"Commander Seishō… we're going to need more time before we can master Sky Shift. We've been grinding at it for three days. We can't take it anymore… and it's already dark outside. We can barely see anything."
Kaito spoke with what little dignity he had left. It wasn't much.
Mizunashi locked eyes with him.
The same cold, cutting stare that could silence an entire room.
"Listen, Kaito. I need reliable soldiers for the new division. If you're incapable of executing a clean Sky Shift, you will never be part of it."
Behind Kaito, the other agents stared at the ground. Worn out. Some of them looked like the living dead: torn uniforms, trembling knees, ragged breathing.
"So. Do you want to join the division or not?"
The question snapped like a gunshot.
Shame, or maybe fear, forced several agents to look away.
Kaito still tried.
"Commander, this training area is too small. A simple stadium isn't enough to learn an aerial technique at this level! And with all the obstacles… it's impossible! We're…"
Mizunashi cut him off.
"You're what? Too incompetent? Too weak? Too lazy? Or too busy inventing excuses to avoid mastering a movement that's essential for any Epsilon worthy of the name?"
Kaito's face collapsed.
So did the others'.
"But, Commander…"
Beep.
Beep.
Mizunashi's wrist bracelet flashed a violent red.
He raised his hand immediately. Silence.
The command center's voice blasted through.
"Omega Agent, absolute emergency. We have detected a Soul Consumer. Classification Epsilon-2. I repeat: Epsilon-2 alert."
Mizunashi brought his wrist to his mouth.
"Copy. I'm on my way."
He cut the transmission, turned to his men, and announced:
"You're lucky. I'm going to show you again how Sky Shift is supposed to be executed… this time under real conditions."
He inhaled deeply.
Pivoted toward the open stretch of the stadium.
Lowered into a slight crouch.
The flow gathered beneath his feet.
The air contracted into a point so dense it rippled as an almost visible wave.
Then
BOOM.
Mizunashi vanished in a blast of air that shook the entire ground.
The shockwave launched Kaito several meters backward.
In the sky, Mizunashi wasn't flying.
He was running.
Under every step, the air compressed brutally, crushed by his Seimei into an invisible but solid surface for a split second. Each impulse created a fleeting foothold, destroyed instantly, replaced by the next.
One step. An explosion of air. Then another.
He propelled himself from compression to compression, rebounding through the void as if sprinting along a road only he could see. With every foothold, the atmosphere screamed, pulverized under pressure.
This wasn't a jump.
It wasn't flight.
It was running through the air, repeated at an absurd speed.
His body cut through the sky like a living shell, accelerating even more, chaining Sky Shifts without the slightest loss of speed.
Nakano was coming fast, unreal fast.
And in his mind, one detail looped again and again.
(They detected the Consumer… but what is this second Seimei?)
(This signature… it's unknown.)
(I need to get there. Now.)
He accelerated again, his body becoming a streak of light carving across Tokyo.
Each impulse beneath his feet produced a miniature sonic bang.
Below him, Tokyo sprawled with surreal clarity. Every street, every roof, every axis printed itself into his mind with a precision even military maps couldn't match.
(A Soul Consumer… it's been a while.)
(This won't be a simple fight.)
His gaze locked onto a specific zone.
(Nakano.)
Mizunashi leaned forward.
In the same motion, he crushed the air beneath his feet.
The compression detonated behind him like a silent blast, and his body shot downward, accelerating again, catapulted by his own force.
This wasn't a fall.
It was a propelled dive.
He abandoned the successive footholds of Sky Shift and condensed all the thrust into a single brutal, taut, lethal trajectory.
The ground rushed up at an absurd speed.
(…Found it.)
Mizunashi entered a full dive, arms extended forward like a living spear.
His body vibrated under the pressure of the air he was tearing apart.
(At this speed… it's going to feel this.)
He arrived as a streak of light so fast even the sound stayed behind him.
Impact happened before the crash could exist.
The human projectile pierced the creature in one blow.
The abomination exploded instantly, pulverized into a rain of organic fragments that scattered across the street.
And despite the detonation, Mizunashi landed on his feet, perfectly stable, like he'd simply stepped off a stair.
He looked up.
Prepared for a second assault.
Then he stopped.
The creature wasn't reforming.
Not even the beginning of regeneration.
It wasn't trying.
It couldn't.
A violet mist coated the remains, seeping into the still-warm fragments.
A mist that had nothing to do with a Soul Consumer.
Mizunashi advanced slowly, one step at a time, evaluating every detail with methodical precision.
(Why isn't it reforming?)
(A strike like mine should slow it down… not erase it.)
(It can't be a normal Consumer… can it?)
He froze.
The creature began to break down.
Its matter crumbled into purple dust, vanishing as if it had never existed.
A phenomenon he'd only seen after extremely long fights, but here there had been no fight.
Just one strike.
Mizunashi narrowed his eyes at what was left.
A detail.
A fragment.
A familiar shape inside the warped structure.
(Wait… I know this.)
(This face… this silhouette… is it… her?)
His heart skipped a beat, a rare event for him.
He turned his head.
A few meters away, he saw a body nearly broken apart.
A young man still breathing despite the impossible.
A blank stare, drifting between life and death.
Mizunashi walked closer, his shadow falling over him.
He recognized him instantly.
This time, the shock pierced even his professional mask.
"Impossible… you're… Sakuya?"
