Isshun lay on his bed after finishing his bath, staring up at the ceiling.
It had been a few weeks since he and Nejire had decided to start attending a nearby Aikido dojo. As a result, his daily routine had settled into a simple loop: school, dojo, then home.
It wasn't an especially demanding schedule, but for someone who had done very little exercise since being reborn into this world, it was still exhausting in its own way.
Nejire, on the other hand, had thrown herself into Aikido with the same enthusiasm she applied to almost everything. Even though it lacked the swordplay or archery she'd initially imagined, she adapted quickly.
With the combination of boundless energy and relentless curiosity, she took to the dojo like a fish to water.
Isshun's progress was… average, if one was being generous.
At the very least, he met the baseline physical fitness expected of a six-year-old, enough to keep up with Nejire when she dragged him around during their free time. That alone was an achievement.
While his physical prowess left much to be desired, Precognition made up for it to an extent. Even then, using Precognition still required the physical ability to act on what it showed him.
The downside of getting home later, however, was that it left him with far less time to experiment with his Teleportation.
Having a mother with a retrocognition quirk and a father with a hypercognition quirk made secrecy difficult.
Even casual inconsistencies had a way of being noticed, whether his parents meant to pry or not.
Tonight, though, both of them had been called away unexpectedly for work.
That rare absence gave Isshun the opening he needed.
Lying flat on his bed, he focused on his usual test subject: a simple wooden pencil.
With a thought, it vanished from his desk and reappeared above his palm.
Nejire wasn't around, and—more importantly—she had no way of catching him in the act.
Without knowing when his parents would return, Isshun only really had one experiment:
He wanted to know whether he could teleport only half of an object. Or more specifically, only teleport one part of an object.
Normally, Teleportation treated an object as a single, unified entity, which made the calculations much more simplistic.
If the esper perceived it as "one thing," the Personal Reality followed that interpretation and moved the entire object intact as one entity.
It was why when Isshun teleported, he didn't have to consider whether he would turn out completely naked, as he considered the entirety of himself—clothes included—as one entity to teleport.
But what if the object was mentally defined as two separate entities?
Not broken physically, but conceptually segmented through precise spatial calculations.
He already had a concept using the formula for the teleportation domain, and all he had to do was experiment.
--<>--
…That was surprisingly easier than I thought.
However, in his attempt to conceptualize different "entities," Isshun ended up taking a completely different approach than he'd originally planned, something closer to a Plan C.
Rather than forcing himself to perceive the pencil as two separate objects outright, Isshun subdivided his teleportation domain itself.
He created smaller zones of influence within the larger spatial field, defining everything inside each zone as a single object for the purposes of teleportation.
And from that area of influence Isshun could filter out specific parts based on conditions such as molecule density.
The blunt end of the pencil rested in his hand. The sharpened tip sat on the table several feet away. Both halves had perfectly smooth cross-sections, as if they'd been cut by an impossibly precise blade.
Isshun nodded, quietly satisfied.
Now for the second experiment.
Even before today's opportunity, he'd thought through several theoretical approaches to splitting a single entity.
Reassembly, however, presented far fewer options.
There was really only one viable method.
If teleportation produced a cross-section with virtually no material loss and negligible error, then in theory, bringing the two halves back together exactly should restore the object.
Not gluing it together.
Not even splicing it.
But placing the two halves so precisely that, at an atomic level, the structure would register as continuous—convincing reality itself that the pencil had never been split to begin with.
That meant overlapping the endpoints as closely as possible without causing interference.
After carefully registering the dimensions of both halves in his mind, Isshun activated his Teleportation.
For a brief moment, the pencil appeared whole.
Then it fell apart.
Both halves clattered to the floor.
"…Did it ever actually reconnect?"
Isshun picked up the pencils and analyzed the dimensions again, before realizing something that he should have thought about from the beginning.
'…There's no way my senses can truly perceive the microscopic scale.'
No matter how exact his calculations were, the data he worked with still came from human perception and his enhanced senses.
His spatial awareness right now had limits, which introduced a margin of error far smaller than what his senses could detect, but was unfortunately large enough to matter at the atomic level.
So he had to account for the margin of error his senses would return from him.
He exhaled slowly.
'So it's trial and error, then…'
The real danger wasn't undershooting the alignment, but rather it was overshooting it.
If the two halves overlapped even slightly, the result wouldn't be a clean reconnection but molecular splicing.
That would permanently alter the object, even if the loss or distortion was invisible to the naked eye.
Which meant he had to proceed carefully.
Extremely carefully.
He'd need to adjust the placement in increments so small they bordered on the limits of what he could consciously calculate, slowly refining the result step by step until the margin of error disappeared.
Isshun stared down at the pencil halves.
…This was going to take a while.
--<>--
Time passed, with no progress in sight.
