Hearts Beating As One

“I love you, Haru-kun,” Suki said from beneath me, naked and beautiful.

“I love you too,” I replied, above her but equally naked. I embraced her and kissed her, feeling our lips mingle and our tongues intertwine in a dance of passion. I felt my stiffness enter her delicate flower.

“Ah!” she moaned, breaking our kiss. She was gorgeous, everything I could have hoped for. Delicate snowy white skin, beautifully full and soft breasts, a cute face even if half of it was hidden behind her silky straight black hair, and eyes that were deep, black, and mysterious. I would always protect this girl; I would never betray her. I’d only been with her for two days and I already loved her more than anything.

Two days, right? Two days, and we’re already…? I thrust my hips in spite of myself, deciding to just let myself get lost in the wonderful feeling.

And yet, it kept bothering me. This was too soon for this, is this what she really wanted? Right now? This revelation brought with it a shift in perspective, and I started noticing more things that just weren’t right. She was too thin; I could see her ribs. Her arms were thin like winter branches, and her cheeks were gaunt. Were those… bruises? No, they couldn’t be, her skin was pristine just second ago. Did those eyes always look so dead and lifeless? What’s wrong with the left side of her face, it looks wrong under her hair, deformed… no… inky and black like tar.

Haaaaaruuuu… her voice sounded in my mind, even though her lips didn’t move. They couldn’t, she was a corpse. I felt cold. Her voice was like a freezer, and it sounded so sorrowful.

Her body raised up, but not in any natural way, her skin began to melt away into pitch black sludge that poured itself onto my bed. She was turning into that thing, that phantom. Its eyes were now like hollow and dead lights staring into my very soul.

It spoke again in my mind, its voice like a harrowing wail of liquid sorrow, D-don’t go it whimpered, I thought… I thought I had… killed… It repeated the words from two nights ago, and they broke my heart and filled it with fear instead.

I KILLED YOU

---

I jerked awake, sweating and panting like mad. I was confused, the fleeting image of the nightmare in my dreams slowly but surely fading away into the back of my subconscious mind. I managed to calm myself and peer at the digital clock next to my bed. It was 5 minutes before my alarm normally goes off.

I spent those five minutes unpacking what I just experienced. That nightmare was vivid and intense. It was only then that I remembered Miura warning me that the second night after being revived always came with a nightmare. The contents of the nightmare, now that was something else.

I didn’t need to be a therapist to decipher what that dream meant. There were a lot of things about my new girlfriend that worried me. I hoped she was okay.

As if summoned by my thoughts of her, my phone buzzed on the nightstand beside me. Indeed, it was a message from her. She wanted to know if it was all right to come over now. I mentioned that it was early, but her reply was just that she missed me. She had a dream about me. It was like we were connected by the red string of fate after all. I hoped her dream was more pleasant than mine. I told her she could come over if she wanted.

I got up and wandered around the apartment seeing if my father was home, but he was not; a note on the fridge told me he had to go to work early today. After taking a quick dip in the shower to rinse away the sweat from my nightmare, I went and got ready for the school day. I’d gotten everything packed and ready to go the night before because I knew I had a special job to do this morning.

I had to prepare an extra bento.

About ten minutes into my prep, the doorbell rang, and I crossed the apartment to invite my guest in.

“Suki-chan,” I greeted, absolutely delighted to see her. The real her. Even the beginning parts of my dream didn’t do her justice.

She blushed as she looked at me, “Cute,” she said, looking at my chest specifically. Funny, that was usually what I thought when I looked at her chest.

I tried to figure out what she meant, then remembered I was in an apron. It was my turn to blush, “I was just preparing our lunches, come on in.”

“Sorry to intrude,” Kaneko said as she walked into the door and began taking off her shoes. I couldn’t help but notice her boobs jiggling slightly as she bent over to remove her footwear. Perfection.

I returned to the kitchen and resumed my lunch prep, “Dad isn’t here this morning, he had to go to work early. I’m sure you’ll meet him tomorrow, though. Go ahead and have a look around. This place isn’t much, but it’s home,” I smiled at her as I began chopping up cucumbers.

She nodded and began looking around at my living room. “So clean,” she said.

“Yeah, my dad is pretty good at keeping things tidy. I cook, he cleans; that’s how we’ve decided to split up the chores. Oh, if you want, I’ve got a bunch of manga in my room, you’re welcome to have a look while you wait. My room is the one down that hall and to the right.”

