Chapter Four: Flair and Threats
Part 1: The Stranger
I finished with breakfast and was off again to an ordinary day. Every day was almost the same—predictable, ordinary. My life was normal. Not until I discovered my new‑found abilities.
Aeolus had disconnected from me.
I was walking to school, only a few kilometers from home. Most mornings, Sasaki caught up to me somewhere along this street. She'd talk about gossip, school, her mother's cooking—anything to fill the silence. She was noisy, but it was the kind of noise that made the quiet easier to carry.
Not today.
I'd passed her house without seeing her. I slowed at the corner where she usually appeared, breathless and apologetic, but the street was empty. When I finally spotted her ahead, she was walking fast, her head down, her bag clutched against her chest like she was trying to disappear into it.
I called her name.
She glanced back—just for a second—then turned and walked faster.
I stood there, watching her disappear around the next corner. Something cold settled in my stomach. I replayed the last few days in my head, searching for a reason. Had I said something wrong? Done something strange? I always listened when she talked. I always answered when she asked.
Maybe those moments of silence—the ones where my mind was already in the tower—had finally started to show.
Lost in thought, I didn't see the figure until I walked straight into him.
"Sorry," I said, stumbling back. "Sorry."
He was young—maybe my age, maybe older. A hood shadowed most of his face, but I caught the edge of a jaw, the curve of a hand raised in a dismissive wave.
Then he spoke. Quiet. Almost to himself.
Hmm. A Flair user. Interesting.
He walked away before I could answer.
I stood frozen, watching his hooded figure disappear down the street. My heart hammered against my ribs. He knew. Somehow, he knew. And the way he'd said it—not like a question, not like something discovered. Like something confirmed.
I thought about chasing after him. Demanding answers. But my feet wouldn't move.
When I finally turned toward school, the morning felt different. The world seemed thinner somehow, as if something had shifted just out of sight.
Part 2: The Distance
School passed in a blur.
I sat through classes, answered when called on, took notes without really seeing them. My mind kept drifting back to the figure in the hood. How had he known about Flair? How had he known about me?
I tried to focus on the board, but the numbers shifted and blurred. Every time I looked out the window, I expected to see him standing there, watching.
Sasaki's strange behavior soon became regular.
She avoided me the rest of the morning. I saw her in the hallway between classes, her back turned, her shoulders tight. At lunch, her usual bench sat empty. When I finally caught up to her after the last bell, she was already halfway to the door.
"Sasaki."
She stopped, but she didn't turn around.
"I have club activities," she said. Her voice was light, but there was something forced about it. "See you later."
She was gone before I could answer.
I stood in the empty classroom, watching the door swing shut. The silence pressed against my ears. I thought about following her, pushing harder. But I didn't know what I'd done wrong. I didn't know what to apologize for.
On my way out, I found Sakamoto at his desk, packing his bag with the slow, careless efficiency of someone who never rushed. He was always sarcastic, his words light, but underneath it, he was surprisingly carefree.
"Sasaki's been weird lately," I said.
He looked up, one eyebrow raised. "Weird how?"
"Avoiding me."
He shrugged. "Maybe she likes you."
"That's not—"
"I'm actually jealous," he said, grinning like it was a joke. "You're always so lost in your own world, and people still want to be around you. Feels like I'm being left behind."
He laughed, slung his bag over his shoulder, and headed for the door.
I stared after him, his words settling somewhere uncomfortable in my chest. Lost in your own world. Was that what Sasaki saw? A boy who was there but not there, answering questions without really listening, walking beside her while his mind was already somewhere else?
I didn't know how to fix that. I didn't know if I could.
By the time I reached home, the afternoon had faded into evening. I climbed the stairs to my room, closed the door, and lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the night. I needed answers.
Part 3: The Gap
The tower rose before me, its light steady and waiting. The corridors shifted as I walked, guiding me down familiar paths until I stood in the core chamber.
Aeolus's silhouette moved within the sphere, their presence calm but edged with something sharper—seriousness, maybe, or concern. The colors that shifted through their form were slower than usual, more deliberate.
You came, they said.
"I needed to talk to you."
I know.
I stepped closer to the core. "Someone today—he knew about Flair. He knew about me."
The silhouette stilled. When Aeolus spoke again, their voice was quieter.
I never thought someone would be able to use Flair in your world. The gap is widening.
"Gap?"
Not sure myself. I don't know the details. But the cracks—the spaces between worlds—were caused by Conceptual users using their power. They tore openings that were never meant to be there.
"Hmm. They must be really powerful," I said, still trying to process.
Yes. Aeolus's voice was heavy. They were. They trapped me here.
"You said your memories are vague."
Yes. Even though I don't know why, or who did it—they're likely forgotten—I still remember. I still carry the emotions.
The silhouette flickered. The calm presence I'd grown used to shifted, unraveling at the edges. Anger. Fear. Loneliness. Years of silence pressing against the barrier between us. I watched Aeolus struggle to hold themselves together, the light within the core pulsing faster, brighter.
