[Caution: This story is not suitable for all readers! Reader discretion is advised!]

We are in a park. Karasu is 5 and is just sitting on a bench doing nothing, taking in the view and the other children playing and messing around. He is waiting for his friend to arrive at the park as that would be his only friend. It's weird that she hasn't arrived yet. He doesn't think much about it as she's always late, and it's a regular occurrence. Just sitting in the park like this felt nice, it made him feel calm, but also sad as he didn't get to be like "the other kids". But today was a little different. He saw another boy playing. He hasn't seen him before. This is likely the first time ever he has seen this kid. There was something different about him. The kid was all alone, even his parents were nowhere to be seen just like in Karasu's case. Seeing this Karasu decided that he can possibly make a new friend. He decides to walk up to the kid.

Karasu is cautiously walking in order to not scare the kid. It looks as if he's walking up to pigeon trying to not scare it away. Karasu slowly grasps this kid by his shoulder. The kid quickly flinches and slaps his hand away, turning around as fast as he can. Karasu is taken aback by this action. The kid was scared, Karasu thought and decided to speak up, "I am sorry. You don't have to be scared. I just wanted to talk to you." The kid calms down a bit but he rejects Karasu. Karasu is a little sad, but he isn't very affected by it as it's a regular occurrence as well. "It's just the way things are, and its fine", he tells himself.

Karasu goes back to the bench and starts waiting for his friend. He looks back at the kid and he sees him playing in the sand and doing something with his hands. There's a lot of wind around the kid, which is quite abnormal as there's not a lot of wind blowing around him. "Wait… Does the wind hate me?" Karasu asks himself. "It's fine that no one talks to me but why does the wind hate me? What am I going to do when it starts to get hot? Oh come on…" Karasu becomes a little sad but he's fine. He will find a way to become friends with the wind just in case he somehow made it angry.

An hour passes by and Karasu is still waiting for his friend. She still hasn't arrived. Karasu is getting worried and is wondering if she is sick or got hurt on the way. Before he could get his worrying thoughts under control, he saw a couple kids wrestling, then they start running. They were running towards the kid that was playing in the sand, alone. He had made an impressive sand castle with some intricate detail. It looked great, one of the most impressive sand castles he had ever seen. But those 2 kids were running towards it. They weren't aware of their surroundings and one of the kids stumbles on one end the sand bar and falls on the sand castle, destroying it completely. The kid who was making it slowly got up. He was most likely angry. The 2 kids who broke the sand castle got up and said they didn't see the sand castle, but the loner kid was angry. It took him over an hour to make and these 2 brats just come around and destroy his creation in a few seconds. "If he's angry, I won't blame him. I would be angry too." Karasu thinks, assuming that the loner is in fact angry. But, what happened next was unbelievable. A strong wind blew past Karasu and it flung the other 2 kids away with great force without harming the sand-castle-kid.

Their parents saw this and they instantly knew what this meant. They ran to their kids to shield them. They picked up their kids who were now injured and bleeding from small cuts on their tiny little bodies. It was definitely painful, the kids were starting to tear up and were about to cry. All the parents got their kids and started leaving in a hurry. One of the parents with their daughter in hand was running away when she spotted Karasu just sitting on the bench and not running away from the danger and decided to call out, "Hey kid, get out of here! Go back home! That's a mutant! It will hurt you!"

Unfortunately, the parent didn't know that Karasu was also a "mutant". Karasu decided to run to the kid and tackle him down and pulled his hands behind his back to stop him from using any more of his wind controlling powers. He himself also got hurt, but after a little bit struggling and back and forth, the "wind-kid" stopped. The kid now starts crying, not loudly, but it's still audible. Karasu feels bad for him and helps him stand up. "Hey, are you okay? I can help you rebuild the castle if you need any help." Karasu said, offering to help.

