Chapter I

That Summer Heat Five Years Ago.

In his home, his quiet home, Mitsuru Kano was on his computer. High noon was shining into his window. He then stood up, a thousand unrelated tabs on the screen of school research, useless wiki pages, and music. To the other side of his room was his keyboard. He felt like playing it.

What had his mom made for him today? Mitsuru had forgotten by the time she and dad left for the city.

Getting to the hard part of the song, Mitsuru tripped on a note. He went to play it again but hit the same wrong note. Going to repeat for the third time, Mitsuru's hands stopped in front of the keyboard. He played it very slowly, at half the speed. He managed to play it correctly the second time. He then did it once more, slightly faster. Then faster, but Mitsuru tripped up, so he replayed it slightly slower. Mitsuru continued at that speed until he finished the whole song. Before leaving, he played a melody of a song he liked. Mitsuru stood up, then walked to the kitchen.

He prepared the chicken, which had already been marinated since this morning. Mitsuru bobbed his heel up and down to a song in his mind.

CRASH! Mitsuru turned around to the sound of something outside of his home. It sounded like something heavy had landed outside. He went to investigate.

Opening the door, Mitsuru saw embers, carried by the wind, drift across the sky. To his right was a little crater of molten earth. Mitsuru stared at it for many seconds, unsure of how to react. Far in the distance in the center of the southern suburbs, there was a bright red fiery glow. It was like a pit of Hell had opened up, and forth came many flames that drifted like fireflies. Another eruption occurred as meteors flew through the sky, reaching close to him in the northmost suburbs, miles away. Mitsuru quickly retreated into his home. Running past the big window in his living room, Mitsuru was even more aghast when the trees surrounding his neighborhood began to catch on fire and spread rapidly.

He needed to call emergency services immediately. Running down the hall into his room, he snatched his phone. It was merely three percent. His heart raced as Mitsuru fumbled to dial the number. Before the operator could even finish her sentence, Mitsuru yelled into the phone. A fire. There was a fire, and if he didn't leave soon, his home would be engulfed. He quickly hung up before dialing his mother. He screamed the same thing. Two percent. Mitsuru needed to call his friends. He stomped the ground in rage when his finger hit the wrong digit as he quickly gathered his essentials. They would be near the bus stop. His phone had died.

By the time Mitsuru was outside, the leaves, so dense that they covered the sky, rained down with fire. He had to get through this and all of the lower suburbs. He jumped onto his bike. There was no time to waste.

Where did this fire come from? Mitsuru had come close to dying on multiple occasions. The twisting maze of the suburbs would lead him straight into a burning house or over the edge of a rail.

"Someone! Mom?! Dad!? Help! Please!" Mitsuru heard a girl crying in the distance; she was deep in the fire but close. If there were survivors to be rescued, Mitsuru felt obligated to help.

"If you can hear me, yell as loud as you can, okay!? Where are you right now?!" Mitsuru cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Behind the house! To your left—I can see you!" Turning to his left, Mitsuru saw the girl trapped in a house. She looked barely in her double digits, crying with her stuffed toy. The front of the house was torn off by bright red debris, and a burning plank blocked her way.

He needed some way to break it, but he sure wasn't going to kick at it. As he thought, he swung his heavy satchel around. "My satchel." Mitsuru grabbed it by the strap. He brought it over his head and then down with a crash. The wooden beam split into two. "Quickly!" Mitsuru cleared a big opening, extending his hand out. Without hesitation, the girl listened. "Where are your parents?!" Mitsuru worriedly questioned. If they weren't here, then he couldn't just leave her.

"My mom went to a neighbor's house for a bit. My dad's at work." The girl whimpered, pointing deeper into the fire. She pointed to a particular house with a red car, but Mitsuru had run by that house, and the bus stop, only a little bit away, was in the opposite direction.

