Shit. What does this mean? What COULD it mean? No, it doesn’t matter. I’m immortal. If anything, I can just regenerate from anything he throws my way, unless… he can take away my immortality. Shit. I need to find a weakness of his. How would I even do that? What weakness could someone who can manipulate reality have? Think. Think logically. To figure out his weakness, I should first start with the first basic question: when did Ryota lose sight of the shifter? I think it was when he turned around to look at the shifter. That's when it happened. Maybe…directly looking at the shifter causes him to be able to manipulate reality? That could also explain why the shifter told us not to turn around. But no, that doesn’t make sense. Many problems emerge with that theory.

  Niche hears footsteps as the blabbering of the man gets louder.

  Now, though, that’s my only valid theory. I don’t have much time.

  "Raizen, I apologize for this," Niche says, raising the sword in front of him.

  Through the reflection, Niche sees the man walking arrogantly in the middle of the intersection.

  Raizen exclaims, "Hey, put me down! Don't make me—"

  "What do you see?" Niche asks.

  "It's... no one. There’s nothing there. That voice…just disappeared. It must’ve been in my head."

  So even Raizen can't perceive him when looking directly. I guess that theory of this guy’s weakness is correct, even though it still doesn’t make sense.

  "Raizen,” Niche starts, solemnly. “I want to make more contracts. Three specific ones."

  "Now?”

  "Especially now. When death feels close." Niche's grip tightens on the sword. "First: I will resist the sun merging. I won't just give in when the seventh day comes."

  "Bold, but you’ve already said that before."

  "Second: Whatever Ryota truly wants, whatever his real wish is... I want it to be fulfilled. I don't know why he's sticking with me through all this danger, but no matter his reason, I want him to get what he's searching for."

  "That's dangerously vague. You're making a contract without knowing what you're promising. In his current condition…I’m not sure that’s likely to happen."

  "I don't care. He's risking his life for me. The least I can do is ensure his wish comes true, whatever it is. I’ll make sure he lives through this."

  The sword hums with concern. "What if his wish is something terrible?"

  "Then I'll deal with the consequences. But Ryota... he's not that kind of person."

  "And the third?"

  "Third: I will receive a kiss from Maruka, but only if she truly loves me. Not pity, not goodbye, not confusion. Real love."

  The sword grows warm. "Three contracts at once... the price will be steep."

  "What kind of price?"

  "Could be anything. Your speed, your memories, your ability to feel. The universe decides what you lose in exchange for bending reality to your will."

  "I don't care."

  "Alright. The contract has been witnessed. Niche, remember that these contracts have immense risks," Raizen intones. "You should know contracts have a way of fulfilling themselves in unexpected ways."

  "As long as they're fulfilled. Now, I have a job to do."

  Niche turns around, eyes closed and walking towards where he senses the presence.

  The man, surprised, smirks. "What are you doing? Walking straight at me? That's a death sentence!"

  Niche lunges towards the man, swinging Raizen. The shifter jumps back, floating into the air to dodge the attack.

  "How can you attack me?” Mercury says, now floating higher away from Niche. “You're not looking! That's insane! No matter, I will just have to use precaution."

  The air changes. Niche hears footsteps multiplying behind him. Suddenly, the street fills with people appearing from nothing.

  "Will you still fight me with all these people around?" Mercury says, laughing while floating higher into the air.

  "There won't be any risk if they're not in danger,” Niche smugly replies. “You underestimate my precision, foe. That’s why you’re gonna die.”

  "Let's make it more crowded, then."

  More people materialize. Hundreds now. They press in, grabbing Niche from every direction. The ground liquefies around Niche’s legs, then hardens.

  The shifter rises into the air, now almost three stories high. "You are trapped. You cannot move, as your feet are implanted into the ground. You also cannot try to break free, as you would injure the hundreds of people here. Your ranged attacks won’t work on me, as I can just manipulate them to have never existed. What’s your next move, ‘winner?’" Mercury says to helpless Niche.

  Niche's trapped completely.

  "Now...” Mercury continues. “Your eyes are open. And they always were."

  The crowd - akin now to conjoined distorted blobs with human appearances but lifeless eyes - forces Niche’s eyelids apart. Niche tries to resist, but the crowd, with their unhuman strength, beats Niche. As Niche’s eyes are opened, causing him to soullessly look straight up at Mercury, the intersection gets quiet. The people gradually disappear, some morphing into the ground while others slowly dissipate out of existence. Niche blindly stares at Mercury as the intersection becomes serene - resembling its empty, calm nature prior to this altercation – the only noise being heard is the dripping of blood from Ryota’s body.

