HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
If this is a weird read, it's mainly because I originally posted this on spacebattles, where I (SOMETIMES) post constantly small chapters for fics like this one.
ALSO I'M STILL A STUPIDLY FICKLE BASTARD THAT MAY JUST STOP FOR NO FUCKING REASON AND I HATE MYSELF FOR IT.
Anyway enjoy or whatever.
Waking up and preparing for work, that was the routine when you became old enough to live by yourself.
Getting up from bed with a loud yawn and stretching my back I got some satisfying pops from that and putting my cheap plastic sandals because fuck slippers, and getting up from my bed.
Man, I don't remember cleaning my apartment yesterday...
Going to the kitchen I found the milk and the cereal quickly, Nesquik should do me good, and the... Milk? getting a look at the cartoon it didn't seem like the usual stuff I buy... they probably ran out of the stuff I usually buy, and it slipped my mind, I did get totally drained after work.
After a quick cereal and finding no plates on the sink, weir I only wash this before taking a bath at night... and last night I just came home and slept the rest of the day.
Weird.
I reached the bathroom towel with me and clothes ready... which I dropped when I saw my face on the mirror and two things went through my mind at that moment.
My looks got a lot more Asian and my 'over-worked old man' beard was gone.
After a couple of seconds, I opened the water in the sink and splashed my face.
Then my eyes went back to the mirror and saw the same thing, Brown hair, dark grey eyes with slight bags under my eyes that seemed too natural for my own liking.
I was unable to scream thanks to my necessity to keep quiet most of the time, it's rare for me to start a conversation and I preferred to not make much noise mainly because I lived in a bad neighborhood with lots of assholes that want to rob you, so I became pretty fucking good at doing a batman wich my co-workers hated when I was suddenly close to them or nowhere to be seen.
But I did fall on my ass and clutched my face in fear... and that's when I started feeling some weird things, outside from the room it felt like shapes too, the feeling boggled my mind for a minute even though it felt natural while it shouldn't.
That's when it hit me, it was people and their general shape... like I had a third eye but without the ability to see complete shapes, I could get a rough estimate of their appearance.
Not only that but the manner that this information was bizarre, when I thought more about it I wasn't seeing the people but these currents moving and impacting with them... like the wind.
I was feeling the wind currents around me.
And when I looked at my hands, I noticed that the wind was picking up around me... which is weird the only way to see the wind move was through some other matter moving with it usually dust.
But I could 'see' it clear as day.
It was the best thing my eyes ever landed upon... it just seemed so free and un-caring of the dangers around it untouched by the world around me.
Taking a deep breath and calming myself and noticing how the area in which I could read the air currents became much smaller and the wind no longer picked up around me, seems like I have much to do after taking a bath.
A really cold bath.
After my bath, various things had to be done.
Like checking literally everything about 'me', which meant looking for a wallet and see if it had any information about me... like a surprising amount of yen which was definitely not dollars and was just another surprise to add to my long list of 'what even is today'.
My name is... Takaku Sora, I feel like a protagonist already.
Yeah, that joke didn't calm me down, according to this thing I'm 14 years old so now I'm 6 years younger, and... wait is this a credit card? why would I have one of these at my age?
Whatever, a quick search on the internet on a laptop that this house has too, thank god for the internet by the way... my basic information seems to be alright until I reached something talking about Esper stuff and my level which is 4 or something.
It must be about whatever powers I was using on the bathroom, 'Sky High' well that sounds ominous and cool but things to try for another day, I'm not studying anywhere out of free choice for some reason and I'm getting backing from scientists that are running experiments with me.
...
So I'm getting the fuck away from those guys, superpowers and Scientist never go well together and that basically means fuck that and fuck them, no one is pocking me with their weird technology.
But that also means that I'd have to get a job of some kind pretty sure that the less data I give these guys about my abilities the less money will come to the credit card, or I could just steal it better than dealing with probably amoral Scientists.
Well with that in mind... guess It's time to explore the outside world.
Putting on some blue pants and a white shirt with some kind of blue spiral motifs all around it, it almost looked like the wind flowing around which means that whoever I was really liked pointing out his ability to others and the last thing are the sneakers.
Right then so look for the keys of this apartment and then I can leave.
For about a minute I was looking for the damn thing until I found them under the bed of all places, really need a better place to hide it old me... was he me?.
