4 - Second Release

“There’s still some free time left until my later classes. Shit, I’ll probably skip them altogether.”

Sakuto wandered around the campus, his senses sharpened, his mind locked onto his task. He wanted to be done with everything as fast as possible and go back to his residence and curl up in a ball and die. When he left the park, he visited the outdoor sports fields and the small coffee shops. He couldn’t hear any distant laughter or chuckles anymore, he was met with a deafening silence accompanied by the silent whistles of the afternoon wind. The sky was darkened.

And at last, something caught his attention near campus. It was a rather ugly scene, it reminded him of a sight he saw at school. One of the guys was stronger and bigger physically, and surrounded by his friends. The other one was alone and being pushed against the wall.

“For the last time, what did you say about me?” The jock asked his victim, grabbing onto his clothes. The latter looked scared.

“N-nothing...” The slim guy said, receiving a slap in the face in exchange for his response.

“Dear God...what is this, middle school? I have to pass right by them as well...” Sakuto thought. Everything was taking place out in the open, by the walls of one of the campus’ larger buildings.

“If you say my name one more time, I’ll kill you, ya hear?” The jock said, slapping his prey again. “I’ll kill you. You’ll say goodbye to your life.”

“Hey, man...chill...I didn’t mean it...”

“You’re so pathetic.” He laughed, shoving him away. The jock turned around, noticing Sakuto, who had stopped by, watching the sight. Something seemed a little too familiar to him to just pass by.

“What are you looking at?” He asked. The prey also raised its head, looking at Sakuto as if he were some savior. Sakuto awkwardly looked away and started to walk off.

“Yeah, that’s right, get your eyes off of me.” The jock chuckled.

“You mean eye?” One of his friends commented. The two shared a laugh. And Sakuto heard that. He stopped again, glancing at the jock again, more upset this time. But something seemed so familiar.

“What’s his problem?”

“Does he even know how I lost my eye? Does he...”

“They’re soulless. They don’t need a reason to act like this. It’s just like back then.”

He threw up. The gang seemed amazed and disgusted. The jock approached Sakuto, he looked confrontational, as if the vomiting was an insult to him. Even Sakuto was shocked by this sudden response from his body. His legs felt a little weak too.

“What the hell are you trying to do?” He asked Sakuto.

“He laughed at me, he called me out...nah, I’ll kill this guy. I’ll knock him out.”

“I’ll-”

“There’s a crowd standing. They all saw you and laughed at you.”

“Dude, what’s the matter with you?” The jock asked. “You ain’t gonna say anything?”

“I want to punch him, but my arm won’t move...”

“Why...”

“I can hear them laughing...and they’re not even here...I know they’re somewhere there, somewhere, they’re all laughing at me.”

“Because you’re back in that prison. Taking action here might mean social suicide.”

“Cut this shit off, you weirdo. Stop staring at me, fool.” The jock shoved Sakuto. He tumbled a little and fell on his back, thankfully, he didn’t fall into the puddle of the barf on the ground.

Sakuto slowly got up. The jock was surprised and angered more, but Sakuto’s face looked unnatural. A boy could be heard rushing to the scene. Sakuto clenched his fist, taking a step forward. Looks like the push was the straw that broke the camel’s back. His presence flared up tremendously, but the jock couldn’t sense it at all. A drop of blood escaped his fist, as his nails dug into his palm.

“It’s always you...you fucking...soulless...”

“Sakuto, don’t!” Jacob yelled, grabbing him and tackling him away.

“His soul presence just now...I’ve never felt anything like that in my life! It felt like he was gonna kill someone!”

“He didn’t lie when he said he’s from the Heisei, I assume all of them are monsters like him!”

“Hey, it’s alright, man!” Jacob told the jocks, pushing Sakuto away from them. “It’s alright. Please don’t escalate this, okay? It’s cool. Everything’s cool.”

“God damn...weirdos...” The jock said, confused. His friends were laughing in the background.

“Sakuto, I know you can, but you really shouldn’t use your strength against him, alright? Come on, follow me. I’ll get you to the bathroom, you can wash your face there.” Jacob said, reassuringly pulling him away.

“I got him.” Sakuto said, quietly. His eye was locked onto the ground, staring at the puddle of vomit. But his attention was elsewhere.