  “That wasn’t too hard now, was it?” Mercury says, looking pitifully at Niche’s lifeless, mesmerized state while Mercury slowly descends back down to the earth.

  Something shifts in Niche's vacant eyes. Mercury notices too late.

  Niche explodes upward, blade already swinging.

  Mercury barely dodges, flying up into the air, genuinely shocked. "How did you—"

  Niche, unrelenting, continues his attack, making another attack forward.

  Surprised, Mercury dodges again, this time losing some structural stability because of his hasty evasion.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The pace of Niche’s charges increases, and for a second it seems like Niche continues to fly in the air every time he slashes upwards.

  Slowly, Niche ascends to Mercury, but his attack damage compromises his speed. He cannot maintain his upward force while putting enough energy in the attack to kill Mercury.

  So, Niche redirects his attack to his own head, slicing it off in one swipe.

  When his new head regenerates, Niche’s eyes flare, revealing a pattern. Similarly to his eyes, Niche’s entire body glows with a radiant energy.

  Niche swipes into the air, his blade taking the shifter's head off cleanly as Niche’s upwards velocity exponentially increases to far exceed that of Mercury.

  Before Niche’s speed nears the speed of sound, he realizes the completion of his mission, causing him to tumble back down to the earth, creating a shockwave in the ground before he stands up, unscathed.

  After Niche’s eye pattern disappears, he falls to his knees.

  The head and body of the fallen shifter follow, plummeting to the ground.

  "Niche! What happened?" Maruka says, running over. She falls on her knees, searching around the ground with her hands. "You dropped your glasses. Oh, what did you do?”

  Looking up at Niche’s helpless face, she gasps. Raising Niche’s face up with her hands, she asks, “When did your eyes turn red? I thought your eyes were black..."

  "Glasses? I never wore glasses..." Niche says, completely zoned out.

  "Niche, look at me.”

  Niche doesn’t move. Or rather, his eyes don’t. his face moves to her, but his eyes stay completely still, staring at nothing.

  Maruka grows worried. “Your eyes aren't moving. What’s wrong, Niche? What happened? Have you gone blind?"

  Niche, still looking at Maruka, doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know how to respond. But Maruka’s comment seems to have given him consciousness.

  As he snaps out of his unfocused state, Niche stands up, looking around. He finds the shifter's head.

  "So, you could rewrite reality, yet you are powerless to the blind. What pitiful reliance on your powers,” Niche pitifully murmurs.

  He drops the head and turns back to Maruka.

  "Maruka. I have been relying on my powers as well. It seems you are right about this. I blind. I have been walking around blindly.”

  Niche looks back down at the head on the ground. He says, "I'm just as pitiful as this head, who, without the body, cannot live." Niche raises his head, looking around. "Where... is he? Where is Ryota?"

  As Niche is looking around, he notices other people in the busy city intersection fading into existence. Through these few people, Niche spots Ryota bleeding out next to Masuto Café.

  Niche runs over to Ryota, kneeling down next to him. “Hey, Ryota. Are you okay?”

  "Listen," Ryota says, blood bubbling at his lips. "He's one of them. Vestige Court."

  "What?"

  "My father. Never found out which one. Different faces." Ryota's grip tightens weakly. "Didn't really kill him. He let me think..."

  "Your father's alive?"

  "Stealing. Selling maybe." A wet cough. "I thought if I stayed close... could find proof... expose him..."

  "Ryota—"

  "Could be any of them." His voice is fading. "Wasn’t even sure I killed him. He's up there somewhere... profiting while I die..."

  "Stop talking like that. You’re not dead,” Niche says optimistically, ignoring the unrecognizable pool of blood he is talking to. “You're going to be—"

  "It's okay. Not your... fault."

  Ryota’s grip loosens on Niche’s arm.

  "Ryota?" Niche asks, his eyes start to burn. Liquid forming in the corner of his eyes.

  No. Not here. Not in the street.

  At this point, more people had come into existence, all of them completely aware of the kid who leans over a pool of blood.

  People really don’t notice what’s going on around them.

  “Maruka,” Niche calls out calmly. “Toss me my glasses.”

  Maruka - who didn’t see Ryota’s deceased body – was looking through a shop window when she heard Niche’s request. She turned to Niche and tossed the glasses to him. They land on the floor in front of Niche, and Maruka turns her back again.

  Niche, whose element perception now rendered these glasses as an actual object, puts on the glasses. The cracked tinted lenses hide the tears that Niche continues to suppress.

  Niche stays kneeling there, kneeling beside Ryota's body, grateful for the barrier between his grief and the world.

