POV: Kaito Endo
The roof of his aunt's apartment building wasn't much—concrete, some old air conditioning units that probably hadn't worked since before Kaito was born, a rusted railing that looked like it would give way if you leaned on it too hard. But it was private, which apparently mattered when you were learning to summon supernatural energy from your body without accidentally killing yourself.
Night had fallen over Tokyo, the city lights creating a glow against the clouds that never fully went away. Kaito could hear traffic from the street below, the distant sound of a train pulling into the station three blocks over, normal city sounds that felt surreal given what he was about to attempt.
Takeshi stood a few feet away, patient and relaxed in a way that Kaito found mildly infuriating. Akira was perched on one of the air conditioning units, essentially invisible in the shadows despite Kaito knowing exactly where he was. The guy moved like a ghost.
"So," Kaito said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "What's the lesson plan here? Deep breathing? Meditation? Some kind of ancient martial arts bullshit?"
"Actually," Takeshi said with that same gentle smile that made Kaito want to push back just on principle, "we start with understanding what happened earlier. Your essence manifested in response to extreme emotion. Panic, specifically. You need to learn to summon it consciously, which means accessing that same emotional trigger but in a controlled way."
"So I need to panic on command. Great. Very helpful."
"Not panic," Akira said from his perch. His voice cut through the night air with surprising clarity despite how quietly he spoke. "The emotion doesn't matter. Fear, anger, joy—essence responds to intensity, not type. You need to find whatever makes you feel something strongly, then channel that into manifestation."
Kaito laughed, but it came out hollow. "Yeah, well, I make it a point not to feel things strongly. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of my personality."
Takeshi's expression shifted slightly, and Kaito caught something that looked like understanding. "The essence already manifested once. That means the capacity is there, whether you acknowledge your emotions or not. Your subconscious accessed it. Now you just need your conscious mind to catch up."
"And if I can't?"
"Then it'll keep manifesting randomly when your emotions spike," Akira said flatly. "During arguments. During stress. During—" He paused meaningfully. "—whatever you actually care about, even if you pretend you don't. Eventually it'll happen somewhere public, or dangerous, and people will get hurt."
The casual certainty in his voice made Kaito's stomach twist. He thought about the shell that had formed in his room, about how quickly the air had run out, about those last few seconds when the world had started going dark.
"Fine," he said. "What do I do?"
Takeshi gestured to the center of the roof. "Stand there. Close your eyes. And remember what you were thinking about when the essence first appeared."
"I was thinking about broken glass and how much my aunt was going to kill me for shattering a family heirloom."
"Before that. What were you doing before the raven fell?"
Kaito's jaw tightened. He didn't want to talk about this. Didn't want to examine it too closely because examining things led to feeling things, and feeling things was exactly what he'd spent nine years learning not to do.
But the mist had already appeared once. The capacity was there, Takeshi had said. Whether Kaito acknowledged it or not.
He walked to the center of the roof and closed his eyes.
"I was holding the raven," he said quietly. "It was my mother's. She died when I was eight. I don't... I don't think about her much anymore. But the figurine was the one thing I kept, and I was holding it, and my hands were shaking, and I was thinking—"
He stopped. The memory was trying to surface, pushing up from wherever he'd buried it, and Kaito shoved it back down with the practice of someone who'd done this a thousand times before.
"Thinking what?" Takeshi's voice was gentle. Encouraging. Patient in a way that made Kaito want to scream.
"That some things are better left forgotten," Kaito finished. "And then it fell, and the glass shattered, and the mist appeared."
"Okay," Takeshi said. "Now reach for that feeling. The moment right before the raven fell. The shaking hands. The weight of the memory. The—"
"I'm not doing grief therapy on a fucking rooftop," Kaito snapped, eyes flying open. "Just tell me how to make the glowing smoke appear without having a mental breakdown about my dead mother."
Silence. Akira had gone completely still, which was somehow more unnerving than if he'd reacted. Takeshi just looked at Kaito with that same patient expression, like he'd expected this exact response and had already decided how to handle it.
"The essence is connected to who you are," Takeshi said after a moment. "Your subconscious. Your core truths. The things you carry whether you want to or not. You can't separate the power from the person."
"Watch me."
"Kaito—"
"No." He turned away, walking toward the railing. "This was a mistake. I don't need powers. I don't need to be part of whatever this is. I'll just... I'll live with the random manifestations. I'll manage."
"Until you kill someone."
It was Akira who spoke, and the bluntness of it stopped Kaito in his tracks.
"My first manifestation," Akira continued, still sitting on the air conditioning unit, "happened during an argument with my father. We were fighting about something stupid—whether I'd spend summer with him or my mother, which one of them I loved more, typical divorce bullshit. I got angry. Really angry. And I phased."
"Phased?"
"Became intangible. Fell through the floor and ended up in the apartment below. Old woman having dinner nearly had a heart attack when I materialized in her kitchen. If Takeshi hadn't found me, taught me control, I'd probably be in some government lab right now getting dissected."