She followed my directions and eventually disappeared into my room. Ah, a cute girl was actually in my room right now. What a wonderful feeling. I was glad I had been a bit bored last night and tidied up my room, otherwise I might have been a little embarrassed. I only just now realized it, but a lot of my manga could be on the racier side, I hope she didn’t mind. Then again, she indicated the other night, in no uncertain terms, that she didn’t care if I was a pervert. Man, I really lucked out with her, didn’t I?

She emerged from the hall a few minutes later and looked over to me, “I’m sorry, which one is your restroom?”

“No worries, it’s the one right behind you.”

“Thank you,” she bowed and then went inside.

Now a cute girl was in my bathroom. My perverted thoughts were running wild, so wild I nearly cut my finger with my knife thanks to the distraction. I couldn’t help it, though. Her bare, milky white butt and thighs were about to contact something I frequently sat on. What I wouldn’t give to have her bare, milky white butt and thighs contact my face.

When Kaneko finally emerged from the restroom, perhaps it was because of my previous erotic thoughts, but she seemed a little different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why yet, but she somehow looked even sexier than before.

She made her way over to me in the kitchen and watched with fascination as I finished up the last of my prep. She was right beside me and leaning forward slightly, so I could actually see down her blouse a little. Wait, did it always have those top buttons undone? Whatever the case may have been, I could spy a distinct line of cleavage and I was ecstatic.

“It looks so good,” she said.

“Yeah, it does,” I replied, still looking down her top before realizing that wasn’t what she was talking about. I shook my head slightly to clear it. “E-even I have to admit,” I said, trying to make sure she didn’t realize what I had actually been referring to.

She remained like that, watching me work until I finished. When I was done, I cleaned the dishes and we moved to the couch in the living room, we still had a few minutes to spare until we had to get going, so we were just relaxing together and holding hands.

“I love you, Haru-kun,” she said, bashfully. Oddly, almost the exact way she had said it in my dream.

“I love you too,” I replied, also mimicking my dream.

And this time, everything was okay.

She lurched toward me suddenly, without warning, and pressed her lips into mine. I was immediately assaulted by the slightly sweet taste of her tongue and lips. This was a deeper kiss than we had done before, she was almost desperately shoving her tongue into mine and squeezing me into a tight hug. I felt moistness at her cheeks, was she crying?

I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her to arm’s length, “Suki-chan, are you okay? You’re crying.”

“The dream… the dream I had about you,” she sniffled, “you saw me while I was…” she trailed off there before picking back up, “… and you said you didn’t like me anymore. It felt so terrible, I hated it. I woke up crying…”

I shook my head, “That’s not gonna happen, ever. I promise. You could suddenly reveal that you were a guy right now and I’m not sure even that would stop me from wanting to be with you.”

“Really?” her eye was sparkling with moisture.

“Absolutely. I, uh, I wasn’t planning on bringing this up but… I had a dream about you too, and it was also a nightmare.”

Her eye widened.

“It was…” I tried to find a way to describe it without hurting her feelings. I couldn’t just say she turned into a goop monster, she already had self-image issues. Not only that, one of the names her bullies gave her was literally a movie monster. “You died,” I said, boiling it down to its basic essence, “and it devastated me. I was relieved when you sent that text after waking up.”

I was reminded just then of what I could see under her hair in my dream, the hair that covered the left side of her face. I couldn’t deny that I wanted to know what was behind there even now. What little detail I could see looked normal but after spending a day with her I was more than convinced that she was hiding something there.

“So anyway, we’ll settle the score right now. You’re alive, and I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”

She nodded, then tackled me again in a deep kiss.

We spent so long making out we lost track of time and were nearly late for class.

---

The school day passed without incident. Notably, Kaneko continued to wear her blouse with the top few buttons undone the rest of the day. This had the effect of making a clear line of cleavage visible constantly, and one that I found my eyes magnetized to on more than one occasion. I know for sure she hadn’t always dressed this way, but I was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I didn’t ask about it.

Also, my assurance that Honda and Ishibumi would warm up to Kaneko if she gave her mother’s bento to them was proven correct almost right away. The moment she offered and surrendered the lack-luster lunch, they immediately warmed up to her, treating her much better. Even still, their jealousy-fueled hatred of me would not be abated so easily, so they continued to lament the “**** of our friendship” as Honda so eloquently put it.