The kid was not having it. He was frustrated, his eyes filled with tears and drops running down his face, he burst out with, "NO! Whatever I like, whatever I decide to devote my time to… someone always destroys it or takes it away from me." and he continues crying. Karasu decides to bring him to the bench and Karasu tries to comfort the kid. His friend finally arrives being 1 and half hours late. She is wearing a yellow frock with a simplified flower pattern on it, a hairclip on her head and she has a big smile on her face as she's excited to finally meet Karasu. Karasu is not happy with her, "Why are you always late? Were you doing makeup or something?" Why did Karasu say THAT? Likely because he has heard his dad say something along those lines, to his mom. She replies, "Why would I put on makeup, and why are you mad?" Karasu mentions that she is extremely late. They both are quarrelling over the fact that she was much later than any time before this.

The kid looks at them both arguing and decides to ask, "What is your guys' relationship?" Karasu says that they are friends. The kid has started to calm down a little and genuinely asks with confusion, "Then, why are you fighting like my parents?" The girl gets flustered with a smile that she tries to hide at first thinking that the guy mistook them for a married couple and tries to cover her face "Well… he hasn't asked yet…" She realised what slipped out of her mouth and tries to play it off as "That was probably the wind." but then she turns to the kid on the bench and asks, "Wait… Who are you?"

Karasu chimes in and say, "He is… uhhh… You know what? I haven't asked his name either. What's your name, fellow kid?" The "wind-kid" asks the girl, "It probably WASN'T the wind. I can control it. Anyways, my name is Yamada, Hiroshi, nice to meet you couple." The girl blushes and is taken aback by Hiroshi's statement, she tries to defend herself but it's obviously futile, "You… you can’t just… you can't just control wind!" Karasu corrects her, "No, he can in fact control the wind. I saw him injure 2 other kids who destroyed his sand castle. Look it was like this." Karasu then proceeds to rebuild the sand-castle in the same shape that it was. It wasn't perfectly alike but still it was impressive. Something that took Hiroshi over and hour to do, Karasu did it in matter of seconds. Hiroshi was flabbergasted at that. He drops to his knees and requests Karasu to teach it to him. Karasu has to stop him and painstakingly explain that it can't be done unless Hiroshi has the power of telekinesis. Hiroshi is disheartened by this but Karasu explains that he can do what he did because Hiroshi built the castle in the first place. That makes Hiroshi feel a bit better. They are both warming up to each other. Hiroshi finally asks the girl to introduce herself when she was watching them while sitting on the bench. The girl jumps off the bench onto the ground then walks in front of Karasu and Hiroshi and starts her introduction, "Rejoice humans! You are in the presence of your queen Arima, Kyoko." Hiroshi looks confused and was probably going to kneel down, truly believing in what Kyoko just said. Karasu stops him from doing that, and introduces himself, "I am Kurokawa Karasu. And Kyoko, you are not a queen. No queen will talk like that." Hiroshi finds Karasu's comment funny, while Kyoko pouts. But now she looks at Hiroshi and says "You are also a mutant, right?" Hiroshi says that he is while looking a little disappointed.

Kyoko stretches out her hand in a handshake. Karasu says that he will go to the toilet and he leaves in a hurry. Well, that's convenient. After he leaves, Hiroshi teases her again, "Are you sure? Do you really want me to hold your hand and not Mr. Karasu?" Kyoko gets annoyed at this and speaks in a way that makes her annoyance quite clear, "Do you want to be our friend or not?" Hiroshi laughs a bit and takes her handshake and asks her, "You both know my power. We both know Karasu's power. What is your power?" Kyoko says that she can control metals, "I can control any metal but only 1 kind of metal at one time. That piece of metal also needs to be within a certain distance of me but it isn't required for me to be able to see it. I can control it even if it's not visible." Hiroshi is surprised at how much she knows about her powers and asks how she found out so much. She says that Karasu helped her with that. They did many different experiments to find out different things about her power. Karasu is on his way back to them and sees them both talking and he is happy that Hiroshi is able to freely talk to his friend without acting scared or aloof.

He goes back to them and tells them that they should go home today and come back to play tomorrow and he looks at Kyoko while saying, "And let's not be late tomorrow, okay?" Kyoko is acting a little more embarrassed but it doesn't take away the fact that she was very late and annoyed Karasu. After this, the three of them exit the park and start walking together to drop off Hiroshi. It takes around 10 minutes but once they get there and they talk one last time before leaving. Kyoko and Karasu shake hands with Hiroshi and Karasu tells him, "Welcome to the gang, buddy."

