The shower hissed softly. Steam curled through the cracks in the bathroom door as Kaito leaned his head against the cold tile wall, water washing away the sweat, blood—and fragments of dried tears.
His muscles had healed. His fractured knuckles? Regrown. The bruises around his ribs were already fading.
But the scars remained.
Not all of them were on his skin.
---
Earlier – School Rooftop
Rin stood beside him in the early morning silence, her long dark hair tied up messily as she sipped warm green tea from a thermos.
> "You're quiet," she said without looking.
Kaito nodded. "Didn't sleep much."
"Dreams again?"
> "Not dreams," he muttered. "Warnings."
She turned toward him now. "You're not handling this like someone gifted with power. You're handling it like someone being haunted by it."
That stung more than she knew.
Kaito had wanted to evolve. Had believed it was the way forward—to control the chaos, to become strong enough to protect, to matter. But every ability, every new trait… came with a memory.
A feeling.
Sometimes it was pain.
Sometimes it was someone else's pain.
---
Flashback – The Vision Left Behind
The night before, after the vision in the ruins, Kaito had fallen into a dreamless state. But not empty.
He was in a hallway. Long. Cracked. Mirrors all down one side.
Each one showed a version of him.
One with hollow eyes and blood on his fists.
One with a skeletal jaw and shadowy wings.
One crying in the rain, too weak to fight.
One smiling at a grave he didn't recognize.
And one… completely still. Not breathing.
> "Scars are what remain when your choices can't be undone," a voice whispered from behind the mirrors.
Kaito turned—but no one was there.
Only a mirror with his current self, trembling.
And in that reflection, a scar ran down the center of his chest—over the spiral mark.
---
Afternoon – Seiko's Living Room
"You're slowing down," Seiko said, lighting a stick of incense and watching him out the corner of her eye.
Kaito was on one knee, trying to catch his breath. His reaction speed had dropped slightly. Just a fraction. But he noticed.
> "You said it accelerates when I'm in pain," she said. "But what happens when you run out of injuries?"
He looked up.
> "What if evolution requires damage to keep going?"
Kaito stood slowly. "Then I'll keep pushing."
Seiko sighed.
> "That's not strength, kid. That's self-destruction with a fancier name."
She walked over, grabbed his chin gently, and turned his face toward the light.
> "You've got a scar here," she said, tracing beneath his eye. "That one's new. Didn't heal."
Kaito pulled away. "It's internal. I think… evolution skips emotional pain."
> "Of course it does," Seiko said. "Because emotional scars aren't meant to be healed. They're meant to teach."
---
After School – Shopping District
Momo dragged Kaito along by the arm, pulling him through aisles of a loud electronics store. He was lost in thought. She didn't care.
> "If you're gonna pretend to be a normal person," she said, "you've gotta do normal people things. Like hanging out. And acting like we're not all constantly battling aliens and spirits and soul-imploding secret tech."
Kaito blinked. "Is that what this is?"
> "Yeah," she grinned. "We're on a date. Sort of."
His heart jumped, but his face didn't change much. She noticed anyway.
They walked for a while in silence before Kaito finally asked:
> "Do you have scars?"
She looked at him strangely. "Of course."
"From battles?"
She shook her head. "Not all. Some are from people. Some are from me."
Then she smiled faintly.
> "But they don't make me weaker, Kaito. They remind me of the sh*t I survived. Scars are proof I didn't break."
He stared at her, something unspoken forming in his throat.
But before he could say it—
A crash echoed from the alley behind the store.
---
Alley Fight – Strange Apparition
They turned the corner fast, Kaito already pushing Momo behind him.
A figure stood at the end of the alley, its body half-wrapped in shadow, half in blinking static—like it was caught between frequencies.
> "This isn't a yokai," Momo said. "Not psychic either. It's something else."
The thing stepped forward.
Its face was Kaito's.
But melted. Blurred. And wrong.
> "Adaptation source confirmed," it croaked. "Acquiring template."
Kaito's mark flared on instinct—evolution reacting to the threat.
Pain surged.
Bones cracked in his arms as his muscles tightened. Skin hardened, eyes sharpened.
> New Trait Acquired: Counter-Echo Reflex
(Your body remembers injuries inflicted by mimic-based entities. Reaction time improves based on pain imprint.)
The copy lunged.
Kaito countered mid-air—cracking its rib with a spinning elbow, but not fast enough to dodge its claws slashing his side.
He winced.
The pain sharpened again.
And he saw the pattern of the enemy's movement a moment before it acted.
> "It's mimicking… but not perfectly. It's learning from my scars. Like I do."
With a roar, Kaito slammed his knee into the copy's chin, sending it flying.
It glitched once, then disintegrated in a flicker of red light.
---
Later – Momo Tending His Wound
Back in her room, Momo patched up his side. He hadn't said much since the fight.
> "That thing looked like you."
Kaito nodded. "It was trying to be me. Copy my evolution. But it was unstable."
She looked up. "And what about you? Are you still stable?"
He didn't answer.
Momo pressed a bandage against the wound. "You know what scares me most?"
Kaito looked at her.
> "That you'll stop talking. That one day you'll take a hit you don't evolve from… and you'll decide the pain's not worth the lesson."
She touched his chest, right over the spiral mark.
> "But I still see you in there."
And for the first time in a long time, Kaito let himself breathe.
---
End Scene – Journal Entry 2
> "Scars are lessons my body can't forget. They don't vanish. They become rules. Triggers. Warnings. And sometimes… they become voices."
> "I keep evolving. But if I don't remember why I started, I might evolve into something I can't come back from."