Author's Note: Sora uses his ability three times this chapter. First two are obvious illusions. The third one? You won't realize it was fake until Chapter 23. Good luck finding it.
POV: Kaito Endo
Word Count: ~1,950
Twenty-three days, and Kaito was learning to hate the color blue.
Not the greenish-blue of his own substance. That was fine. Familiar. Controllable—mostly. But the specific shade of blue in Sora's eyes made his hands shake and his substance try to corrupt without permission.
Which was exactly why running into Cold Eyes Team in the middle of Shibuya at 8 PM felt less like coincidence and more like Sora's carefully orchestrated psychological warfare.
"Kaito!" Sora's voice cut through the crowd, warm and friendly like they were old friends meeting by chance. "What a pleasant surprise! And your whole team too. How fortunate."
They weren't supposed to be in Shibuya. The plan had been simple reconnaissance—investigate the area where the original incident happened two months ago, see if anything felt different about the location, gather intel.
Apparently Cold Eyes had the same idea.
Sora stood with his three teammates on the opposite side of the crosswalk, all four backlit by the massive screens of Shibuya Crossing. Hoshino Aoi—the memory manipulator with silver hair—stood to his left. Kuroi—sensory hijacker with pitch-black eyes—flanked his right. And Yuki, the emotion amplifier who'd died in the blueprint but was very much alive now, hung back slightly.
Four vs four in the middle of Tokyo's busiest intersection.
Normals everywhere, completely oblivious to the fact that eight supernatural teenagers were about to throw down.
"We're not fighting here," Takeshi said quietly. Too many witnesses. Too much exposure risk.
"Who said anything about fighting?" Sora smiled, and Kaito's substance darkened at the edges. "I just wanted to chat. Compare notes. We're all here for the same reason, aren't we? Investigating the origin point?"
"We don't have anything to discuss with you," Ayumi said. She was wearing that shrine maiden costume under a jacket—had been wearing it constantly since discovering the mechanic yesterday. Her transformation was already active, subtle shift that made her look slightly different. Ready.
"Don't you?" Sora's blue eyes focused on Kaito. "I think we have quite a lot to discuss. Fires. Memories. Blue eyes watching through flames. The usual topics."
The substance tried to manifest fully. Kaito shoved it down with effort that made his head hurt.
"If you're not going to fight, then get out of our way," he said through gritted teeth.
"Oh, but I am going to fight. Just not with fists." Sora's eyes began to glow faintly. "Aoi? If you would?"
The silver-haired girl stepped forward, and Kaito felt itâ€"wrongness spreading through the air like oil in water. Essence manifestation that targeted the mind instead of the body.
Takeshi's shimmer activated immediately. "Don't—"
Too late.
Kaito's vision blurred.
When it cleared, he wasn't in Shibuya anymore.
The house was burning.
Kaito stood in a hallway he recognized from photographs but didn't consciously remember. Smoke filled the air, flames eating through walls, heat pressing against his skin. He was small—child-sized—looking up at doors that seemed impossibly tall.
"Mom?" His voice came out young, terrified. "MOM?"
This wasn't real. This was Aoi's memory manipulation, showing him something from his suppressed past, trying to break him with his own trauma.
But knowing it was fake didn't make it feel less real.
The flames grew higher. Smoke thicker. And through the fire, he saw blue eyes watching. Child-sized like him, taking notes with clinical detachment.
Young Sora. Watching young Kaito watch his mother burn.
"NO!" Kaito's substance erupted—greenish-blue turning black instantly, responding to terror and rage and nine years of suppressed guilt. The manifestation filled the burning hallway, and for a moment he wasn't sure if he was the child or the adult or something broken between them.
Then someone grabbed his shoulder.
Physical contact. Real sensation.
The illusion shattered.
Kaito was back in Shibuya, gasping for breath, black substance spreading across the crosswalk in tendrils that made normals unconsciously step back without understanding why.
Akira had gone translucent, one hand solid on Kaito's shoulder, grounding him. "Illusion," he said quietly. "Not real. You're here."
The black substance retreated slowly, reluctantly, back to greenish-blue. Back to something Kaito could control.
Across the crosswalk, Sora was smiling. "Fascinating. Full corruption in under three seconds when shown the right stimulus. And you dismissed it yourself without team intervention. You're getting stronger, Kaito. Learning to control the darkness instead of just running from it."
"Fuck you," Kaito managed.
"Eventually, maybe. But not today." Sora gestured, and his team moved—not attacking, just repositioning. Tactical. "Kuroi? Let's see how they handle sensory disruption."
The black-eyed boy stepped forward, and suddenly the world went silent.
Not quiet. Silent. Completely devoid of sound.
Kaito's mouth moved but no noise came out. Takeshi was shouting something—lips moving, face urgent—but Kaito heard nothing. The massive screens of Shibuya were still playing but soundless. Traffic moved in eerie quiet.
Then his vision started to distort. Colors bleeding together, edges blurring, depth perception failing.
Sensory hijacking. Kuroi was shutting down their ability to perceive reality accurately.
Ayumi transformed.
The golden glow spread across her skin and she became Sora—perfect replication down to the blue eyes and that infuriating smile. She stepped forward, and even though Kaito couldn't hear her, he saw Kuroi's concentration waver.
Seeing your enemy's face on your ally's body was disorienting even when you knew it was fake.
Sound returned in a rush. Vision stabilized. Kuroi had lost focus for just a moment, but that was enough.
