After a long, soul-crushing day of school, Kageyama Kyuusei was left alone with his thoughts. Again.
I promised her I would do my job this time.
The realization sat in his brain like a mildly toxic lump.
Hm.
I mean, I think I only said it because I was so thoroughly annoyed by HER that, by comparison, being a semi-competent handler to Aoi felt like an act of saintly generosity. It was spite-motivated professionalism. Is that still professionalism?
A flashback played in his mind, not in vivid detail, but in the way his brain often processed stressful interactions: as a poorly animated, high-contrast cartoon starring two idiot-shaped blobs.
(Start of Flashback)
A crudely drawn Kyuusei-blob, with spirals for eyes and a jagged, smiling mouth, points a triangle-shaped katana at a cheerful Aoi-blob with massive sparkly eyes.
Kyuusei-blob: "HEY LIABILITY! I'M GONNA DO MY JOB FOR ONCE! PREPARE FOR EDUCATION!"
Aoi-blob: "WOW! SO COOL AND RESPONSIBLE!"
Kyuusei-blob: "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU WITH BORING FACTS THOUGH!"
Aoi-blob: "YOU WON'T! YOU LACK PEDAGOGICAL RIGOR!"
Kyuusei-blob: "THAT'S RIGHT, I WON'T! BECAUSE THAT WAS A JOKE! SEE? HUMOR!"
Aoi-blob: "YOU SUCK AT THOSE!"
Kyuusei-blob: "I KNOW!"
(End of Flashback)
It hadn't gone exactly like that. It was more him muttering, "Fine. After school. The park. Don't be late," and her responding with a terrifyingly efficient nod and a follow-up question about appropriate footwear. But the emotional truth was captured: a bizarre, grudging commitment forged in the fires of his desire to be literally anything other than the person HER thought she could troll.
So, yeah. He was here. He wasn't that petty. And a quieter, more annoying thought had started to needle him.
Maybe I'm being kind of an ass. It's not her fault she has a weird brain and walked through a wall. Well, technically it is, but not maliciously.
He was sitting on a bench in the small park across from the school, waiting. So deep in thought was he that his resting expression had settled into what could only be described as Menacing Contemplation. His brows were furrowed, his jaw set, his eyes glaring at a innocent pigeon as if it held the secrets of the universe and was refusing to share. A mother with a stroller gave him a wide berth. Two middle schoolers pointed and scurried away.
He was so busy looking like a delinquent planning arson that he didn't notice her approach until she spoke.
"You look like you're mentally disassembling that bird to see if it's a spiritual construct."
He jerked, the Menace evaporating into startled annoyance. Aoi Rin stood there, schoolbag in hand, having changed into sensible sneakers and a light jacket. She looked… prepared. Eager. It was unnerving.
"I was considering it. It's looking at me with judgment." He scooted over on the bench. "Sit. Try not to look so excited. You'll draw attention."
She sat, placing her bag neatly on her lap. "Excitement is a normal human emotion when engaging in unique learning opportunities."
"This isn't a field trip to the planetarium. It's a… pre-field briefing. For a potential, low-stakes, hypothetical observation." He pulled out his phone, the spiritual one. There was a mission alert from an hour ago. From HER. Of course.
The subject line was:
`URGENT & EASY! :)`
'Hey my little king! Got a super simple one for u and ur new fanclub prez! Park near ur school (lol convenient right? 😘). Nuisance-level Shade. Manifesting near the old swing set. Probably just scaring kids. Show the normie how it's done! Make me proud! xoxo'
He could read the traps in the text. `Nuisance-level` could mean anything from a faint chill to a soul-sucking vortex. `Probably just scaring kids` was a huge red flag. `Make me proud` was a curse.
"This," he said, showing her the screen but pointing only at the location and classification, while trying to hide any other information about the message, "is what a dispatch looks like. Note the lack of useful detail. This is why we verify."
"Who is it from?" Aoi asked, peering at the obscured sender name.
"A dispatcher. Don't worry about it. The point is, we have a location and a class: Shade. Nuisance-level. That's the lowest. It's like… spiritual mold. Unpleasant, potentially harmful if you sit in it for a decade, but usually just creepy."
He was doing it. He was explaining. It felt weird.
"Okay," Aoi said, pulling out a small notebook. "Shade. Classification: Nuisance. Typical manifestation?"