“What the hell are you talking about?” The jock said, getting all confrontational again.

“Sakuto?” Jacob asked, leaning a little closer to him. Sakuto looked like a completely dysfunctional doll, Jacob had to hold him in place a little bit. Sakuto looked zoned out, like a corpse with its eyes open. But his presence was notably high.

“Nacht.” Sakuto said, quickly turning around. “For just a split second, I felt it.” He quickly rushed to the building’s entrance, at an unnatural for a soulless speed. Jacob tried his hardest to follow him.

“Yeah, I got him. I’ll find him. I’ll get the hell outta here.”

“The hell?” The jock asked himself. He likely didn’t realize that he didn’t dodge a bullet, he dodged an entire nuclear missile. He was still upset that he didn’t get to properly talk to Sakuto or whatever that meant, and his other victim had escaped.

...

“No, no, no, no...he’s coming here.” Nacht said. “I messed up.”

“Huh?” Aleksei said, who was in the secondary building - the one that hosted the cafeteria and rest rooms. It was connected to the main building by a narrow passage surrounded by glass walls.

“You felt it too, right?” Nacht asked, walking up and standing right in front of him. “His soul presence flared up. It startled me, I accidentally reinforced myself with soul prowess, I thought he was on my case...shit, damn it...you gotta run.”

“What? What do you mean by that?” Aleksei asked.

“We gotta run.” Nacht said, grabbing him by his shoulders. “Right now. We gotta run. He’s looking for me.”

“Then go ahead and run?” Aleksei said, confused. “I’m starting to have enough of this.”

“Oh, come on, really? What if I get attacked?” Nacht asked. “You’re gonna leave your friend alone? Despite, you know that if he catches you he’s gonna torture you until you give me away, right?”

“What are you on about?!” Aleksei said, pushing Nacht’s arms away. “Can you explain to me what the hell is going on?”

“I’ll explain it later, just run now.” Nacht said.

“No, explain it-”

“Just trust me!” Nacht said, slapping Aleksei. “Do you want your friend to die?!”

“What the hell, man?” Aleksei was shocked. “I’ll...I’ll follow you, but...you’re being very fucking weird right now.”

“Oh, you’ll be thanking me later.” Nacht said. He ran off, and Aleksei, after a moment of hesitation, decided to follow his friend. They hid their presence as much as possible...

...

Sakuto had already climbed up to the second floor. It wasn’t noon this time, but he could not have mistaken the source of the presence. He sat down on the floor, the hallway was empty, many of his peers were in class.

“I can’t feel it anymore. He caught on.”

“He’s probably far from where I initially detected him.”

“Damn it...”

“Dude...what is...going on?” Jacob said, his breathing rhythm jagged and unpredictable. He ran up to Sakuto. “Did you find the guy you were looking for?”

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“I still don’t understand why you’re involving yourself with me.” Sakuto said.

“Does there have to be a reason?” Jacob asked in between his heavy breaths. Sakuto looked at him, a little surprise, and a brief silence later he replied. “You were gonna kill someone!”

“You think he didn’t deserve it?” Sakuto said.

“Really?” Jacob asked. “You’re gonna justify killing someone because of something like this?”

“Keep your own presence low.” Sakuto said. He started sounding a little lost, even panicky. “He’s fading away.”

“I...” Jacob was at a loss of words. He eventually conjured up a sentence that would help his newfound friend. “If he knows you’re after him, if you run around campus, you’ll stumble upon someone who gets scared.”

“That’s a good strategy, Jacob.” Sakuto thought. He didn’t reply to anything. “But if people see a guy with an eyepatch run around at superspeed, they’ll just laugh at me.”

“That’s all they do. They find someone who’s different, or who can be the most entertaining, and they mock them. For self-validation, for fun, for their pride...they isolate people who they deem to be an irregularity for their hiveminds.”

“I have to concentrate on finding Nacht.”

“I want this to be over so fast...I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“There’s only one solution that comes to mind.”

“Hey, are you even listening?” Jacob asked, shaking Sakuto’s shoulder a little.

“Jacob, how much do you know about soulful combat and self-defense?” Sakuto asked.

“I read all the resources.”

“Then reinforce your soul.” Sakuto said.

