The room smelled of old coffee and stale perfume.
The woman sat at the metal table, her fingers drumming against the surface in uneven rhythms. She hadn't slept in three days. Maybe four. The fluorescent light above her flickered.
"You understand the terms?"
The man across from her wore a suit that cost more than she'd made in the past year. His hands were folded on the table, perfectly still. His eyes, she couldn't quite look at his eyes.
"Five million," she said. Her voice came out wrong. She was barely conscious, slurring over her words as it was not in her native tongue, the light flickered above them, the tiles on the floor cracked from the pressure of her heel.
"Five million," he repeated. "And the boy is no longer your concern."
She laughed.
"He was never my concern, he's a cursed child, I never wanted him here."
The boy stood in the corner of the room. Seven years old. Black hair that fell across his forehead in uneven strands. Violet eyes that didn't blink nearly as often as they should.
He watched his mother sign the papers.
He watched her hands shake as she gripped the pen.
He watched, and his face remained perfectly blank.
"Can you really say that?" The man leaned forward, and something in his voice shifted. "As his mother?"
"Don't." She pressed the pen down so hard the paper nearly tore. "Don't talk to me about what a mother should feel."
"I'm not judging you, Miss Shirogane. I'm simply curious."
"Curious." She spat the word like it tasted foul. "You want to know what it's like? Raising this thing?"
She gestured toward the boy without looking at him. She hadn't looked at him since they entered the room.
The man didn't respond.
"My husband said we could handle it. Said it was just a phase. Some children develop early. Some children are different." She pressed her palm against her forehead. "Then he died."
"Your husband?"
"Yes."
"And you believe this stupid little fuck was responsible?"
She finally looked at him. At those violet eyes that had never once cried.
The man opened a folder that had been sitting beside him. He pulled out photographs, documents, records she'd never seen before. Her name. Her husband's name. The boy's name, circled in red.
"Your husband was a witch too, wasn't he?"
Silence.
"I don't care anymore, this little fucker has been a witch since he was born, I don't want him in my house, he's been nothing but trouble"!
She scratched her head, tearing off the skin from her scalp as she looked down at the child from the side of her eye. She stood up so fast the chair screeched against the floor. Her hands planted flat on the table, her face inches from his.
"I don't care if you use him as a soldier, a slave or whatever, just give me the goddamn money and get him off my hands". She pushed the papers toward him. "Five million. That was the deal. I sign, you take him, I never see him again."
The man didn't flinch.
"Sit down, Miss Shirogane."
"Don't tell me what to fucking to-"
"Sit. Down."
She sat.
"Just take him, and shut up. I don't want to say anything anymore."
"You're a famous idol, I think your fans-"
"I. Don't. Care. They'll forgive me anyways, that thing is a witch, a witch."
The boy watched.
The door caved in.
She stepped through the broken glass like it was a curtain. Her boots crunched on the shards, and her hair, long and ginger, nearly reaching the floor, caught the flickering light in ways that made it seem alive.
"Heyaaa."
The man sighed. "Reina! Stop breaking through the doors! You know how much it costs to repair it"!?
"Sowwy. My bad, I forgot I wasn't supposed to do that." She stuck her tongue out, she was already walking toward the boy, ignoring the mother's startled gasp, ignoring the agent's disapproving glare.
"How many times do I have to remind you"!?
"Come on manager, look at how much aura I gained from that"!
She stood up on the chair as she started to strike a triumphant pose, her arm lifted into the air to display dominance.
"Get out".
She clicked her tongue and pulled the boy away.
Reina pushed through the door and into the hallway beyond. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and somewhere in the distance, a phone was ringing. The air smelled of dust and cleaning chemicals and something faintly metallic.
"Boy".
She crouched down, bringing her face level with his.
Her eyes were gold. Not brown, not amber. Gold.
Her voice spoke like a broken radio, low and steady, her tone became serious and her eyes stared into him.
"Hoshimi."
The boy didn't respond.
"Not much of a talker, are you?"
Still nothing.
"That's fine. I have enough in me to talk enough for three people. You'll learn to tune me out eventually. But right now, you need to listen to me, just this once. Can you do that?"
The boy nodded.
"Good. Here's the run down, your mother is selling you. She's going to sign some papers, take some money, and walk out of here pretending you never existed. And you're going to let her. Because she doesn't care. Do you understand?"
Another nod.
"Secondly, you don't have a choice in the matter. You have come with me. I won't promise you an easy life. I won't promise you happiness. Hell, I won't even promise you that I might be a good mother. But I will promise you this. You'll be mine. My responsibility. I'll take care of you, give you food and do my best–whatever that means– to take care of you."