"Flickers in the corner of your eye. Cold spots. Feelings of being watched. Sometimes they can whisper or mimic sounds. They're drawn to negative emotions, like loneliness or sadness. Hence the park swing set at dusk. Prime real estate."
She was writing furiously. "Countermeasures?"
"Low-level spiritual energy. A focused intent to dispel. For me, that means channeling a bit of my own energy through…" He gestured vaguely. "Through my will. For a beginner, it means not feeding it with your fear. For this mission, it means I go over there, look at it sternly, and tell it to get lost. You watch from a safe distance and take notes on the process, not the entity. Understood?"
"Understood." She didn't look up from her notebook. "Channeling energy through will. Is that a practiced technique, or an innate ability?"
"Both. You have to have the… hardware. The attunement. Then you need the software. The training. Which you don't have. So you observe." He stood up, his joints popping. "Come on. And for the love of everything, if I tell you to run, you run. Not towards me to 'help.' You run to that convenience store and buy a soda like a normal person."
"Understood."
They approached the old, rusting swing set. The park was nearly empty. The air grew subtly colder. In the gathering dusk, the long shadows of the swings seemed to stretch and twitch just wrong.
Kageyama felt it immediately, a dense, sticky patch of spiritual stagnation. A classic Shade. But as he focused, his senses, honed by brutal experience, picked up on the harmonics beneath the surface. It wasn't just one Shade. The negativity here had acted like a magnet, pulling in fragments… and they were coalescing.
This wasn't a normal Nuisance. This was a Nuisance that had been left to fester. A Shade that had learned to actively feed, not just leech.
That troll. She set me up. She gave me a 'teaching moment' that's about to turn into a real fight.
He glanced at Aoi, who was watching him with rapt attention, her pen poised.
He had a choice: abort, call for backup (and face HER's mocking laughter forever), or handle it quickly and cleanly before the coalescence completed.
He cracked his neck.
"Change of plan," he said, his voice dropping into a low, focused monotone. "It's a bit more advanced than I thought. Lesson one, practical addendum: Intel is often wrong. Always be ready to escalate."
He saw her eyes widen, not with fear, but with dawning, intense comprehension. She was getting her first real lesson after all.
And it was starting with a pop quiz he hadn't prepared for.
"So you see," Kageyama said, his voice unnervingly calm as he kept his body angled toward Aoi. Behind him, the rusted swing set groaned, not from the wind, but from the sheer mass of darkness coagulating around it. "Apparitions, like living beings, grow stronger over time. They feed. They learn. They coalesce."
Aoi could only stare, her eyes darting between his focused face and the horror unfolding over his shoulder. The air had taken on that same staticky, diluted quality as the hidden courtyard. He'd done something, tapped the ground, and now the entire park felt like a poorly lit stage set within the real world.
"And they don't have technical limits. So even a Nuisance-level threat," he continued, as if delivering a slightly boring lecture, "if left to fester in a good feeding ground, like a lonely playground, can get ideas above its station."
Behind him, the swirling mass of individual Shades, each a wisp of sorrow and neglected anger, had stopped flickering independently. They were knitting together, forming a grotesque, towering pillar of shadow that pulsed with a low, collective whimper. Dozens of faint, miserable faces surfaced and submerged in its roiling form. It was less a monster, and more a monument to playground despair.
"And the final lesson from your Handler-lite for today is..." Kageyama said, his eyes finally leaving hers to flick toward the forming monstrosity. His voice lost its lecturing tone, becoming flat and imperative. "...duck."
Aoi's body moved before her brain fully processed the word. She dropped into a crouch, her notebook clutched to her chest.
SHWIP!
A black, viscous tentacle, formed from a dozen interwoven shades, lashed through the space where her head had been. It struck the park bench they'd been sitting on moments before with a wet, metallic CRUNCH, denting the iron.
The sound of a blade being drawn cut through the low moaning of the Shade-swarm. It wasn't the slick shink of metal from a sheath, but a resonant SHIMMM that seemed to vibrate in the air itself, like a struck tuning fork that cleaned the static.
Aoi looked up.
Kageyama stood between her and the apparition, his stance relaxed but rooted. In his hand, the Catalytic Katana was awake. It wasn't glowing, exactly, but the air around it wavered with heat-haze intensity. The simple, sleek blade seemed to drink the wan light of the dimensional fold, becoming a sharper line of reality against the gloom.
