Retsu was slumped in his chair sitting next to his lawyer who was standing, trying to plead his case. He let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. His black hair covering half of his face. He was still in his school uniform, a black jacket and black pair of slacks. But his shirt was a little unbuttoned and his tie was loose.
"So as you can see, council, his is a situation merely of wrong place, wrong time…." His lawyer finished explaining.
This time that was actually true, but by the look on the chief of police and head of the council's faces— and all of the other faces, nobody cared.
"Souta is a menace!" One of the officers objected.
"How can you expect us to believe that this time it was an accident?!" Another man said, slapping his hand on the table.
There it is. No need to wait for a verdict. Poor lawyer guy. What was his name again? Tony?
"Mr. Takehito, is that the end of your attempt to defend the boy? We should make a verdict now, there are other people waiting to use this courtroom." The opposing lawyer added impatiently. He stood next to the man who owned the pet store Retsu had apparently burned down.
Retsu looked down at the mushroom in his pocket, he shifted it in his left hand, it looked like any normal mushroom, this was really what all of this fuss was about? He had escaped his handcuffs long ago, but nobody had noticed. They hung loosely in his grasp.
The memory of what had happened at the pet store was still fresh in his mind. But nobody had believed it. He had found the mushroom on the ground and at first, he thought it could be a fun way to get high- or it could kill him. He hadn't really cared which.
But when he ate it, he suddenly felt power overcome him like he had never felt before. Visions filled his mind, and he saw the whole universe in an instant. It must have been the most trippy he had ever been.
As if he gained the power of the gods in some story to see all of his past lives and everything that went on in them in an instant. And then, just as quickly as the experience happened, he felt normal again.
He tried eating more of the mushroom to experience that again, but the feeling only happened once.
So naturally, he fed it to some fish at the pet store, wanting to see what would happen. How was he supposed to know they would explode?!
And now he had ended up here, somehow having burned down a whole pet store with flames that took 10 hours to put out. The owner of the pet store continued glaring at him from time to time, making sure he got the harshest sentence. Stupid. Stupid mushroom. Retsu was going to end up in juvy all over again.
He rotated the mushroom in his hand before crushing it. The pieces fell through his fingers to the floor.
"We the council find the defendant guilty of arson, and we sentence him to 15 years in…."
"Sir! The boy has done it again!" An officer suddenly shouted, interrupting the verdict, his face full of horror as the mushroom fell to the floor, the pieces melting like flaming plastic right through Retsu's fingertips.
He should have been terrified like he had been at the pet store, but instead, his face was reflecting the light with a glow and a sinister look filled his eyes.
The flames landed on the floor and began spreading, engulfing the boy and the furniture around him in flames.
Then the courthouse was burning.
The boy felt the flames lick his body and it didn't burn him at all.
As the other people cleared out the courtroom, screaming as some of their clothing caught fire with the un-extinguishable flame. He realized that he now had the power to create fire. What was this odd magical item he had gotten his hands on?
Was he still tripping?
Retsu's handcuffs melted in his grasp. The molten metal dripping through his fingertips.
"It looks like I've been let off with just a warning." He mused and then he slipped out of the building and was gone.
Free at last. He grinned to himself and the breeze hit his face and his black hair whipped out of his eyes, exposing his pale skin covered in scars. He had been to juvenile hall for teenagers so many times and always loved the feeling of walking free. It gave him a thrill that his world would open so many possibilities. Just as soon as the cold air had hit his face, rain washed over him too.
Then suddenly he was awake, his whole feeling of freedom crashing down on him and his memories of that day and the reality that someone had dumped a bucket of water on him slapped him hard in the face.
"Gaaaa!!!!" He hissed angrily. He was back in a cell. Only this time it wasn't juvy and it wasn't even prison. Retsu was now 25 and he was in a whole other world of problems.
It had been ten years that he was locked up here and for the first time in his life he hadn't managed to escape.
Defiantly, he dried himself off, his control over the flame was second nature to him and he hated water now too. That was probably why the man had woken him up that way.
"The Luna summons you, filthy human." The guard snarled. Then he grabbed Retsu by the hair and yanked him to his feet. His chained up arms and legs hung limply for a few seconds jangling loudly as the chains hit the floor and then he was on his feet following the guards like a mangy dog.
He dispised the wolf men who captured him that day ten years ago in the rain. Where they had come from, he wasn't sure, apparently the mushroom didn't just burn things, it burned away the veil that was over the eyes of the rest of the world. It made him a target for the people in this world. It made him able to see them for what they were. And now he knew he wasn't tripping. This wasn't a dream. This world was real.
What was this world? It was the same as the one humans lived in blissfully unaware. Unaware that cryptids and monsters lived right among them the whole time, in territories they didn't perceive were occupied, and no military could infiltrate. A world where a rebel troublemaker like him should have fit in but instead he had gotten the short end of luck. He was less than a slave. And ever since he had never been outside.
The guards shoved his head forward when they saw him hesitating and he stepped out of his cell ahead of them and followed the lead guard down the corridor. For ten years he had never left the cell. Why now?
He passed dozens of werewolves who snarled at him from their cells and grimaced as the feeling of rain once again hit him in the face, only now it was unwelcome and unfamiliar. His grime on his body washed away from his tattered clothes as best as they could, but in all reality, he was far from clean.
"Where are you taking me?" He got up the courage to say as angrily as he could so he didn't show his fear.
"Luna wants you executed." The guard said.
Fear shot through him. "What did I do?!" He demanded as he tugged at his chains to yank himself free. Pain shot through his whole body. He knew this would happen but he didn't care. The chains were dark magic and not actual metal. With his new ability to burn things using his hands he had nearly escaped early on and all meltable or escape able constraints were replaced with ones even he hadn't figured out how to hack yet.
The guard kicked him to his knees. "Don't get cocky boy, you're going whether you like it or not."
Retsu spat blood on the ground angrily as the man had made him bite his tongue. Then he stood back up. "Take me back to the humans!" He plead, "I haven't done anything wrong!"
"Enough!" The guard barked at him. "I'll knock you out if I have to but you're going and I don't want to carry you so you'd better walk. I'll break your legs before I carry you." He added the last part to make his point more threatening.
Retsu followed him after that. The taste of his blood still in his mouth. His eyes glared at the back of the guard's head until they arrived. It looked like something from a midevil exocutioner's movie. There was a wooden stage for everyone to see and cobblestone paved the roads and the plaza. The buildings were like stone or stucco and plants were hanging from the windows.
Was he going to be hung in front of everyone?
The Luna or so she was called stood on the platform waiting for him. It seemed she was the one who was going to do it.
The guard dragged him to kneel before her and chained his hands to the ground so he couldn't stand up. She was holding a sword in front of her with the blade still in its sheath as if she were leaning on it. It was huge. He wondered if she could really lift it with her lean frame. She wasn't a small woman. On the contrary, she was muscular and tall enough to demand respect, but still. He questioned if even he could lift it.
He hung his head, letting his hair hang over his face as the rain continued to bathe him.
"Why bathe me if you're going to kill me?" He mocked any god who was watching. Steam arose off of his body as he heated up, drying himself before he could get wet. Now the drops just sizzled and vanished when they touched his skin.
The woman frowned, 'Shameless.' She muttered in her mind, tightening the grip on her sword.