She extended her hand.
"What do you say, kiddo? Want me to be your new momma?"
The boy looked at her hand. Small and pale, with calluses on the palms and a thin scar running across the knuckles. A working hand. A fighting hand.
He looked at his mother. She was staring at the floor, her shoulders hunched, her whole body trembling.
He looked at the agent, who was watching with an expression that was impossible to read.
Then he took Reina's hand.
"Good choice," she said, and smiled. It wasn't a kind smile. It was sharp at the edges, like a blade wrapped in silk.
They walked in silence for a while. The boy's footsteps were steady, measured, like he was counting the spaces between each step.
"You're wondering why I showed up to take care of you" Reina said. "You're wondering who I am, isn't that right?"
The boy didn't answer, but something shifted in his expression.
"I work for the government. Sort of. It's complicated. I do jobs for them, they pay me, just like a normal job, but I'm not completely restricted. But I also do other work.. And sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly charitable, I pick up stray cats like yourself."
She glanced down at him.
She crouched down again, bringing herself level with his eyes.
"Let me be clear about something, Hoshimi. You're not human. That's not an insult. Witches aren't human. We are wholly separate creatures masquerading as them. But our souls are different. We have more mana, the energy running your little cranium, unlike the normal fold, we have an abnormal amount. And that terrifies people. It makes them hate us. It makes them want to control us. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Reina grabbed a toothpick from the ground as she flicked it straight towards a glass cup, shattering it without any effort.
"My mana manifests as a mutation that allows me to enhance parts of my body, cool right"?
"I guess?"
His voice was nervous, he was getting adopted by a woman that he had never seen, a future that was unsure right in front of him.
"There are four ways that your mana can manifest, you'll learn more when you get older. But the most important thing you need to remember is that you aren't a human, you're a witch".
Hoshimi looked down at his hands, reflecting on himself.
"Why does everyone hate me? What have I done"?
Her fingers curled up as she flicked his head, not strong enough to hurt him but to jolt him awake.
"You're a witch, you have powers that they don't, you're special and that's why you seem like a monster to them, you're different, you're like Superman".
"Yea I'd rather not have these abilities, I don't want to fight other people, I want to be normal".
"You're stuck with it anyways so it's time to stop wishing for the impossible". She smiled softly. "So are you coming with me?"
"I have no choice anyways."
The boy didn't say goodbye.
He didn't look back.
10 years later—
The smell of fried onions crept up the stairs and slipped under her door like a cat demanding attention.
She was already awake. Had been for twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster. Fourteen cracks. There had been thirteen last week. She wasn't sure when the new one had appeared, but she'd noticed it this morning, a thin hairline fracture branching out from the corner like a tiny lightning bolt frozen in time.
"Kira! Breakfast!"
Her mother's voice. Warm. Insistent. The same voice that had woken her every morning for seventeen years.
"I'm coming!"
She didn't move.
Her glasses sat crooked on her face, lenses smudged from the night before. She'd fallen asleep reading again. Third time this week.
"Kira!"
"I know, mom!"
She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold.
Her room was small but orderly. Desk by the window. Bookshelf overflowing. A corkboard covered in notes and schedules and a single photograph of her father holding her when she was five, both of them grinning at the camera like they'd just gotten away with something. She couldn't remember what they'd done that day. Something good, probably. Something that had made him smile like that.
She pulled on her uniform, blue and white, the standard for her school and waddled downstairs, still half-asleep, her shoes threatening to slip off with every step.
The kitchen was chaos.
Her mother stood at the stove, spatula in one hand, phone in the other. The radio was playing something old and scratchy. The cat was winding between her legs. The onions were burning slightly, but that was how her father liked them.
"Finally," her mother said without turning around. "What were you even doing?"
Kira stared down, twiddling her fingers.
"You were up late studying again, weren't you?"
"Maybe."
"Kira."
"Fine. Yes. I was studying."
Her mother turned, spatula pointed accusingly. "You need to sleep. Real sleep. I know school is important but your health is as well, you shouldn't prioritize school over your well being."
Kira slid into her chair and reached for the toast. Her mother slapped her hand away.
"Wait for your father."
"He's home?"
"Got in about an hour ago. He's washing up."
Kira's father worked nights as a security guard at some restaurant downtown. She'd never been to the restaurant. She'd asked once, years ago, and he'd said it was boring, nothing worth seeing, just a job.
