XCEL

“You’d better show me a good time, Harigane.”

Thunder rolled through the darkened sky, the distortion rooted in Chiba’s Kawarajima Park. Meguru Yoha stood in the centre of a psychic singularity. The man held one hand in front of his face; he stretched out his other arm, the palm facing away. Both hands had their index and fifth fingers extended, others curled into the palm.

Rinkaku Harigane had never imagined such a cool aura could be so terrifying.

Meguru stood completely relaxed. Even with arms raised, the man’s shoulders rolled forwards, his back slouched forward a little. The flow of his psychic energy was so uniform, so continuous, Rin could barely detect any movement at all. What made it even stranger was his lack of a third eye. How could he have such perfect control of his own psychic energy? It ran contrary to everything the Architect had taught him. Did Meguru even need a third eye? The distorted skies above crackled, and the relentless white rifts carved themselves into the fractured lands. The man looked perfectly at peace with his surroundings. He was one with this chaotic world, and revelled in it even. A detachment. A release. Enlightenment. Those afflicted ceased to exist within the world, so he’d read; to instead exist above it.

The picture was overpowering. Rin had never felt anything like it. Fear coursed in waves of tiny needles under his skin, a perpetual prickling.

“Hakana taught me this one; never took it seriously, though.” Meguru grinned. “Worth a try, don’t you think?”

Next, came that fateful word.

Mindscape

虚廟 Koyashiro

The gathering storm hit a crescendo. A tremble from the heavens shook the air itself. Rin’s eyes widened. A switch flipped, and the crackling of his psychic energy ceased. One-hundred percent concentration; a Flow.

Mindscape, an advanced barrier technique. Imposing one’s further plane on the real world extended the reach of one’s Specialty, but needed a barrier to separate the two incompatible realities. The Architect’s depiction made it sound like an instant death sentence: the moment you got yourself trapped in one, curtains. Hakana had used it first, trapping him and Bango in his Glass Eye Observatory. The fact it hadn’t been laced with a deadly technique was a stroke of luck, but he couldn’t chance that again. Meguru Yoha hadn’t disclosed his technique. The man had still far too many unknowns attached to him; that perfect flow, that lackadaisical swagger; that remorseless brutality. Rin knew it would be over if he acted on false assumptions. The range between them was far too short for Rin to try and evade the incarcerating barrier, so the best he could do was distance and fortify himself against whatever came next.

In the fraction of a second all that thought had taken place, Rin’s mind decided on action!

Framework: Scaffolding

枠組: 足場 Wakugumi: Ashiba

Rin leapt into the air, frames of all shapes spinning around him. He cast and locked the frames into place, and the foundations of a tower took shape in real time. Instead of designing a full building every single time, Rin found that by memorising basic building blocks—panels and stairs—he could build whatever rudimentary structure he needed in a pinch! Psychic energy electrifying his every movement, Rin zipped up the ninety-degree spiral staircase, building his own way higher still. The tower grew to twice its size in half the time, then doubled again! Extensions and structural fortification protruded periodically from the fortress’ outline as the top reached for the sky. Though rudimentary and oddly rectangular: in less than a minute, Rinkaku Harigane had constructed a tower ten storeys high.

The boy finally came to a rest on the top floor—furnished with a guard rail and outposts—and felt his tunnel vision lift. He looked up.

Hang on. Where was the barrier? Rin looked around. Nothing had changed!

All he heard was the most mocking, raucous laughter from down below. He looked over the edge of his building, and saw Meguru slapping his knees, watching with tears in his gleeful eyes.

Rin’s stomach sank into his toes.

There had been no Mindscape.

Meguru Yoha had played him for an absolute fool.

“Man, talk about an overreaction!” The man chortled. “Spooked you real bad there, didn’t I?” He pulled a grotesque imitation of Rin’s wide-eyed expression. “You should’ve seen the look on your face. What, you think I’d actually go through the bother of performing a technique like that?” He tipped his head back and laughed some more. “Hell no.”

All the colour had drained from Rin’s face. His legs felt leaden. Leaning against one of his pillars for support, he dragged a hand down his face.

