Waking up after that strange dream, I realized that I had felt more refreshed than ever before. I didn't feel the usual lethargy after waking up at such an early time, nor did I feel like wanting to get some more shut eye. No, it was as if a load that I didn't know was weighing down on me was finally lifted and I didn't know how to feel about that.

That dream though... It was definitely strange, I'm sure of that. The dream felt oddly realisic, like I really was in the dream and wasn't just an odd spectator. I could see, feel, and hear everything properly. It didn't feel off at all. And that's exactly what's off about it. It was too real to be just a dream. But if it wasn't a dream, then what is it really?

Those humanoid shaped lights illuminated the barren darkness, what's even stranger is the fact that from what I could tell that part was the only thing I could remember from the dream. Trying to recall it would give me nothing but a light headache.

I sat up on my bed to look at the clock that's on my bed side. It said that I still had about 3 hours before being late would even be a problem. Satisfied, I got up from my bed to change out of my sleepwear and into something more suited for exercise. I took out a matching pair of black jogging pants and black t-shirt. My wardrobe mainly consisted of black clothing, with a handful of really dark blues and purples in there somewhere.

What? I just think really dark colors are awesome so I opted to but mainly black clothing. This of course lead to me being a bit lacking in certain other attires but sacrifices must be made on the path I am on. Once I was appropriately dressed, I exited my room and started descending the stairs in order to get a nice glass of water or two from the kitchen.

I grabbed a nice clean glass from the cupboard and filled it with water to drink. The feeling of the cold liquid running down my esophagus immediately removed any traces of sleepiness (if any) with in me. I made a habit to do this in the morning in order to replenish the fluids that I had lost by sweating all through the night. Due to the fact that I almost always never spend any time in my room, I didn't opt to buy a fan or an air conditioning unit. This of course made it so the only source of ventilation in my room would be the window.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. But at night? Under the confines of my soft blanket, my body can't help but sweat. If you're thinking that I should just sleep without a blanket, my immediate answer would be no. If I could help it, I would always sleep with a nice blanket around me, but I know that would only be another dream in my imagination.

Exiting through the front door, I couldn't help but marvel at the sight. The sun, barely coming up at the horizon bathed the once black night in a bright yellow hue, similar to the sight you would be greeted at a sunset. The moon and the stars, still visible and shining brightly, gave the scene a nice touch. All in all, it was a calming scene that I would always take in for a minute or two everyday and would never get tired of it...

Snapping myself out of my funk, I turned towards the empty street, ready to start my exercises.

After my exercises, I quickly headed home to rinse myself off of my sweat and odor to make sure that I look semi-presentable at school. After that I put on my school uniform and skipped eating breakfast at my home as always, only opting to make my lunch and grab my allowance. With my parents returning late last night, the fridge was now stocked with food and a bit of money was now on the dinner table. Once all that was done, I grab my trusty duffle bag and headed for the front door.

"I'm heading out!" I shout out, knowing that nobody was going to reply. No one has done so in a few years, but I still did it anyway silently hoping that someone would come out an reply. As always nobody did so.

Once outside, I went on my usual route to school, one that would pass by a convenience store where I would buy something for breakfast. As I walked, more and more students would pass by me, obviously heading towards their respective schools. Most of them were actively conversing with each other, only a few outlets who had no one to talk to at the moment, myself included.

"What's got you down so early in the morning?" A distinctly feminine voice chided begin me. I only know one girl who would actively try to talk to me, so armed with that information I decided to turn around and greet said person.

"Good Morning Nishimura." I greeted.

"Good morning to you too Minoru- Wait a minute. What did you just call me?!" The smile on her face disappeared right after she realised what I had just called her.

"Hmm? What's wrong Nishimura? Are you feeling sick this morning?" That irked her even more if her narrow eyes and strained expression was anything to go by.

"That! You called me Nishimura!" She pointed accusingly towards me. Luckily, I already slowed down my walking speed which lead to us being behind the crowd of students I was in earlier.

"What's wrong? That's your name isn't it?" I asked innocently.

"It's not! My name is-! Wait..."

Akane finally took a good hard look at my face. Right there, a smug smile rested. After receiving this new information, Akane decided that physical violence was the only way to keep me in line.

Suffice to say, that wouldn't be the last time I'd get beaten up by a girl, intentionally or not.

Once she calmed down a bit and reigned in her urge to unleash cruel violence in me, we resumed our calming walk to the school. It was then that I realised something,

"Why aren't you riding to school? Shouldn't your family worry about you heading out by yourself?"

