Stunned. Shocked? Fbbergasted! Searg fer words did nothing to improve the mental state of Yuki. Even processing what he heard left him rewinding to firm his own sanity, and her’s. Which staring at Ayumi’s face, didn’t even bat an eye. Given that she lied pletely unflingly to him about other things, could he really trust her face?

  He just needed a better expnation. “Uh, what? If you’re looking to pitch a manga cept I point you to some offices.”

  An unamused scowl redrew Ayumi’s fabsp; She crossed her arms and stared back at him. “I’m being serious.”

  “Think about what you’re saying! I could probably easily find half a dozen manga with a simir setup! If yoing to just lie, try to be a little mrounded.”

  “Are you denying what you said earlier?”

  “I was expeg something that actually makes sense! We don’t live in a fantasy, as much as the two of you seem to think I believe we do. This is the real world, save the tall tales for someone mullible.”

  A dragged out sigh escaped her lips. “This is more troublesome. For someoh their head in the clouds all the time, you’re being very inded.”

  “Sorry for not believing super powers exist. What’s the real story here? Flying maes and 3D projectors?”

  “You would believe sce expin what you saw?”

  “Smoke and mirrors is a cssibsp; Teology is the more rational expnation.”

  Ayumi struggled to hold back the amount of frustration and disgust surfag. “...smoke. and. mirrors.” Cheg the ers and street, people walked everywhere. It was getting to evening as she reminded herself. She weighed the responses against the mission objective. Nothing would proceed, especially not the goal, if he remained unvinced.

  itting to the course, she grabbed his wrist. “If you need proof to properly listen to me.” She marched firmly between the restaurant they just left and the door bookstore. A darkened alley gave her the secrecy she needed. ‘Would it be any different if he still didn't see me as a childhood friend?’

  He had a pretty clear sense of what she po do. Any effort he made to try to pull his arm free of her hold failed. Ayumi’s fingers had turned into a lopletely incapable of being broken or squeezed through. ‘I just wish she would make sense. As wonderful as something pletely fial as having super powers would be cool, that’s not how the world works. So I don’t know why she’s going about this i dream. I never knew she was like this.’

  “This isn’t the pce for a full expnation, but this should hopefully vince you what is reality.” She released his hand and turo face him with only a meter between them.

  Crossing his arms, he tio have skepticism painted over his fabsp; “Show me yic show.”

  A slight twitch hit her eyebrow as she fought to keep her posure with him. “Just don’t move.” At her feet the ground distorted into a series of ripples. Expanding outward for only a few meters, not even reag the backs of the buildings, the asphalt surface returo its rigid state. “Jump.”

  “Huh?”

  “Jump. Just humor me.”

  Yuki shrugged, fused by her request. However, there was no harm in it. Strange as the act seemed, it left him a little curious. Bending his knees a little to it to something that bordered a serious attempt, he leapt.

  Nothing strange about the jump, at least in his mind.

  “Now what?”

  “You haven’t noticed? You’re not toug the ground.”

  Immediately looking down, he saw the grouh him, but a good quarter of a meter distance separated his feet and asphalt. Across from him, he could see Ayumi no longer meet his eyes straight. She had to look up a little. Kneeling dowouched the air where his feet stood, but his hands went straight through the air as it should. Defying any cept he had on how air worked, he tapped his foot meetiance as if it were ground.

  A wrinkle carved through his br to uand what happened. Under any number of stories he read, this made sense. Reality? He struggled to find a reasonable answer. ‘I almost feel the smugness from her. I don’t know how this is possible. But I also didn’t know how that sand guy did what he did. I just expected an ahat fit with the ws of reality.’ Peares at his feet only deyed his return to Ayumi.

  Closing his eyes, he returo stand fag towards his friend, maybe friend, person of unknown in. He deyed. No doubt, she k too. Still he did it regardless.

  Seds into minutes.

  It became awkward in silenbsp; A creeping itch at the back of his neck just taunting him to turn as if in a horror movie. The jump scare waited for him. Nothing would happen until he gave into the iable. Resist however he might, the truth remained. Or the ck of a truth he could find.

  Exhaling suddenly broke the awkwardness. “Fine! I don’t know how you’re doing it!”

  ‘Despite that he still is refusing to accept what I’m telling him.’ It didn’t take someone of her training to read that. He made no efforts to hide his tinual denial. The stubbornness he dispyed began to surprise her more than frustrate. This sort of rea never came up in any of her forecasts. ‘I guess there’s still more I don’t know about him…’

  With no ceremony, the force that kept Yuki in the air disappeared. While he recovered from the surprise she sidered the pn. Then she remembered something. “Where do you think that sakura pedal came from that Saki found in your hair?”

  “Sakura?” Yuki had to think for a moment. It then fshed through his mind the moment from the m. Both an out of season blossom and ohat should have been impossible to find in his neighborhood. “You’re saying that’s the same thing?”

  “It was a small hint of your power surfag. Untrolled maions are on signs in those that have started to have it awaken. The subscious has a strong influen our power, which is why it must be trolled or it will bee a threat to everyone around you.”