"Okay," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "Swarm-type, Class-1-Glutton aspirant. Annoying, but simple. You scatter the core, the rest dissipates. Probably."
The tower of shades leaned forward, a chorus of whispered grievances - "no one plays with me... they all leave... it's so cold..." - emanating from its form. Two more tentacles whipped out from its mass.
Kageyama didn't parry. He stepped into the strikes, his movements economical. The katana moved in two short, precise arcs. There was no dramatic clash. The blade passed through the shadowy limbs, and where it cut, the darkness didn't just part, but rather, it unraveled. The severed tentacles dissipated into harmless, fading mist before they could hit the ground, the mournful whispers cutting off into silent oblivion.
"Catalytic property," Aoi breathed, her analyst's mind overriding her fear. She fumbled with her pen, scribbling in the margin of her notes, now held against her knee.
'Blade doesn't just cut physical/spiritual form. Appears to sever the cohesive energy binding the manifestation. Accelerated entropy?'
"Stop taking notes and keep your head down!" Kyuusei barked, even as he pivoted to avoid a third lash, then lunged forward.
He didn't charge the main tower. Instead, he moved like a scalpel, aiming for the base of the swarm near the swings. His blade danced, short, sharp, efficient strokes. With each cut, a chunk of the swirling mass would freeze, then silently dissolve. He wasn't fighting a beast; he was deconstructing a faulty, dangerous equation.
Aoi watched, ducking behind the dented bench. The reluctant, tired boy from class was gone. In his place was a technician of violence, his earlier clumsiness replaced by a weary proficiency. The sweat on his brow wasn't from panic now, but from focused exertion. He really does this all the time, she realized, and the thought was less scary than it was profoundly, electrifyingly interesting.
The core of the swarm, sensing its dissolution, let out a final, unified shriek of anguish and lunged, attempting to engulf him whole.
Kageyama didn't retreat. He took a deep, centering breath, planted his feet, and reversed his grip for a single, two-handed upward sweep.
FWOOM.
The blade cut a crescent through the air. A visible wave of force, shimmering like a heat mirage, flew from the edge. It passed through the heart of the Shade-tower.
Silence.
The collective whispering stopped. The tower froze, a grotesque sculpture of captured shadow. Then, from the point of impact, a web of golden light crackled through its form. With a sound like a sigh, the entire mass dissolved, not into mist, but into a brief shower of faint, golden sparks that winked out before they hit the grass.
The dimensional fold flickered and vanished. The park was just a park again, bathed in ordinary dusk. The swing set was just a rusty, empty swing set.
Kageyama let out a long, slow breath, the tension draining from his shoulders. He glanced at the katana, gave it a casual flick to dispel a few clinging motes of darkness, and slid it back into its unseen sheath with that same resonant shimm.
He turned to Aoi, who was slowly standing up, her eyes huge.
"Lesson concluded," he said, his voice back to its default state of tired annoyance. "That's a basic dispersion. The theory is boring. The practice is… messy."
Aoi looked from him, to the now-normal swing set, to her notes.
'Catalytic action = forced spiritual entropy? Dispersal wave suggests energy conversion (negative -> neutral/light?). Efficiency high. Subject's form: practical, not artistic.'
Aoi closed her notebook slowly, the click of the clasp sounding unnaturally loud in the now-peaceful park. Her mind was a supernova of data, theories, and a thrilling, reverent awe she hadn't felt since childhood astronomy.
Kageyama watched her for a second, the analytical gleam in her eyes almost visible. Then, the professional aftermath protocol kicked in. The adrenaline was gone, replaced by a cold, simmering rage directed at one specific source.
"Wait here," he grunted to Aoi. "I have a… debrief to conduct. Don't touch anything. Especially not any lingering sparkles."
He stalked a few paces away, behind the skeleton of a jungle gym, and pulled out his spiritual phone. He didn't dial. He just glared at the screen until it connected to the only number programmed to accept his furious face-call.