Takeshi moved immediately. Not attacking—just positioning himself between Cold Eyes and Creativity Club, reversal field primed but not manifested. "Enough. You've made your point. You can attack our minds, disrupt our senses, show us our worst fears. We get it. You're terrifying."
"Are we?" Sora tilted his head, genuine curiosity in his voice. "Or are we just showing you what you're actually afraid of? I don't create the fear, Kaito. I just make you see what's already there."
"Same difference," Kaito said. The substance was stable now, greenish-blue, under control despite his racing heart.
"Is it?" Sora's blue eyes seemed to look straight through him. "If I show you fire and you see your mother burning, that's your trauma responding. I'm just the catalyst. The fear was always yours."
Kaito wanted to argue. Wanted to say that deliberately triggering someone's PTSD made you responsible for their response.
But Sora was already turning away.
"We're done here," he said to his team. "We got what we came for."
"Which was?" Takeshi asked.
"Data." Sora glanced back, blue eyes catching the neon light. "How you respond to psychological pressure. How quickly Kaito corrupts when triggered. How Ayumi uses transformation defensively. How Akira phases to reality-anchor his team." He smiled. "And now we know. Thank you for the demonstration."
They left before anyone could respond, disappearing into Shibuya's crowd like they'd never been there.
The crosswalk signal changed. Normals flooded across, completely unaware that eight essentials had just engaged in psychological warfare in the middle of their evening commute.
"Everyone okay?" Takeshi asked once Cold Eyes was definitely gone.
"Define okay," Ayumi said. She was still wearing Sora's face, and it was deeply unsettling. "I just transformed into the guy who's been torturing Kaito's mind for weeks. That's not a pleasant headspace to occupy."
She let the transformation drop, returning to her own features. The costume anchored the change, made it smooth instead of jarring.
"Kaito?" Akira's grey eyes were concerned. "The corruption happened fast."
"I know." Kaito looked at his hands—normal now, no black tint, but the potential was there. Always there. "Sora's right about one thing. When he shows me fire, my power responds before I can control it. The trauma's too close to the surface."
"Which is exactly what he wants," Takeshi said. "He's conditioning you. Every encounter, he triggers the corruption, watches how you respond, learns your patterns. He's studying you like a science experiment."
"Because his father did the same thing," Kaito said quietly. The pieces were clicking together in ways he didn't like. "Akashi created me deliberately. Watched my mother burn. Triggered my awakening through acute trauma. And Sora was there taking notes."
He looked at where Cold Eyes had disappeared. "He's not just Akashi's son. He's Akashi's apprentice. Learning to break people the same way his father broke me."
The group fell silent.
"So what do we do?" Ayumi asked finally. "He's in our heads now. Every time we see him, he'll trigger these responses. How do we fight that?"
"We don't," Akira said softly. "We accept it. Psychological warfare only works if you're trying to suppress the reaction. If you acknowledge the fear, experience it, and move forward anyway—that's how you take away his power."
Everyone looked at him.
"When my parents divorced, I spent years trying not to feel anything about it. Tried to phase through the pain like I phase through walls." Akira's voice was quiet but steady. "That's what let the loneliness build until it became my entire identity. But when I stopped running from it, stopped trying to be invisible emotionally—that's when I started getting stronger."
He looked at Kaito. "Sora wants you to suppress. To run. To black-out from fear before you can control the corruption. Don't give him that. Feel the fear. Let the corruption come. Then control it anyway."
"Easier said than done," Kaito muttered.
"Everything worth doing is."
They spent another twenty minutes investigating the Shibuya site—found nothing useful except ambient essence residue that confirmed something massive had happened here—and headed home.
Kaito walked most of the way in silence, mind replaying the illusion.
The burning house. The child-sized perspective. Blue eyes watching.
Young Sora taking notes while young Kaito's mother screamed.
What kind of person did that make Sora? A victim forced to witness trauma? Or a willing participant in his father's experiments?
Maybe both.
His phone buzzed. Unknown number.
Unknown: You handled that better than last time. The corruption came but you dismissed it. Progress.
Unknown: Keep training. Keep fighting. Keep getting stronger. Because when you finally remember everything—really remember, not just see illusions—you'll need that strength.
Unknown: Your mother would be proud of how far you've come. She always knew you were special.
Unknown: See you soon, Kaito. We have twenty-three days until trials. I wonder how many encounters we'll have before then.
Unknown: -S
Kaito blocked the number.
Pulled up the group chat instead.
Kaito: Sora's in my head. Literally texting me now. Blocked him but he'll just use a different number.
Takeshi: Psychological warfare doesn't end. He'll keep pressing until trials force other priorities.
Ayumi: Do we need to do something about Cold Eyes? They're actively hunting us psychologically.
Akira: We train. We get strong enough that psychological attacks don't destabilize us. We prove Sora's tactics don't work.
Kaito: And if they do work?
Takeshi: Then we remind you who you actually are. That's what teams do.
Kaito pocketed his phone and walked the last three blocks home.
Twenty-three days.
Sora would attack again. The corruption would try to manifest again. The fear would surface again.
But Akira was right about one thing.
Running from it just made it stronger.
Time to stop running.
Time to face the fire.
Even if it burned.
[To be continued in Chapter 17...]
Author's closing note: Sora used his ability three times. The burning house (Aoi's memory manipulation). The sensory disruption (Kuroi). And the third one... hidden in plain sight. You won't know which moment was illusion until the truth comes out. Reread carefully
Sora's texting Kaito directly now. The psychological warfare is escalating. How does Creativity Club fight an enemy that attacks their minds? Drop strategies 👇
If this chapter hooked you, add to library! The trials are 23 days away and everyone's breaking