Admittedly it was a bit of a stupid question. At that moment, I had seemed to forget that Akane was able to walk herself home last night by herself. That fact alone was enough to tell most people that yes, Akane Nishino can walk out on her own. But I'm not 'most' people.

Akane turned her eyes away from the road to look at me. She must have not been listening properly since she tilted her head in obvious confusion. The hypocrisy.

"Oh! That. Admittedly, both my father and my brother were a bit angry that I got home so late. But once I explained that I was just at a friends house, they dropped the topic." Wait was the state of her uniform last night? Was it untouched or was her family just really unobservant.

"Apparently, that was enough for them to decide that I was now ready to start walking to school on my own. It helped that all of my other incidents didn't reach their ears." She elaborated.

After our first 'meeting', whenever I'd save her from that moment on, Akane would always somehow manage to slip out of the scene before emergency services arrived. This was probably what she was talking about.

"They sound really irresponsible." I bluntly stated.

"Oh yeah they sometimes are. I'm surprised my brother even agreed to it in the first place. He's usually the first to speak against this sort of thing."

"Hmm..." Thankfully, Akane didn't pay that much attention to my reaction. Mulling over it, this is a bit strange...

Akane soon stopped walking and pulled out her phone. I have no idea what she's going to do, but I made no mention of it whatsoever. She soon stopped her fiddling, eyes glued to the phone screen and eyebrows furrowed into a frown. She shoved her phone in front of my face and pointed to it.

"Have you heard of this?"

The phone screen was currently displaying an article about some sightings of strange looking creatures originating from forests, lakes, and even deserts all around the world. A few photos were placed on the article, and though blurry, one can clearly see the silhouettes of some if these creatures. Apparently, there have also been reports of these creatures attacking, severely injuring, and straight up killing some hikers and idiotic thrill-seekers. Looking at some of these incidents, it's clear that this has been going on for quite some time now.

"No, I don't. Why?" Why would she ask me this? Did she expect me to have any information on whatever these are. Or was she just checking if I actually knew of them or not? Either way, I didn't know about this until now.

"Before heading up to bed last night, I overheard a conversation of my father and brother. They talked about these sightings and information about them that they dug up form who knows where." I see, I see. Sounds interesting and all, but I still don't get the point-

"One of the things they talked about was the possibility of magic and-" Akane never got to finish that sentence.

Moving very quickly, I firmly placed both of my hands on her shoulders and asked her in the most serious tone I can muster. "Say that again." It was more of demand than a request really.

"U-umm... They talked about how there were traces of an unknown energy on these creatures and they informally named it magic?" Akane responded, clearly a bit surprised at seeing a new side of me.

"So magic?" She nodded in response.

"Tell me everything you know about this topic." Another request- but-is-actually-a-demand from me. The fact that this is a complete reversal of what happened last night was lost on me.

"O-Ok?"

Is it really happening?! Can I finally get the magic that I dreamed of since I was a child. If not for my dream, I'd still strive after it just for how convenient it is. But of course, more power is always one of my forefront goals.

"Hehehe..."

"Why are you laughing so creepily?" Akane took a step back from me with a frightened expression.

"So tell me. Why are you here with me again?" I ask the black clad girl behind me. We were currently on top of the roof of an apartment building. It was only three stories and was really close to some other similarly sized buildings at its sides. This was one of my favorite vantage points even if you can't really see much from here. The wind also gathers here perfectly that if I were to wear a coat of somekind then it'd sway in the wind smoothly.

"I can't just leave you alone to deal with this now can I? Plus, I know my way around the perimeter of the facilities that you're scouting out." Akane replied behind me. She was wearing a black hood with gold trimming all around the cloth and topped with a black coat. I have no idea how she manages to not feel like she's in a sauna but I won't judge. This also meant that her coattails swayed with the wind, though they were rather short only reaching just above her knees.

Oh, did I mention that this apartment building had a really good view of the facility that Akane's brother looked like. I can't tell if it's a lab, an office or if it's something else entirely, but one thing's for and that's magic is definitely in there.

I like to think that my 'magic training' has given me a crude grasp on the unknown resource. The tingling feeling that I knew wasn't from the cold night air reverberating all throughout my body. The crescent moon casting a shadow onto our forms that I would kill to see from an outside perspective.

The reason why were out here so late at night was simple really. Akane had overheard from her family that some of these creatures were captured and stored here for research purposes. They wanted to figure out how the partially living beings functioned and downright existed in the first place. If I recall correctly, the first reported sighting was just outside of the city and was dealt with pretty quickly if the lack of subsequent incidents were anything to go by.

