.

You rated it three stars. Too unrealistic.

A hero-in-training approached your table. “Hey. You’re not evacuating?”

You chewed. Swallowed. “No.”

“Why?”

“I just got food.”

They looked genuinely horrified.

You watched them leave.

Afternoons were for self-study, which you interpreted as “finding the quietest place to nap.” You chose the abandoned west wing, where reality was thinner and the Wi-Fi was excellent.

You lay on the floor, phone hovering above your face.

Slot machine app. One pull.

Jackpot.

You sighed.

Rule #3a: Never use probability manipulation in public casinos. Too many cameras.

You closed the app and opened a story instead.

Reading was safe. Stories stayed on the page. Stories had boundaries.

Reality did not.

Your mind drifted, as it often did. To thoughts you never voiced. To compassion you never showed. To kindness that lived quietly, unused, because the world mistook silence for emptiness.

You preferred it that way.

By evening, announcements declared the crisis resolved. No one knew how.

You did.

You did not care.

You packed up and headed home, passing groups of students buzzing with adrenaline, fear, and meaning.

They would talk about this for weeks.

You would forget it by tomorrow.

As you exited the gates, Kenjaku stood there, hands in pockets.

“Interesting rules you live by,” he said casually.

You paused.

“…I don’t know what you mean.”

He smiled. “Of course you don’t.”

You nodded once and walked past him.

Rule #20: If someone seems too interested, disengage permanently.

The sky darkened. Sirens began again.

You put on your headphones, turned up the volume, and disappeared into the crowd—an angel pretending to be nothing at all, carrying the end of the world like an afterthought, just another lazy student on her way home, determined, above all else, to never matter unless absolutely necessary.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Lunch hour at Sumeru Akademiya was, statistically speaking, the most dangerous time of day.

This was not because of villain attacks (those usually happened mid-morning, for dramatic effect), nor because of spontaneous reality fractures (those preferred evenings). No—lunch hour was dangerous because it forced social interaction, and you had been actively avoiding that for years with the same discipline monks reserved for enlightenment.

Which was why you were currently sitting in the most isolated corner of the Akademiya grounds: a half-forgotten terrace wedged between two overgrown research wings, shielded by malfunctioning cloaking panels and academic negligence. Moss crept over stone benches. A warning sign read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in three languages, all crossed out.

Perfect.

You sat cross-legged on the bench, unbothered, unhurried, eating instant noodles straight from the cup with a plastic fork you’d probably stolen from the cafeteria last semester. Your phone was propped against your bag, autoplaying a low-budget isekai with questionable writing choices.

Across from you sat Mortefi.

Mortefi did not belong here.

A former prodigy of the New Federation, once hailed as the youngest genius of his generation.

Mortefi belonged in pristine laboratories, under carefully calibrated lighting, surrounded by technology that hummed respectfully in his presence. He was immaculate even now—long coat pressed, gloves spotless, glasses catching the light just so. His posture was straight, his expression composed, his aura screaming upper-class prodigy who has never lost an argument and remembers every time you misused a term.

He stared at you with thinly veiled disappointment.

“…You’re repeating fourth year,” Mortefi said calmly, like a judge reading out a sentence.

You slurped your noodles.

“Yes.”

“For the third time.”

“Yes.”

“You are, chronologically, younger than ninety percent of the faculty.”

“Yes.”

“You possess,” he continued, adjusting his glasses, “the intellectual capacity to finish the required completion work in under three days.”

You shrugged. “Three days is a lot.”

Mortefi closed his eyes. Slowly. Like a man summoning patience from an emergency reserve.

“I genuinely do not understand you,” he said. “You submit perfect work when you submit anything at all. Your lab reports are cited. Your theoretical frameworks have been—against my will—used in two separate departments. And yet—” He opened his eyes and looked at your noodles like they personally offended him. “—you refuse to attend class and cannot be persuaded to upload a file before the deadline.”

“I can,” you corrected mildly. “I just don’t.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You are going to lose your enrollment status.”

“Unlikely.”

“You lost your scholarship.”

“That already happened.”

“You will lose access to the Akademiya’s restricted archives.”

You paused mid-slurp.

“…Okay, that one’s rude.”

Mortefi seized the opening immediately. “Then submit the completion work.”

“No.”

“Why?”

You thought about it. Truly. Earnestly.

“Feels like a trap.”

Mortefi stared. “A trap?”

“Yes.”