"No, we can't go back." Mitsuru stared at the wall of fire, that rose high into the sky. he would surely die

"But Mom, we have to–" Mitsuru felt his being wither with each word he said. "We have to keep going." The girl only froze in horror, ready to ball out. Maybe there was something he could do. If he was fast enough...

"Can you run!?" Mitsuru stared into the teary eyes of the girl and stammered. She was terrified to speak. "I said can you run for fucks sake!" Mitsuru screamed without a sense of manners.

"Yes!"

"Then run. Turn the first left and keep going. My friends are at the bus stop. They'll take care of you, alright? Go. Now!" Mitsuru pushed her away and sprinted into the fire in search of her mother. He would not look back. Mitsuru had his eyes look onto the house. There was strange noise beyond the flame: metal clashing metal, concrete being shattered. The girl had pointed towards a red-roofed home. "Anybody here!?" Mitsuru got a reply around the back.

"My leg...my leg is pinned!" A woman cried from behind the house. Mitsuru rushed to the back. The woman, the girl's mother, was stuck to the concrete wall of the house. There was no chance that Mitsuru could lift it by himself.

"Ms, are your legs crushed?"

"No, I'll be able to walk."

"Can you push against it? Use your hips?" The woman tried, but it barely budged. It was propped up at an angle, and there was a gap. Mitsuru searched through the rubble, and he found just the right object. Mitsuru ran up to the woman with a study and long wooden support beam that was untouched by the fire. In his mind, he remembered a lesson from physics class.

"The lever works by trading force for distance. So the longer the arm, the less work you have to apply to move the same load." Mitsuru jammed the beam into the gap. He put his foot on the arm and stomped down. It was just enough for the mother to crawl out.

"Your daughter. I found her and got her out of your house. She said you were at neighbors. Where are they?" The woman looked dismayed.

"She was crushed. There's no way to save her. My daughter, you said you saved her? She's alright?! Where is she?!"

"I told her to run to the bus stop, the one leading out of the suburbs. She should be with my friends—" The woman embraced Mitsuru tightly, and began weeping into her arms.

"Thank you so much." He returned the gesture. His legs felt fatigued from all the running. His throat was dry and wheezy.

"Please, just go. You don't have to worry about me." The woman insisted that she help him. The house had completely fallen over. Mitsuru felt weak. Above his head, many burning beams fell from the sky. They were spears. It was so out of place—so surreal—and it was coming at them. Without saying a word, he pushed the woman away and felt the sharpest pain of his life, but only a mere moment.

His eyes felt weighted beyond belief, and his body felt stuck to the earth. But a sudden realization hit him. Mitsuru jolted up, though still feeling like he'd fall back down at any moment, twitching to keep himself awake.

"Where…?" Mitsuru looked around him. Everywhere was pitch-black. So his eyes were closed. He looked down and saw himself, his shirt, pants, and satchel. His eyes weren't closed. "What?" He was too tired to assess his situation until—

"BOO!" Mitsuru figuratively wet himself. He jumped off the ground with a racing heart and eyes that had been ripped open.

"What is wrong with you?!" He tensed up hard after that spook, and his tiredness subsided. Then his mind began to function, and he realized where he was at. He remembered the events leading up to this point, right down to the last second.

Before he could speak anything, his heart began beating faster, and his eyes widened at the vast landscape of pure nothing around him. He bit himself in the arm hard. Unless he was dreaming pain, this wasn't a dream. Dead people don't dream. This is Hell—fuck! Oh God please no!

"Calm down. Calm down. You're not dreaming, but this isn't as bad as it seems." A voice spoke out to him. Mitsuru jerked at the voice again. "Who?! Where?!" Mitsuru spun around to see no one.

"You can only hear my voice, not see me. Please, take a deep breath and relax, and I'll tell you all you need to know." The voice tried calming down the boy like a caretaker would a child.

"Yeah, yeah." Mitsuru, unchallenging, followed. It was as if he had lost all sense of reality. The boy wasn't in reality for all he knew.

"First things first...you are dead right now." The voice reiterated.