I think I'm better off not knowing that, when I left the apartment... well It definitely looked better than expected and more futuristic than I expected if what I'm seeing is right then this is the second floor of whatever building I'm in.
Better start moving then, closing the door behind me and going down the stairs and that's when I heard the tumbling steps of someone being in a hurry, Looking up I saw someone jump over the stairs and fall on his feet right next to me.
"Sorry!" he called out even if he didn't hit me, his spiky hair was the most notable thing about the guy and he seemed to be at least a year younger than me, if that school bag is anything to go by he must be going late.
And then by pure chance, a can that someone must have thrown for some reason fell right in front of him, and in his mad dash, he didn't see it making him trip and fall face-first on the ground.
I blinked, that's quite the stroke of bad-luck... poor guy.
And started walking to the right, my mission to see more of the place I found myself in.
This city is... interesting, Everything looks way more futuristic than I expected there are also a lot of robots that clean the streets they most likely also have a function to keep an eye on the streets.
There was also a surprisingly big quantity of children here, it wasn't impossible to see someone older than 20 but it was irregular at best... like some kind of School city, no that doesn't sound right.
Academy, Academy city now that rolls off the tongue.
People seemed happy and kids are playing around, a thing to note is that these kids didn't have some kind of adult looking after them basically damn toddlers just moving around without someone older there.
Aside from all of that, it was a nice place to look at... well time to put my ability to the test, first of all, my ability to read the wind currents seems to always be active around 10 to 15 meters around me passively.
Now let's see what happens if I concentrate, the wind picked up around me but with a little bit of manipulation from my part, I made it hardly noticeable, when my range expanded I could see around 100 meters around me.
A blind person would have been mesmerized by the sight.
But I feel it resonated strongly with me, for a moment the wind and I became one it was easy to lose myself in the feeling and with it, everything in a radius of 100 meters could be said to be in my sight.
And then I felt the disturbance and frowned, the moment was gone when a shape of a young female probably on her 14 or 13 was running through some alleyways her breathing was heavy by its constant clash on the currents and her movements clear by the same logic.
Behind her, there was what I would only call a blob, too many people on the same spot running and breathing heavily made it hard to get their rough shape, it annoyed me for various reasons.
First, the feelings on the currents were no longer calm in that direction but that was something I would have to get used to in a city with cars.
But that it was like three bastards that felt like hot stuff by beating someone else when they had the advantage, people that I know for a fact would beg for mercy if the situation was reversed.
I hated that, that people would so freely take from others but hate when the tables turn and feel they have the right to complain about it... it brought back a bad memory this one guy tried to rob me in my house but he tripped on some water that I dropped and his gun fell from his grasp and close to me.
He asked me to let him go and not pull the trigger when he was ready to do me in, he got up and rushed me when he thought that I dropped my guard.
I didn't.
With a frown on my face, I was already speed-walking through an alley that would put me between the girl and her pursuers.
Right when I was about to reach the end a girl with long black hair passed and at that moment I left the alley too and turned right seeing three guys older than me running.
I ignored the usual words people like them said, 'asshole this', 'our of our way', 'we'll teach him a lesson'... the guy in front threw an ice spear the size of a broom it looked frail but it was pointy and flying at a decent speed aimed at my head.
Throwing my right arm forward a strong air cannon left from it, the closest thing comparable to that would be a force push and in the somewhat narrow space along with the spear shattering from the force and flying backwards...
To say that they ended up in a bad shape was obvious, the man in the front has shards of the ice spear all over his body and was on the ground, the one at the left had a long ugly scratch running through his whole arm must have been dragged along the wall when I pushed them back and the last guy had blood falling down his face.
The one with the ice shards glared at me "lucky bastard if you didn't have a high level i wou-" I kicked him on the face when I approached him and kneeled right next to him while staring at him straight in the eye.
"You would be singing a different song, saying something like 'that's what you get for messing with me' or 'playing hero gets you killed'... but here is something you should be actually doing" with a straight look in my eyes, I raised my left arm and pointed my index finger at his chest wind spinning around it, this would be more like a bullet than a cannon.
He looked at me with clear fear, and that made me angrier "give one good reason I shouldn't do what you tried to do to me?" and now all three of them were taken back.
Good.
Putting the fear of God in people was awfully easy, at the threat of death most would cower more so if the delivery of said threat is said with indifference, right now all three of them were simply staring at me like I was the stuff of nightmares.