“What?”

“Reinforce your soul.” Sakuto said again, more sternly this time. “Just take the damn precaution.”

“I wish I wasn’t restricted. I wish I’d use this chance to just kill everyone here.”

“Just to get it all off my chest.”

He raised his hand, and a spark appeared on his two fingertips that made up a finger gun. He brought his arm to the side. The spark that seemed so bitterly gray got enchanted with an assortment of vibrant colors - which, in contrast to their initial appearance, were now starting to fade away.

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation ✦ ”

“A-a-a-a-are you insane?!” Jacob yelled. He lunged at Sakuto, but something stopped him. A droplet of the colors invaded his worldview, the gray, the vibrance, dancing together.

The large axis-shaped spark appeared on his hand. There was no destruction taking place, and the soul presence was greatly lower than before. The colorful gray was splashed across the campus - reaching even a little beyond it into the city. Everyone could feel it - every soulful, that is.

“How miserable.”

“I can’t even bring it out as well as I did last time...”

“I always was, and I’ll always stay, a fucking failure.”

“It’s ironic, I blurted out its name, but it’s not even something I live by. How miserable...”

As if powered by those thoughts, the spectacular, beautiful and cruel side effect of the acclamation, the one that was, although not to this extent, felt by the whole world during the war, came to be once more.

“Hey, Anna? Are you alright?” The girl asked, trying to comfort her friend who suddenly began feeling unwell.

“I...I feel like I’m gonna throw up.” Anna replied. “My head hurts.”

“Come on, let’s get you to the infirmary.” Her other friend said, as they raised her and helped her out of the classroom. The crowds were confused, but it soon went away - they assumed it was just a classmate feeling a little sick.

“Anyhow, if you want to...” The old literature professor found himself at a loss of words. The students were confused, the monotonous rambling they used to fall asleep to was suddenly gone, they were surprised by the silence.

“Is he alright?”

“Dude, I don’t think he is...”

“I apologize...” The professor said, sitting down. “Work on the notes by yourselves, I’ll uhh...I’ll take a little rest...”

“What in the world...is this?! I’ve felt something like this before...”

“Excuse me, can I go out?” A boy said, raising his hand. The computer labs were full of people working on their team projects, but he was a little inactive in the process - his group mates were busy chatting over nothing.

“Sure.” The instructor said. The boy got up, as his headache got a little worse, but as he made his way to the exit he stopped. His movements became slower, he looked lost and yet extremely concentrated at the same time.

“Dude, what’s up with him?”

“He’s the loner. Man, I’m not surprised his group doesn’t like him. He’s such a weirdo.”

“He’s probably some weirdo or something.”

He tried to react to those statements, but all they did was contribute to the turmoil in his head that came from a source he could not recognize.

The dormant souls would only get a little startled, the incomplete souls would feel heavy, and the complete souls would shudder in fear and anxiety, and at the same time, undergo an enlightenment that they knew was crucial yet impossible for them to fully, truly understand.

“ ✦ Regretless Soulscape ✦ ”

Such was the name of Sakuto’s divine acclamation, the technique that brought out his soul and declared it for the world to see. Kaito’s remarks were true - the first release of a divine acclamation is extremely unpredictable. But that second release was carefully controlled. Sakuto tried to limit its power and instead focused on its range. But at the same time, perhaps due to his soul’s fading willpower, he couldn’t bring out its spark to its fullest.

“What is this...” Jacob asked, almost as if he'd accepted his fate.

“You never felt this before?” Sakuto asked with an almost lifeless voice.

“No...”

“That means you awakened after the war.” Sakuto explained with a dead focused expression on his face. “This was what I used to kill Otto Richter. Pretty cool, right?”

Jacob was at a loss of words.

“How are you gonna find Nacht with this?” He asked after a long pause.

“I think I found him already.”

Sakuto’s divine acclamation had three applications, or ‘factors’. Aside from greatly accelerating his adaptation and improving his physical prowess and soul regeneration, he would gain access to the gray, the vibrant colors, and their concentrated dance.