One might think that Kaneko wearing her top more provocatively would have encouraged the perverted duo to have their own gazes magnetized to the glorious view like mine, but their true feelings about our friendship were revealed in their actions. They impressed me by actually showing self-restraint and not looking. They would occasionally glance, because it was genuinely hard not to sometimes, but they never stared. Clearly, they respected me enough not to ogle my girlfriend and I was grateful for that.

After school, Kaneko offered to actually stay behind and study with me, making it clear that she would have preferred to walk home with me the day before. Frankly, I was more than a little disappointed that I hadn’t, I really wanted to as well. But luckily, now I knew I didn’t have to worry about it. The time-flow difference between the mortal and spirit realms meant I only had to spend at most twelve minutes away from her, from her perspective anyway.

In the end, we decided to study together in the school library for a couple hours, and I just ended up using the excuse of needing to use the restroom in order to slip away for that time. When I arrived in the bathroom, Miura was there as well, and he grinned at me without saying a word until we had both entered individual stalls and then transported to the spirit realm.

“Ha! It’s a good excuse, eh Haru-kun?” he asked once we left the stalls.

I nodded, “Not bad at all. How are you, Touma-san?”

“Refreshed and ready to figure out what your gifts do. I actually lost sleep trying to work it out last night.”

We emerged out of the bathroom and into the halls where all of the students were moving extra slow. It was actually kind of tough moving by trying to swerve around each and every student.

“I can’t believe you spent so much mental effort on my behalf. Thank you, Touma-san.”

“Don’t sweat it, all of us are responsible for showing you the ropes. And besides, if you think about it, you not knowing how your gifts work is a tactical disadvantage in actual combat. Your powers could even hinder us if you don’t know how to use them properly. So, it benefits us to help you figure it out; it’s just as much our problem as it is yours.”

That did make sense, “Fair enough.”

“That being said, I’m dumber than a bag of rocks, so I really won’t be all that much help,” he then laughed proudly, in spite of his self-deprecation.

“You are not dumb, Touma-chan!” Someone behind us said. I turned to find Hinata jogging up to meet us. The aqua-blue-haired girl greeted her redheaded boyfriend the same way she had the day before, by jumping up into his arms and planting a kiss on his lips.

“Tacchan, how are you?” Miura asked as he set her back down so she could walk alongside us.

“Good, I can’t wait for club today, I have some ideas about Sato-san’s gifts. I’ve even come up with some potential battle tactics regarding them.”

“Wow, thank you guys for putting so much thought into my gifts,” I said. “I didn’t make any progress by myself so I’m lucky to have you all.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Hinata winked at me charmingly.

There was a bit of an awkward silence as we walked through the hall. I decided to break it by bringing up something I was curious about, “So, how long have you two been dating?”

“Not long,” Miura admitted.

“One month. On the dot, today is our one-month anniversary as a matter of fact,” Hinata beamed proudly.

“Were you both already Shinigami by then?”

“Yeah,” Miura said, “I died at the beginning of the semester.”

“And I died five weeks ago. I don’t think we ever would have started dating if we hadn’t become Shinigami, we’re too different in basically every way.”

I nodded, “That’s interesting. What about being a Shinigami helped, do you think?”

“It **** us to be around each other,” Miura replied. “Just because we were different didn’t mean we couldn’t get along, just meant we were less likely to break the ice with each other.”

“But being part of the same club basically did that for us. Now I genuinely can’t imagine life without this loveable doofus.”

“Rep, you’re embarrassing me,” Miura whined.

“Rep? Are you the class representative for his class?” I asked.

“I am! The whole class was in an uproar when word got out that I was dating this delinquent. Our homeroom teacher even pulled me aside and asked if I was okay.” Hinata laughed at the memory.

“For the record,” Miura said, “my friends thought I was just as crazy. I almost lost street cred.”

“How’d you avoid losing it?” I asked, enjoying this conversation.

“I kicked all their asses.”

By now we had arrived at the door to the club room, and we stepped through. Shino and Ando were standing out in the corridor rather than in the classroom when we arrived.

“What’s going on?” Miura asked.

“Big Sis said we’ll be going right to the dojo once everyone gets here,” Shino said, looking just as adorable as yesterday. Seeing her made me realize I forgot to ask Kaneko about her, though; I really needed to get on that. It looked like everyone except Sasaki was present now.

“Good afternoon, Sato-san,” Ando greeted, even though we’d been seeing each other all day. “Did you sleep well?”

“Ah, no, actually. I had a nightmare.”

Suddenly everyone else nodded in unison and said something along the lines of “Yep” or “Sounds about right”.

