The English teacher, Mr. Sato, loved hearing himself talk. He stood at the front of the classroom waving a thin poetry book around like it was something sacred. Afternoon sun came through the windows of Starlight Academy and caught all the dust floating in the air. Most students looked half asleep. Ryota was definitely asleep. His head rested on his hand and his mouth hung open a little.
I stared at the back of the student in front of me. My body felt heavy like lead. The summon in the alley lasted less than five minutes but the drain was real. Every time I pulled Kuro out of the deck it felt like he took some of my blood with him. That was the price of the contract. The more powerful the entity, the heavier the cost.
"The poet speaks of a silence that screams," Mr. Sato said. His voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. "A silence that holds the weight of a thousand unspoken words. Can anyone tell me what that means?"
The class went silent. Not the dramatic kind Mr. Sato wanted. Just the awkward kind where no one wants to get noticed.
"Kaito?" Mr. Sato asked.
I looked up. I didn't like being the center of attention. Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward me. I felt Hana looking at me from the next row over. Her eyes were soft and encouraging. She knew I hated this.
"It means," I started. I paused. The deck of cards in my pocket pressed against my thigh. "Truth hurts."
Mr. Sato blinked. He waited for more. He always waited for more. After a few seconds he realized he wasn't getting anything else. He sighed and nodded. He adjusted his glasses and went back to his book.
"Direct as always, Mr. Ashen. A bit simplistic, but perhaps you are right. Some truths are too heavy for words."
I went back to looking at the window. I wasn't being poetic. I was being literal. The things I saw in the rifts, the things I had to do to keep them from spilling into the streets, those were truths that would break most people. If I told Ryota that a monster made of smoke almost crawled into his neighborhood today, he wouldn't laugh anymore. If I told Hana that her smile was the only thing keeping me from losing my mind to the darkness of the deck, she would be afraid of the responsibility.
So I stayed silent. It was safer for everyone.
A small piece of paper landed on my desk. It was folded into a tiny square. I didn't have to look to know it was from Hana. I opened it under the desk.
Are you okay? You look pale. Let's get ice cream after school. My treat.
I looked at her. She was already looking at me and biting her lip. I gave her a small, almost invisible nod. She smiled and the tension in my chest loosened just a little.
When the final bell rang, Ryota woke up with a start and nearly fell off his chair. He wiped his face and looked around wildly.
"Is it over? Did we win?" he asked. His voice echoed in the emptying room.
Jin stood up and gathered his books with methodical precision. "We survived Mr. Sato's lecture, Ryota. That's a victory in itself."
"Man, that guy can talk," Ryota said. He swung his bag over his shoulder. "I had a dream I was being chased by a giant dictionary. It was terrifying."
We walked out of the school and into the warm afternoon air. The city of Neo Akatsuki was starting to wake up for the evening. The neon signs were beginning to flicker to life. The smell of street food was starting to replace the scent of exhaust and pavement. We walked toward the Hanami District, a place full of small shops and crowded walkways.
"Ice cream sounds amazing," Ryota said, even though the invite hadn't technically been for him. "I want the one with the gold leaf on it. It makes me feel like a king."
"You'll take the vanilla cone and like it," Jin said.
We found a small stall near the park. Hana bought four cones. She handed me one with sea salt caramel. She remembered. She always remembered the small things. We sat on a wooden bench overlooking a pond. The cherry blossoms were long gone but the trees were thick with green leaves that rustled in the breeze.
"Kaito," Jin said suddenly. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the water. "Did you hear about the incident in the industrial district this morning?"
I felt my heart skip a beat but my face didn't change. I took a bite of my ice cream. Cold. Salty. Sweet.
"No," I said.
"The news said a gas leak blew out a bunch of windows in an alleyway," Jin continued. His voice was calm but there was a sharp edge to it. "But the pictures online showed claw marks on the brick. Deep ones. Like something was trying to climb the walls."
Ryota leaned in with wide eyes. "Wait, like a bear? In the city?"
"In an alley behind a warehouse?" Jin asked and shook his head. "Doesn't seem likely. People are saying it's some kind of urban legend stuff. Shadow monsters. Creepy pastas."
Hana shivered. She moved a little closer to me on the bench. "That's scary. I don't like those stories. Why can't people just talk about normal things?"
"Because the world isn't normal, Hana," Jin said. Finally he looked at me. His eyes were searching mine. He was looking for a reaction. A flinch. Anything.