"Thanks." replies Hiroshi. They all laugh cheerfully. Kyoko and Karasu decide to leave for their homes and start walking away while waving back at Hiroshi. Karasu continues forward and Hiroshi runs up to Kyoko and whispers in her ear, "Good luck with him." Kyoko blushes with embarrassment and decides to scold Hiroshi. Karasu sees this commotion and decides to stop Kyoko barrage of words. Hiroshi is just laughing the entire time. Karasu is confused as to what happened but Kyoko likes it the way it is and they both walk away.

Now these 2 are walking back to Kyoko's house. It's not very far from Karasu's home so it's great for both as they can meet and play anytime they want. That's also a reason as to how they became friends. Karasu drops her off and she gives a tight hug before waving her goodbye. Karasu is happy to have 2 friends now. He is hopeful for tomorrow to possibly make more friends but even if he doesn't, it's fine. He has 2 great friends, and that's all he needs.

Karasu arrives back home and his parents are as inattentive and uncaring as ever. They don't care whether he is at home or not. They might not even react if he dies or if he goes missing or if he gets kidnapped. If he does get kidnapped and the captors call the parents to ask for money they will probably get a reply like, "Oh, good. You can have that piece of shit. We don't need him." And then they will rejoice that he got kidnapped.

Karasu now goes back up to his room, his safe-haven where he can be in peace and doesn't have to think about what the hell is wrong with his parents. Everyday Karasu asks himself if his parents love him or if the way they act is normal. He doesn't have an answer even if he can answer most questions when he asks himself the same question, although he does make up the answer but he gets an answer that he wants and he can sleep peacefully. Karasu decides to walk over to his room's window and just stares out blankly.

While looking at the birds going back to their nests during the fiery orange sunset, he sees someone from the corner of his eye. He looks at that particular someone and it’s a woman. She is probably walking back to her home after working at her office or maybe she worked at a pre-school. She was holding a black or dark blue purse, a hat on her head, a dress that looks a lot like a frock for grown-ups. Karasu was just looking at her when he saw someone else walking up behind her. He didn't think much at first as it can be a friend or an acquaintance trying to surprise her. But something didn't feel right. The man had his hands stuffed in his pockets and was most likely holding something.

He doesn't recognise this man either, well, he doesn't recognise the woman either, but then… The man grabs onto the woman from the back of her hair and turns her around. The man pulls his hand out of his pocket to reveal a sharp knife in his hand. He then stabs the woman. The woman couldn't scream as the man covered her mouth. Karasu saw this… He's frozen in place. The woman is flailing her legs trying to get away from the man. She bites the man's thumb and he lets go off her while screaming in pain. "You shitty woman." the man insults her, "I used to love you. And you took everything from me!" The woman is in agonising pain but she tries her best to crawl away from him. The man looks at his thumb, and it's bleeding profusely. He gets angrier and walks closer to the woman. Karasu has to act fast if he wants to save the woman. Karasu has something in his hand. He stretches his hand.

The woman now notices him. She is confused and scared. She doesn't know what he's doing. She doesn't have time to think about. She tries harder and harder to crawl away but there's little that she can do. Karasu then focuses his power, and flings the rock at the man. It doesn't hit him, but it hit the road. Karasu now tries to raise a piece of road up in the shape of a bump. The man trips and falls, hitting his face on the road. He drops his knife and it slides away a few feet. Karasu takes this opportunity to stuff his phone in his pocket in case he needs it and runs downstairs and out of his home to help the woman out. He runs, getting closer to the place where he saw the 2 people. Once he gets there, he sees the knife still on the ground and he also finds the man on top of the woman… punching her. She is trying her best to shield herself from this barrage but she can't do much. She doesn't have any power and the excruciating pain doesn't help either. Karasu yells out at the man, "Stop it! Stop or else…" The man looks at Karasu with his bloodshot eyes, "Else? Else what, huh? What are YOU gonna do? No. What CAN you do?" His yelling scares Karasu a bit and he is trembling, not knowing what to do, but he stands his grounds. He runs over and picks up the knife that the man had dropped. The man mocks him, "Do you even know how to use it, brat? Hand it over to me." The man stretches out his hand asking for the knife. Karasu gets a bit more confident in himself stops trembling and stomps his foot on the ground. He raises the knife pointing it at the man, "Get off of her. Now! I won't warn you again." Karasu is getting more and more frustrated. The woman is bleeding to her death. She is pressing on her wound with all her strength to try to suppress the loss of blood.