“It was your second night, right?” Ando asked.

I nodded, “How weird is that? It really happened to all of you on your second night?”

They all nodded in unison again.

“I mean, dying has to be a huge shock to the system no matter who you are. In a way, we all shared a similar trauma that our brain was not built to handle.” Hinata said, tapping her chin.

We all discussed the matter for a few more minutes until Sasaki arrived, apologizing as he had a literal line of girls confessing to him today.

“What a lady-killer,” Miura teased, “and a heartbreaker to boot.”

Sasaki chuckled and smiled at his friend, “I know more than a few girls who were disappointed you ended up with Hinata-san. I’m not the only heartbreaker here.”

After laughing at the playful back-and-forth, Ando led us through the hall toward a pair of double-doors and had us step inside. Once inside, I marveled at the room. It legitimately looked like a fully-stocked martial arts dojo. I was about to ask if we should all change into athletic wear when I realized everyone already was. Everyone but me. But they definitely hadn’t been in their gym clothes a moment ago.

“Uh, how did you guys…?” I asked and momentarily got distracted by the bloomer-clad ladies of the club. Such wonderfully long and delightful legs. I was primarily focused on Shino and Ando’s meaty and soft-looking legs, but that was because I was taking a page from Honda and Ishibumi’s book and avoiding staring at Hinata’s slender and athletic legs. Thankfully, a quick glance at Miura’s slightly flushed cheeks and perverted grin told me the view wasn’t being wasted.

Yamazaki-sensei answered my question in the end, “The mortal realm is one that is governed and controlled entirely by ‘form’; physical and material things reign supreme there. The spirit realm, by contrast, is a place that is ruled by ‘will’. Believing and desiring something makes it real, here. Desire and belief hold sway over what this place looks and feels like. The only reason you were dressed in your school uniform when you entered the spirit realm is because that is what your mind believed you would be wearing.”

“So,” Ando picked up from there, “if you just believe you’re wearing your gym clothes instead, you will be.”

“Oh, okay.” I stood and tried to will myself into athletic wear. It didn’t work.

“Assign it to a button, like you did yesterday, remember?” Miura whispered to me, winking and giving me a thumbs up.

Oh, yeah that seemed like a decent idea. I imagined the controller in my head, then pretended changing clothes was assigned to one of the directional buttons. I mentally pressed that button and felt my clothes shift around me. When I opened my eyes, I was in the deep purple track suit of our school.

“There you go,” Ando said and lead a round of applause.

“Very well,” Yamazaki-sensei nodded, satisfied, “today we are going to begin the process of finding out what Sato-san’s gifts do. Before we begin, I’d like to ask if Sato-san has any ideas.”

I shook my head, “I thought about it all night, but I honestly don’t. I think my Thorn Heart’s stuff will be pretty straightforward once I learn how to actually use it, but otherwise I’m totally in the dark.”

Sensei nodded, “Then I believe we should start with your Grim Core.”

I tilted my head, “Shouldn’t we start with the actual weapon?”

To my surprise, Yamazaki-sensei shook her head, “No, there is nothing more dangerous in a live-fire situation and real combat than a tool you don’t know how to use, especially one that is either constantly active or can set itself off on its own. The less you know about the gift, the more dangerous it could be.”

“We’re not going to make you deal with any phantoms until you know your Gifts. Don’t worry,” Sasaki assured me.

“As far as your Gifts go, your Core is the one we know the least about. It’s effects are very vague and cryptic, so figuring out what it does first will be our priority, then it will be your Magic, and then finally we can figure out the intricacies of your Gear. Understood?” Sensei asked.

I nodded, “I guess that makes sense.”

“Very good, remind us of what the exact wording of Blooming Rose is.” Yamazaki-sensei requested.

“Reveal your heart unto mine, and they shall beat together,” I recited.

Everyone put on their own individual thinking faces, all except Shino who was just staring off into the middle-distance, zoning out in an adorably air-headed way. She was so damn cute, and her gym clothes fit her short but curvy frame so well. Her boobs in particular looked so soft and jiggly under the gym shirt. I sure was glad my girlfriend didn’t mind that I was a pervert.

“It seems like it might be like Touma-kun’s,” Sasaki said. “Not a constantly active Core like Shino’s but one that needs a condition to be met before having any effect.”

“Yeah, I thought so too,” Hinata agreed.

“I guess that means we should figure out what the condition is,” Ando said, and the others nodded.

