In a dark and messy room, the only lights present came from a screen and the cracks in the only door. The window was closed, so there was no hint of day or night.
A young man was sitting in front of this screen. His expression was unhealthy. It felt like his soul had already left his body a long time ago. The door opens and a female figure walks through it.
She was a girl wearing a japanese school uniform. She had probably just got back from school. But she was carrying a plate of food. Smiling proudly, it was like she had made that dish herself.
— Yuto! I prepared lunch for you-
The girl was startled, looking like she saw a ghost in that awful scene. She looked around the room with disdain.
— Oh, is that you, Haji? You can leave it there on the bed and I'll get it later...
— Wh-What have you been doing these last few days? Your condition is much worse than usual.
— Ah… let me see… I think I ate, played those games and slept…
The girl was already angry and disgusted by that situation.
— I-I can't take this anymore! You were not like this! You were my hero... How could you have fallen so low?
— Hm…? Did something happen, Haji? You're angrier than usual...
— Of course I am! I told you to live for me, or for her, or for yourself, but it seems you're just wasting everything you've got! Your parents work hard to support you and you just sit there and do nothing... By the way, what happened to all the part-time jobs you've taken in the last few months?
— Hm… I think I got fired in the penultimate one… and maybe the last one too… But what's the problem? The choice to support myself is my parents', not mine. And that day I didn't answer you, so I have no obligation to follow the promise to live. After all, I always break promises...
Haji had already lost all the trust she had in Yuto. She approached him and slapped him, almost crying.
— Y-You're the worst…
Yuto didn't think he was wrong, so he didn't understand the reason for the slap. But before he could ask, the girl ran out of the room, crying.
— What got into her? She has never confronted me like this before.
Haji was the green-haired girl who had given powers to almost all of Shichi Nichi Ju's heroes. When she touched them, the next dream they had would reveal what power would be obtained.
If, within the dream, Haji touched the same place as before, the person would wake up immediately. She didn't need to sleep for that, just daydream.
She had been found as a baby by the Boss. He saw her potential, and soon founded the association. He adopted her, but didn't treat her like a daughter.
His power, if any, was unknown. Perhaps that was why he tortured his own daughter. The name Haji was given by him, as she symbolized the beginning of everything.
On the fateful Halloween, she was found by Yuto and his sister, imprisoned in a cell that was revealed by the destruction of the building. However, she was unharmed. Not from the torture she had received her entire life, but from all the fighting that took place a few dozen meters away.
She explained that that was due to the protection granted by a certain God of Distortion. She herself didn't know what that meant, because she was still a child. But after the incident, she swore she never mentioned that name, as she no longer remembered it.
With the trauma of having his sister murdered in the blink of an eye, Yuto moved back in with his parents, and took Haji with him. More than 5 years passed in this phase, from October 31st, 2041 to March 3rd, 2047, the present date.
It was a luxury apartment in the center of Osaka. His parents worked in politics, so they had a well-paying job. And that didn't stop them from loving their son more than anything, because he was the only one left.
The association's influence was small outside of Tokyo, but it did exist. In the center of a big city, they were much safer than anywhere else, as there was greater enforcement.
The house that Yuto and his sister shared was far from the center of Tokyo. It was in her name, and she supported them both with the generous salary of a level 7 hero. But after she died, it continued in her name and was not occupied by anyone else. It was a ghost house.
Now, Haji had just come back from school, and even before changing her clothes, she prepared Yuto's lunch, to cheer him up. She had never had a family before, so she felt indebted to him.
Yuto's condition worsened. He quit all the part-time jobs he'd gotten so he wasn't dependent on his parents anymore. As he no longer wanted to be involved with heroes, the work he was most interested in was police work. But he gave up a few months after starting.
Since his parents supported him now, he saw no reason to exert himself. He could use their weakness to live a hikikomori life. And he used them for a few years.
By the way, Haji was a tsundere.
Yuto came out of his room after hours of confinement. He was worried about Haji and went looking for her. It had been a long time since he'd cared about anything else, so he didn't even remember the feeling anymore.
The hallway light was too bright for someone with a bat habit. He saw a woman entering the apartment, and immediately recognized her:
— Mom… what time is it?
— Yuto? I didn't expect to see you out of the room. I just got back from work, so it's after five in the afternoon.
— Have you seen Haji?
— No. I thought she was already back from school. Did she get lost on the way?
— What? This never happened before. She is always here before you arrive.
— How strange… Did you do something to her?
— Of course not! W-Well, maybe I was a bit of an idiot earlier…
— Maybe she wants to be alone for a while. Things work themselves out after you've waited long enough.
— Are you sure you should be saying this to me? You should be motivating me to look for her.
— A-Ah, so that's what you wanted me to say… All right, if you go after her, I'm sure she'll like it. Maybe that's exactly what she wants.
— Thank you mom. I'll take a walk to see if I can find her.
— Am I really hearing this? Are you going to leave the house? It doesn't even look like you.
— She doesn't respond to any of my messages. I think she really wants me to look for her. If there was a way to solve this without leaving home, I would.
— Congratulations, Yuto. You began to understand how she feels.
Flattered by the compliment, Yuto looked away.
— I-It's not like I care that much about her… It's just… nevermind. Thank you mom.
Yuto said goodbye to his mother as he reached for the doorknob.
Yuto looked for Haji in all the places she used to go. At school, she wasn't. Her friends said she was crying when she ran away.
The messages were received shortly after Yuto sent them, which meant that her cell phone still had battery life.
The search continued. At the bakery, she wasn't. In the square near the house, where she used to be alone, neither.
All the people replied that they hadn't seen her that day, so she had probably used a different route than usual. She had left school, running, and taken a different path. She would arrive there quickly, in a matter of minutes.