“Hakana sure wasn’t kidding. You’re not half bad.” Meguru whistled through his teeth. Cocking a hand over his eyes, he scanned his way up Rin’s tower. “I don’t care for this whole architecture thing but man, that is a building!”

The hat-man had warned them of the boy’s prodigy status. Meguru could personally attest. He’d seen the kid parry with those frames of his multiple nine millimetre rounds in a row, point blank, not even an hour after awakening. The only reason he hadn’t intervened at the time was—for one, laziness, and two, shock that the kid had actually been able to even pull it off in the first place.

“This is seriously impressive shit, Harigane.” Meguru started a slow applause, halting his approach. The man wasn’t shouting, but the volume of his voice had been magnified by such an extent that it made the walls surrounding Rin rumble, and his ears ring.

“Must’ve taken you quite a while to get that far, no?” Meguru stuck both hands on his hips. “All that time, effort, hard work; must be tiring!”

“Yeah, thanks,” Rin leered.

Meguru raised both palms. “No, seriously, I’m impressed. It’s a cool-looking tower. Me personally? I couldn’t be fucked to go through all that. Hard work, effort: nope, not me; not a chance in hell.”

Rin had become acutely aware of his own breathing, now a conscious action. He’d lost his flow, and the fatigue was starting to catch up with him once more.

“Quick question.” Meguru matched Rin’s glare with a challenge. “Why’d you bother?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“A serious one. Totally serious.” Meguru waved a hand at Rin’s tower. “I mean, why? All of this. Like, sure it looks good, but why go through all the effort?”

Rin opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Like, for real,” Meguru continued. “You could’ve cut my head off a hundred times by now with those frames of yours. Instead, you bit your tongue, let me posture around all I want—appreciate that, by the way—but it don’t make any sense. What’s the deal with you, Harigane? I just don’t get it.”

Rin’s brow furrowed.

“I’ve seen your file; that confused me even more. A genius like you? You were set to succeed, college scholarships and whatnot. You never had to involve yourself in this shit to begin with. It doesn’t even concern you.”

“This absolutely concerns me.”

“But does it? I’m serious here. Your dope of a dad just sent you that knife. You’re the idiot who decided to throw their future away by guarding it all this time. I mean, what’s in it for you?”

“Is that all that matters to you?”

“Pretty much.” Meguru shrugged. “It’s as I said before. We’re the same, you and I.” He raised and moved a hand across the sky, distorted thunder rolling overhead. “Destined for greatness. Runs in the family, no?”

“Family?”

Meguru inhaled dramatically; his eyes lit up in mock surprise. “If there’s nothing in it for me, I say: who cares? It’s not as though anything has any consequence, right? Not for me, anyway. And, when you think about it, nothing really matters in the end.”

One of Rin’s eyes twitched. “How can you say something so stupid with a smile on your face?”

“Like this, see?” Meguru tugged on the ends of his mouth, and the boy grimaced. “You take yourself so seriously, Harigane. That’s your problem!”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Then today’s your lucky day! Free information on the house.” Meguru grinned. “I’m just the best, aren’t I?”

A bolt of lightning struck and tore the ground behind the tower. Rin jumped.

“Scared?” Meguru jeered. “Can’t imagine why. This place is beautiful.”

A fresh wave of hot needles seeped underneath Rin’s skin. Just looking at the man’s unshaven face made his teeth clench. “You wouldn’t know beauty if it gave you a lap dance, you prick.”

“Strong words! I like those!” Meguru cheered and did a little dance. “Finally, we’re getting somewhere! You don’t like this place?”

“I’m getting rid of this distortion. I liked this park better the way it was.” Rin folded his arms. His own history with the place had nothing to do with this, he hoped. “If I can’t get it back, I’m going to build something even better in its place.”

“Why bother?” Meguru yawned. “Sounds exhausting.”

“You’re exhausting.”

Why hadn’t Meguru attacked him yet? This pointless back and forth had at least given Rin some time to think. Beyond the fakeout, Meguru hadn’t since attempted to kill him. He needed to hurry up, or the bounds of the distortion would begin encroaching on the city at large. Soon, it might grow too large for him to contain; however he planned on doing that, Rin didn’t actually have a clue just yet. Was Meguru purposefully goading him to approach, and lose his point of vantage? Rin still had no clue about the man’s specialty. If he engaged without a plan of attack, he’d be dead before he could regret it.