“Hm,” Miura was staring up at the ceiling while rubbing his chin, “what could ‘reveal your heart unto mine’ mean?” After a moment of contemplation, his face lit up like he just had an idea. Then he looked over at Shino. “I wonder…”

He stepped over to her and behind her. He towered over the shorter girl and leaned down before calling out to me, “Oi! Haru-kun, get a load of this!” Once he had my attention, he gripped the hem of Shino’s shirt and yanked it upward.

Her huge breasts exploded out from inside the top, jiggling like pudding as they bounced down in their sudden freedom. Shino’s areolae were puffy and soft in color, just barely a shade pinker than the rest of her fair skin. Her nipples were completely hidden from view, however, as it appeared they were inverted. Such adorable and sexy breasts on full display. I blushed hard and blood rocketed from my nose.

“What the hell is wrong with you!?” Hinata dashed toward her lover and delivered a hard punch to Miura’s gut almost immediately.

“Kughk!” Miura doubled over from the sneak attack, eyes bulging.

Whap! Ando delivered the final blow by smacking Miura’s head with her folding fan and making him collapse to the ground. I was pretty sure smoke was rising from the lump she left on the top of his head.

“Are you okay, Shino-chan?” Hinata asked as she quickly pulled her top back down. “Shino-chan?”

Shino was staring at me, wide-eyed, and I was staring back. While the other two girls were punishing Miura for his crimes, something had happened. I felt connected to Shino, and not just in a metaphorical or poetic way. I literally felt like we were in sync. I could feel my heart beating in my chest, not in a painful way, but weirdly I thought I could feel Shino’s beating too even though we were at least ten feet apart. And they were beating to the same rhythm.

It wasn’t just that, I felt like I could understand her, like our minds were connected and exchanging information. I understood that she was confused about what was going on, but she was also happy because she could feel this close to someone. It was like we had become one being, an extension of each other. I also understood that she didn’t actually mind that I saw her breasts, and I was very happy, and I knew that she was aware of how happy that made me. It made her happy too.

This was so weird.

“Talk to us,” Yamazaki-sensei said, “what’s happening, you two?”

Both Shino and I turned toward our sensei and unintentionally said in unison, “We’re synced up.”

Then we both looked at each other. It was weird, like I was looking at myself in a mirror, but it was Shino.

“When he saw my chest, I felt something,” Shino said, “like I could flex a muscle I never flexed before. When I flexed it…”

“… we synced,” I finished.

Sensei rubbed her chin thoughtfully, “Play rock-paper-scissors.”

We both understood the reason, though I frankly wasn’t sure which of us understood it first. We both moved forward at the exact same moment, walked with the same exact pace, and stopped at the exact same time. Then we began playing the game. We played ten games total, and each and every one of them was a draw. We both knew exactly which one we were going to choose each time.

“Shino-chan, think of a number between one and ten, Sato-san, try to guess—”

“Seven” I said without hesitation and Shino nodded.

Then I thought of a number and the very moment I decided on the number three…

“Three,” Shino said.

“Whoa, that is so weird,” Ando said, staring at us with absolute wonder.

“The tactical advantages of this power are nearly endless,” Hinata observed. “I mean, just think about it, perfect coordination with another individual. I wonder if more than one person can sync up with him at once.”

“I believe we should limit it to just one other person for the moment,” Yamazaki-sensei said, even though it looked like Hinata was about to lift her shirt. Weirdly, both Shino and I felt disappointed at the interruption. “It’s probably overwhelming enough for their brains to be tracking a whole other brain, to add one more to the mix might cause serious damage if they aren’t prepared.”

We personally felt like we could handle it, but ultimately deferred to Sensei’s judgement. She was our older sister after all. Wait, no, she wasn’t my sister. Okay, her hesitancy definitely made more sense now. We nodded at each other, both having come to that conclusion in the same moment.

We eventually waited until the effect wore off, Sensei wanted to know how long the effect lasted. Turned out it was exactly six minutes. Yamazaki-sensei apparently was one of those people who had a perfect sense for the passing of time, even without a stopwatch. The effect ended right as I had just started getting used to basically existing as two different people. To the point that when it ended, I felt somehow less whole for a moment.

“Seriously, though? I can’t believe this blockhead’s method was actually the correct one,” Ando said, shooting Miura a glare.

“I had no idea it would actually work; I was frankly just trying to eliminate possibilities. I did have the thought, ‘it’s so crazy it just might work’, though.” Miura said, scratching the back of his head.