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The man mocks Karasu more, "Let's see what you can do, brat." Karasu takes the initiative. He starts by using his power. He rips small pieces from the road from behind the man, so that he doesn't notice. The man hears the ground ripping up and turns around. Karasu tugs on the pieces with his telekinesis, they are fast enough that the man can't dodge them and gets hit in the face. Karasu decides to stop that pieces and decides go in for the final blow as the man is distracted and disoriented from what just happened. Karasu stabs the man through his guts and decides to pull the knife towards the man's chest after stabbing him. This makes a big cut. Karasu did this thinking that the man would be in too much pain to move and he will get a chance to help the woman get out of here and maybe go to safer place. The man collapses to the ground and Karasu lets go of the knife.

Karasu then runs over to the bleeding woman and helps her stop the bleeding. The wound is too big and it's too hard to stop the flow of blood. Karasu decides it's best to get some help. So he hands the woman his handkerchief and tells her to keep applying pressure. Karasu says, "I am going to go get some help. I can't help you on my own. Take this hanky and keep applying pressure on the wound."

Karasu then leaves and runs to his friend Kyoko's house even if it was farther than his home he can trust that Kyoko's parents will help him, unlike his own parents. He barges in calling for Kyoko's parents. They are both startled and surprised by his sudden arrival and they tell him that Kyoko has gone to take a bath and that he can wait in her room. But Karasu rejects this offer saying, "I am not here to play with Kyoko! I am here to ask for help! I saw a woman getting stabbed! She is bleeding and she needs help! Please call the ambulance!" The parents are shocked by his words and they ask Karasu to show them where the woman is and he starts running. The father tells the mother to come with a first aid kit, then he starts running after Karasu, and they reach the scene in about 10 seconds.

The woman is still bleeding, but it's slower than before and she's lying in a pool of her own blood, but thankfully she is alive. The father also sees a man lying on the ground and there's a pool of blood around him too. He turns to face Karasu and asks, "What about the man?!" Karasu tells him that the man is the one who stabbed the woman. The father tends to the woman and applies pressure on the handkerchief with both hands. The father asks, "Why is the man injured? Did the woman stab him back?" Karasu explains that he was the one who stabbed the man when trying to get him to back away from the woman.

Kyoko's father is shocked to hear this but he can't really blame Karasu. He's a 5 year old kid who was trying to save a person. He doesn't know what's wrong and what's right yet. He doesn't know the weight of his actions. Karasu then pulls out his phone and starts dialing the emergency number for the ambulance. He then hands the phone to Kyoko's father and he talks to the dispatcher frantically prompting them to respond quickly and they inform that an ambulance will be sent as soon as possible. The woman's breaths are labored. She is trying really hard to breathe! She wants to live. She doesn’t want to die. She is holding onto her life by a thread.

Kyoko's mother arrives with the first and is shocked at the scene before her. A woman, that's bleeding on the ground with her husband trying to stop the blood, and a man just a few feet away lying lifeless. The man was likely dead. Her husband prompts her to quickly come over to the woman and start patching her up. The ambulance arrives in about 5 minutes and she is put on a stretcher and the ambulance leaves. Kyoko's parents are now relieved but before leaving the paramedics inform them that they will need to come to the hospital as soon as they can.

This is a new worry. They can't leave their daughter alone in the house. Kyoko's older sister is supposed to arrive soon. They don’t want to inconvenience their daughter that has come back after a time away from home. Kyoko's parents and Karasu walk back to their home, and when they get there, Kyoko is at the door, worried about what she heard a few moments ago from inside the bathroom. She looks at Karasu and he is a bloody mess. He isn't bleeding himself but there's blood all over his clothes, her parents' hands are also bloody as hell. But their clothes are fine, somewhat. The parents tell Karasu that he can take a bath here if he wants to.