“You wanna know what my Specialty is, kid?” Meguru called up.

Rin’s eyes widened. What were the chances? It wasn’t outside the realms of possibility, but could this guy read minds? Desperate not to give anything away, he stared back down.

“Let’s make this fun!” Meguru had sat down on a rock nearby, enjoying the scenery. “C’mon. Have a guess. This should be easy!”

Rin didn’t know whether he should even answer. This was both a trap and an opportunity. By working out Meguru’s Specialty before he’d had a chance to divulge, Rin would be at an automatic advantage! He was fighting for his damn life here. He’d take every single advantage he could get.

“Luck.”

That had to be it. Something still stuck in Rin’s mind, a stone in a vat of thick ooze, with every particle of mud a thought. This stone had risen against gravity and, for a moment, all the mud cleared. Back when he and Kinuka had first met Meguru Yoha, back in that alley, the man had thrown something—a bouncy ball. The ball hit a stack of boxes, which just so happened to topple over and block their escape! Later, he struck Kinuka stone cold! Lucky shots. Surely, then, his Specialty was “good aim.” No. What really sealed the deal for Rin was how Tegata described him afterwards.

“I don’t know what it is about him, but everything just seems to go his way.”

It was luck.

It had to be luck.

It just had to be—

“Wrong.”

Rin’s face fell.

“Luck, huh?” Meguru shook his head. “So many people bet their lives on luck.” He chuckled. “Bet that’s why they’re constantly running out of it, yeah? It’s like a miracle, they say! Things just go the way you want. It’s a grand time, like the slots, you know? Hang on—nah, you wouldn’t. Too small.” He grinned; Rin scowled. “Take my word for it, couz. You win at the casino, and for a time everything’s just golden. The skies are blue. Someone’s smiling on you.” He waved the thought away. “Haha, get outta here. This world ain’t so kind, ain’t so unkind either. It don’t care either way.”

“What’s your point?” Rin had perched on one of his tower walls, and had been throwing bricks down at Meguru. Unfortunately, none of them landed anywhere close.

“My Specialty ain’t luck.” Meguru chuckled. “Luck doesn’t exist—not as you understand it, anyway. The mechanisms exist, but people don’t understand ‘em. There’s no grand order that ascribes purpose and narrative to everything—that’s for losers to come up with to make excuses, make ‘em feel better about themselves when they fail. Look around you, kid. This distortion, this sky. You think this world runs on order?”

“It has to,” Rin stated. “Or nothing could exist at all.”

“Really? Then how do you explain this place?” Meguru continued. “This world is chaotic. It doesn’t do as you want. The harder you try, the further you fall. Need proof? Look around you! What you call ‘distortion’ really just exposes the world for what it truly is.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Just saying what I see, kid.” Meguru shrugged. “But hey, why listen to me, right? You clearly know everything here. Point is, everything’s connected: you, me, the heavens above and everything below. From where I’m standing—” he turned on the ball of his foot, arms wide— “everything’s just so damn beautiful.”

“It has the potential to be beautiful,” Rin attempted to clarify. “But without structure, all you’re left with is noise!”

Meguru wasn’t listening. “All that remains in this world are actions, individual actions. One action impacts a hundred thousand more; and a hundred? Well, who am I to say.” He fished a coin out of his pocket. The silvery brass glinted in the harsh purple light flashing from the skies above. “Luck is just a flow. Every single action impacts every single outcome. All I do is just give things a little nudge—”

He turned around and spun the coin over his shoulder. The metal dot sung its shrill tune as it whistled through the air, knocking pitifully against the base of Rin’s tower.

“—and everything just falls into place.”

The floor under Rin trembled, and he nearly lost balance. Then came the rumbling of shattering glass. The next few moments passed by in blissful freeze-frame. Rin felt himself momentarily weightless. His entire tower had shattered and—supported no longer—he fell.