Then, slowly, they steadied.
But I can suppress those feelings now.
"How?"
Because of the connection we made.
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Hmph. Yeah."
One thing I'm sure of, Aeolus said. That person is a Flair user. And they may come here one day.
I looked at the silhouette—the reaching hands, the endless shifting at the edges. The weight of what Aeolus had carried for millennia pressed against my chest.
"Then we'll be ready for whatever comes," I said.
Yes.
I felt their presence warm, steady, waiting.
Part 4: Learning and the Unknown
The training ground shifted.
Aeolus guided me beyond the tower's corridors, into the open wasteland where the sky burned gold and the cracked earth stretched endlessly. The standing stones we'd used before had multiplied, forming a natural arena.
Ready?
I nodded, settling into a low stance. The air around me felt alive—currents brushing against my skin, pressure shifts whispering through my senses.
The first wave came as a flood. Large groups of elementals, too many to count, surging forward in a tide of dust and wind. I fell back, using wide bursts of compressed air to scatter them, then picking off the ones that slipped through. It was chaos, raw and desperate, but I learned to hold my ground, to shape the air into barriers and sweeping currents that broke their formations.
When the last of them dissolved, I was breathless, but my stance was steadier.
Good, Aeolus said. Now smaller groups. More coordinated.
They came in threes and fours, moving in patterns I hadn't seen before. They attacked together, covering each other's weaknesses, forcing me to split my focus. I learned to read multiple rhythms at once, to counter without thinking. My arms burned. My lungs ached. But I kept moving.
Then pairs.
These were different. Smarter. They flanked, feinted, adapted to my moves mid‑attack. One would press while the other circled, forcing me to watch both. They learned from me as I fought them, adjusting their tactics with each exchange.
I had to evolve faster.
I tested ideas—shaping air into blades, into shields, into sudden walls that broke their coordination. Some worked. Some failed. I noted the failures and tried again. Each pair forced me to think differently, to see the gaps in their patterns, to strike where they weren't looking.
When the last pair scattered into dust, I stood in the center of the arena, chest heaving, hands steady.
A pause. Then a new shape emerged from between the stones.
It moved differently. Slower, but deliberate. Its form was sharper than the others—edges almost defined, limbs longer, posture almost human. When it turned toward me, I saw its face.
Or rather, what my face might look like if it were made of dust and wind and memory.
My heart skipped. "What is that?"
Aeolus didn't answer immediately. When they did, their voice was quieter.
It's you. Or rather, what the tower has learned of you. Every move you've made, every technique you've used—it remembers. And now it's testing you with yourself.
Part 5: Evolving
The clone attacked without warning.
A blade of air—sharper than anything I'd faced—sliced past my shoulder. I dodged on instinct, my body reacting before my mind caught up. The wind pressure burned against my skin.
It moved like me.
No—it moved like I had moved earlier, before I'd adapted, before I'd learned. The same angles. The same timing. The same mistakes.
I sent a counterattack—an air spike, fast and direct. It sidestepped, exactly the way I would have sidestepped.
It's reading you, Aeolus said. Your past self, moments ago. Every move you make, it learns. Every adjustment you try, it counters with your own patterns.
I clenched my jaw. "Then I need to evolve faster."
The clone pressed forward. Its attacks were sharp, precise—but hollow. No strategy. No purpose. Just instructions written into its form, repeating what it had seen.
I fought differently.
I attacked not to win, but to test. I probed its defenses, watched its counters, let it show me what it had learned. Each exchange taught me something new about my own habits—the tells I didn't know I had, the openings I left without realizing.
The clone was learning too. But it was learning from a past version of me. And I was already changing.
I needed an opening. One it couldn't predict.
I backed away, letting it advance. I drew air around my legs, my arms, my whole body—compressing pressure, building force. The clone mirrored my stance, preparing for another exchange.
It was waiting for me to attack the way I had before.
Instead, I let everything go at once.
The burst of wind pressure launched me forward—not in a strike, but into a full‑body tackle. My fist connected with its chest. The compressed air exploded outward, tearing through its form.
The clone flew back, hit the ground, and began to disintegrate. Dust scattered into the wind. Silence filled the arena.
Aeolus's presence swelled—surprise, then pride, then something warmer.
That was… not supposed to be possible at your level. You have great potential.
"Thanks," I said, still catching my breath. "But I still have more to learn."
You do. But you faced yourself and you won. That's more than most can say.
I let the words settle. The arena was quiet now. The dust had settled. For a moment, there was only the steady pulse of the tower and the calm between us.
I turned to head back inside.
Aeolus's presence flickered—just for a moment. A shift in their attention, quick and sharp, then gone.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
A pause. Then, calm again.
Nothing. Let's head back.
I hesitated, but the moment had passed. I turned and walked toward the tower, the weight of the fight still heavy in my limbs.
Behind me, Aeolus's attention lingered on the horizon a moment longer, watching something I couldn't see.
Something was coming.
END OF CHAPTER FOUR