But Sakuya never heard the end.
His eyes closed, finally dragged under by the coma.
Then, slowly, a violet light began to seep around his body.
A dense, vibrating aura that made the air shiver.
Mizunashi stiffened.
(What is that?)
(This aura… what is it?)
(It can't be his Seimei. That's… impossible.)
And for the first time in years, Mizunashi Seishō felt something he hated feeling.
Uncertainty.
He lifted Sakuya onto his shoulder, but one detail caught him off guard.
(Why can't I sense this aura?)
(It should be Seimei, shouldn't it?)
(What the hell is wrong with his body?)
The questions would have to wait.
Mizunashi launched himself into the sky and headed straight for Kamakura.
The air vibrated around him, almost tearing.
Within seconds, he landed in front of the N.A.S.C Emergency Center in a shockwave that made the windows tremble.
He tore through the corridors like a living current of air, dodging agents without touching them, leaving a trail of dust and compressed wind behind.
He burst into the Omega containment room.
The doctor on duty flinched.
Mizunashi shoved Sakuya into his arms like he was setting down a bomb about to go off.
"Treat him right now!"
His voice snapped.
"He survived a Soul Consumer, and there's something abnormal with his Seimei. MOVE!"
The doctor froze for a moment, unable to process what he was seeing.
"I… this boy… he…"
"GET THE EQUIPMENT READY!" Mizunashi roared.
The scientist tore himself out of his shock and rushed to the metal cabinets.
Doors slammed.
He came back with his arms full of gear:
Flow stabilizers, metallic rings fixed to wrists and ankles to prevent Seimei overflow.
Energy compression bands, black strips that tighten the aura around the body.
Regulating nanite injectors, small gray syringes designed to restore a runaway flow.
A mobile containment core, a cylindrical unit placed near the bed that absorbs excess Seimei like a lightning rod absorbs lightning.
Chromatic sensors, disks that measure the color, density, and "temperature" of the flow.
The kind of arsenal they only pulled out when everything could literally explode.
Mizunashi laid Sakuya on the reinforced bed.
The moment his hands left the body, he staggered.
His legs gave out.
He dropped to his knees.
Cold sweat slid down his back.
He tried to push himself up, but his arms trembled for no reason.
(What…?)
(Why am I empty… like my energy was ripped out of me?)
He looked up at Sakuya.
Around the unconscious boy, the violet aura was growing denser.
It seemed to beat.
Like a heart learning how to breathe.
The chromatic sensors activated on their own.
They flashed red.
Then violet.
Then… a color no machine was supposed to display.
The doctor took a step back, pale.
"…That's impossible…"
The aura kept pulsing.
Light at first.
Then deeper.
As if something, somewhere, was waking up.
Mizunashi closed his eyes for a second, breathless, throat dry.
(What are you, Sakuya…?)
The containment core started to vibrate.
Then it started to scream.
The violet aura continued to pulse.
A breath.
A flow.
Then a beat.
The containment core growled.
The doctor retreated again, one hand braced against the glass, instinctively, as if distance could protect him from something that had no shape.
The violet light thickened, grew denser, and lost all physical logic.
It wasn't just surrounding Sakuya anymore.
It was warping the air.
The walls vibrated.
Ceiling lights buzzed and dimmed, as if something was draining the light itself.
The doctor went white.
"It's… it's devouring ambient energy…"
The chromatic sensors displayed incoherent symbols.
Impossible colors.
Gradients technology had never been designed to read.
Then, suddenly
Beep
Beep
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep
Every machine saturated at once.
The containment core overloaded.
Its casing cracked in a clean horizontal line, like an invisible hand had crushed it from the inside.
The aura was roaring now.
Not a sound.
Not a vibration.
A sensation.
A primitive, crushing pressure, like an entire ocean pressing down on the chest.
Mizunashi tried to stand.
His muscles refused.
(This… this isn't Seimei.)
(Seimei has never done this.)
The doctor backed into the wall, unable to look away from the bed.
The aura reached the ceiling.
Then passed through it.
It didn't burn anything. It ignored matter, as if it moved through an idea instead of material.
The entire room turned violet.
Shadows stretched longer, heavier, almost liquid.
And then
Vuuuuum.
A deep vibration ran through the building.
Files fell off shelves.
Alarms screamed on the upper floors.
The aura contracted.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Total silence.
Then it exploded.
Not outward.
Inward.
As if the entire universe, for a fraction of a second, inhaled toward Sakuya.
The metal bed twisted.
The walls buckled inward.
The floor cracked into a spiderweb beneath a force that had no right to exist.
The doctor screamed, throwing his arms over his face.
Mizunashi felt his heart miss an entire beat.
(This… this could erase an entire city if it continues…)
Light vibrated.
Colors inverted.
Violet turned white for an instant, a white so bright it became black.
And at the perfect center of that frozen storm
Sakuya.
Unconscious.
Body shattered.
Breathing fragile.
But something was stirring deep inside him.
A threshold was being crossed.
The doctor, half collapsed against the wall, whispered:
"This… this isn't human… what are we… what are we looking at?"
Mizunashi forced his muscles to respond.
To stand.
To prepare.
Because he had understood something abominable.
That aura…
This wasn't a normal Seimei surge.
It was a birth.
Something had awakened inside Sakuya.
Something even the N.A.S.C had never considered.