“A… bureaucratic trap?”

“Worse,” you said. “A narrative one.”

He frowned. “Explain.”

“No.”

Silence stretched between you, broken only by distant sirens and the crackle of unstable ley lines somewhere far away. Mortefi exhaled, long-suffering.

“You are deliberately self-sabotaging,” he said.

“I prefer the term maintaining a low profile.”

“By failing university?”

“Yes.”

“That is not a low profile.”

“It is among academics.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Reconsidered.

“…You know,” he said carefully, “most people would kill for the opportunities you squander.”

You tilted your head. “That sounds like a them problem.”

He stared at you again, this time with something dangerously close to concern.

“You could change things,” Mortefi said. “The systems. The research. The world.”

You met his gaze at last. Your expression was flat, unreadable.

“I know.”

That answer unsettled him more than any argument.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

By the time university spat you back out into the city, the sun was already halfway to giving up.

The Akademiya gates closed behind you with a sound like final judgment, and you immediately put on your headphones—as if sealing yourself inside a more tolerable universe. Music flooded in, loud enough to drown out the sirens, the distant screams, the emergency broadcasts reminding citizens that no, this was not a drill. Your playlist was carefully curated: lo-fi, instrumental game OSTs, and exactly one aggressive track you used exclusively for walking faster when people annoyed you.

You scrolled your phone as you walked.

Notifications piled up.

— Hero Association: URGENT REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE
— Akademiya Admin: Reminder: Completion Work Deadline (FINAL FINAL FINAL)
— Unknown Number: We know what you are.
— Gacha Game: FREE TEN-PULL! LIMITED TIME!

You ignored all of them except the last.

“Finally,” you muttered.

The train ride home was uneventful in the way only a permanently collapsing society could manage. Half the car flickered in and out of existence. A man across from you prayed quietly. A hero in civilian clothes slept standing up, helmet tucked under one arm. You leaned against the window, watched the city blur past, and calculated—absently—how many timelines you’d pruned today just to avoid mild inconvenience.

Too many.

Your stop arrived.

Home was a quiet, unassuming residence tucked behind layered security so subtle it passed for landscaping. From the outside, it looked… normal. Modest. Slightly old-fashioned. The kind of place no one would ever suspect belonged to one of the richest families to ever exist.

Which was the point.

You unlocked the door, stepped inside, and immediately kicked off your shoes with practiced accuracy. The house hummed—wards, systems, defenses layered over each other like nesting dolls of paranoia. All of it old. All of it powerful.

All of it unnecessary, considering you.

You went straight to the bathroom.

Rule #1 of Gaming: Never play dirty.

Shower first. Always.

You scrubbed your hands thoroughly, dried them, then did it again. Skincare routine. Hair pulled back. Comfortable clothes. No lingering contamination from the outside world. You sanitized your phone, your glasses, your hands again.

Only then did you enter your room.

Your room was… excessive.

Two complete setups.

One: a pristine PC rig—custom-built, immaculate, cables hidden, monitors calibrated to absurd perfection. Mechanical keyboard cleaned daily. Mousepad washed weekly. Chair ergonomically engineered to support long sessions without destroying your spine.

The other: your pride and joy.

The mobile gaming shrine.

An adjustable arm held your tablet at the perfect angle. Cooling fans hummed softly. Stylus lined up precisely. Sanitizer spray within reach. Microfiber cloth folded with religious reverence.

You sprayed everything down.

Hands. Screen. Stylus.

Again.

Satisfied, you sat.

The world could end later.

You logged in.

Ranked queue.

Jungle.

Of course.

You exhaled slowly, centering yourself—not in the way monks did, but in the way apex predators prepared to carry incompetent teammates across a finish line they didn’t deserve.

Match found.

Your duo appeared instantly.

Support/Tank.

Name unreadable to most, infamous to anyone who mattered.

You felt the faintest curl of amusement.

“Evening,” Arlecchino’s voice came through, calm, sharp, already locked in.

“Mm,” you replied.

Draft phase began.

No one else wanted jungle.

As usual.

Someone hovered a damage dealer they clearly didn’t know how to play. Another hovered support, then switched off at the last second.

You locked jungle without ceremony.

Arlecchino locked roam.

No words exchanged.

You didn’t need them.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

You never cheated.

That was important.

Cheating implied intent. Conscious manipulation. Deliberate unfairness.

You did none of that.