Kaito turned back around. "Takeshi found you?"
"Same as he found you," Akira said. "Felt the signature. Showed up. Offered help. I said no at first too."
"What changed your mind?"
"I phased during class three days later. Fell through my desk, through the floor, kept falling until I hit the foundation. Took me two hours to figure out how to become solid again. All those people saw me disappear. Saw me as something other. You can't come back from that. Once you're known as the weird kid with powers, your normal life is over."
The weight of his words settled over the rooftop like a physical presence. Kaito could imagine it too easily—the stares, the fear, the way people would look at him like he was a thing instead of a person. He already had a reputation for being deliberately difficult; adding supernatural powers to that mix would make him genuinely dangerous in people's eyes.
"So what—" Kaito's voice came out rougher than intended. "—I just accept that I'll never have a normal life again? That I'm stuck being some kind of—" He gestured helplessly. "—supernatural freak who has to deal with all this emotional confrontation bullshit just to function?"
"Yes," Takeshi said simply. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Normal is over. But that doesn't mean your life has to be worse. Different isn't automatically bad."
"Easy for you to say."
"My parents died in a house fire when I was ten," Takeshi said, and his voice was still gentle but there was steel underneath it now. "I watched it happen. Couldn't save them. Spent the next eight years thinking I was cursed, that everyone I got close to would die, that I was better off alone. Then the Shibuya incident happened and I got these powers, and you know what the worst part was? Realizing I could have saved them if I'd had these abilities back then. That's the weight I carry. Every. Single. Day."
Kaito stared at him. Takeshi had seemed so put-together, so stable. The idea that he was carrying that kind of trauma and still maintaining that patient, kind demeanor felt impossible.
"So yeah," Takeshi continued. "I know about avoiding feelings. About building walls. About pretending the past doesn't matter if you just don't think about it. And I'm telling you from experience—it doesn't work. The past catches up. The emotions find ways out. And if you don't learn to channel them, they'll destroy you."
The rooftop fell silent except for the ambient city noise. Kaito felt something shifting in his chest, some resistance crumbling that he didn't want to acknowledge.
"I don't know how," he said finally. "I don't know how to just... access feelings on command. I've spent years learning how to not feel things."
"Then we start smaller," Takeshi said. "Forget your mother. Forget the deep stuff. Just think about something that made you angry recently. Something simple."
Kaito's mind immediately went to Principal Ishida's office, to that moment when he'd said I've read your file. I know about your parents.
The presumption of it. The way he'd thought reading some social worker's report gave him the right to comment on Kaito's life, to psychoanalyze him, to treat him like a case study instead of a person.
Anger flickered in his chest, small but present.
And his hands started to glow.
The greenish-blue mist appeared around his fingers like smoke, wisping upward in delicate spirals. Kaito's eyes widened and he almost lost concentration, but Takeshi's voice cut through immediately.
"Don't overthink it. Just let it come. Feel the anger. Let it fuel the manifestation."
The mist grew denser, spreading from his hands up his forearms, and Kaito could feel it now—a presence, like having an extra limb that he'd never known existed. It responded to his intent, coiling and uncoiling with his thoughts, and for the first time since this whole thing started, he felt something other than fear.
He felt power.
"Good," Takeshi said. "Now hold it. Just let it exist. Don't try to shape it yet, just maintain the manifestation."
Kaito focused on the anger, on that moment in the principal's office, keeping it present in his mind like a flame he was feeding. The mist remained steady, swirling around his arms, and he realized he was holding his breath.
"Breathe," Akira said from his perch. "If you hold your breath, you'll pass out."
Kaito exhaled and the mist flickered but didn't disappear. He took another breath, then another, falling into a rhythm. The anger was still there, but it was controlled now, channeled, useful instead of destructive.
"How long can you hold it?" Takeshi asked.
"I don't know. How long has it been?"
"Thirty seconds."
Already Kaito could feel the strain. Not physical exhaustion exactly, more like mental fatigue. Like trying to hold multiple complex equations in his head simultaneously. The mist started to thin as his concentration wavered.
"Let it go," Takeshi said. "Just release it."
Kaito stopped feeding the emotion, stopped maintaining the intent, and the mist dissipated like steam. His arms felt strangely light without it, almost empty.
"Thirty seconds," Takeshi said. "That's actually impressive for a first conscious manifestation. Took me three days to get past ten."
"I'm a quick learner."
"Clearly." Takeshi smiled. "Let's try it again. Different emotion this time."
They spent the next two hours on that rooftop, Kaito summoning and dismissing the mist over and over. Each time it got a little easier, like his mind was learning a new pathway, creating neural connections that hadn't existed before. He cycled through different emotions—anger at Principal Ishida, satisfaction from the successful prank, frustration with his aunt's well-meaning concern, even a brief flash of amusement at Hana's too-perceptive questions.
Anything except the deep stuff. Anything except what was really buried underneath.
By the time they stopped, Kaito's head was pounding and he felt exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion. But he could summon the mist almost instantly now, and hold it for up to two minutes before his concentration broke.