He knew he was dead. "Alright. That's cool. I know. Just tell me where I am. Please!" Mitsuru snapped. He might as well be losing his mind.

"...You are in my realm of no name. Neither Heaven nor Hell, Paradise nor the Underworld, and not ready for rebirth, but here with me." None of those at all?

"...who are you?" Mitsuru asked with his mouth anxiously open. There was no place as empty that he'd heard of, except for no place at all. A void.

"All you need to know of me is that I am a voice in this lonely world." Mitsuru wasn't sure exactly what that meant. He looked at the open darkness. "Why am I in this void? Why is there no one around?"

"The truth is. I don't quite know why you are here. I've never had anyone here, not like you. I don't know if there's a particular reason." The voice answered. "But I'm sure this is not your final destination."

Mitsuru was unsure of what he meant. "My final destination…in the afterlife?"

"I don't know, either. There has to be a reason to be here conscious, no doubt. This isn't a place one just stumbles upon. Surely, there must have been a reason you were called. Whatever that reason is, we'll be sure to find it. I know humans tend to go mad in isolation. I would not want that to happen to anyone."

Mitsuru had not expected that sort of empathy.

That's optimistic, Mitsuru thought. I would rather not spend an eternity here. Maybe this is a sign of an afterlife. Mitsuru's thoughts began to trail off, a sign of idleness and boredom. But the more Mitsuru thought about his current circumstances, he felt a pain in his chest.

Mitsuru began to walk around. The ground below him was pillowy. Oh, what am I going to do now? Mitsuru felt his mind ruminate. "Do you know what happened to my mom and dad? My friends too? What about that kid? No, that's a weird question."

"Would you be glad to know that they are safe?"

"They are? Thank God. If they died in that fire…I don't know what'd I'd do." Mitsuru had to meet them again, to say and do all the things he hadn't. "But can I even leave this place?" Mitsuru pondered in his mind. How could I leave them behind?

"Think carefully. All you know and love believe that you have died. What would happen if you had come back? It's been two years. They've all moved on. My apologies, but if you are considering finding them, please, let it go." Let it go? Let it all go away?

"Can I even go back? You know what's going on in the real world. Is there some way that you're seeing past dimensions? Can you travel across dimensions?" Mitsuru couldn't imagine a life so alone.

"…yes. I can connect here to the real world. But once again, I advise that you do not seek them. It would be too troubling." Mitsuru wasn't thinking clearly. He wanted to see them again. But...

"I have to meet my friends and family. It's been two years. There's so much we missed. My friends are seniors now. I have to ask about that…" Mitsuru looked down at himself, his fifteen-year-old self. The voice was right; he hadn't changed a bit. What would happen if they saw him like this? Mitsuru couldn't go back, not as a person of the past.

I need to sit.

He wanted to smash something to pieces. The pain of reality hit him harder than ever. He felt himself push gently downward. A cushioned chair had magically appeared.

"Here, sit down. In this world, time flows slowly, so slow days here are second in reality. But sometimes, it rushes and days here are years. Where we are at, you have all the time in the world. How could anyone live so alone?" The voice talked as if he had lived for thousands of years in the very solitude he wondered about.

"You can't tell me to do that. That's just not fair. That's not fair!" Mitsuru quickly stood up, grabbed the chair, and hurled it far away. He then went to it and picked it up. "How do you do it? How do you live so alone?" Mitsuru asked.

"I am no human. Maybe it is my nature to be lonely. Sometimes, nothing happens for so long that I fall asleep. I can never tell if I am or not. Everything looks the same, without or without sight. I simply accept my conditions." This emptiness was Mitsuru's worst fear. Now it was his reality.

"Just accept it." Echoes of Mitsuru years passed by in his head. Was this a test after death? He looked down at his feet. Everyone would die one day. After that…He covered his eyes, then looked high above.

"About my apparent loss of sight, at this point, you could pull down your pants and defecate and urinate all over the ground. I'd never notice even if it was in front of me."