The gray was the ‘destructive factor’, however, Sakuto did not utilize it. He put all of his efforts into using the colors - the enlightenment-like feeling that, aside from effects on the psyche, was responsible for the acclamation’s dimming effect. It also had another special property - it could give away the positions of enemy soulfuls and enhance Sakuto’s own perception of presences. It was the ‘perceptive factor’.

And at that moment, he could sense something that was very, very strange and dark.

“That damn psychopath...” Nacht said, stopping in his tracks.

“Is this him?” Aleksei gasped, stopping as well. He started to feel nausea and a weakening sensation somewhere around his heart. “Did he do this?!”

“Run you damn idiot!” Nacht yelled, sprinting through the hallways and running down the flights of stairs. Aleksei followed him. They ran outside, into the small park, sprinting as hard as they could. Sakuto also ran outside, and he saw the attempt to escape.

“Come on, more speed!” Nacht said. He quickly rushed and hid behind a nearby thick oak tree.

“I can’t...” Aleksei said, catching his breath. He felt that at any moment he might fall down. The world appeared so hostile towards him, he felt a type of hatred press on his very existence.

“I’ll protect you against the soul dimming.” Nacht said, already having “Just go! Run as fast as you can!”

“You...you can do that...?” Aleksei asked. He suddenly felt a slight surge in strength, it was at least enough to help him chain a few steps together and get further away.

Aleksei, who was confused, but who was still running, felt something approach him at incredible speeds. A moment later he was tackled on the ground. He tried to break free, but the incredible force kept him pinned on the ground. Sakuto turned him around and raised him back on his feet.

“Huh?” Sakuto asked, surprised when he saw his face. “Wait a second, I know who you are. I’ve seen you before, I know your name.”

“W-what do you want from me?” Aleksei asked, scared. “Are you the one who did this...thing?”

“I used it to find you.” Sakuto continued. “You have a lot of questions to answer.”

“Look man, I don’t know what you want from me. I was with my friend, I got scared because I felt your soul presence and I decided to run away...and then you did...this...” Aleksei said.

“Is your friend a soulful too?” Sakuto asked.

“No. He’s not here anymore.” Aleksei replied, quickly.

“Either he’s lying and his friend got away from here already, or he’s telling the truth. Either way, it makes him a prime suspect.” Sakuto thought. He helped him stand back up and as a gesture brushed some dust off of his clothes.

“You will keep everything that happened just now between us, alright?” He gave a nasty glare. “The truth is, I’m a member of the Heisei. I’ve got this thing I have to do here, and it’s best that no one else knows about it, okay?”

“Sure. I won’t tell another soul, I promise.” Aleksei said.

“This whole thing is secret, so if you do, you’ll be in a lot of trouble.” Sakuto reinstated.

“Yes, I understand. I fully understand.” Aleksei said.

“I’ll still keep my tabs on you.” Sakuto said. “Would you like to help me out? There might be great money involved if you choose to cooperate.”

“I’ll...need a moment to think about it.” Aleksei said. “This whole thing feels really overwhelming, I don’t know how to react. You almost broke my fucking ribs.”

“It’s okay, let’s take a walk. We can talk things over.”

“I’d like to have some time alone. I need to calm down.” Aleksei said, panicking a little. “Whatever you just did...it had some kind of effect on me. I need to be alone.”

“I understand.” Sakuto said, turning around and walking away. “Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need to.”

“Something’s off about him.”

Aleksei waited until Sakuto left the perimeter and entered the building. Aleksei left the campus altogether, making sure there’s no way he could be seen. Despite his inexperience, he could track Sakuto’s tremendous soul presence tied to his acclamation, he knew he was in the campus, and he felt the acclamation come to a stop.

“You got off easy.” Nacht said, tapping him on the shoulder from behind.

“Don’t fucking scare me like that.” Aleksei said, sharply turning around and sighing in relief. “You owe me one.”

“Looks like he’s focusing on you, not me.” Nacht said. “Still, I was right about him being a fiend. Member of the Heisei, huh? Do you know what kind of monster you have to be to get that position?! They’re all like that, each and every one of them, and it looks like this dickhead is the most dangerous one.”

“This guy...” Aleksei pondered. “Wait a second, I missed the class, and got assigned into the...shit, I don’t think he knows, but I just remembered...”

“What?” Nacht asked, confused.

“I have to work with him on a group project.” Aleksei sighed.