2: The Start

Shizen Ushimura walked through the streets of Kawasaki. It was a rainy day, made more depressing by the fact that the local grocery store was closed. He trudged through puddle after puddle on his way home. Upon arrival, Shizen unlocked the door to his house, though the door was so battered that it could likely be pushed open without unlocking it. Shizen's house was located in the Nakahara-ku ward of Kawasaki. It was one of many old houses on the street, though not as old as some of the others. Currently, there were two residents of the Ushimura household, Shizen and Aya Yatsuda, his childhood friend.

Shizen stepped into the house and walked into the living room. Aya was laying on the couch, half awake from the noise of Shizen coming in. He threw up a quick wave and went upstairs into his room. Shizen was bored. He was almost always bored. There were a lot of things to do around Kawasaki, but he was usually short on money and needed it for basic necessities. Taking care of two people without a job wasn't easy. Why didn't he have a job? Shizen didn't know himself. He didn't desire to get a job and received money from Blight, the organization that was attempting world domination and also killed his parents. He wasn't happy about the situation and would have loved to destroy Blight and kill all of the higher-ups in it, but he didn't have any way to do so.

The one thing Shizen did have going for him was his powers. He had the amazing ability to manipulate matter freely. Size, shape, color, he could do it all. If he wanted to turn a rock into metal, he could. So why wouldn't he use his powers to make himself rich? Well, it didn't feel right to him. For someone in as bad a situation as he was, Shizen's morals were still intact.

Besides his financial situation, Shizen's social life barely existed. The only person he talked to regularly was Aya. To most, it would seem like the perfect love story. Shizen had known her since he could remember and they lived together, alone. But Shizen wasn't seeking a relationship and wasn't really attracted to Aya all that much. Personality-wise, she was an energetic, bubbly, and outgoing girl when she wasn't sleeping. She was a bit of a tomboy and was also insanely smart. Shizen had always been slightly jealous that his parents were possibly the smartest people on earth, yet he wasn't some super genius, maybe just a normal genius. Aya's intelligence, however, was the closest to his parents he had ever seen. Any scientific, historical, or grammatical fact was known to her. There were very few things she didn't know.

As for appearance, Aya was of average height for an eighteen-year-old girl. She had dark purple eyes and white hair that was cut to her chin. Personally, Shizen preferred long hair on a girl, another reason he wasn't interested in Aya. He had suggested that she grow it out before, but she always angrily refused. Aya's wardrobe consisted of a lot of button-ups and t-shirts as well as leggings and cargo shorts. Her go-to outfit was a white button-up shirt and a pair of tan cargo shorts. Shizen had always found her clothing choices odd, but they made sense in relation to her personality.

It was almost 10 p.m. and like every other day, Shizen wasn't tired at all because he did basically nothing. In theory, he could find a lot of things to do using his matter manipulation, but a part of him was too scared to mess around with it. He hadn't used it very much, and the last time he did he almost set Aya on fire. Most of the time, Shizen didn't really think about his power or the fact that it could potentially be very dangerous. If he never used it, it wouldn't matter. But every now and then his mind wandered and he thought about whether he could use his power for good, specifically against Blight. Unfortunately, he knew that was just a pipe dream.

Shizen dropped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. The more he thought about it, the more depressed he was about his life. He was stuck being a nobody and doing nothing in a random neighborhood that he couldn't care less about. The only thing keeping him from leaving and going somewhere like Tokyo or overseas was Aya. Similar to him, her parents had been killed by Blight, though unlike him, they were just civilians caught in a nasty warzone. Because of that, she moved in with him and was now just a couch potato 24/7. Shizen didn't really mind, but he still felt that he was just wasting his life away. Those thoughts were suddenly interrupted, however, when Aya burst through his bedroom door.

"Shizen!" she exclaimed with an urgent tone. "There was a crazy battle between Blight and a group of rebels in Aomori just now! And... the rebels won!"

Shizen quickly sat up with a look of surprise on his face. "You're kidding."

"Not at all. I heard the rebels had extremely advanced weaponry and some of them were even reported to have some kind of powers."

"A lot of Blight soldiers have powers, but not many people outside of that, besides me I guess. How is that even possible?"

Aya shook her head. "I don't know. But I heard they took out a pretty big squad, so it couldn't have been an easy fight."

"Damn. It's been forever since anyone's been able to win a battle against Blight."

Even though it was a very small victory in the grand scheme of things, the fact that a random group of rebels was able to take down a squad of Blight soldiers was an impressive feat. Even more, the fact that some of these people possessed powers was almost unheard of. Besides himself, he had never heard of anyone outside of Blight having any notable powers. Were they born with these powers like Shizen supposedly was? Did they defect from Blight? He had no clue, but something about it gave him a little spark of hope.

"Do you... think we could help them?" Shizen asked Aya.

"What? Are you insane? They're just gonna get wiped out by stronger forces soon. There's no point in even trying."

"But... you seemed pretty excited when you ran in here. You had to have at least thought about there being some hope."

"I mean, sure," she sighed. "But you know that I go by logic and statistics when making decisions. Getting involved in a fight against Blight would almost assuredly get us killed. And I don't think I'm down for that."

Shizen hated the fact that she was right. Hearing about these rebels ignited something inside him. Even though he knew standing against Blight was and always would be futile, part of him wanted to try.

"I... I know," he spit out. "But maybe if we teamed up with those guys, with my powers, and your intelligence, we could do something."

"So you're saying that you want to use powers that you barely understand to rise up against Blight... and you want me to what? Be the strategist?"

"Well, I guess," Shizen said, scratching his head. "I don't know. I'm just sick of doing nothing every day. I don't even have a job. I'm living off money from Blight themselves. That pisses me off, you know?"

Aya laughed. "Fine, we'll try to help them."

"Wait. really? You're okay with that all of a sudden?"

"No, I'm not. But both of our parents were killed by Blight, and I agree that we're doing absolutely nothing with our lives. I don't think we're going to be able to do a whole lot, but we'll try."

"Uh, um, okay," Shizen stuttered. He was admittedly astonished that Aya had agreed with him after shutting him down at first. But there was something about the way she said it that made it seem like she was confident.

"Well, I guess I better figure out where these guys are located," Aya said." I imagine these guys are hiding out somewhere in Aomori, but it shouldn't be too hard to find their headquarters."

"You think they have an HQ?" Shizen wondered.

"I don't know, but they have to keep those weapons somewhere most likely. Regardless, I'll find out in no time."

Before Shizen could ask how she planned to do that, Aya bolted out of the room and downstairs to her computer. It didn't really matter though, because he knew Aya would get any information they needed. The hard part was coming to grips with what they had just declared they would do, something that many had tried and all had failed: to oppose Blight.