That also means they have yet to give me a good reason to not fill them with holes "well?" I asked again only receiving a flinch in response, guess there is no use for street rats.
The currents behind me shifted and Something jumped at me when I turned around the same girl they were pursuing pulled down my arm "There is no need to go that far!" she exclaimed with a shaky smile on her face.
But the moment she did that I felt the movement of one of them, he pulled something out of his pocket with a shape I was familiar with my free arm and without even looking I pointed my right index finger and with a bullet already formed from compressed air... I fired.
It wasn't loud, almost like a dart was shot from a straw but the splash of blood made obvious what happened I glanced at the man at the left that was just now on the ground still holding his gun with a desperate look on his face "he would have shot without a care" my statement was meet with the shocked and scared look from the girl.
The other two froze up "You two didn't take the chance and by the bulge on your pockets one more of you is packing some heat too, get this chance to not do anything stupid" I got up and glanced at the girl looking up at me.
Green eyes? of a deep shade her black hair is fairly long and she is wearing a flower pin at the left side of her hair, the uniform she is wearing is obviously from a school makes her look like a sailor... damn it japan.
"Why?" she asked me and I gave her a raised eyebrow.
"He would, so why shouldn't I?" I asked back, not seeing the problem.
She looked at the scrambling Street thugs that didn't even spare a second glance at their 'friend' "You know what I mean, there was no need to kill him" I beg to differ girl.
Sadly I can see she won't leave me alone until I answer "because I hate hypocrisy, saw the way he tried to kill us when you interfered? even if I just gave them a lesson they would have come back anyway" she gritted her teeth.
After my show of power she didn't back away, her fear was there but managed to keep it in check "then why not just keep them there and call Judgement?" if they are anything like most police forces my trust is only zero for them.
"like that would solve the problem, with time they would be out on the streets more bitter than anything else" my response seemed to make her angrier for some reason.
She obviously had to get one last thing in "do you think that only because you have a high-level ability you can do this?" it was almost a shout.
I turned around and stared at her in the eye "what's your name?" she managed to get a little respect from me, the way she talked made it obvious she had a low-level ability and yet she could look at me in the eye knowing I could kill her in a blink of an eye.
"Saten Ruiko, please answer the question" She gritted out.
Well if I had to put it in words... "No, but that hardly matters someone with a gun would know he has no right to kill but he'll do it anyway, it's never about power but the choice he made, I killed him because of what he tried to do just a couple of moments ago... so no I have no right but neither did he and no one stopped him either".
She gaped at me but I already left at that point, Saten seems like a girl with strong will and beliefs maybe a little bit intense when it comes to this but I'm used to dangerous environments... at the end of the day, he chose to fight and lost when I chose to fight back.
It was that simple.
The city at the end was just a nice place to look at, But that was it I knew for a fact that these many advances were made at a heavy price even more obvious when I decided to look into whatever gave people powers on a library close by... thank god for free internet.
Some kind of curriculum where they feed kids drugs to develop abilities, yeah that was kind of a red flag... which gave me more reasons to not deal with whatever the hell those scientists wanted to test on me.
Wonder what I should do next from here on out? I need to find a way to not deal with more tests from this damn city that one is certain... guess aside from that I'll just live my life as freely as I can.
That's when something suddenly appeared in the area I could feel the currents of air, about ten meters behind me was a small shape of a girl "Judgement!, I came here to question you about the murder" the little girl all but stated.
When I turned around and saw peach-colored hair with two small ponytails, with her height... she should be like 9 or 10 wearing a hoodie of the color green and yellow and glaring up at me.
At such a ridiculous scene I could only do one thing "go home kid, it's not time to play cops and robbers" those were my words while I patted her head, she was a pretty small brat.
She let out a strained laugh and suddenly disappeared, I felt her shape behind me and by her position above me and her legs... she wants to drop kick me for some damn reason I ducked my head and her legs missed me she yelped and was about to fall but I caught her between my right shoulder and my arm like I was carrying a sack.
"Alright brat I'll drop you somewhere on a bus stop, the rest is up to you" I'm being 50% responsible, but I'm not about to deal with a kid that takes games this seriously.
She was kicking up a fuss but It was easy for me to ignore "Shirai!, I told you to not run of on your own!" Another shape behind me more mature than this Shirai girl.
