Through the rift

The academies said they were protecting the world.

They were lying.

When portals began tearing open reality, humanity's answer was control-five powerful academies built to classify, train, and weaponize those who awakened abilities. Students were taken. Families were separated. And anything labeled unstable was erased.

Kiyoto was one of those mistakes.

Marked by an unknown power known only as Black, he survives what no one else does-and learns too late that survival comes with a cost. When he discovers his sister is alive, imprisoned, and being sold as a weapon, Kiyoto makes a choice that turns him from student to fugitive.

Branded The Oni, hunted by bounty hunters, soldiers, and the academies themselves, Kiyoto runs-not to escape the world, but to change it.

Alongside his friends-each growing into their own strength-he builds something the academies never intended:

a refuge.

a resistance.

a future where people aren't tools.

But saving others means becoming the monster they fear.

And when the academies prepare for war, the question is no longer who is right-but who will survive.

A dark fantasy / sci-fi progression novel filled with brutal battles, emotional bonds, moral conflict, and slow-burning power growth, this is the story of found family, inner darkness, and the cost of choosing compassion in a cruel world.