Your abilities were passive. They existed the way gravity existed. Probability curved around you naturally, like it had accepted you as a fixed constant. In real life, that meant constant suppression—mental barriers stacked on instinct stacked on training beaten into you long before the Akademiya, long before this city, long before you had learned that being too much was dangerous.

In games?

You didn’t suppress a thing.

Why would you?

Games were honest.

They had rules. Numbers. Systems that admitted they were artificial. If reality insisted on being rigged, at least games were polite enough to admit it upfront.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The match loaded.

From the first second, you saw everything through sheer intellect alone.

Cooldowns. Enemy pathing. Probability trees branching infinitely, then collapsing neatly into certainty. To you, the map wasn’t fogged—it was transparent, laid bare like a solved equation.

You cleared camps perfectly.

Your hands moved with lazy precision. No wasted motion. No panic. Your face remained blank, eyes half-lidded, posture relaxed.

Inside, galaxies aligned.

Your team made a mistake.

You hissed softly, in your native Sumeru tongue. “Stupid.”

Another mistake.

“…Idiots.”

Arlecchino laughed quietly.

She played aggressively, recklessly by most standards—tower-diving, body-blocking, forcing fights no sane support would initiate.

But you were there.

Always.

Your timing was flawless.

Every engage landed on the exact frame it needed to. Every objective secured just before the enemy realized what was happening. Probability was unconsciously bent not by force, but by suggestion—nudging numbers, skewing outcomes, making “luck” obedient.

You did not lose.

Halfway through the game, the enemy jungler attempted a steal.

You denied it without looking.

“Predictable,” you murmured.

Arlecchino spammed an emote.

You spammed recall back.

Outside the game, the city shook.

Inside, you snowballed.

Victory screen.

MVP.

As always.

You stretched, cracked your knuckles, sanitized your hands again.

Next match.

Between queues, you checked your gacha games.

Daily pulls.

You never failed.

Not because you forced outcomes blatantly—that was crude—but because your abilities understood the system better than it understood itself. The micro-probabilities were so gently that even the algorithms believed the results were fair.

Limited character.

First pull.

You blinked.

“…Huh.”

You claimed rewards, upgraded everything immediately. Max constellations. Full sets. Perfect stats.

You felt nothing.

Except mild satisfaction.

You opened another game. Then another.

You balanced stamina, events, timers—all with the ease of someone who could perceive time as a suggestion. You read VN dialogue while auto-battles ran. Made choices based on instinct and empathy rather than optimization.

You always got the best endings.

Not because you tried.

Because kindness, even unexpressed, shaped outcomes.

Your phone buzzed.

Unknown number again.

You ignored it.

A knock echoed faintly—someone outside, arguing with the perimeter defenses. You did not look up.

You were in the middle of a boss fight.

Reality could wait.

The boss went down in record time.

You sighed, leaned back, and opened a book instead—one hand holding the tablet, the other idly tapping through menus. Your powers brushed the page unconsciously, stabilizing narrative tension, smoothing plot holes the author hadn’t noticed.

You frowned.

“That doesn’t make sense,” you muttered.

The book quietly corrected itself.

You went on reading.

Outside, alarms wailed louder.

Heroes mobilized.

Gods stirred.

You adjusted your cooling fan and queued another ranked game.

For you, this was balance.

The universe raged, suffered, begged.

You optimized rotations.

And in the quiet glow of your screens, an angel hid perfectly in plain sight—using world-ending power not for salvation, but for games, stories, and the simple, sacred joy of doing exactly what you wanted.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The door clicked behind you, the familiar soft thunk of the security system disengaging in polite obedience. Home. Safe, warm, and… inevitably unbearable. You paused at the threshold, as though bracing for impact. Music off, headphones down, phone tucked into your pocket. The smell of dinner—roasted meat, something vaguely herbal, faintly metallic—wafted from the kitchen. Comforting, normal, familial. But also the precursor to the most dreaded part of your day.

Your siblings were absent. Both older brothers—Hero X, already a living legend and public morale booster, and Gojo Satoru, whose charisma, reputation, and sheer overwhelming power made them the golden children—were off doing something noble or heroic, probably saving the world again. Their absence only heightened the quiet terror: your mother would have all her attention focused squarely on you. And your father, stoic as ever, would silently approve the proceedings with occasional nods of tactical insight.

