Shinwa learned the first rule the hard way.
The weight doesn't disappear when you leave.
He felt it on the walk home—subtle, delayed, like pressure lagging behind motion. The city hadn't noticed him yet, not properly, but something had shifted. Conversations paused a half-second too long when he passed. A pair of people at a bus stop stopped talking altogether, eyes tracking him without knowing why.
He kept his hood up and his pace normal.
Don't react, he told himself. Reaction feeds it.
By the time he reached his street, the pressure thinned. By the time he slipped inside his house and locked the door, it was almost gone. Almost.
Shinwa leaned against the door and breathed until his pulse slowed. His muscles still felt tuned—coiled, ready—but the heaviness had receded into something like an aftertaste.
Residuals.
He didn't write anything down yet. Instead, he washed his hands, changed clothes, and sat on the edge of his bed, grounding himself in routine. When he finally opened the notebook, his handwriting was steadier than he expected.
POST-TEST NOTES
Effect persisted after exit
Weight faded gradually, not instantly
Strongest during observation
Stronger subject first → faster escalation
He paused, then added:
Did not want to stop
That line sat there longer than the rest.
Shinwa closed the notebook.
The rumors didn't start with him.
They started with the men who ran.
One told it as a joke at first—too loud, too fast, laughter cracking at the edges. Another swore something pressed on his chest, like the air itself had decided he wasn't welcome anymore. By morning, the story had already lost details and gained shape.
A masked guy.
Didn't talk much.
Hit like a truck.
Didn't chase.
Didn't kill.
That last part mattered more than Shinwa realized.
Fear spreads faster when mercy is unexpected.
By the second night, Shinwa felt it before he saw anything. A tension in the streets near the docks. People looking over their shoulders more often. A gang member arguing with himself out loud about whether to carry a knife.
They're thinking about me, Shinwa realized.
Not clearly. Not accurately.
But thinking.
He turned away.
Not tonight.
At home, the weight tested him again.
Shinwa stood in his room and focused—not on people, but on memory. The moment of impact. The silence afterward. The way the others had decided he was something they couldn't handle.
Nothing happened.
No aura.
No pressure.
Just the baseline reinforcement—his body steady, strong, present.
"So it's not memory," he murmured. "It's context."
He tried something else.
He opened his window.
The night air carried distant sounds—traffic, voices, the city breathing. Shinwa focused outward, imagining eyes on him, attention brushing past his window like static.
A faint pressure answered.
Barely there.
He shut the window immediately.
The pressure vanished.
Shinwa sat back, heart steady but thoughtful.
Proximity.
Immediacy.
Uncertainty.
Those mattered.
Not belief in a legend—belief in a moment.
The third night, he went out again.
Same clothes. Same mask. Different area.
He didn't intervene right away. He watched. Listened. Let the city show him where tension pooled naturally. When he finally stepped in, it was quick—two men, startled, already halfway to running.
The weight surfaced faster this time.
Not stronger.
Faster.
Shinwa disengaged immediately.
He let them go without throwing a punch.
Still, the pressure lingered longer on the walk home.
He wrote until dawn.
NEW VARIABLES
Prior rumors accelerate activation
Fewer witnesses required
Emotional state of observers matters
Repetition increases responsiveness
He underlined the last line.
Repetition.
Shinwa leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
This wasn't linear growth. It wasn't strength in the usual sense. It was… conditioning. The world learning how to respond to him, faster each time.
That scared him more than the fight had.
Elsewhere, far from quiet houses and handwritten notes, a pattern began to irritate professionals.
Police reports that didn't line up.
Injuries inconsistent with weapons.
Groups dispersing without escalation.
No fatalities.
No calling card.
No claim.
Just absence.
A senior officer rubbed his temples and muttered, "That's not normal."
Back in his room, Shinwa pulled the mask from his bag and set it on the desk. He looked at it for a long time before turning it face-down.
"I'm still in control," he said, testing the words.
The house didn't answer.
But somewhere beyond walls and streets and intention, something quiet and accumulating shifted its weight—just a little—toward recognition.
And Shinwa, unaware of how quickly stories harden, went to sleep believing he was still ahead of the consequences.