The hallways of Division Eight felt too narrow for how empty they were. Concrete walls, scratched linoleum, fluorescent lamps humming like they'd been forced to stay awake for years. Sora walked behind Tarou, who—despite looking like a washed-up extra from a low-budget fight club—strode like he owned the building.
Sora wasn't sure yet if that confidence was impressive or delusional.
A door clicked open ahead of them. Tarou didn't announce anything. He simply stepped aside.
"Inside," he said.
Sora entered.
Three people waited around a rectangular table cluttered with tablets, old paper files, and a cup of instant coffee that looked like it had given up on itself.
A woman with neatly tied hair adjusted her glasses at the sight of him.
Her expression didn't change—calm, but sharp enough to cut.
"You must be Sora," she said.
Her voice wasn't unfriendly. her gaze is.
Sora nodded. "…Yeah."
She observed him for half a second more, then returned to the tablet screen she's holding.
Across from her sat a man built like he'd been carved from mount Olympus. Ryo didn't speak right away. He looked Sora over once, then spoke:
"If anything happens, stay behind me."
"you don't need to tell me that" sora, muttered under his breath,
seemingly dumbfounded at how a human is this exaggerated.
"good."
Ryo spoke again still with his deadpanned expression.
Sora didn't answer. Something about the guy's plain certainty made arguing feel childish.
At the end of the table, a girl was tapping at a tablet, leg bouncing lightly to some rhythm only she could hear. Mina raised her eyes for a single moment- quick, precise, then lowered them back to the screen.
"I'll handle comms and environmental readings," she said. "I'll tell you the things you don't notice."
Sora wasn't sure but he felt a bit.. disappointed? From people who's powers originated from emotions they seems too monotone and corporate to even spew a punch.
"What? Not what you expected isn't it.?" Tarou, spoke cooly.
"They're professionals kid, high tier fault bearers with hard to control emotions, not everyone has a freakish control like you do."
Sora immediately shut his mouth again, another mystery is his impulse and his "control"
Unlike emotions impulse aren't triggered normally by that, it is simply random and uncontrolled chaos, yet somehow his powers hasn't manifested since he fought that group of thugs.
Sora suspiciously eyed tarou, tarou shot a confused look at sora with his eyes written with 'what did I do???'
No, it's surely not tarou... But wait if the stronger the power the stronger the emotions how is he keeping his mind so calm?..
Tarou clapped his hands once, like someone announcing a lunch break instead of a mission.
"Good. You've all seen each other. Now sit."
Sora did.
The monitor flickered awake with a low buzz, illuminating the room with the washed-out glow of a dying LCD.
A map appeared—South-23 District. Old buildings stacked too close together, narrow alleys, the kind of neighborhood you only passed through if you needed to or had nowhere else to go.
Hikari, the woman with glasses began without theatrics.
"Emotional density in South-23 has spiked rapidly over the last week. Twenty-two percent increase."
Ryo straightened slightly. "That's fast."
"Yes," Hikari replied. "And there have been no therapy expansions or government relief programs introduced in that sector. Which means the district is effectively… abandoned."
Mina tapped on her tablet, bringing up a chart. "Aberrant signatures started last night. They're accelerating."
Sora leaned forward. "Accelerating how?"
"Like a car going down hill," Mina said. "Fast, then faster. It'll break soon."
Sora didn't know what to say to that.
He'd walked through that district plenty of times.
It had smelled like frying oil, burnt plastic, and desperation but not danger.
Or maybe he simply hadn't known how to see it.
Tarou rested his foot on an empty chair, balancing impossibly on the back two legs of his own seat.
"Government teams are already moving," he said. "They'll arrive in about an hour."
Sora frowned. "So we're racing them?"
"No," Ryo answered. "We're trying to prevent a corpse."
Mina added, "Government protocol treats an awakened person like a broken bomb. Easier to destroy than repair."
Her tone was still flat, but softer at the end—like she didn't like saying it.
Hikari folded her hands.
"Our goal is extraction. If the awakened individual is stable, we bring them in. If they're not…"
She hesitated, choosing her words.
"We minimize damage."
Ryo finished the thought. "And casualties."
Sora swallowed. The room seemed colder.
He took a deep breath and raised his hands bringing the attention of the people in the meeting room.
"So what are we exactly? A group of vigilantes?"
"Yes and no," Hikari answered while pushing her glasses up. "We're private police group sponsored by the opposing party of the current government of dominion—"
"We're dogs for the former Royalty." Ryo spoke with a harsh tone causing the room to fall into silence.
The current Dominion are the results of revolution from the Japanese mixed with foreign forces to take down the emperor at the time.
Despite winning the Pacific war they ended up collapsing due to war exhaustion and foreign forces such as the Allies and even Axis conspiring due to the fear of first generation fault bearers at the time holds the most strategic importance, despite the nukes that fell it only created more fault bearers ravaging across east-southeast asia.
In the end with the revolution from the group of 'dominion' the Japanese is reformed into a Democratic state.
"Despite that, we in regulus company are remnants of the old imperium, although our job on the outside is to control fault bearers you can imagine what our true goal is." Ryo spoke with hidden disdain in his tone.
---
When the briefing ended, the screen dimmed, leaving the map's afterimage lingering in the space between them.
Sora stayed seated for a moment longer than the others.
He didn't fear the mission. Not exactly.
But there was a weight to hearing how casually these people spoke like they'd seen this scenario too many times to attach emotion to it anymore.
Is this what I'm stepping into?
People treated as hazards.