You stepped into the dining room, seat carefully chosen at the farthest edge, where visibility was minimized and escape paths—mental and physical—maximized. The table looked innocuous enough, candles flickering softly, silverware arranged with obsessive symmetry. Your mother stood at the head, smiling, her energy radiating warmth like a hearth… that was slowly burning down the house.

“Darling!” she said, and you flinched slightly at the cheer in her voice, because it was the kind of cheer that only preceded a full-scale intellectual and emotional blitz. “How was your… productive day?”

You said nothing. Nodded slightly.

“Productive,” she repeated, taking a seat. “I know you’ve been… busy with… university. But let’s be honest—busy doesn’t always mean accomplished, does it? Some people, when they put their mind to it, achieve so much more than their peers.”

You raised an eyebrow. Thought about responding, but wisely decided on silence.

Her smile widened, deceptively warm. “For example, your brothers. Hero X saved an entire district today from… you know, that minor villain uprising. Gojo…” She waved vaguely, as though the details were irrelevant. “Handled a catastrophic magical incident without breaking a sweat. Aren’t they impressive?”

You nodded again, silently, like a statue carved from cold logic.

“Yes,” she said, eyes narrowing just slightly, the warmth now coating a razor underneath. “And then there’s you. Three attempts at fourth year. University attendance questionable at best. Completion work? Hm.” She pressed her fingertips together, steepling them like a tactician planning a siege. “I know you have… potential. Extraordinary potential. In fact, you have more raw ability than most people I know.”

You nodded again.

“Yet, somehow, this potential isn’t translating into achievement. Isn’t that strange?” Her smile stayed gentle, almost nurturing, as she leaned forward. “I want to help you. To see you thrive. Isn’t that what I’ve always wanted for you?”

“Yes, Mother,” you replied quietly.

She exhaled, satisfied for a moment, then continued. “And yet, I can’t help but notice—your brothers never struggled like this. Hero X, perfect attendance, multiple awards, rescues, accolades…” She waved her hand in a flourish. “Gojo, brilliant, unstoppable, dazzling. And you… well. You are… present.”

You sipped water. Polite. Unflinching. Immune.

“Darling, I love you,” she said suddenly, soft as honey. “But love alone doesn’t achieve results. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Mother,” you replied, perfectly monotone.

“Good.” She set her fork down with a soft clink. “Because love without discipline, without hard work… is meaningless.”

You blinked. Slightly. She interpreted your blink as reflection. You interpreted it as survival.

Your father, silent in his usual corner of the table, finally spoke. Calm. Measured. Direct. “Yes.”

Mother nodded, warm eyes still smiling. “Exactly. Yes. That’s the attitude I want to see. Yes and agreement are important. Compliance is the first step to success. Even if the world doesn’t recognize your genius immediately, you must act.”

You nodded, more slowly this time, because yes was easier than argument, easier than resistance. Easier than being noticed in a household designed to compare and evaluate every action against perfection.

“And let’s talk about work,” she continued, oblivious to the growing weight on your shoulders. “Your assignments. Your reports. Your… attendance. Darling, don’t think I haven’t noticed that your professors have mentioned your ‘unparalleled insight’—when you actually submit anything at all. But insight alone, darling, without execution? It is… wasted.”

“Noted,” you said, sipping your water again. Polite, quiet, precise.

Mother leaned back, satisfied again. “I know you may think me strict, harsh even. But that is because I love you. Tough love, yes, yes. I am preparing you for the realities of the world. And you—my brilliant child—need preparation more than anyone.”

Your father finally shifted in his seat, the soft squeak of leather chair filling the momentary pause. “Yes,” he said. Stoic. The kind of yes that carries more weight than words. Less warm than judgment. Precise. Rational. Calculated.

Mother smiled at him. “See? Even your father agrees. Structure, discipline, execution. It is all for your benefit, my dear. We only want you to succeed. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Mother,” you said again.

Her eyes softened slightly, glimmering with a warmth that could only exist in conjunction with subtle psychological interference. “I know you’ve always had the mind of a strategist, the heart of a scholar, the—oh, the creativity I’ve seen! But you must apply it! Even your siblings had to work, my sweet child. They may seem natural, but natural is cultivated. Every single day, every single task. Even the small ones. You see?”

You nodded. Silence was your shield. Your words were unnecessary here. Every eye contact and polite “yes” a calculated minimum effort.

“I just worry,” she said, a shade darker, though still smiling, “that the world may take advantage of you if you don’t assert yourself. You cannot be passive. Not in this family. Not in business. Not in life.”