Karasu looks at them with a blank expression. He doesn't say anything for a bit. He finally speaks up saying, "You guys need to hurry. The paramedics will be mad at you." Kyoko's father tells him that he doesn't need to worry about this stuff and that the adults will handle it and also that he can relax now. Kyoko asks her parents what happened. They start explaining to her what Karasu told them as they were walking to the sink to clean their hands. Kyoko is flabbergasted, astonished and feels any other exclamatory emotion you can imagine.

She never knew that Karasu was this brave. She walks up to Karasu and gives him a tight hug saying, "I am glad you aren't hurt." Karasu tells her to back off and that she ruined her dress by staining it with blood. The parents find this silly and say that she can just take another bath. Karasu agrees with them but says that she might get a cold by bathing repeatedly. Kyoko's father walks up to him and pats him on the head, "You don't need to worry. We will take care of her if she gets sick."

Karasu now enters the bathroom and takes off his clothes to dump them in the washing machine. He soaks himself with the shower washing off much of the blood on his body. He then dips into the tub and stays there, quiet, not talking to himself, not saying anything, just sitting, with a blank expression. Later, Kyoko joins him as she got blood all over herself while hugging him. She is in her bathing suit. Karasu faces away from her so that she won't get embarrassed and Kyoko enters the tub along with Karasu. They are both quiet but Kyoko shows clearly that she's happy that Karasu did what he did and he is still safe. Karasu gets out of the tub to lather himself in soap and wash off all the remaining blood.

Kyoko offers to help him out with washing his back, but Karasu rejects the offer saying, "I don't have any blood on my back, do I?" Kyoko says no, and things stay the way they are. She pouts in the back while sitting in the tub but Karasu doesn't see it, nor does he care. Kyoko had seen her mom helping her dad by washing his back, so she wanted to do the same, thus she's annoyed by Karasu rejecting her offer.

They finish taking their bath, and they both get out. Kyoko asks Karasu for more details regarding the woman and the man but Karasu doesn't elaborate as he isn't sure as to what should be mentioned and what shouldn't be. He suggests her to ask her parents for more details. She's fine with that answer and asks Karasu to stay for a bit longer, "Can you please stay for a bit longer until my sister comes home? She is supposed to arrive in about half an hour." Karasu asks her why she wants him to stay longer. He has no problem in staying longer, but he's curious to know her reason. He believes that she can look after herself just like he can, barely. She says that she doesn't like to be alone at home. Karasu says that he is fine with staying a little longer and he go to sit down on the living room couch.

Kyoko goes into the kitchen and brings some ice-cream for both of them. They both sit down and talk about school as there's nothing else to really talk about. They chat for about an hour and Kyoko's sister arrives. Kyoko runs to the door to receive her sister with a huge smile and they are both happy to see each other and hug gleefully. Karasu comes out to meet her Kyoko's sister. She inquires Kyoko about Karasu and then She introduces herself as "Arima, Yumi". Yumi Arima, the older sister of Karasu's friend Kyoko Arima. Interesting. She certainly is beautiful and she seems just as sweet as her little sister. Karasu greets her and introduces himself too.

Then, he says that he will be returning home and bids farewell for today. Kyoko and Yumi wave goodbye to him and then go back into their home with a smile on both of their faces. While walking inside Kyoko starts telling her about the fact that she made a new friend and what Karasu did today. Karasu arrives back at his home and enters to the same TV playing the news in the background and his mom calls him to come have dinner.

"The only thing you guys tell me is to come eat my food, or scold me." Karasu thinks to himself while looking at his mom walking out of the kitchen, to the dining table. Karasu walks into the dining room after washing his hands and sees his dad already sitting there, smoking a cigarette. Karasu goes ahead and sits on his seat. His mom serves his food. It's just fish, rice, and natto. Not his favorite but he will make do with that.