"How's school?" her mother asked, turning back to the stove.
"Fine."
"Just fine?"
"What do you want me to say? It's school. I go. I learn things. I come home."
"Any friends?"
"Mom."
"I'm just asking."
"You're always just asking the same thing."
Her mother was quiet for a moment. "I worry about you, Kira."
"I'm doing fine, don't worry about me."
"I'm your mother."
"I'm at the top of the class."
"That's not what I'm worried about."
Her father walked in.
He was tall and tired, his uniform rumpled, his eyes rimmed with red. But he smiled when he saw her, and that smile was the same one from the photograph, warm, genuine, like nothing bad could ever happen as long as he was there.
"There's my girl."
"Dad, I'm not a girl. I'm practically an adult."
He ruffled her hair as he passed.
"Sure you are."
"You should find a different job."
"I like this job."
"Why? You never sleep. You barely see us. And you're always so tired when you get home."
He exchanged a glance with her mother. One of those silent conversations adults had when they thought children weren't watching.
"It pays well," he said. "And it's steady. That's all that matters."
"There are other jobs that pay well."
"Not for people like me."
There it was again. That thing. That unspoken thing that hovered at the edges of every conversation, never quite materializing, never quite going away.
"Daniel." Her mother's voice was soft but warning. "Stop forcing yourself at work, you're going to collapse one day, you know that?"
"I know, I know." He raised his hands in mock surrender.
"Mom, Dad, stop flirting. You're going to make me barf."
"We're not flirting," her mother said. "We're arguing."
"Same thing."
The knock came soon.
Kira was in the bathroom, foam dribbling down her chin, toothbrush frozen mid-motion. She stared at her reflection, pale face, blue eyes, brown hair that refused to behave no matter how much she brushed it, her eyes were drooping, almost asleep. There was a small crack in the corner of the mirror. She'd noticed it months ago.
"Mom, I'm brushing my teeth!"
She heard her mother's footsteps, the creak of the front door opening. Muffled voices. Her mother's, then someone else's.
She spat out the toothpaste.
"Mom?"
Then—the ceiling groaned. The sound was deep, guttural, like the breath of a whale pressing down on the house. Dust sifted from above. Her gaze trembled slightly, her pupils shrinking as a cold draft slipped across her bare arms, raising gooseflesh.
The walls cracked first. A deafening rumble surged through the room before the plaster exploded outward. The sink jolted forward, slamming into her stomach with brutal force; she gasped, wind knocked from her lungs, before her skull smashed against the glass.
"The fuck—?" she whispered, dazed.
The mirror spiderwebbed, then shattered. Jagged shards bit into her skin. A dozen icy knives embedded into her forehead, her cheeks, her hands.
Red
A deep red
Then a warm sensation overwhelmed her
As if boiling hot water was being poured right on top of her
White beams—searing, blinding—split the darkness into jagged fragments. They weren't natural; they hissed, cutting across the room like weapons of their own.
She tried to scream. The sound stuck in her throat.
Through the chaos, through the dust and the debris, she saw her father.
From the corner of her blurring vision, she saw her father. His ankle bent unnaturally, blood streaming freely down his leg. The crimson seeped into the cracks in the floor, crawling like veins, filling them. He staggered once, twice, his hand reaching for the wall, his mouth forming words she couldn't hear.
Then he fell.
His body hit the floor with a sound she would never forget. Not the thud. The other sound. The wet, final sound of something important breaking.
The blood didn't just pool. It moved. It crawled across the tiles like something alive, and sparks danced through i, electricity that snapped and crackled and sent her father's body into convulsions, his eyes went glassy and still.
"Dad…?"
Her voice was barely a whisper. It was swallowed by the chaos before it could reach him.
Kira's scream stuck in her throat.
The door blew apart. Boots thundered in, shaking the walls worse than the quake. Men in heavy black gear flooded the room—visors glinting, rifles raised, their armored vests swallowing their humanity. The air smelled of metal and smoke.
"We've found one."
"Her mana is spiking. Readings are off the scale."
"She's definitely one of them."
"A reincarnation."
Gloved hands seized her. Her wrists were bent backward. . Metal bit her skin. But Kira didn't fight. She barely breathed. She only stared at the corpse sprawled across the floor, his lifeblood fizzing with impossible energy.
Her mind emptied.
Blank.
"She's a child! You can't—!" her mother's voice shrieked from somewhere beyond the haze.
Kira's lips trembled. Her throat closed around the words as she was dragged away.
"…Mom," she whispered, her voice breaking into pieces, "I'm so scared."