I looked back at him. My eyes were a wall. I had spent years building that wall. I wasn't going to let Jin climb it, even if he was my friend.
"People imagine things," I said.
Jin held my gaze for a long moment. Then he looked away and finished his ice cream. "Yeah. I guess they do."
The conversation shifted to Ryota's latest video game obsession but the air felt different now. The peaceful afternoon felt fragile. I could feel the deck in my pocket getting warmer. It was a subtle heat like a cup of tea you've forgotten about. It meant there was something nearby. Not a rift yet. Just a presence.
I stood up.
"Where are you going?" Hana asked. She looked disappointed. "We just got here."
"Home," I said. "Study."
"Liars don't get ice cream for free next time," Ryota teased but he didn't try to stop me.
Hana stood up too. "I'll walk with you to the station. I need to pick up some groceries for my mom anyway."
I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell her to stay with the guys where it was crowded and bright. But the look in her eyes told me that she wasn't going to take no for an answer. She wanted a few minutes alone with me.
"Okay," I said.
We walked away from the park. The sun was dipping lower and turning the sky into a bruised purple and orange. The shadows of the buildings stretched across the streets like long, dark fingers. We walked in silence for a while. It wasn't the heavy silence of the classroom. It was the comfortable silence we always shared. Hana didn't feel the need to fill the gaps. She just liked being there.
"You're doing it again," she said softly after a few blocks.
"What?"
"Hiding," she said. She stopped walking and turned to face me. The evening light made her eyes look like amber. "You've been gone all day, Kaito. Even when you're sitting right next to me, it feels like you're miles away. Are you in trouble? Is it something I can help with?"
I looked at her. I wanted to reach out and touch her face. I wanted to tell her that she was the only thing that made sense in a world that was falling apart. But the heat in my pocket was getting stronger. It was pulsing now. A warning.
"I'm fine, Hana," I said. My voice was a little rougher than I intended.
"You're not a very good liar," she said. She stepped closer. I could smell her shampoo. It smelled like jasmine. "Is it because of what Jin said? About the alleyway?"
I opened my mouth to answer but the world suddenly went cold.
It wasn't a natural cold. It didn't come from the wind. It felt like the temperature had dropped twenty degrees in a single second. The streetlights above us flickered and died. The people on the main road just a block away seemed to vanish into a thick sudden fog that rolled in from nowhere.
Hana gasped and grabbed my arm. Her hands were shaking. "Kaito? What's happening? Why is it so dark?"
I didn't answer. I pulled her behind me. I reached into my pocket and gripped the deck. My fingers found a specific card. It wasn't Kuro this time. The energy felt different. Sharp. Brittle.
"Stay back," I whispered.
The fog in front of us began to swirl. A figure emerged from the mist. It looked like a woman but she was too tall and her limbs were too long and thin. She was wearing a tattered white kimono that trailed on the ground like melting snow. Her hair was long and black and frozen into jagged strands. Her face was a pale mask of sorrow and her eyes were empty white pits.
It was a Rare. A Frost Creeper. It wasn't from our world. It was a scavenger that fed on the warmth of living things.
The creature opened its mouth and a cloud of freezing vapor drifted out. The pavement beneath its feet cracked as the moisture in the concrete turned to ice. It didn't make a sound but I could hear its hunger in my head. It was a high pitched whining noise that made my teeth ache.
"Kaito, we have to run!" Hana screamed. She was staring at the creature with a pale face full of terror. She couldn't understand what she was seeing. Her brain was trying to process the monster as something else, a hallucination or a person in a costume, but her instincts knew the truth. They knew death was standing ten feet away.
"Hana, listen," I said. I turned to look at her. I had to be fast. "Close your eyes. Don't open them. No matter what you hear."
"What? No! Kaito, come on!"
"Close them," I commanded. My voice had a weight to it now, the authority of the Silent King.
She flinched but she did it. She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in the back of my jacket. She was sobbing quietly.
I turned back to the Frost Creeper. It was gliding toward us with long fingers reaching out. The air was so cold now that my breath was coming out in thick clouds.
I pulled the card. The Queen of Hearts.
In the world of the deck, the Queen was Yuki-Onna. She was a legend, a spirit of the high mountains. She was far more powerful than the creature in front of me.
"Yuki," I whispered.