That only explained my interest in this place but didn't explain why I came here in the first place. Even I wasn't foolish enough to storm in and take their research with all the heavily armed guards around. Really, I start to wonder why no one's even questioned what they were really doing in this place. Publicly, this was the site of some experimental biological experiments but behind closed doors... Umm, never mind it's the exact same thing but sketchier.

Additionally, the researchers seem to have started with human testing and have already pumped out one 'magically' infused human being who hasn't actually died yet. Ohhh, the thought of that just fills me with envy. The thought that they've successfully gave someone magic powers makes me so excited. However, the specific reason why I'm out her tonight is that apparently there was a recently captured beast that they were relocating here. Apparently it was also really strong and wouldn't attack anything that had magic since it ignored the magic human that I talked about earlier when they were capturing it.

How do I know all this? Well I didn't, Akane got it from her brother and father...

"I've got a question." I turn away from the view and looked back at the girl standing behind me.

"Hmm? What is it?" Once I called her, Akane immediately shifted all her attention on me.

"I understand why you're brother would know about all this stuff. But I don't get how your dad would." It took her a while to get what I was referring to, but once she did she pointedly avoided looking at me when she answered.

"Well... my father actually owns the place and my brother sort of just runs it in his place..."

"Wait really?!" I raised my voice a bit and immediately regretted it, reacting by once more scanning my surroundings then shutting my mouth using my hands.

"You really didn't... You know what I'm not even surprised. How is it that I'm already used to your antics when I just learned of them yesterday!" She rants aggressively. I let her calm down a bit before asking her to expand on her family's ownership of the facility.

"Hah... Like I said, my family owns this place. Officially, it's known as the Nishino University and yes it does sort of act like one, though it doesn't really have a lot of students because of all the things they're up to underneath the surface."

"Huh, interesting..." I mutter.

Akane scrutinizes my face for a few moments before deciding that yes, I was actually listening to her.

Now let's see if something interesting happens tonight.

As their newest test subject draws closer, tensions have been high in Nishino University. These things were dangerous after all and were proned to accidents during capture, transport and testing.

A white clad woman rushed into an office. The room itself was quite bland, its owner not having wanting to waste effort on even attempting to decorate it. Said owner was sitting at a wooden table at the backside of the room, writing on a piece of paper and occasionally checking his computer to verify the report.

Once the woman entered, she greeted the man.

"Dr. Akira, I hate to intrude but I have some news to deliver." She informed solemnly.

"Oh? Then fire away Dr Yuuka. As you can see I'm still very busy." Akira was currently compiling the notes that they wrote during the acclimation of magic into Subject 0's body. Subject 0 being the first successful output from the human trials department.

"Yes. The carrier for our newest sample is nearing. We estimate that it would take about 20 minutes before they reach us."

"Have there been any incidents so far?" He asked pensively.

"None sir. They have been going at a slow place in order to not disturb the creature." Akira nodded to that info.

"Have you further analysed Subject 0's blood composition?" Samples of the subjects blood have been sent to the lab in order to test if the acclimation truly was successful and that there'd be no further issues going forward..

"Yes sir." The woman, Yuuka, answered without hesitation.

"Anything we should be worried about?"

"None sir. Her body is slowly but surely adapting to the unknown energy currently residing within her."

"Estimated time before results show themselves?" The goal of this project was to analyse to energy that kept these creatures going then transfer this power to humans with no issue. To governments who actually know of these incidents, they have been a bit worried lately if these beasts would be a problem in the future so they enlisted several millions of currency into a few research centres just to understand the damn things.

"Around a year at most sir."

"Chances that they may awaken prematurely?" If they do awaken before the estimated time, it would only lead to a whole host of other issues that the facility isn't equipped to deal with at this moment. Having the extra preparation time would greatly decrease risks for everyone involved.

"Highly unlikely sir, but they aren't zero."

Akira then dismissed the woman, needing the alone time to think about the information he had just gotten. Maybe they should hurry up with the other subjects soon...

Atop a certain windy rooftop, Akane Nishino felt her blood heat up for some unknown reason. The more time passed, the worst it had gotten. Fortunately it wasn't available and she could power through it.

She briefly wonders if this had anything to do with those visits to the university and the gaps in her memory...

Arc 0 currently takes place a fee months before Minoru dies. Next chapter would take a bit longer to come out but hopefully it would be longer as well. I suspect that only one of two chapters are left before the prologue ends and the story begins...

Until next time!