Kuchiba Hiro stepped through the gates of Sōbu High School. He had just swapped his shoes at the cubbies when a familiar figure blocked his path.
It was Hiratsuka Shizuka. Today she wasn't wearing her white coat, just a simple tracksuit, her face betraying fatigue and irritation she couldn't hide. She beckoned to Kuchiba Hiro, tone brooking no refusal: "Come with me. We need to talk."
Kuchiba Hiro followed in silence. Neither spoke as they made their way to the clubroom labeled Service Club. She pushed the door open; the room was empty.
Hiratsuka strode to the large table cobbled together from several desks, yanked a chair free and flung it toward him. "Sit."
She dragged another chair over by the window, pulled a cigarette pack from her pocket, expertly tapped one out and clamped it between her lips. A crisp click of her lighter, a deep inhale, then a slow exhalation of smoke. The faint scent of tobacco drifted through the quiet clubroom.
"I've been warned," she said, eyes on the window, voice husky. "People upstairs told me to play along, cover up the 'truth.' And to pass the message to you—keep your head down, don't run your mouth."
Kuchiba Hiro nodded. He had no desire to grandstand or make waves; his father's analysis and strategy made sense. Still, a question nagged at him. "Why? Why go to such lengths to hide the truth? What's the point? Are ordinary people really capable of opposing or restraining Transcendents?"
Hiratsuka turned, a self-mocking smile flickering across her face. "Who knows? Maybe yes, maybe no. How could a bottom-feeder like me guess what the big shots upstairs are thinking?" She flicked ash into a tray. "My third-rate skills probably aren't even worth the effort of killing and selling in the real Inner World."
Bottom-tier Transcendent? Killed for cash? Kuchiba Hiro latched onto the phrases. "Ms. Hiratsuka, what exactly is this so-called 'Transcendent world' like? Who's in it? What's their social structure? Is there... a power-ranking system?"
Hiratsuka shook her head and took another drag. "Don't ask me. I've never touched the inner circle. Most of what I know are fragments my grandpa told me when I was a kid."
Her gaze turned distant. "Grandpa spent time in some of the big Transcendent organizations. He used to say their main job was dealing with monsters called 'Abyssals,' things that crawled out of cracks from another world. When I was little he'd scare me with those stories and push me to practice our family arts, saying I could grow up to be a hero protecting the world."
She gave a wry chuckle. "Sounded inspiring back then, right? Now it feels like some second-rate fantasy cliché."
Kuchiba Hiro listened quietly, brows knit. Abyssals? Otherworld monsters? Guardians of humanity? The setup was classic—almost corny.
If the Transcendents' purpose were really that noble—fighting an external threat—it would actually seem... less terrifying.
Yet the cold brutality of Hika Kuroko in the light screen, plus the hint that Transcendent corpses fetched high prices, pointed to a darker, crueler reality. Compared with grotesque monsters, the invisible, unfathomable hearts and rules of people were far more unsettling.
"So, Ms. Hiratsuka," Kuchiba Hiro shifted angle, "from what little you've felt and heard, what do you think that world is like?"
Hiratsuka exhaled a long plume of smoke, her eyes growing deep and complex. "Probably... not a nice place. After Grandpa retired, he never trained again, and he stopped urging me to practice. Instead... he often told me to just be an ordinary person and live a safe, quiet life—stay away from all that."
Those words stirred something in Kuchiba Hiro. Urging descendants to abandon power? Something heavy must lie behind that.
Since he couldn't pry out more about the Transcendent world as a whole, Kuchiba Hiro turned the topic to himself. "Then what about 'cultivation'? Why do I seem to have powers without training? Are there different kinds of Transcendents?"
Hiratsuka stubbed out the cigarette, thought for a moment, then offered the scant knowledge she had—knowledge that sounded ripped from a pulp novel. "Grandpa mentioned once that someone like you is probably an 'Esper' or 'Innate Ability User.' You're born with a supernatural power. They say such people have huge potential, grow fast, and are... highly 'valued.'"
She paused, tone turning odd. "People like me, who have to sit, cultivate, temper body and qi step by step, are 'traditional cultivators.' But apparently that path is nearly obsolete. These days it's the age of Espers."
"Why?" Kuchiba Hiro asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Hiratsuka curled her lip. "Cultivation is bitter, slow, and talent- and resource-dependent! Without twenty or thirty years of grinding through winter and summer, you achieve nothing. Even if you do, in the current era you still might not match some powerful innate ability. Input and output are completely out of whack! Many lineages have already died out, or no one bothers learning them. People like me, foolish enough to train for years, are a dwindling minority—practically extinct."
She sighed. "So cultivation sounds mystical, but it's really just torment for little gain—destined for the dustbin."
Kuchiba Hiro pondered. Espers and cultivators... innate awakening versus painstaking effort... the dichotomy offered him a rudimentary framework for understanding himself and the mysterious world. Yet the information Hiratsuka revealed remained hazy and contradictory; the true Inner World was still shrouded in thick fog.
Upto 15 chapters ahead on patreon :-
patreon.com/Vristikk