You picked up your fork. Noodles. Taste. Nothing else.

“And, my love,” she continued, leaning forward again, warm hands folded over the table, “while I am proud of all the achievements your brothers have attained, I cannot let you remain… stagnant. You must learn to work. You must learn to push yourself. You must learn that love and potential alone do not suffice.”

“Yes, Mother,” you said again, mouth full. Noodles. Satisfying. Human. Mundane.

Her voice softened, almost wistful. “I know I sound harsh. I know it can be difficult to hear. But it is because I love you. I want nothing but the best for you. You are my precious child.”

You nodded, eyes unfocused on her words, mind elsewhere, already planning the next gaming session, imagining your mobile MOBA ranked queue, calculating probability distributions for gacha pulls, thinking about how you’d dominate the jungle again tonight with Arlecchino’s support.

Because while this world, this household, this meticulously curated expectation matrix demanded compliance, demanded comparison, demanded perfection… you had your private universe. Rules there were simple.

Mother kept talking. Father occasionally murmured his agreement. You nodded, yes, yes, and silently counted the seconds until you could escape back into your carefully sanitized domain of screens and games.

The conversation veered into finances. “Darling, it is important to know how to manage wealth. Even though our family has—oh, let’s say considerable assets—knowledge is power. Strategy is crucial. Responsibility is everything. Your siblings understand this, of course. Hero X—strategic thinking, public responsibility. Gojo—maximizing efficiency and personal skill. You, darling… must also learn to apply your genius.”

“Yes, Mother,” you said.

She smiled warmly. “I know you can, my love. I know you will.”

And finally, as dessert arrived, she sighed. “I just hope you realize that love without action is… incomplete. You are capable of so much, darling. I can see it in you. I want you to be better than even your brothers.”

“Mother,” you said softly, finally speaking beyond the ritualized yes, “your concern is noted.”

She beamed, warmth radiating again. “Oh, darling, I knew you’d understand. That’s my girl.”

Father said nothing. As always. Agreement implicit. Stoic. Calculated.

And you finished dinner, quiet, polite, absorbed in the mundane act of chewing, of survival, of waiting for the world—and this house of expectations—to release you back into the only reality that truly mattered: the one you controlled, the one you loved, the one where your hands were clean, your characters were maxed, and your only obligation was winning one more match, pulling one more gacha, reading one more story, untouched by the absurd theater of human ambition disguised as warmth.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Past midnight was your favorite hour.

Not because anything good happened at that time—nothing ever did—but because it was the only hour that didn’t expect anything from you. The city outside finally quieted into a low, tired hum. Sirens downgraded themselves from apocalyptic to mildly concerned. The world, having screamed all day, seemed to accept that no one was coming to save it right now.

You liked that.

You sat cross-legged on your bed, wrapped in a blanket you didn’t remember buying but had somehow emotionally bonded with. The glow of your tablet lit your face in a soft, artificial halo. Your PC was on, fans whispering like conspirators. Steam was open. Sales tab.

“Eighty percent off,” you murmured. “Capitalism apologizing.”

You scrolled slowly, eyes half-lidded. Your insomnia was doing what it always did—keeping your body awake while your soul clocked out for the night and left a sticky note that read back later, don’t wait up.

You clicked on a game description.

Open-world survival crafting experience in a fallen civilization.

“…Pass,” you said. “Too realistic.”

Another.

Epic hero’s journey about reclaiming meaning in a broken world.

You snorted. “Unrealistic.”

You added three indie games to your wishlist anyway. You always did. Games about loneliness. Games about walking simulators. Games where nothing much happened, but the music was nice and the silence was allowed to exist without being interrogated.

Your phone buzzed with notifications you didn’t open.

— Akademiya: Welcome to the New Semester!
— Hero Association: URGENT REMINDER
— Family Group Chat: ❤️❤️❤️

You turned the phone face down.

New semester already, and you were tired in the way that sleep did not fix.

You launched a new game instead.

Character creation screen.

You stared at it for a long moment.

“Do I want to be a sword build or a magic build?” you asked the empty room.

The empty room, as usual, did not care.

You went with magic. You always did. Control. Distance. Observation over participation.

The tutorial began explaining the world’s lore—ancient calamities, cyclical destruction, the burden of existence placed upon chosen ones.

You skipped it.

“Yeah, yeah,” you muttered. “Everything is temporary. Everyone suffers. Press E to interact.”

Your moral philosophy was not complicated.