After a while, Isshun got sick of staring at the exact same pencil over and over again.
I'll do this later, when I actually have time...or when im motivated.
In the end, he spliced the two broken ends together. Throwing it out just because it had snapped in half felt like a waste of money.
He'd barely set the pencil down when Isshun made his way to the window, pulling back the curtains and opening it just in time to catch the small pebble Nejire tossed from her own room.
At the sight of his face, she beamed brightly and held up a cup phone, waving it around with unmistakable excitement.
This method of communication had come about a week ago—around two weeks into their training.
Nejire had complained about not having a phone while they walked to the dojo after school, lamenting how everyone in her class had one except her.
The complaint had lasted practically the entire day, continuing even after dinner.
She'd tried to rope Isshun into helping her convince her mom, to no avail.
Then, one evening, Nejire had flown up to Isshun's window and intruded into his room like usual, where she caught a glimpse of his computer screen, where it showed an anime he'd been peacefully watching.
In it, two friends communicated from a distance using two cups connected by a string.
Nejire didn't know what it was exactly, but it had to be some kind of communication device.
Naturally, she asked her designated dictionary.
"Hey, hey, Shun-chan! What's that?!" she asked, pointing at the paused screen.
"A cup phone."
"Cup… phone?" Nejire tilted her head. But it definitely had the word phone in it!
The novelty of the idea completely enthralled her. She convinced Isshun to make one, promising she'd decorate it in return.
Even if Nejire normally flew up to Isshun's room, it probably wouldn't be great if her mom eventually found out. (She already knew.)
Because of the phone's simplicity—and Nejire's insistence on using it consistently—she managed to convince her parents to switch rooms to a larger one directly across from Isshun's.
From there, they could see each other's windows clearly.
And thus, the Blueberry Vanilla Phone Mk.1 was born.
Nejire's cup was covered in drawings of blueberries. Isshun's featured vanilla ice cream and vanilla flowers.
Isshun went along with it partly because he felt bad for her and partly because he appreciated the sheer novelty of it.
Who cared if it was childish?
These were the kinds of things that only worked when you were young!
So, starting about a week ago when Nejire was extremely bored, or it was late and she had to go home, they'd have these "call" sessions.
With her easily bored personality, they happened often. The conversations ranged from future hero careers to homework help, mostly on Nejire's end.
They were currently on Blueberry Vanilla Phone Mk.2, after Shiori pointed out that speaking and listening into the same cup for several days straight was unsanitary.
After Nejire was convinced to replace the cups, Shiori and Kako came up with the idea that Isshun and Nejire keep the original cups—after disinfecting—of the other's design, with sly smiles on their faces.
Nejire had quickly agreed, and Isshun didn't have much of a reason to disagree either.
So, on a nearly empty bookshelf—aside from some manga and elementary-level textbooks—sat a white paper cup with clumsily drawn blueberries and blue flowers.
On a similar shelf in Nejire's room was a cup decorated with equally clumsy vanilla ice cream and vanilla flowers.
After Shiori and Kako's suggestion, Nejire had insisted that they decorate each other's cups instead of her doing both.
Finally, with Nejire being the one who was the most enthusiastic one about the cup phones, she was the one who held the phones, initiating conversations.
That was how this method of communication came to be.
Isshun watched with barely concealed amusement as Nejire aimed, closing one eye and sticking an arm out for balance.
Their windows were only about seven meters apart, which meant Nejire missing wasn't exactly rare.
But Isshun, ever lazy, simply teleported the cup if it came close enough to be ambiguous from a distance, just like today.
His Precognition told him it would miss his range by exactly an inch. So he teleported it into his hand at the last second.
Judging by Nejire's proud stance, hands on her hips with an even brighter smile on her face, it seemed she hadn't noticed.
Isshun put his ear to the cup.
"Shun-chan!"
Her whisper carried through the string.
He lowered the cup and looked at her. Nejire stared back expectantly, clearly waiting for him to respond properly.
With a sigh, he whispered back.
"What?"
"Mom got a call from Auntie Kako, and they probably won't be back until really late! So she told me to ask if you want to eat dinner at our house!"
"Sure," he said after a moment of consideration.
"Okay! See you later!"
"Yeah. See you later."
Isshun tossed the cup back. Even though his throw was slightly off, Nejire quickly reeled it in using the string, making it look like he'd nailed it on the first try.
She waved happily, but didn't leave the window.
Isshun sighed inwardly.
…She's probably not going to leave until I do.
--+--
A/N: They're sooooo cute.
Mainly inspired by Tamako market tho, but my god was i smiling while writing the second part.
Also, how do i have 100 powerstones even before i hit 15000 words? Thats crazy, ty for all the support! Also, im finally 15000 words! Let's go! No random chap with a ton of words just to hit the word count!