Chapter 5 Crimson leak

The taste of blood was the first thing Tsukia noticed. It was warm as it seeped steadily from her nose and ears, falling in slow, rhythmic drops that splattered against the wooden floorboards beneath her.

"Find the source..."

The winged woman's voice still echoed deep inside her mind, lingering like a wound that refused to close.

The door to her room suddenly burst open. Lori and Jasmia stood in the hallway, their silhouettes framed by the dim light behind them. Tsukia was slumped against the bed, trembling faintly, her hands stained with the ink-black residue of her power.

"Are you okay?" Lori rushed to her side and cupped her face gently, his voice urgent. "Kia, talk to me!"

Tsukia did not respond immediately, still distant and unfocused, as if her mind had not fully returned. Meanwhile, Jasmia knelt beside the shattered remains of the flowerpot, staring at the shriveled, ashen petals before slowly shifting her gaze back to Tsukia. Her eyes widened slightly, revealing a fear she tried hard to hide.

It was a strange sensation for Tsukia-to see people genuinely shaken by what she had done.

"I lost control..." Tsukia whispered at last, her voice fragile and sharp like breaking glass.

"It felt fine at first. I was holding it properly, but then the weight changed. I didn't understand how to stop it anymore," she added in a low, unsteady tone.

Lori did not pull away. Instead, he took a small towel and gently began wiping the blood from her face with careful movements, as though afraid she might shatter.

"It's okay," he said softly. "You're not alone anymore."

"You wouldn't believe it if you saw it..." she muttered under her breath, leaning slightly into his touch despite the voice in her mind urging her to pull away, warning her of trust.

"Next time," Lori said, his tone suddenly brightening as he forced a lighter energy into the moment, cutting through the heaviness. "We'll train together. No more solo disasters, okay?"

He finished wiping her face, then handed her a tissue before gently patting her head.

After Lori and Jasmia finally left her room, Tsukia immediately went to shower, preparing herself for the shopping trip later in the day. Yet even as the water ran through her hair and the cold spray touched her skin, her thoughts remained fixed on the winged woman. She still could not tell whether what she saw was real or a hallucination born from her unstable power.

As she stood under the water, she quietly resolved to understand herself more seriously from that moment onward.

"Alright, let's move!" Lori announced brightly, his energy sharply contrasting the heavy silence that lingered from the morning.

Tsukia did not immediately follow. Instead, she focused on pulling on her leather gloves, tightening them carefully over her knuckles. She hoped the physical barrier might help contain the "leak" within her body-that strange necro-violet pulse she still struggled to control.

With her hands tucked into her pockets and her hood pulled low over her face, she finally followed them down the dusty path leading toward the market. The sky above stretched wide and clear as they walked.

In the distance, standing jagged against the horizon, was Jamana Mountain.

Tsukia slowed her pace without realizing it. Her gaze lingered on the faraway peaks. That place had been called her "home," or at least what she had been told to call home. Years of isolation made it feel less like a place she belonged to and more like a ghost of something that once existed-familiar, yet completely unreachable.

Jasmia noticed her slowing down and gently looped her arm through Lori's, pausing in the middle of the path as if to pull Tsukia back into the present. For a moment, none of them spoke.

Then Jasmia finally broke the silence.

"You know... Lori mentioned he wants to find more friends with potential," she said lightly, her tone deliberately softer than the heavy thoughts weighing on Tsukia.

"So we can enter the Tasukai Association."

Lori looked up at the sky as if the sunlight itself was calling him forward. His expression changed-not just a smile, but something closer to conviction, almost like a man possessed by a dream he could already see unfolding.

"If we get in, we can finally explore the world beyond these borders. That's the goal, Tsukia!" he said.

He exhaled slowly afterward, as though speaking the dream aloud made it feel closer, more real.

The walk into town took another twenty minutes. The quiet dirt paths gradually gave way to noise, movement, and life as they approached the market. The smell of woodsmoke and livestock drifted through the air, growing stronger with every step.

By the time they reached the corner store, the heat of the sun had already begun to bake the streets.

Inside, the transition was immediate and uncomfortable. The shop was cramped, the air thick with stale tobacco and the sharp, chemical scent of floor wax. The cool shade was a relief, but the narrow aisles forced them to walk almost single file.

They moved slowly as they gathered supplies-meat wrapped in wax paper, bundles of slightly wilted vegetables, and other necessities.

Jasmia, however, was clearly distracted from practicality. She excitedly grabbed several packs of cream-filled cookies from a shelf, holding them like treasure. It was a shared comfort between her and Lori, something small but meaningful in their otherwise difficult lives.

"Tsukia, look! This would be perfect for you," Jasmia chirped suddenly, pulling a black over-the-knee dress from a metal rack that groaned under its own weight.

Tsukia hesitated, then let out a small, rare chuckle as she reached out to feel the fabric. It was sturdy enough. After a moment, she added it to their growing pile, along with a few more practical pieces, while Jasmia continued grabbing things with increasing enthusiasm, clearly ignoring any sense of budget.