Neighborhoods written off as financial inconveniences.
Lives weighed against the cost of cleanup.
Sora exhaled, tugging a hand through his hair.
Great. First job, and we're saving someone the government wants dead.
He stood.
And the mission began.
... that's what he thought at least.
"Go home kid"
...eh?..
---
After the Briefing
The elevator doors slid open with a muted chime, spilling a haze of cold white light into the hallway. Sora followed the escort without a word. He still had the briefing packet in hand, the logo of **Regulus Security Division** stamped neatly on the cover. A clean, elegant design. Too clean for something that involved hunting monsters born from human emotions.
The escort a middle-aged man with clipped hair and an air of someone who had explained the same procedure a thousand times walked a step ahead.
"You're free to return home for now. A transport car will take you," he said, barely glancing back. "Use tonight to prepare. Equipment will be supplied tomorrow."
"Right."
Sora's voice sounded normal. Nothing special. It felt disconnected from the storm in his skull.
"By the way, about my awak—" sora was cut off immediately.
"Neutralized, all witness and possible camera's has been neutralized by the company, all you need to do is go home and not tell anyone else" the man spoke with a low voice sending shivers down his spine.
To be honest, this isn't his first time killing someone, sora remembered it quite fondly,
Back then when the news of a kid turning into an aberrant spread the cruel preschoolers made a betting game, they betted that sora will be the second aberrant of the school.
In return I betted that if they're wrong I'll shove a ruler up their ass
And he was right, he wasn't the one to be the second aberrant, whether it's because of pride he was chased around until they reached a train railway.
And then.. well the rest ended up on the news other than him, it was quite blurry for some reason but it is what it is.
--
They emerged into an underground loading bay. A sleek black sedan waited there; too polished, too professional something that looked wrong with Sora's uniform and backpack.
He slid inside. The door shut with a soft thunk, sealing him in with the faint hum of conditioned air.
The driver gave him a curt nod. "Destination?"
"Home," Sora answered, leaning his head back.
"...."
"Oh, sorry I meant—"
After that awkward moment, The car rolled forward, the fluorescent lights drifting past the windows like slow-moving stars. For a moment he simply breathed, letting the silence wrap around him.
So this is actually happening.
He pressed a thumb against the briefing packet. It still didn't feel real.
A day ago he had been a regular highschooler, well.. as regular as a highschooler kid can be.
His impulse stirred faintly, like a beast shifting under cloth. Not violent, not hungry just present. Like it always was.
Control it. Breathe.
He looked out the window. The city was passing by, gray buildings standing against the late-afternoon sun. Students were walking home. A couple argued near a convenience store. Someone laughed in the distance. All painfully normal.
He wondered if he looked normal to them.
His fingers tapped against his knee, restless. The small metal charm hanging on his bag, something his mother gave him years ago, rattled gently.
That tugged loose a memory.
---
Two years ago
He had been sitting alone on the apartment balcony, watching rain slide down the railing. His mother placed the charm in his hand—an old, simple thing that didn't look like much.
"For good fortune," she said. "You always run ahead without thinking, so I worry."
Sora had snorted then, pretending it embarrassed him.
But he kept it anyway.
Now it hung on his bag, the paint chipped and the metal worn smooth.
---
The car slowed to a stop before his apartment building.
Sora stepped out, staring at the familiar block of aging concrete. Not impressive, not awful. Just the place he lived.
The escort lowered the window. "Tomorrow at 18:00. Be ready."
"Yeah."
The sedan drove off, leaving Sora alone under the dim parking lights. He stood there for a moment, quietly listening to the city. His impulse was calm, surprisingly so.
Maybe too calm.
He went inside.
The corridor smelled faintly of detergent and old wood. His footsteps echoed softly until he reached his floor and unlocked the door.
Inside, the apartment was tidy in the way someone who lived alone learned to maintain minimal clutter, no unnecessary decorations. The only splash of color came from the small plant by the window, still somehow alive.
Sora exhaled and finally dropped onto the couch.
The silence pressed against him again, heavier this time.
His mind drifted to the briefing room, to the faces of the team he'd been placed with people who had actual experience, who knew what they were doing. Meanwhile he… improvised. Swing first, regret later.
Rookie.
That word stuck in his head.
He wasn't offended. It was true. But he hated the idea of being useless.
He pulled up his sleeve, staring at his hand. A faint tremor pulsed along his fingers. Not fear. Not exactly. More like anticipation mixed with something dark.
Impulse Type.
Instinct-based.
Hardest to control.
He still remembered the doctor's clinical tone when they labeled him.
Yet here he was, walking around, acting normal. Pretending he wasn't a ticking hazard. Pretending he wasn't afraid of himself.
He closed his eyes and forced the tremor still.
"Control it," he muttered. "One step at a time."
His phone buzzed. A message from his homeroom teacher—just a reminder about tomorrow's classes. He stared at it, almost laughing.
Tomorrow, I go to school like normal. And after that… a mission of hunting something born from human fear.
The contrast felt ridiculous.
But he pocketed the phone and pushed himself up anyway.
Normal life didn't stop just because he'd become something else.
He walked to the window, opening it slightly. The wind carried the familiar sound of traffic and distant chatter. Somewhere below, a bike skidded. Someone cursed. Ordinary chaos.
He found himself smiling faintly.
"Fine. I'll deal with both."
He closed the window and the chapter ended on the quiet thud of the frame, the city noise muffled again.
Tomorrow would be different.
But tonight, he let the ordinary world settle around him one of the last calm nights he would get.