My shift began like normal, with little business as per usual. It's not that this place is dead and no one likes it, it's just few people know of it. We mostly have regulars, so it makes for a bit of comfort and tranquility among customers.

"Oh hey Takashi-kun!" Mina exclaimed. Takashi Sato, a regular who also happens to be my best friend. He's a little taller than me and has short black hair, he also wears glasses. He's often very cheerful, he's intelligent, and optimistic. "Hello, how are you today, Aikawa-chan?"

Sato was something of a crush for Aikawa, whether she'd admit it or not though, is a different thing. I could infer from the way she acted around him. The way her eyes light up when she saw him, how her energy was peaked, and how hard she tried to impress him. She also was pretty much the one who served him if she were here. Which has been the root of many an argument between us.

I made some idle conversation with Sato between serving customers, "So how's it going man? Anything cool in the life of Sato arise?" He adjusted his glasses so they had shimmered in the light, "Hehe, well, I've been working on my ability some more, and I've learned something new."

His ability was known as Rampart, the power to change the structure of an object into a more dense elemental substance. He is also able to make objects more brittle or even liquefy them. His ability is level three, only able to change things from hand-held objects up to a small car at most. I've seen him once make an aluminum bat brittle as a stick, and break it. Following after he hardened it to steel, making it sharp and jagged. He's very clever, I'll give him that much credit as it's due.

"What did you find out?" an eager curiosity over took me. "I can launch an object while making it light, and then in the middle of flight increase its density." "Wait so like, to get serious speed then bigger impact?" He smiled and looked prideful, "Exactly."

I figured he could come up with something like that, but I didn't know it could be done without touch. It's probably a touch-based interval, having to touch it and only having so much time to manipulate it. He definitely didn't have that ability before, it's good to see growth in him.

"I can do something similar, by throwing an object and using wind-force to accelerate the velocity." He exclaimed in praise, "See, that's genius! I don't understand how you choose not to do well in school or even try going up in level. If you ask me I think you could easily be a level four, maybe even five."

There was a reason I didn't try, or care enough, "You know why I don't." An awkward silence befell the conversation. "O-oh, right I forgot..." I decided to continue or conversation after work was ended.

After my shift Sato and I decided to go to the warehouse and spar. It was place out of sight, where we could test each others skill. "It is something we do as friends, but also rivals. We push each other to excel further, become stronger. As we do our bonds grow and so do we as people." That was something Sato once said, I still take it to heart even now.

We started to come here when we were in middle school, exploring the site for fun. After some time we realized it was abandoned and used it as our hang out place. As we began to increase our abilites we often fought inside the main compound to see how far we had come. We originally started at level one, but trained hard to get to where we are now.

I realized at one point or another that I was better than Sato and wanted to get stronger. The thought of being a level five, one of the few, the elite. It was more than tempting, and I fought hard to get it. However now, I don't really care so much about that, or really anything anymore for that matter. I fought to show I wasn't weak, that I hadn't lost what I already had, and that was it.

I opened the small door instead of the transport, which I usually did, just seemed easier today. The warehouse has been abandoned for almost five years now. I think the company that owned it went bankrupt or something. It still had electricity though, which was convenient for the night. Normally it would be in ruins, but Sato always fixed what we had torn up with his ability.

We stood on opposing sides of the building, getting ready to fight. "Alright, you ready?" I asked Sato as I stretched lightly. Sato answered with a smile and motioned toward himself with his hand, "More than ready, let's do this."