Turning around to take a good look at whoever just said that, I saw a woman that I would honestly think was a year or two, my senior, wearing glasses and a school uniform that included a... what were they called again? sleeveless sweater I think along with the usual stuff that most school uniforms seemed to be in here her short black and breasts that I don't think a 15-year-old should have.
There was this green armband that seems out of place so I ignored it "ah..." was the only thing that left her mouth when her eyes landed on me.
I blinked at her response "I'm guessing this is yours?" I said while dropping Shirai on her feet who was still glaring at me by the way.
"Konori-senpai!, he is the one we should apprehend!" the little girl exclaimed while pointing at me.
I sighed "she really takes playing the cop seriously, what do they teach kids these days?" I asked the girl named Konori who seemed to snap of her stupor.
Not before Shirai glared at me yet again "I'm 12 you damn murder!" yeesh kid lay of me with your games.
"still a kid then" I hid my surprise, she looks a little too small to be 12.
Konori cleared her throat "sorry sir, but while Shirai-san is exaggerating quite a bit... you are still a suspect" okay so not a joke or game.
"I thought the cops were here for this kind of stuff" I said with a raised eyebrow while admitting nothing.
She sighed and gave Shirai a small glare "yes, Anti-Skill only asked Judgement to keep eye out for you and report it..." oh so this Shirai girl is a loose cannon then.
Oh well "sure lead the way" at my response both girls did a double-take and stared at me.
"come again?" Asked Konori with a worried smile.
"I said I'm letting you catch me, I'll be out in no time anyway" I answered honestly, it was easy to make a case about self-defense if they had my looks at the moment then they surely saw them attack first.
There is even a witness who I know by name.
Shirai scoffed getting her wits back "we'll see" oh poor little thing has faith in the system, ah she will learn with time.
The wait in the 177th Judgement branch office was as boring as expected, thankfully I found out that this whole thing about Judgement is basically a super boy scouts group and that Anti-Skill is basically the cops but with a way better name to go by.
It was a simple metal cell that was separating me from the angry Shirai and the Worried Konori, it was easy to see that even in this position I was the one holding most of the cards the oldest girl in the room knew this too and tried her best to keep her confrontational protege from starting something she would regret.
I heard a knock close by and saw Konori excuse herself but not before telling Shirai to not do anything rash (read: stupid) with me around, which made the little girl try harder to destroy my head with her eyes.
Minutes later Konori came back with a middle-aged man in a blue armored vest "Takaku-san right?" I nodded without saying a word he stood in front of the cell and took a deep breath.
Seems like someone doesn't want to be here "We reviewed the footage and we can confirm it was self-defense" he stated and while Konori had acceptance written all over her face, Shirai did not agree with the outcome.
"what!? we have a literal video of him doing the deed!, how is he just walking away unpunished!?" I gave her a raised eyebrow, someone didn't hear the officer well.
The Anti-Skill officer sighed "we aren't saying he didn't do it, we are saying that his motive for doing so can't be considered illegal" he stated and signaled at Konori to open the cell.
When she opened it she took a look at my eyes and quickly looked away, my indifference must have rubbed her the wrong way "thanks officer, some times things like this happen" I didn't mean any of those words but it will make this go by quicker.
He clearly didn't buy it but knew it wasn't worth the trouble "just try to steer away from this kind of situations, I'll take you out of here... it's just a formal thing we have to do" he said while walking away and I was following behind him.
I glanced at Shirai one more time and saw her clenching her teeth "you go ahead officer, I need a quick bathroom break" he nodded and left through the door.
My eyes landed back on Shirai "does it really bother you that much?" I asked in honest confusion, while I killed the charges couldn't stick on me no matter how hard they tried.
"of course it does, how can someone get away from taking a life so easily?" her words were bitter if nothing else, there was some loathing mixed there too.
Konori was about to say something "Shirai-san!" but before she could say more than that...
A small smiled graced my lips along with a small chuckle "you will learn to hate your job soon enough then" people with an actual moral compass that work in any kind of law-enforcement unit are usually faced with the hard reality of their situation.
That they are only there to save face and nothing else, it wouldn't surprise me this city had super-powered assassins that could be just as old as me, and this girl thinks I got scot-free.
She looked up at me with confusion in her eyes, maybe even fear "what does that mean?".
"you are better off not knowing" I stated and left through the same door.
I think it wasn't completely clear but this is like a year before the start of canon by the by, for reasons you know?.
... and I ran out of things to say.
BYE!.