Chapter 5: Shatter Radius
Aoi couldn't breathe.
The fractured light refracted off every jagged edge of the transformed railing—casting warped shapes onto the alley walls, the pavement, the stunned faces of the boys who had cornered him. The lattice of crystal veins had grown fast, wild, uncontrollable. What had once been iron now gleamed like cut glass, cold and humming with tension.
He could still feel it—its presence prickling beneath his skin, responding to every flicker of panic like a tuning fork struck too hard. The raw pulse of it echoed up his arm, into his chest.
The taller boy scrambled back, nearly tripping over the dropped glove case.
"Freak's gonna blow or something—!"
One of the others shouted, "What kind of Quirk is that?! That's not normal!"
They were backing off now, uncertain, scared. One of them was clutching his arm, blood seeping between his fingers where a shard had grazed him.
Aoi didn't want this. He hadn't meant this.
His knees hit pavement. One hand braced against the ground, the other still tingling from the transmutation. His glove—where was his glove—?
The gloves had been his buffer. His training wheels. The thing between him and this.
A sharp crack rang out as a second section of the railing fractured. A shard fell and shattered near his foot, sending glass splinters skating across the concrete.
Aoi squeezed his eyes shut, teeth clenched.
Stop. Just stop. Please stop.
But the crystal didn't retreat. It responded.
The panicked rhythm of his breathing, the fragmented thoughts crowding his mind—every pulse seemed to ripple through the structure like a wave through water. Fractures widened. Edges splintered. A dozen reflections of himself stared back in the broken glass, their eyes wide with something between fear and awe.
"Hey! Kid!"
A voice cut through the haze. Not one of the boys.
Aoi opened his eyes.
A man was standing at the mouth of the alley. Older. Civilian clothes, but the way he moved—controlled, firm—gave him away as a Pro. A plain black jacket marked with a yellow shoulder band: Public Safety Patrol.
"Back away from the structure!" the officer called to the teens. "Now!"
The boys didn't argue. They bolted.
Aoi didn't move. Couldn't. His fingers were twitching, his head felt too bright, and his vision was beginning to fuzz at the edges.
"Hey—hey, you." The officer crouched nearby, but didn't come closer. Smart. "You the one who activated the Quirk?"
Aoi nodded weakly.
"Are you injured?"
He shook his head, though he wasn't sure.
"Okay. I need you to try to breathe for me. Slow, steady. We're gonna stabilize this before anyone else gets hurt."
"I can't—" Aoi choked. "I didn't mean—It just—!"
"It's alright. We've got support en route. But I need you to disengage it if you can. Do you have a focus item? Regulator gear?"
"My gloves," Aoi whispered. "One is in the case."
The officer spotted the container on the ground and carefully reached over to grab it. He opened the lid and pulled out one of the gloves. "These?"
Aoi nodded again.
The man approached slowly now, still keeping a wide berth from the crystalline structure. He laid the glove within arm's reach.
"I'm not gonna touch you, okay? But I need you to focus on your breathing and put this on. Just one hand."
Aoi reached out, still trembling. The moment his fingers slid into the glove, the chill in his arm dulled. The crystal at the center of the railing pulsed once—then stopped.
He exhaled shakily.
"That's good. That's really good," the officer said, visibly relieved. "Now the other." he said as he had grabbed the other glove, the one that dropped earlier.
Once both gloves were secure, the pressure in Aoi's body lessened. Not gone. But muffled, like static under cloth.
The light stopped refracting.
The crystal structure remained—unchanged, still jagged—but the active transmutation had ceased.
Sirens echoed faintly in the distance.
The officer looked him over again. "You alright to stand?"
"I think so," Aoi murmured.
He pushed himself to his feet, a little unsteady. His legs felt like paper, thin and folded wrong.
Another car pulled up just outside the alley entrance. Medical personnel. Support specialists.
A pair of responders in padded gear approached the crystalline growth cautiously. One knelt to collect a sample while the other set up a perimeter scan.
"Looks stable," one of them reported. "No volatile spread. Surface structure's thin, but dense. Closest match is tempered silica with refractive impurities."
The officer turned to Aoi. "What's your name?"
"Aoi Tsukishiro."
"Do you have a support doctor or licensed specialist?"
"Dr. Fushimi," Aoi answered. "He signed off on my gear."
The officer nodded. "We'll notify him. You did good, Aoi. No one was seriously hurt. That's what matters right now."
Aoi's eyes dropped to the ground, to the scattered glints of broken crystal.
He wasn't sure that was true.
A short while later, he sat in the back of the patrol van, wrapped in a thermal blanket. Not because he was cold, but because someone had offered it and he hadn't had the presence of mind to say no.
Dr. Fushimi's assistant had been contacted and was en route to meet them.
Aoi watched through the window as the last of the alley was cordoned off. A cleanup crew was already preparing to remove the crystalized railing.
So much for a normal walk home.
So much for not being noticed.
He pressed his gloved hand against the window. The material muted the light, blurred the city beyond into a soft, distorted halo.
For a brief moment, the world felt like it was on the other side of glass.
A fragile barrier.
A boundary he wasn't sure he could ever cross again without shattering something.