People thought it was. Professors tried to dissect it. Heroes argued with it. Your mother tried to reprogram it.

But really, it came down to a few simple rules you’d arrived at very early in life, the way one arrived at the conclusion that fire was hot by touching it once and deciding never to do that again.

Rule One: Everything ends.
Rule Two: Most things end badly.
Rule Three: Being powerful does not make you exempt from either of those facts.
Rule Four: Therefore, screaming about it is optional.

You moved your character through the tutorial area with mechanical precision. Perfect dodges. Optimal paths. You didn’t rush, didn’t linger. You let the systems unfold as they were meant to.

That was the thing.

You didn’t hate the world.

You just didn’t lie to yourself about it.

People assumed apathy meant cruelty, or laziness, or moral failure. But to you, apathy was simply honesty stripped of dramatics. The world was beautiful sometimes. Horrible often. Meaningful in fleeting, fragile ways that broke if you squeezed them too hard.

Everyone else kept trying to turn existence into a project.

You’d already read the fine print.

You paused the game and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

Somewhere in the house, old clocks ticked. Generational wealth, generational expectations, generational disappointment all hummed quietly through the walls. Your parents slept soundly. They always did. People who believed in productivity slept well.

You didn’t.

You opened another tab. Steam reviews.

Someone complained that the game was “too bleak.”

You smiled faintly.

“Skill issue,” you whispered.

Bleakness wasn’t the problem. Pretending it wasn’t there was.

You switched to your mobile setup—hands cleaned again, screen wiped down again, ritual complete. Logged into a gacha game.

Daily reset.

You pulled without thinking.

Jackpot.

You stared at the screen for a second, then sighed.

“Of course.”

You weren’t lucky.

Luck implied chaos.

This was just predictability behaving itself.

You didn’t feel joy. Or disappointment. Just a quiet, neutral acknowledgment, like watching the sun rise and thinking, Yes. That tracks.

You upgraded the character automatically, fingers moving on muscle memory. Somewhere, algorithms screamed. Somewhere else, statistics quietly resigned.

You leaned your head against the pillow.

People always asked—implicitly, explicitly, loudly, quietly—why don’t you do more?

Why didn’t you fix the systems? Why didn’t you overthrow corrupt institutions? Why didn’t you step forward, reveal yourself, become the solution everyone desperately wanted to outsource responsibility to?

The answer was simple.

You’d seen what happened when people thought salvation was permanent.

They stopped tending the garden.

They stopped being kind to each other.

They stopped carrying water.

They waited.

You didn’t want to be waited on.

You wanted people to live anyway.

To love anyway. To laugh anyway. To make stupid mistakes and eat late-night snacks and argue about meaningless things and play bad games and cry over fictional characters and get up the next day knowing none of it was guaranteed.

You believed—quietly, stubbornly—that the point wasn’t to eliminate suffering.

It was to sit with it without turning it into a performance.

You believed that goodness done loudly often rotted faster than goodness done quietly.

You believed that saving the world once would do less than letting people save each other a thousand small times.

And you believed—most heretically of all—that rest was holy.

You stretched, joints popping softly.

“Vanity of vanities,” you muttered, half-mocking, half-tired. “Everything is vanity. Also, I want chips.”

You didn’t get up.

You scrolled again.

Steam sale timer ticking down.

You bought a game you’d never finish.

You queued a ranked match you didn’t need to play.

You read reviews written by people desperate for meaning and laughed when they argued about balance patches like it mattered.

It mattered to them.

That was enough.

Outside, somewhere far away, another crisis sparked to life. Another villain monologued. Another hero prepared a speech about justice and hope and sacrifice.

You pulled your blanket tighter and turned the volume down.

Let them.

The world had always been loud.

You preferred the quiet truth that slipped in after midnight, when the masks came off and existence admitted—softly, almost apologetically—that it didn’t have answers either.

And that was okay.

Because in the end, you weren’t here to conquer the void.

You were here to pass the time gently.

To let things be fleeting without trying to nail them down.

You stared at the glowing screen, eyes heavy but mind awake, caught between exhaustion and acceptance.

New semester tomorrow.

More lectures. More expectations. More comparisons. More noise.

But for now—

You queued another game.

And in the quiet hours, unseen and unremarkable, an angel rested—not because the world was saved, but because it wasn’t meant to be fixed all at once.

There was a time to strive.

And a time to log off.

Tonight was the latter.