Stepping back outside felt like walking into a wall of humidity. After a short wait at the checkout, they finally left the store, stepping onto the porch under the harsh sunlight.

Lori immediately looked down at the long receipt in her hand, eyes widening.

"Wow... being a hero is expensive," she muttered, flicking it with mild frustration.

They had not even taken ten steps down the sidewalk when the atmosphere shifted completely.

The casual noise of the street died out, replaced by an uneasy silence. From a nearby alleyway, five men stepped forward. Their heavy frames blocked the path entirely, cutting off any clean escape.

They were not soldiers, but street thugs-the kind who preyed on the weak without hesitation. The leader, a man with a jagged scar across his throat, cracked his knuckles slowly as he studied them.

"Nice groceries, kids," he sneered.

"Hand over the bags and wallets, and maybe we won't break any bones today."

"Why would we do that?" Jasmia snapped immediately, sparks flickering faintly in her hands before Lori raised an arm to stop her.

"Quiet, little girl," the leader barked sharply.

In the next moment, Lori stepped forward. His expression hardened completely as flames began to lick at his palms.

The leader only smirked. Raising his hand, he condensed the surrounding humidity into swirling, pressurized spheres of water.

"Fire can't defeat water, boy," he said confidently.

He struck first. Lori met him head-on with a burning fist, but the man shifted fluidly, his body turning into a liquid blur as he extinguished the flames with a dense wall of water.

The fight quickly turned into a stalemate, but it was clear Lori was losing ground. His attention kept flickering back toward Jasmia and Tsukia.

"Jasmia! Kia! Get back- I'll handle this!"

Before he could finish, a blast of high-pressure water struck him square in the chest. The impact sent him flying backward, slamming into a stone wall with a sickening crash.

He collapsed, coughing blood, his head bleeding from the impact.

"Don't underestimate water with fire," the man sneered as he stepped closer.

"SHINJI!" Jasmia screamed.

For the first time in Tsukia's life, something inside her cracked-not just anger, but something deeper. The Disaster inside her recognized the threat before she even fully understood it.

Then the world didn't feel like it broke.

It shifted.

For Tsukia, everything went unnaturally quiet-as if sound itself had been pushed underwater. The air no longer felt like air, but something denser, heavier, as though reality had gained weight around her body.

Her vision blurred at the edges.

Not darkened.

Distorted.

Like the world was being seen through cracked glass.

The voices around her stopped making sense, not because they disappeared, but because they no longer belonged in the same "layer" as her thoughts.

Lori's voice reached her from far away, muffled, distorted, as though he was shouting through layers of glass.

But Tsukia wasn't fully gone.

She was still there.

Watching.

"I'm a fool..." Lori thought faintly, expecting the final blow.

But it never came.

Instead, the man hesitated, stepping back with a pale, horrified expression.

"What... what is that?" he whispered.

Lori forced his eyes to focus.

And he saw her.

Tsukia was no longer the girl he had shared popsicles with.

The ink-black veins beneath her skin didn't just spread-they organized themselves, forming patterns that looked less like corruption and more like a structured seal breaking open. Her hair lifted weightlessly, not as if underwater, but as if gravity had forgotten it.

She vanished.

One moment she was ten feet away.

The next, she was standing over the man.

She lifted him by the throat with one hand as easily as if he weighed nothing at all.

"Who are you?" he choked, as his gang scattered in terror.

Tsukia tilted her head slowly. Her nails extended into jagged obsidian claws. For a brief moment, her gaze shifted toward Lori, and he thought she might strike him too.

Instead, she reached out and touched his cheek.

Her touch was freezing.

"A friend..." she whispered, her voice hollow, like wind echoing through an empty cave.

The man, panicked, spoke into his phone, his voice shaking violently.

"Help! Someone-contact the Government! There's a monster-"

At the word Government, Tsukia's aura changed instantly. The black energy around her turned into a violent, blood-red storm.

The phone disintegrated before he could finish.

A jagged spear of dark energy formed in her hand.

What followed was not a fight.

It was to punish.

Again and again, the spear moved until there was nothing left to recognize.

Blood painted the pavement, but Tsukia did not blink. She just stood there.

"Humans are foolish..." she murmured, her voice vibrating through the ground.

"STOP!"

Tsukia's voice suddenly broke through the storm inside her mind.

But her body did not respond.

She was trapped inside herself, watching from somewhere distant as her own hands moved without permission.

The voice inside her was no longer whispering.

It was roaring.

"TSUKIA!"

Lori's voice finally pierced through the chaos.

The darkness collapsed like a falling tide. The spear dissolved into smoke.

Tsukia stumbled backward, staring at her blood-stained hands as her breath broke apart in panic.

"Kia!" Jasmia cried, pale and trembling.

Sirens began to wail in the distance.

Lori forced himself up despite his injuries. Jasmia's hands glowed as she hastily stabilized his wounds.

"Tsukia, let's go!" Lori urged.

But she could not move, as he picked her up instead and ran with him. Just as blue and red lights crested the hill.