  A few minutes later, Maruka comes out of the shop and, upon seeing Ryota, runs up to the pool of blood.

  She looks worried as she kneels besides Niche. “Niche! What the hell happened here?! Who is that…?” She asks, scared.

  By this time, Niche’s face has dried. He takes the glasses off and puts them in his coat pocket. Looking at Maruka with a positive expression, he says, "It’s Ryota. He's just exhausted. That fight took a lot out of him. You know, we just fought a shifter." Niche's voice is conversational, like they're just resting after training. "We should let him sleep it off."

  Raizen materializing in cat form on the opposite side of Maruka. "Niche..." Raizen says, his voice full of pity.

  "The X mark disappeared," Niche continues, not looking at them. "That probably tired him out. His body needs to adjust to not having it anymore."

  "Niche, he's dead." Maruka's voice is gentle but firm.

  "No, he's breathing. Look." Niche points at Ryota's still chest. "See? Just shallow. He always breathes shallow when he's really tired."

  Raizen paws at Niche. "Niche, we need to leave. More people are coming. You can’t afford to be noticed like this. Shifters could come and attack us as well."

  "I'll fight them if they get here." Niche adjusts Ryota's rotting head slightly, like making him more comfortable. "Can't leave until he wakes up. He hates waking up alone."

  "He's not going to wake up," Maruka says, tears starting. "Niche, please—"

  "He ." For a split second, Niche's eyes flash red, but they immediately return to black, like something's suppressing it. "He just needs time. Maybe some water when he wakes up. He'll be thirsty."

  Shit, Maruka thinks. What the hell is going on with Niche? This guy isn't normal. This isn't a normal response to what happened.

  He's unstable, like a nuclear bomb.

  I can't let him do this. He can’t lead. I know about his goal…but he can’t lead us towards it.

  I need to make sure, if he does lead, he doesn’t compromise anything. I’m not sure what happened with him and Ryota, but Niche is incapable of saving others. That job has to be delegated to someone else. To me. I need to keep everyone together, because with Niche leading, he just killed his best friend.

  If I don't handle this now, we're done. Then, it is my task.

  I will do this. I will keep everyone together.

  Raizen changes his form into a blob, which wraps around Niche and attempts to drag him.

  Niche notices this and comments on it, taking offense to this advancement. "What are you—stop." Niche's voice remains eerily calm as he's overpowered by Raizen. "We can't leave him. What if he wakes up and we're gone?"

  "We have to go," Raizen says, not meeting his eyes, now dragging Niche away like a child.

  "But he'll think we abandoned him." Niche's composure doesn't crack, but something desperate creeps into his tone. "He already thinks people abandon him. We can't—why are we leaving him here? Why are we him here?"

  Raizen shifts to human form, physically grabbing Niche's arm. "We need to go. Now."

  Niche's eyes flash red again. His hand twitches toward Raizen's throat.

  Then back to black. The moment passes.

  "No, we have to wait," Niche says, almost childlike. "We wait for our friends. That's what we do."

  Raizen is dragging him away properly now. Niche doesn't fight; he just keeps looking back at Ryota's body getting smaller in the distance. Maruka walks on the side of Raizen, looking down at the ground with a gloomy expression on her face.

  Some bypassers notice this scene but say nothing out of fear.

  "What if he wakes up while we're gone?" Niche asks the air. "He won't know where we went. He'll be scared."

  Raizen's thoughts echo, He will never wake up. And somewhere deep inside, you know that. That's why your mind won't let you process it.

  Niche doesn't scream Ryota's name. He just watches with that same blank expression as his best friend's corpse disappears from view.

  Residential District Streets, Night, Present

  Maruka departs from Niche and Raizen, going home to collect her thoughts.

  Raizen drags Niche for a while, then throws him carelessly in front. Niche falls on his back, staring forward into the sky.

  The sun had set, and the dimly lit streetlamps struggle to consume the darkness of the night. A slight drizzle cools off Niche as he lays down on the wet concrete of the sidewalk.

  Raizen’s human form walks forward towards Niche, sword in hand. When he stands over Niche, he slices a gash into Niche’s torso. When it regenerates, he slices Niche’s head off.

  When that regenerates, Raizen angrily yells at Niche, “I am responsible for making sure you uphold your contract. Snap out of it and get up. Your work isn’t done yet. Don’t think I’m doing this because I want to help motivate you; I couldn’t care less. Only thing is, your carelessness could get me in trouble. It’s obvious now; I regret my decision of choosing to make that contract with you.”

  Raizen stare intently at Niche. Then, turning around, Raizen walks away into the distance.

  While Niche lays there, the rain intensifies, turning into a heavy downfall.