Chapter 1
She was hidden beneath a stack of clothes in the closet of her mother. She heard her cries coming from downstairs.
She loved her dad. Despite the crisis, despite the catastrophe of Kyushu he was still an earnest person who tried his best to help. He was a politician and had enough money to give their family a comfortable live. They were a happy family.
Her mother had said that she was going to take care of them. She knew she was lying to both of them and she was old enough to know what was currently happening to her mother.
Her father would sometimes show her his work and a few times he had taken her to a charity event. She admired his conviction that everything would be alright. He told her often that the other politicians were to scared and stubborn to do the right thing.
She cried silently trying to suppress her sobs. She tried to not think, to not think about what was happening to her mother, what they would do when they became bored of it, what they would do to her if they found her and most importantly not to think about her father.
She would often tell her dad that she believed in him, that everything would go his way that they would finally listen. She often had heated arguments with her classmates about what the government should do. Every time she would tell them what her dad told her.
The last one proved to be impossible. He hadn't even tried to apologize. He fled in the only way possible, leaving herself and her mother behind. The only thing he left behind was an opened and crumbled letter.
She lived a happy and live, convinced in the ideals from her dad. That was until one day she came home from school and found the cold body of her dad in the kitchen. Next to him lay a letter which did more to destroy her happy little world than the death of her father.
A letter from a person she didn't know, while congratulating her father on falsifying records from the government warned him that he shouldn't have tried the same with the money records of his benefactors, the yakuza. He owed them double the sum he had stolen from them and he would face additional punishment for his disloyalty.
Her dad- her father had committed suicide to escape the retaliation and left his daughter and wife to the wolves. She couldn't believe it. Her father with ideals to free the country from its misery was just another tool for the yakuza. He stole money from both the government and the yakuza to life a comfortable live.
The criminals where laughing. Her mother could only whimper, having not enough energy left to cry out loud. Her father had betrayed her. She was still lying there hidden in the closet trying to not make a noise as tears ran down her face. 'How did this happen?' she asked herself 'Are we going to live? What else will happen to us? How will this continue?'
The next thing she saw was confusing, things that shouldn't be possible.
And then she saw destruction.
Her head felt like it was trying to explode.
She was lying on her futon in a small abandoned warehouse. She shared the place with a few other kids. Most were younger than her, only one was older. Some knew each other beforehand, while the others, like herself, found this place on their own. It was their little sanctuary. It was a safe place where nothing could reach them.
She didn't know it was possible to have such a headache.
Everyone was silent, even Ayano. She was the first person to use this hideout together with her uncle who was paradoxically even younger than her. As her parents died she had moved to her uncle and his abusive parents. Shortly after they ran away and took refuge in here.
She had the headache since yesterday, the day she arrived here.
There were four others with them. One of them was Shuuya, a friend Ayano made on a playground. He came here after his only parent; his mother was murdered by a random burglar. The others were like her. They lost everything they once had and found this little place on their own where they would protect each other.
Thanks to the headache she couldn't even sleep.
Takane was the oldest of them. She fled here from a different city to escape her almost-murderer. Tsubomi, who killed her psychotic father after he murdered her sister, found them while she searched for a place to rest. Kyouske was a homeless orphan and had lost his only friend not so long ago.
Every one of them had powers. Every one of them was alone. Every one of them simply wanted to hide from the cruel world that gave them their trigger events. Everything they had was stolen. The only thing they could do was to protect each other.
And through it all she still carried a secret, a secret about the greatest betrayal and the greatest catastrophe.
Over the time they got to know each other better. Ayano was charismatic in an optimistically way. She convinced to others to play with her and slowly the mood among them improved. Now they were even sometimes laughing together.
Ayano let the others know that she harbored the desire to become a hero. While most of them didn't share the desire, Takane agreed with her and she found herself reminded of the idealism she had shared with her father which she hadn't really let go even since that day.
After that the three of them found themselves sometimes together discussing ways to became heroes. What originally began as another game soon became a serious discussion as the seventh member joined. They realized that about a third of the people with powers in this city were with them.
The problem was that they almost certainly would lose in a fight. Most of them could only join their group because they had a power that helped them finding them in the first place, like her.
The soon decided to play at their individual strengths. Tsubomi and Shuuya were perfect for infiltration, Ayano and Kyouske could quickly gather information out of people, Takane was with her power an excellent hacker, their new member was a tinker with a focus on information, Hibiya, Ayano's younger uncle, could search and track people and she was their strategist.
"If we cannot fight then let the people fight who can", was the consensus. What at first sounded like a good plan, was quickly turned over its head when Ayano said: "Then let's cover the whole prefecture."
What at first sounded completely unreasonable had a surprising amount of good points. The problem lay in the execution. It was her who made the proposal that would shape the group for the years to come.
"If we are going to play an active part then we should also be open for recruits. We can make it like in the beginning. We provide a sanctuary for those with powers who have nowhere else to go. For those who don't want to join the Yakuza, for those who can't or don't want to fight alone."
Several other proposals were made and incorporated like "Let's screen the new ones before recruiting." And "Let's hide as much information about us as possible.
The last one also gave inspiration for their group's name.
They would call themselves 'Blindfold'.
It was several months, almost a year later. Blindfold has almost managed to cover his second prefecture, if you could define covered as 'has one or two members in the problem areas, trying to disrupt the local villains'
They had recruited dozens of other people during that time and their popularity was still rising. While they didn't actively show themselves their results were visible for all.
Most of their members were currently in different cities but a few remained, either because they organized and/or didn't need to be anywhere special like their tinkers or simply because they didn't want to do anything.
It was after all one of their best selling points that all work was voluntary.
It was during that time that she told her leaders and friends, Ayano and Takane about the secret she found out during and shortly after her trigger.
After she made her revelation, they were interrupted by someone completely unknown.
It was the first time she did something completely by herself.
She had failed.
She had left the group with a carefully laid out plan.
It had completely collapsed.
She had left Blindfold because she wanted to use her strength to the fullest.
She had wanted to operate in a way Blindfold could not.
Her friends had depended on her to complete her part.
She had failed them.
She had trusted in her power.
Why had she trusted in her power?
Why had she trusted in something Scion out of everyone had given her?