“I get that your reasoning was that you were taking a more literal interpretation of the trigger phrase,” Sasaki began, “but couldn’t you have used your own chest instead of Shino-san’s?”

“But if I revealed my own chest to him, we would have to get married!” Miura struck a girly pose and covered his chest with his arm.

Whap!

Miura was back on the floor, “There was actually some logic to it,” he said, answering from the floor, “If that method was gonna work, I figured it would probably have been limited to whatever gender Haru-kun was attracted to. I don’t think he’s into guys.”

“Not particularly,” I said.

“Regardless of your questionable methods,” Yamazaki-sensei began, “your idea to narrow down the possibilities was a good one. Now that we have a method to activate it, we should probably experiment to find out more about the trigger. Sato-san,” she looked at me.

“Uh, yes?”

“Do you feel fatigued or tired, more than you were before?”

I thought about it, “Maybe a little, not much though.” I did understand why she was asking, though, so I added, “I could probably do it one more time, maybe two if we’re ****, before I really started getting tired.”

“Very well, I’d like to try it again, this time Miura will try to sync with you.”

Turned out, the exposing chest method worked just as well with guys as it did girls. As a side note, Miura was absolutely shredded, and apparently had the kind of physique where you couldn’t really tell how much muscle he had until his shirt was off. Synchronizing with Miura was a much different experience than with Shino, perhaps it was because the latter and I shared a very similar disposition of being laid-back and calm. Miura’s bombastic energy caught me off-guard and made take on certain mannerisms that I wouldn’t have ordinarily. By the same token, he seemed much calmer than usual and a bit more observant.

I noticed as well that I felt compelled to occasionally glance and ogle the other girls in the club more often, and I wasn’t sure if that was because he was more of a pervert than me or if we were about the same and it was just stacking. I also felt much more attracted to Hinata than before and found it really difficult to avoid looking at her. Miura appreciated the honest effort I was putting forward to respect his relationship, but he also didn’t care if I did ogle her, he wasn’t the jealous type. If anything, it made him even more proud to be with her.

In order to test our coordination ability, Sensei had Miura and I spar with each other hand-to-hand. This was very interesting, our perfect coordination meant that it was basically impossible to hide our intentions. What this meant was that we could have the perfect defensive strategy against each other no matter what we did. Neither of us landed a blow on the other even though he clearly had way more experience than I did. In fact, I managed to use that experience to my own advantage by borrowing it as we fought.

Even after our synchronization ended, I felt like I understood more about combat than I did before. I could remember many of the techniques Miura had built up. When I expressed this phenomenon out loud, Yamazaki-sensei looked very satisfied.

“That is excellent news,” she said. “It means you’ll learn how to defend yourself very fast as long as you sync up with someone before sparring.”

“You could learn a lot by syncing up with me,” Hinata said, “my father is a black-belt, and he’s been teaching me ever since I was a little girl.”

Miura nodded in agreement, “You’d definitely learn more from her than me. I just picked up what I know from the streets, I don’t have anything resembling technique. Hinata has had actual formal and disciplined training.”

Of course, that would mean Hinata would have to flash me, and frequently. Even though we weren’t synced up anymore, it seemed Miura anticipated that concern, but his only response was to wink at me subtly. And given that Hinata was fully prepared to expose herself earlier at the drop of a hat, she clearly didn’t seem to mind either. I idly wondered if she was one of those fabled exhibitionists.

“How are you feeling now, Sato-san?” Yamazaki-sensei asked.

“Uh, I’m still fine but I probably shouldn’t do that again today. It’s not like, a physical exhaustion it’s more like a mental fatigue. Burn out, I guess. If I did it again, I might not be able to focus on my studying tonight.”

“It makes sense,” Ando said, “your brain has got to be in some kind of overdrive to process a whole other brain.”

I nodded.

“Very well, you’re welcome to leave early today if you want,” Sensei said, “from now on we will limit your synchronization experiments to one per meeting until we understand more about it.”

“Thank you, Sensei,” I bowed and decided to take her up on the offer.

As I left the dojo and walked down the club room corridor, I thought about how nice it was that everyone worked so hard to understand my Gifts. They said that it was a tactical advantage, but that didn’t make me feel any less like I was a part of something. It’s like we were all friends, or rather, like a family. My father had been the only real family I’d ever had, since my extended relatives lived further away from us, so this feeling was unique and pleasant.

Weirdly, dying may have been the best thing to have happened to me. I just hoped I wouldn’t eat those words when it came time to fight the phantoms.