Kurayami Akira learned quickly that silence was safer.
The orphanage was not cruel—not openly. The building was clean, the meals were warm, and the caretakers spoke with practiced gentleness. But there was a distance in every interaction, a hesitation that never quite faded.
People watched him.
Not constantly. Not obviously. But enough.
Akira noticed it in the way conversations paused when he entered a room. In how the director's gaze lingered a second too long on his arms. In how the other children sat just a little farther away from him during meals.
Observation, he realized, was a kind of judgment.
He did not blame them. If he were older—if he remembered more—perhaps he would have been afraid too.
At night, the dreams continued.
They were not memories. Not truly.
They were impressions, emotions that didn't belong to a four-year-old body. A sense of having lived already. Of having walked crowded streets, sat through lectures, stared at screens glowing late into the night.
The name Sato Haruki surfaced again and again.
It felt… distant.
Like reading someone else's diary.
Akira would wake up with the strange certainty that he had once been twenty-one years old, average in every way that mattered. No special talents. No great ambitions. Just another person drifting through life.
That life was gone.
This one was not a second chance. It was something heavier.
During the day, he tested himself carefully.
Never in front of others.
A bite to the inside of his cheek when no one was watching. A pinprick from a splinter he pretended not to feel. Just enough blood to see if it still responded.
It always did.
The blood obeyed without hesitation—lifting, shaping, hardening in the air with terrifying ease. It felt natural in a way nothing else did. As if his body had been waiting for permission.
He never let it form fully.
Never a blade.
Never anything sharp.
He forced it back every time, even when his hand trembled from the effort.
This power isolates you.
The thought returned often, heavy and certain.
He didn't know where it came from. He only knew it wasn't wrong.
One afternoon, the director called him into her office.
She was a tall woman with graying hair pulled into a tight bun, her smile polite but strained. Papers were stacked neatly on her desk—files, reports, assessments. Akira recognized his own name on more than one page.
"Akira," she said gently, folding her hands. "Do you understand why you're here?"
He nodded. "Because I'm different."
Her expression faltered, just slightly.
"We prefer the term 'special circumstances.'"
Akira lowered his gaze.
The director sighed. "Doctors will continue to monitor you. It's nothing to be afraid of."
That was a lie.
Akira could tell the difference now.
She leaned forward. "You must promise not to use your… ability. Not without supervision. It's for your safety. And for the other children."
"I won't," he said quietly.
She searched his face, perhaps expecting fear, or confusion, or tears.
She found none.
After that meeting, the rules became stricter.
No sharp objects. No unsupervised medical kits. No rough play. No sports. No accidents.
The other children noticed.
They whispered.
"Did you see his arm that day?"
"My brother says he's dangerous."
"He doesn't cry. That's creepy."
Akira listened without reacting. He learned their habits, their routines, their moods. He learned which caretakers were kind, which ones were cautious, which ones were afraid.
Observation went both ways.
One boy—a year older than him—threw a rock at his head during recess.
Akira didn't move.
The rock struck his forehead and blood trickled down his face.
There was a scream. A caretaker rushed forward. Panic spread.
Akira stood still as the blood slid down his nose, warm and familiar.
For a moment—just a moment—it lifted.
The air seemed to tighten. The blood quivered, pulling away from gravity, begging to be shaped.
No.
He clenched his jaw and forced it back into himself, ignoring the sting as it soaked into his skin.
The caretaker never noticed.
But the boy who threw the rock did.
He stared at Akira with wide eyes, pale and shaking.
He never came near him again.
That night, Akira lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
He knew where he was now.
This was not just a world with superpowers. This was a world built around them. Categorized. Regulated. Feared.
Heroes were real.
Villains were real.
And children like him were risks waiting to happen.
The realization settled over him with quiet clarity.
This is the world I watched once.
The name surfaced in his mind without effort.
A story about heroes. About a society that smiled brightly while hiding its cracks. About people who were born wrong and told to be better anyway.
He didn't remember the ending.
That bothered him.
But maybe that was for the best.
Because knowing how a story ends doesn't tell you how to survive it.
Akira rolled onto his side, curling his fingers slowly.
Blood responded beneath his skin, subtle and obedient.
"I won't run from this," he whispered.
He would learn.
He would train—carefully, quietly, relentlessly.
Not to be a hero.
Not yet.
But to understand the thing that lived inside him.
Because one day, observation would turn into judgment.
And judgment would turn into action.
When that day came, Kurayami Akira intended to still be standing.