The taste of pennies—that sharp, copper tang of blood—was the first thing I noticed. It was warm, leaking out of my nose and ears in a steady drip that thudded against the floorboards.
Find the source... The winged woman's voice was still rattling around inside my skull like an echo in a cave.
The door hit the wall with a bang. Lori and Jasmia were framed in the doorway by the hall light. I was slumped against the side of the bed, shaking, my hands stained with that oily, ink-black residue my power always leaves behind.
"Are you okay?" Lori was on the floor next to me in a second. His hands were usually so steady, but they were trembling as he cupped my face. "Tsukia, talk to me. Say something."
Jasmia knelt by the shattered remains of the flowerpot. She looked at the shriveled, gray petals and then at me, her eyes wide with a flicker of terror she couldn't quite mask. It was a weird feeling—seeing people actually scared for me, instead of just scared of me.
"I lost it," I whispered, my voice sounding like gravel. "It felt fine at first. I had it. But then the weight... it just shifted. I didn't know how to turn it off."
Lori didn't flinch or pull away. He grabbed a small towel and started gently dabbing the blood off my skin. "It's okay. You aren't doing this alone anymore. We'll find a way to anchor it."
"You wouldn't believe what I saw if I told you," I muttered, leaning into his hand even though every instinct told me to run.
"Next time," Lori said, his voice getting that playful edge back just to kill the mood, "we train together. No more solo disasters,
alright?"
The Shopping Trip
"Alright, let's move out!" Lori shouted a few hours later.
I pulled on some leather gloves, hoping a physical barrier might keep the "leak" in my skin from acting up. I kept my hood pulled low and my hands buried in my pockets as we walked the two kilometers to the edge of town.
The store was a cramped, depressing little place that smelled like stale cigarettes and floor wax. We moved through the aisles, grabbing meat, some greens, and—because Lori is a child—three packs of cream-filled cookies.
"Man, being a hero is a rip-off," Lori grumbled, staring at the receipt as we stepped back out into the sticky afternoon air.
We didn't even make it ten steps before the vibe changed.
Five guys were blocking the sidewalk. They weren't soldiers; they were just street-trash, the kind of predators that can smell when someone's out of their element. The leader had a jagged scar across his throat and was busy cracking his knuckles.
"Nice haul, kids," he sneered. "Drop the bags and the wallets, and maybe we won't have to break anything today."
"Why the hell would we do that?" Jasmia snapped. Her hands were already starting to spark with that faint, healing glow of hers.
"Quiet, brat!" the leader barked.
Lori stepped in front of us, his face turning to stone. "You picked the wrong day to play thief."
Flames started licking at Lori's palms, but the guy didn't even blink. He raised his hands, and the humidity in the air started twisting into pressurized spheres of water.
"Fire doesn't beat the tide, kid," the man smirked.
He lunged. Lori met him with a heavy fire fist, but the guy turned into a liquid blur, dousing the flames with a wall of water. It was a stalemate, but Lori was losing. He was distracted, constantly looking back to make sure Jasmia and I were okay.
"Jasmia, Kia! Get back to the base! I'll—"
A blast of high-pressure water caught Lori right in the chest. He went flying backward, slamming into a stone wall with a sickening thud. He slumped to the ground, coughing up red, blood matting his hair from the impact.
"Don't underestimate a Hydro-master," the man sneered, walking toward Lori's shaking body.
"SHINJI!" Jasmia screamed.
My breathing hitched. Something inside me just... snapped. It wasn't just anger. It was the "Disaster" inside me recognizing a threat and deciding to end it.
Lori's POV
My vision was swimming in red. I'm an idiot, I thought, tasting blood. I can't even protect one girl. I looked up, waiting for the hit that would finish me, but the world had gone dead silent. The water-user was backing away, his face pale.
"What... what the hell is that?" he stammered.
I forced my eyes to focus. Tsukia wasn't the girl I'd shared a popsicle with anymore. Her hair was floating, waving around like she was underwater. Her fists were pitch-black, the veins finally swallowing every inch of her skin.