The news is talking about some murder case that happened today. They say a video is going viral on the internet. "Today a mutant child was seen attacking 2 people with a knife and he also used his telekinetic powers to knock out the man and then delivered the final blow by stabbing the man with a knife. The man was trying to protect what is being speculated to be his lover. We have a police official with us here today to discuss the case and tell us what they are doing to capture the child to give the right punishment of death. Sir, what do you think about this case we have at hand?" says the reporter, talking about the case that happened near Karasu's home. Wait... it's him in the video. The same shirt, the same street, the same surroundings, everything. The news was fake from the beginning. Thank goodness the video didn't capture his face.

Karasu knows it's all fake. The news is fake, but he can't say anything, nor can he do anything. If he says anything then his parents are sure to beat him. He can do nothing but stay silent about the entire case. "It's truly a horrifying case. I wish it was my child. If that would have happened I would have raised the child to be responsible citizen of Japan, rather than being an ungrateful and vicious brat who kills people. The parents need to be questioned about this." Says the police officer looking at the screen where the video of this incident is being played.

Karasu is appalled and disgusted by the words of this police officer. He always thought that police officers were honest people and that they wanted to protect the citizens, but no, "I was wrong." Karasu thinks to himself "I can never be like these guys… I hate you…" Karasu continues. He swears to himself that he will never be like these people. Today he realised that people don't talk to him because he is "Mutant", a monster… He finishes his dinner and goes to sleep but he couldn't get the news out of his head. Karasu thinks back to the angle at which the video was shot. Karasu tried to approximate the same perspective and… the road can be clearly seen from his room, HIT 1. The angle was similar, HIT 2. There were 2 people that could come into his room even after he left, HIT 3. But wait… someone could have recorded it on his phone, he checks his phone and then he remembers that he took his phone with him so it can't be his phone. There'll still be 2 more phones in the house without taking his phone into account, HIT 4. 4 things suggest that someone recorded the video from his room…… What the hell…?

He goes to bed knowing that one of his parents recorded the video and they are probably plotting something. At around 11pm his father comes to check if he's asleep. He pretends to be, but actually he's awake. He stays up until 1AM until he's sure that his parents have slept. He gets up from his bed, goes out and into his parents' room, while tip-toeing all the way in order to not wake them up. He grabs both his parents' phone. He unlocks their phones and opens the gallery. He doesn't find anything. He opens their social media accounts. Nothing found. He takes their phones to his computer. Connects them to his computer and starts recovering data from the trash bin. He finds something.

It's on his mom's phone, a corrupted video. There're multiple of them. He plays them one by one. One is of a random cat. Nothing suspicious, his mom likes cats anyways. The next one, it's a video of the road… this is it… but wait… the entire thing can't be recovered but the frames that are clearly visible are quite high resolution… maybe it was edited… maybe it was made blurry intentionally… He opens the next one… this is it… this is that blurry video that he was looking for, all the details aren't visible and some of the frames are corrupted and flashing. It looks the exact same as the one on the news… There's one of 2 possibilities, one can be that his mom downloaded the video, second can be that his mom was the one that recorded the entire thing, but he knows that the latter is much more likely. He hears the bed creaking in the other room. He starts shutting things down. The phones, his computer, everything. He unplugs everything and starts getting ready to go back to his parents' room. When he turns around, he sees his mom… staring at him while standing at the door with bloodshot eyes. Karasu is frustrated. He is angry. Why would his mom record that video, even if she knows that people hate the so-called "mutants" and would love to twist the news in the wrong direction and paint him as the villain! His mom stares at him a bit longer then she suddenly leaves without saying anything.

Karasu drops to his knees. He is disappointed. He is heart-broken. He never thought his mom would do something like this. He hears the bed creaking again in the next room (his parents' room) He shall never trust his parents ever again. He swears again, "Today is the day that I swear to change the world's perspective on people like me, kids like me… I WILL FIX THIS. I WILL CHANGE THEIR MIND ABOUT MUTANTS" He speaks quietly to himself. "And you both will definitely regret this day. I don't know how I will make you regret this day. BUT I WILL DO IT." He speaks about his parents.