"That's enough for tonight," Takeshi said. "You're pushing too hard. Essence manifestation uses mental energy, and you'll burn yourself out if you're not careful."
"When do we train again?"
"Tomorrow. Same time. We'll work on shaping the essence, not just summoning it."
"And when do I get the full explanation? About the Shibuya incident, about whoever's organizing this, about what we're actually preparing for?"
Takeshi exchanged another look with Akira. "When we have our fourth member. When the team is complete."
"You already have someone in mind?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"You'll meet her this weekend," Takeshi said. "For now, just focus on basic control. Everything else can wait."
Kaito wanted to push, wanted to demand answers, but the exhaustion was catching up with him and his head was throbbing and he just nodded. "Fine. Tomorrow then."
He turned to leave, then paused at the roof access door. "Takeshi? Why did you help me? Really. Not the team-of-four explanation. What made you show up at my apartment?"
Takeshi was quiet for a long moment. "Because nobody showed up for me when I first manifested. I had to figure it out alone, and I almost died three times in the process. So when I feel a new signature appear, I go. Every time. Because nobody should have to go through this alone."
The simple honesty of it hit Kaito harder than he wanted to admit. He nodded once and pushed through the door, taking the stairs down to his aunt's apartment two at a time.
Inside, the lights were off except for the kitchen where Aunt Yuki was waiting up, a cup of tea in front of her and that expression on her face that meant they were going to Have A Talk.
"Where were you?" she asked as Kaito tried to slip past to his room.
"Roof. Needed air."
"For three hours?"
"It's a tall building."
"Kaito." Her voice had that edge to it, the one that meant she was worried and trying not to show it. "We need to talk about what happened today. Principal Ishida called. He told me about the prank, about the suspension, about—" She paused. "—about how he tried to talk to you about your parents and you shut down."
"I don't want to talk about this."
"I know you don't. You never want to talk about it. But Kaito, it's been nine years since your mother died, and six years since your father's accident, and you still won't—"
"Because there's nothing to talk about!" The words came out sharper than intended, and Kaito saw his aunt flinch. "They're dead. Talking about it won't change that. Therapy won't change that. Sitting around feeling sad won't change that. So I'd rather just... not."
Aunt Yuki looked at him with an expression that was equal parts frustration and heartbreak. She looked so much like his mother in that moment that it physically hurt to look at her.
"You're so much like her," she said quietly. "Your mother. She was brilliant too. Curious about everything, always asking questions, always wanting to understand how things worked. But when things got difficult, when emotions got complicated, she'd deflect. Make jokes. Change the subject. And I watched it eat at her for years."
Kaito's hands clenched into fists. "I'm not her."
"No. You're not. But you have her avoidance in you, Kaito. And her curiosity. And her brilliance. And I don't want to watch you waste it all because you're too scared to feel things."
"I'm not scared."
"Then what are you?"
The question hung between them, and Kaito didn't have an answer. Or rather, he had too many answers and none of them were things he wanted to say out loud. Scared, yes, but also angry and sad and lost and so fucking tired of pretending he was okay when he hadn't been okay since he was eight years old and the world had caught fire and taken everything that mattered.
The mist was trying to appear again, responding to the emotional intensity, and Kaito shoved it down with effort that made his headache worse.
"I'm going to bed," he said. "We can talk about my suspension tomorrow."
He didn't wait for her response. Just walked to his room, closed the door, and locked it behind him.
The broken glass from the raven was still scattered across his desk. He'd have to clean it up eventually. For now, he just stared at the pieces, at the way they caught the light from his desk lamp, and tried not to think about what his mother would say if she could see him now.
Stay curious, she'd always told him. Don't let the world make you boring.
But the world hadn't made him boring. The world had made him broken. And staying curious meant examining the cracks, and examining the cracks meant feeling the pain, and feeling the pain meant remembering things that his eight-year-old self had decided were better left forgotten.
Kaito climbed into bed without cleaning up the glass, without changing into pajamas, without doing any of the normal routine things that might have grounded him. He just lay there in the dark, feeling the phantom presence of the essence just beneath his skin, waiting.
Sleep didn't come easily. When it finally did, his dreams were full of fire and screaming and blue eyes watching from the darkness, taking notes like his suffering was data to be collected and analyzed.
He woke up three times before morning, each time with his hands glowing and mist spreading across his sheets before he could get it under control.
By the time his alarm went off for school—which he couldn't attend thanks to the suspension—Kaito felt like he'd been awake for a week.
His phone buzzed with a text from Takeshi: Rooftop. 8 PM. Bring questions.
Kaito stared at the message for a long moment, then typed back: I've got plenty of those.
The response was almost immediate: Good. So do we.
And despite everything—despite the exhaustion and the headache and the dreams he couldn't quite remember and the broken glass still scattered across his desk—Kaito felt something that might have been anticipation.
He had questions. They had answers. And maybe, just maybe, understanding what was happening to him would hurt less than continuing to run from it.
Maybe.