She didn't run. She blinked. One second she was ten feet away; the next, she was towering over the guy. Her eyes were solid, abyssal black. She grabbed him by the throat, lifting a full-grown man into the air like he weighed nothing.
"Who are you?" the man wheezed. His friends were already hauling ass down the street.
Tsukia leaned in. Her nails had turned into jagged, obsidian talons. She looked at me, and for a split second, I thought she was going to kill me too. But then she reached out and touched my cheek with her free hand. It was ice-cold.
"A friend," she whispered. Her voice sounded hollow, like wind through a cave.
The man fumbled for a phone in his pocket. "Help! Someone... contact the Government! There's a monster—"
At the word Government, Tsukia's aura went from black to a murderous, bloody red. The phone exploded into dust before he could finish the sentence.
Then, a jagged spear of dark energy formed in her hand. She didn't just fight him. She erased him. Over and over, the spear blurred, tearing through the air until the man was just a memory. Blood splashed the pavement, but Tsukia didn't even blink. She looked like a god of the harvest, reaping a soul that didn't matter.
"Humans are foolish," she groaned, her voice vibrating through the ground.
Tsukia's POV
STOP! Screamed at myself.
THIS ISN'T ME!
But I was just a passenger in my own body. I watched my hands move, watched the blood spray, and felt a dark, sick spark of satisfaction. The "voice" wasn't whispering anymore; it was roaring.
"TSUKIA!" Lori's voice finally broke through the static.
The darkness pulled back like a falling tide. The black spear dissolved into smoke. I looked down at my hands. They were filthy. Red. I scrambled away from the body, my heart trying to beat its way out of my ribs.
"Kia!" Jasmia cried, her face white as a sheet.
Sirens started wailing in the distance. The sound hit Lori like a physical blow. Despite his literal wounds, he scrambled up. Jasmia's hands glowed, the skin on Lori's side knitting back together in a frantic, messy heal.
"Tsukia, we have to go!" Lori demanded.
I couldn't move. I was a statue of ice and blood. Lori didn't wait. He scooped me up, carrying me into the shadows of the woods just as the blue-and-red lights crested the hill.
Police Headquarters: 4:30 PM
The phone at the front desk wouldn't stop ringing. Officer Miller leaned over, holding a donut as he picked it up. "4th District, Miller. What's the emergency?"
"Help... please..." a raspy voice came through. You could hear heavy breathing and wind.
Miller straightened up. "Sir? Stay on the line. What's your name and location?"
"Jason... near the... old market..." the caller managed. Glass shattered in the background. "There's a girl. She's... she's not using magic. It's something else. She's crazy... contact the Govern—"
The line cut out with a sharp pop of static.
"Sir? Jason?" Miller waited, then hung up.
He looked at Lieutenant Ferguson, who was walking by with some files. "Hey, Lieutenant. Just got a weird one. Guy named Jason down by the market. Sounded like a mugging gone sideways. Mentioned a 'crazy girl' and started rambling about the Government before the line died."
Ferguson didn't even slow down. "Probably just another street fight. These kids get a spark of fire or water and think they're at war. Send a car to check the alleys, but don't hold your breath. It's Friday, everyone's looking for trouble."
The Aftermath
We only stopped when the sirens were a memory. Lori set me down, his breathing ragged. Jasmia stood a few feet away, her eyes darting between Lori's wounds and my blood-stained jacket.
I stared at my hands. I'd stabbed that man seventy-eight times. I knew the exact number. I'd felt every single one.
"Are you okay now?" Lori asked, his voice low and cautious.
"Yeah," I said. My voice was a mask—cold and distant. I rubbed the dried blood off my fingers. I couldn't afford to be a victim anymore. If this was my reality—if I was a killer—then I was going to be a killer who survived.
"Good," Jasmia muttered, her voice shaking with fear and maybe a little jealousy. "Now Lori won't have to carry you like a bride."
"Let's get back to the basement," Lori said, picking up the grocery bags we'd somehow held onto.
We walked in silence. The blue sky above felt like a joke. I looked at the trees and realized my "adventure" hadn't just started.
It had claimed its first life.