After one ring, HER face filled the screen, grinning from ear to ear, a popsicle stick dangling from her lips. "My little king! How'd the field trip go? Show the prez a good ti—"
"ARE YOU CLINICALLY, PROFESSIONALLY, SPIRITUALLY INSANE?!" Kyuusei's whisper was a razor blade of compressed fury. He kept his voice low but every syllable vibrated with rage. "A 'Nuisance-level Shade'? That was a coalescing SWARM! It was a hair's breadth from a full Class-1 Glutton! You sent a CIVILIAN, a LATENT with ZERO training, into a potential CONTAINMENT SCENARIO!"
On screen, HER eyes sparkled with delight. She crunched the last of her popsicle. "Aww, but you handled it! I had total faith in you! Besides," she leaned closer, her grin turning shark-like, "a little pressure tests the newbie's nerves, right? Did she scream? Cry? Provide useful data on latent fear responses?"
"THIS ISN'T A LAB! SHE'S NOT A TEST SUBJECT! She's a—" He glanced over at Aoi, who was now carefully inspecting a patch of grass where the Shade-tower had been, as if looking for residual energy signatures. "—a person! A ridiculously curious person who could have gotten turned into spiritual paste because you wanted to 'test her nerves'!"
"Pfft. You're so cute when you're protective. It's almost like you care about your little liability." She winked. "Relax, I monitored the whole thing from the dispatch scry-pool. The moment it escalated past your pay grade, I would've sent in the fun police. Probably."
"That is NOT reassuring! You manipulated the mission parameters!"
"I enriched the learning experience! Admit it, she learned more from that near-disaster than from you pointing at a creepy shadow and calling it a day. You're welcome~!"
Kyuusei took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to master the urge to throw the phone into the pond. "Do. Not. Ever. Do that. Again. Her safety is my responsibility, and if you compromise it again, I will… I will file a grievance form. So many forms. You'll drown in paperwork."
Her laugh was a bright, melodic chime that made his eye twitch. "Ooooh, bureaucracy! My one weakness! You've got me shaking, king! Now go buy your fanclub president a soda or something. You both earned it. Toodles!" The call ended, leaving him staring at his own reflection, flushed with anger and exhaustion.
He leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the jungle gym. Why me. Why is my dispatcher stupid. Why is my asset a cosmic-level nerd.
Meanwhile, Aoi Rin was having a moment.
Outwardly, she was the picture of composed post-mission analysis, examining the environment. Inwardly, she was a fireworks display.
He was… incredible.
The thought was clinical and giddy at the same time. The way he'd moved, no wasted motion. The calm explanation even as a monster formed behind him. The instantaneous shift from lecturer to protector. "Duck." The sound of the blade, that clean, resonant shimm that seemed to cut through reality itself.
She replayed the dispersal wave in her mind's eye. The golden light unraveling the darkness. It wasn't destruction; it was… resolution. A mathematical elegance applied to metaphysical chaos.
Her earlier doodle of a 'cool fighter' seemed childish now. The reality was better. It was weary, competent, and brutally efficient. The sweat wasn't just from exertion; it was proof of a real, physical cost to channeling that energy. The calluses on his hands were the ledgers of a thousand such resolutions.
A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the evening chill. It was pure, undiluted excitement. The hidden world wasn't just a set of facts; it was a practice. A discipline. And Kageyama Kyuusei, her stinky, late, held-back classmate, was a seasoned practitioner. He was a primary source. A living textbook on a subject that didn't exist in any library.
She discreetly pulled out her phone and opened her notes app, typing a quick, private line she would never say aloud.
'Field Observation Log, First Practical: The Subject's operational efficacy exceeds all prior social/academic metrics by orders of magnitude. The disconnect is not a flaw in his character, but a function of his concealed vocation. Hypothesis: The 'Kageyama Kyuusei' presented at school is a low-energy conservation mode. The entity observed during dispersion is the optimized system. The potential for further study is... exhilarating.'
She looked up as he walked back over, looking more drained than ever, like a man who had just fought a battle on two fronts.
"Everything… alright?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral, betraying none of her inner fireworks.
"Peachy," he deadpanned, rubbing his temples. "My dispatcher is a menace who thinks 'near-death experience' is a valid teaching aid. Come on. I'm walking you to the station. And you're buying your own soda."
As they walked, Aoi fell into step beside him, the quiet of the evening settling around them. But her mind was louder than ever, buzzing with theories, calculations, and a newfound, fiercely burning respect. The world had colors she never knew existed, and she had just gotten her first real look at them.