But there was no route that led to any place of interest to Haji other than the conventional one. All the way through, Yuto used his gravitational sensor to look for her.
The problem was that the city was enormous and many people were walking in the streets at that time. The sensor couldn't make out Haji's silhouette, relatively common in the crowd.
After a few tens of minutes of searching, his cell phone received a call.
Haji was sitting in a subway station, head down. She didn't even know why she was there. It was crowded at that hour, when a lot of people were going home. The sun was about to set, but she didn't intend to go home.
— That idiot… How did it all end up like this?
— We would love to meet the idiot you're talking about, but, if you don't mind, we have to take you to the Pope.
Haji raised her head. The voice came from a girl, about 17 years old, wearing a regular shirt and a dark cap. She had black short hair and green eyes. Her bangs covered her right eye.
Behind her, three tall men stared at her with a sense of superiority.
One was bald, black and had no eyebrows. He wore a black jacket with a white T-shirt.
One of the others wore a sweatshirt and his hood covered his head. He had purple eyes and long, white and purple hair. He was the tallest of the trio.
The third one wore a football team T-shirt. He had short hair, with a line on the right side. His right eyebrow also had a line. He wore a lip piercing. What stood out the most were his flashy orange glasses.
Haji, without answering, looked at the bald man, as if challenging him. He frowned in irritation and punched Haji in the face, who fell off the bench she was sitting on and was thrown a few meters away.
— Hey, little girl. Were you never taught to respect your elders?
The man was about to punch her again before she even got to her feet.
— Hey, Roberto, stop, she's just a child. If we give her candy, she comes with us.
Haji didn't understand anything they said. It was a language she had never heard before. But they understood each other perfectly, and the 17 years old girl was the only one who also spoke japanese.
— Did you guys forget what the plan was? The Pope needs her safe and sound. If you keep hitting her, she will only become a defective product.
— But she brags too much. I had to teach her a lesson.
The man wearing a football shirt spoke for the first time in the conversation:
— You're right, Roberto. It is very difficult to deal with children these days. But you know there's always a better way to make a brat learn to respect us, if you know what I mean.
The hooded man, troubled, said:
— Stop it, Cleiton. I have a trauma with pedophilia, so don't even talk about it around me. And our goal is not to traumatize her.
— Oh, come on, Jorge, just a little. I can do it, right, Bruna?
— Actually, it's not a bad idea. This saves us the effort of disciplining her and you are satisfied. Everyone wins.
The bald man interrupted the conversation:
— Wait, I'll go first. I still haven't punished her enough.
— Okay, leave some for me, since Jorge won't want it.
While Roberto took Haji by the arm to undress her, a cell phone fell out of her left hand, which had been hidden since she was knocked down.
When he saw the cell phone screen, he realized that a call was recording the entire conversation. And the person on the other side was Yuto.
Roberto punched her again, but with much more force, sending her flying for five meters before falling to the ground.
Confused, Yuto answered Haji's call. He didn't hear her voice, but several other people's. He shouted for her to hear, but there was no answer.
Haji had muted her cell phone so that Yuto's voice wouldn't be heard. After a few seconds, the sound of a subway train passing by could be heard.
Only one subway station was close to their house. All the others would take much longer to arrive, even running. Yuto knew exactly where he should go.
In less than a minute, he arrived at the scene of violence. He saw Haji being beaten a few more times after her trick was discovered.
When Roberto was about to throw another punch, his fist mysteriously stopped. It was Yuto's power, which pushed Roberto's arm back and forth simultaneously, paralyzing him.
Increasing the power of the simultaneous push, the arm began to be crushed and blood flowed. His bone went through his elbow. The arm compressed itself so much that it no longer seemed to exist.
Roberto, screaming and crying in pain, knelt down. If he took any more damage, he might die. Yuto prepared to crush his heart, when Haji shouted:
— Don't do that, Yuto! You are not like that. Killing that person won't help anything!
Yuto was still irritated, but listened. In all that time, the other three on the team didn't even know where the power came from. He dashed forward to knock them out instead of killing them.
Realizing the threat, the hooded man pointed his left palm at Yuto. A harpoon in a chain came out of it. Yuto just dodged. Jorge used his other hand and this time hit Yuto's left arm. But he was already close enough and punched Jorge hard enough to knock him out.
Cleiton, the one with the team shirt, materialized a pistol in his hand. He aimed at Yuto's head and fired, but all the bullets stopped in midair. Yuto feigned a punch and kicked him in the groin, knocking him out instantly.
The last one left, Bruna, didn't know what to do. Yuto was approaching her slowly.
— W-Wait! Is there no way we can solve this without violence?
— No violence, really? Am I really hearing this after all that?
Aiming at the victim's stomach, Yuto was about to punch, when she disappeared. He looked back, and there she was. It was a short teleport.
Out of despair, she grabbed the three incapacitated members and teleported them one by one, then herself as well.
— Are you okay, Haji?
— Good enough, because you saved me. T… Than… Thank y… Argh, I can't say this! But know that you are still an idiot.
— I know. I want to start over from scratch and fix the mistakes I made in those wasted years.
Haji was surprised by Yuto's maturity.
— Since when are you so responsible?
— You don't take it easy, huh...
Suddenly, the four reappeared in the same place they had been teleported from. And the girl returned to her original position, again within Yuto's reach. But she was panting and looking desperate, as if she was on the verge of death.
— P-Please! Anything but that! I do not want to die!
— Die? It won't be that easy.
Yuto finished the punch to the stomach that had been interrupted before, and she also fainted.
Yuto called the police to arrest the three knocked out and an ambulance for the one whose arm was crushed.
— Let's go back home?
— Let's go!