Mitsuru's eyes shot wide open, and he burst into an uncontrollable laugh. It brought him down into the chair. He couldn't have been more caught off guard.

Mitsuru calmed his breathing. When his laughter subsided, Mitsuru understood, now, where he stood. But at least, he had to see one more time before he could begin to move on. "There's still something I have to do. I know you can read my mind. Look, I won't go do anything stupid. It's just giving a final goodbye"

"…very well. I'll be watching over you in silence." Mitsuru made a perplexed face at that statement. Then, he felt everything in the nothingness around disintegrate into nothing. All his senses dulled to nothing, and he became weightless, adrift.

"I hope something will happen, so we can spend our days content."

Sensation. The waves of sound, smell, and sight crashed against his brain. He jerked awake once again. The woods around him were overcast and rain heavily beat the ground. His gray hoodie was splotched with mud and grass, and by his hand was his satchel.

I think I know where this is, but...it feels like it's been so long all of a sudden. It was as if everything was slightly off. He stumbled through the forest with himself braced against the trees. These woods, he recalled, were close to his neighborhood. The forest ahead began to thin out, and Mitsuru heard the sound of a passing car.

He was in the middle of a woody road, one that he remembered. Mitsuru turned left towards his neighborhood. The rain began to make him cold, he was still far from the school. What time was it? What day was it? Mitsuru saw the first house. They really haven't changed, Mitsuru thought nostalgically. They were all small single-story homes, reminding him of the normal suburban life he lived. In the first house, he saw lights on, but the driveway was empty. A lone woman he could not recognize did her daily chores through the window. She reminded him of his grandmother and the occasional peace in his life. Weekday? Mitsuru quickly left to not be spotted. Before he headed for the school, Mitsuru looked to his right.

In between the south and northern suburbs, was a church. It was the reason that they moved here. Having been born to a second-generation Japanese-American mother, and an American father, Mitsuru was born into a religious household. Whether or not these beliefs were real at this point stirred in his mind. But, for now, he stepped forward. There was a small plot of land for deceased members of this church, one being his grandmother.

Walking up to the grave, Mitsuru read the name on the grave.

"Maru Kano." In respect of her, he recited a prayer. Glancing to his right, Mitsuru's attention had been caught. It was his grave. Mitsuru went to take his phone out to take a photo, but when he tried to turn it on, Mitsuru remembered that the phone had run out of battery long ago. Mitsuru shrugged. Maybe some other day. As he left, he turned back looking at the crucifix at the top of the building. What do You have in store for me this time?

As the sky began to clear, he passed the southern suburbs. They were the polar opposite of the northern suburbs with bigger houses and no woods. Mitsuru reached the gates of the school he had graduated from long ago, Keisei Junior High School. If he was still alive, Mitsuru would have been starting his senior year. Huh, they replaced the windows. Mitsuru glided his fingers over the cold steel gate. He could faintly see the current classes going through their lectures. Even after many disasters, the city and the whole world kept moving forward. Content with what he saw, Mitsuru lowered his head. Letting out a sigh, he pulled away from the steel bars, then turned away.

Shido Itsuka rested his head against his hand, slowly being lulled to sleep by the recital of passages from dull books. Looking out the window, he saw bright sunlight reflecting off the puddles, and a lone boy, walking away with a straight back.

Author's Note:

For those who recognize this account, this is the rewrite of my first story, A Spirit Unlike Any Other.

For those who haven't heard of me, that story is still up for you to read, and it is a prequel to my other story, The Shadow of War. As a warning though, it's very old and of poor quality. I will be removed once this rewrite is finished.

Like the original, this is an AU fanfic that will loosely follow the story arcs of season 2 of Date a Live with twists that come with having a new character. Though I do not plan to overshadow the plot of Shido and sealing the Spirit, Mitsuru's story should have equal time in the spotlight that will bring the two together. That is my goal with the rewrite.