  Chapter 3 - A Fantasy of Reality

  Resting in bed, deep in thought, the distant pyful sounds of Ken barely even reached his ears. All of his thoughts trated inward towards the eg words. Ever since spoken they echoed within his heart, a pluck string that never ceased.

  Still rejeg Ayumi’s cims, he returned home. Despite that, he found himself with a heavy oppressive weight surrounding him. A twisting and ag burning filled his stomach that made him lie down. Nothing improved the feeling.

  ‘She’s just getting in my head…’ Repeated words. Each time did nothing to improve his growing disfort. It only bothered him that it even troubled him to start. A pletely fial tale with him at the ter, he’d have to be pletely disillusioo believe it.

  Why did he even give it a sed thought? What about it made him hesitate?

  Spinning like a top, it cycled around in his miedly. A turn asked the question only for the urn to repeat it. Stu a loop, he id in his bed inescapable and mute. An end would never be reached from where he sat. That much he knew even as such things were rhetorical.

  More impressive, it forestalled his desire to read. It didn’t even e to him as a thought. Stray thoughts couldn’t escape the tumultuous waves which crashed around the bulwark of his mind. Any attempt would he titanic will to weave the bythrine chambers that ected between where he mentally lived and the external world beyond.

  Nothing could achieve such a feat.

  Everything suddenly popped like a soap bubble. Reality whipped harshly back as Yuki gasped with surprise. For a split sed, he didn’t even know where he was. The light in his room blinded him. An all too familiar boung in his bed eventually told him everything that he o know.

  Right, ten year olds existed.

  Ken stood on his bed frozen in position with Yuki staring up at his little brother. The expression he carried ged quickly from something closer to an animal caught i to one of happiness aement at a job well done. Even if that job did mean the rough waking of Yuki. Off to the side, safely and firmly rooted to the floor, Jun made his own personal effort to wake him up by shaking the mattress.

  “I’m guessing Momo sent you?”

  “Yupper! She wanted help with dinner, but wouldn’t let us!”

  Yuki looked over to Jun, seeing him silently nodding in agreement with Ken’s veyance of the situation. “Yeah, probably for the best.” He pulled himself up and lifted Ken up to let him back down to the floor. “She knows you only want to help, but you’ll have to wait until you’re a little older.”

  “Aww, but I reach the ter now!” he decred, boung up and stretg out his arms to demonstrate his reach.

  Getting out of bed, Yuki patted the two on the head. “And Momo’s very proud that you . But you don’t want to make your sister angry by not listening to her, right?” Both nodded quietly uanding the weight of the words. “Don’t worry, after we eat y! So be good until then.”

  “Okay…”

  “Run along.” Watg the two scurry off to their room politely gave him a bit of relief. Back to reality, he stared at the stairs down into the living room and pondered for a moment his sister at the end. The length to reach her seemed to stretch out as he thought about Ayumi’s words. Shaking his head, he tried to carve out that part of his worry and partmentalize that away locked in the vault of his mental bank.

  Spping his cheeks, he jump started everything to paint over his face the smile everyone knew from him. “Right. Back to reality.” The long stairs snapped back to their true length. Etched in with warm light, it provided some calm to him. Yuki walked down into the living room and turhe er towards the kit.

  With an L-shape couch ag as the divider in the room, he approached the back third of the main room of the ground floor. A more open yout, the kit separated itself with ceramic tile and an isnd with stools on the far side away from the stove. Off in the er, the dining table stood mostly empty with a few notebooks and papers left by their younger siblings.

  Sizzling and warm aromas of spices filled the air as he stepped into the territory of Momoko. Looking around at the current state, fish cooked oove top while a small array of greens id out on the isnd still uncut. Momoko actively worked something in the deep pot slow cooking, likely for luomorrow.

  Stepping in around her, he immediately went to work chopping up the green onion. “I sent them off to their room to py.”

  “Thanks, they were getting rowdy.”

  Pausing oting, he turned back over to the stove and grabbed the cooking chopsticks pushing around and turning the fish. Stretg out his hand, Momoko handed over a small prep dish that he poured in shifting around the cooking food. “All things sidered, I think that’s better thaernative.”

  She stepped away from the pot and took over the chopping as they tiheir cooking danbsp; “Yeah…they bounced back quickly. Though I worry if that’s a good or bad thing.”

  “Not really sure we’re qualified for that. But we just have to do the best we . That was our promise.”

  A heavy sigh that carried an unspoken amount of weight came from Momoko. She tio chop in silence as they worked together to finish the meal.

  Outside a kilometer away, two shadowy figures stood from the edge of the cliffside road dowhe residential neighborhood below. The taller of the two spoke with a deep rich effortless timbre, “The first attempt failed. Though you were expeg as much.”

  The short and softer spoken, but with a voice from deep within, figure answered, “Yes, the pn remains unged. You better have more success. Time is not with us.”

  “As you and. For our future!”