I didn't flick the card this time. I pressed it against my palm. I felt the ice surge through my veins. My skin turned pale and a thin layer of frost formed on my eyelashes. This was a partial fusion. It was faster than a full summon but it hurt like hell. It felt like my blood was turning into shards of glass.
The Frost Creeper hissed and lunged. It was a blur of white silk and frozen claws.
I didn't move. I waited until it was inches away. Then I raised my hand.
A wall of ice exploded from the ground between us. It wasn't normal ice. It was blue and glowing with an inner light and harder than steel. The creature slammed into the wall. Its claws shattered against the surface. It shrieked. The sound cracked the windows of the nearby shops.
I stepped around the wall. My eyes were no longer brown. They were a piercing glowing blue.
"My domain," I said. The words weren't just mine. They were Yuki's too.
I pointed my finger at the creature. A spear of ice formed in the air and shot forward. It pierced the Frost Creeper through the chest and pinned it to the brick wall of a grocery store. The creature thrashed. Its body began to dissolve into white mist.
I didn't give it a chance to recover. I closed my fist and the spear exploded into a thousand tiny needles, shredding the creature's essence.
In seconds it was gone. The fog began to lift. The streetlights flickered back to life. The unnatural cold faded and was replaced by the lingering warmth of the summer evening.
I stood there for a moment with my hand still raised. The blue light in my eyes faded. The frost on my skin melted and left me shivering and exhausted. I felt a sharp pain in my chest. A reminder that I wasn't supposed to play with the Queen's power so casually.
I tucked the Queen of Hearts back into the deck. My hands were trembling violently. I shoved them into my pockets so Hana wouldn't see.
"Kaito?" Her voice was small and muffled by my jacket. "Is it over? Is it gone?"
I took a deep breath and tried to steady my voice. "Yes. Open your eyes."
She pulled away from me and looked around. The street was empty. The wall of ice had vanished and left only a wet patch on the pavement. The grocery store window was cracked but that was the only sign that anything had happened.
"What was that?" she asked. She was looking at me like I was a stranger. "That... that thing. And the cold. Kaito, what did you do?"
I looked at the cracked window. I looked at the street where the people were starting to reappear, oblivious to the fact that they had just missed a brush with a nightmare.
"A freak weather pocket," I said. It was the stupidest lie I had ever told. "Pressure drop. It happens."
Hana looked at the wet pavement. She looked at the cracked window. Then she looked at me. She didn't believe me. For the first time in our lives I saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes. It hurt more than the ice in my veins.
"Kaito," she said. Her voice was trembling. "Don't. Don't lie to me."
"Hana, please," I said. I reached out but she stepped back. Not because she was afraid of me but because she was overwhelmed.
"I have to go," she said. She didn't look back as she turned and started walking toward the station. She wasn't running but she was moving fast.
I stood there in the middle of the sidewalk. The deck in my pocket was cold now. Silent.
"You really messed that up, boss."
The voice came from the shadows behind a trash can. Kuro stepped out leaning on his cane. He wasn't fully summoned, just a projection that only I could see. He looked at the direction Hana had gone and shook his head.
"Women like flowers and honesty," Kuro said. "Not ice walls and monsters. You should have told her it was a magic trick. Or a very elaborate prank."
"Shut up, Kuro," I said.
"Fine, fine. But just so you know, that little ice lady you just used? She's grumpy. She doesn't like being used for pest control. She thinks she's above that."
I didn't answer. I started walking toward my apartment. My body ached and my mind was a mess. The rifts were opening more frequently. The creatures were getting bolder. And now the one person I wanted to protect most was starting to see the cracks in my mask.
The Silent King was supposed to be strong. He was supposed to have all the answers. But as I walked through the crowded streets of Neo Akatsuki, I felt like a kid holding a deck of cards he didn't fully understand, watching the only world he cared about drift away.
I reached my apartment and locked the door. I didn't turn on the lights. I just sat on the floor with my back against the door and pulled out the deck. I spread the cards out in front of me. Fifty two soldiers. Fifty two burdens.
I picked up the Queen of Hearts. The image of the beautiful frozen woman seemed to stare back at me with pity.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to the empty room.
I didn't know if I was talking to the card or to Hana.
Outside the city hummed with life, unaware of the war being fought in the shadows. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. I needed to get stronger. I needed to find a way to close the rifts before they took everything.
But as I drifted into a restless sleep, all I could see was the doubt in Hana's amber eyes. And that was a monster I didn't know how to fight.