And she wanted, more than anything, to see it all.
Timeskip Brought to You by a Distressed (and Thoroughly Annoyed) Dispatcher
The walk to the station was conducted in a silence that was, for once, not entirely charged with interrogation. Aoi's mind was clearly processing the terabytes of new data, and Kyuusei was nursing his fury at HER into a fine, simmering wine of resentment. His spiritual phone had buzzed in his pocket no less than fourteen times in fifteen minutes.
'hello????'
'king???'
'ok fine i maybe overdid it a little'
'like 5%'
'u know i wldnt let ur new pet project get actually eaten right'
'....kyuu-chan?'
'ok im sorry jeez! ur no fun when ur actually mad!'
He had ignored every one. Let her stew. It was the only weapon he had.
They reached the convenience store near the station entrance. The fluorescent lights felt harsh after the gloom of the fold. Aoi made a beeline for the drink cooler, her analytical gaze now assessing caffeine content versus electrolyte replacement.
Kageyama hovered near the magazine rack, trying to look disinterested. The internal battle was brief but intense.
Side A: "Don't buy her anything. That's a line. That's a 'nice guy' move. That's engagement. You are a handler, not a friend. Stick to the protocol of misery."
Side B: "She almost got turned into Shade-paste because of your idiot dispatcher. The least you can do is a ¥120 soda. It's a condolence soda. A 'sorry my world tried to assimilate you' soda. It's basic decency, not friendship."
Side A: "DECENCY IS A SLIPPERY SLOPE."
Side B: "IT'S A SODA."
Aoi emerged with a bottle of chilled, clear citrus drink. She approached the register.
As she reached for her wallet, Kyuusei's hand shot out, his fingers closing around the bottle's neck before she could grab it. He didn't look at her.
"My treat," he muttered to the cashier, placing a crumpled bill on the counter and snatching the bottle away. "Consider it hazard pay."
He thrust the drink toward her, still avoiding eye contact, focusing intently on a poster for fried chicken behind her head. His ears were faintly pink.
Aoi blinked, her hand pausing mid-air. The action was so unexpectedly, awkwardly non-hostile that it bypassed her analytical protocols entirely. She accepted the cold bottle, her fingers brushing against his. The calluses were pronounced, still warm from his grip on the katana.
"Oh. Thank you, Kageyama-kun."
"Don't mention it. Ever." He finally glanced at her, his usual scowl firmly back in place, but it lacked its usual defensive edge. It just looked tired. "It's not a thing. It's a… logistical adjustment for operational stress."
"Of course," she said, a small, genuine smile touching her lips, not the calculated cute one, but something quieter. "A logistical adjustment. Noted."
They stepped out onto the platform. Her train was approaching.
"Report," he said, slipping back into handler mode as the train's lights grew closer. "Any lingering dizziness? Unusual thoughts? Sudden aversion to swing sets?"
"Negative on all counts. Spiritual resonance appears to have stabilized at baseline. Cognitive function is optimal, with significant new data to process." The train doors slid open with a hiss. She boarded, then turned to face him from inside. "Thank you. For the lesson. And the logistical adjustment."
He gave a single, curt nod. "Go home. Analyze in a safe, supervised environment. Like your desk. No independent fieldwork."
"Understood." The doors began to close. Just before they shut, she added, her voice clear through the gap, "Your form was very efficient!"
The doors sealed. Through the window, he saw her give one last, uncharacteristically enthusiastic little wave before the train pulled away.
Kageyama stood on the empty platform for a moment. He pulled out his spiritual phone. Twenty-three new messages from HER. He swiped them all away without reading and typed a single line.
'Asset is secure. Mission complete. Do not send me another "training exercise" or I will requisition a transfer to sewer duty and take you with me.'
He hit send, turned, and began the long walk home. The night air was cool. The memory of the Shade' whispers was fading. In its place was the lingering image of Aoi's surprised blink, the cool condensation of the soda bottle, and her final, purely professional compliment.
Efficient.
It was the best review he'd ever gotten.
He allowed himself one small, weary smirk before the weight of tomorrow's inevitable chaos settled back onto his shoulders. For now, the liability was safe, the monster was dispersed, and the chaos gremlin in his phone was, however briefly, silenced.
It was almost enough to feel like a victory.