3 - First on NezuSensei

Missing Pieces

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:00:22 +0000

Six years had passed since the incident at the school, although there were days when Nezu felt as though considerably less time had passed and others when the memories seemed to belong to an entirely different life.

The school they attended now was nothing like the old one. It was larger, less obsessed with appearances and, most importantly as far as Nezu was concerned, nobody here remembered an eleven-year-old boy running through corridors occupied by armed men. To the students around him, he was simply Nezu: the unusually intelligent, somewhat strange seventeen-year-old who rarely participated in conversations unless someone gave him a reason to.

Yin and Yang

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:08:07 +0000

The corridor was already crowded by the time Nezu arrived.

He had never understood why people needed to talk so much before class. Most of them had seen each other the previous day, would spend the next several hours in the same building, and would probably continue talking during lunch anyway. Despite that, every morning the corridors filled with conversations as if everyone had returned from a long journey.

Nezu moved through the crowd with his bag hanging from one shoulder, occasionally returning a greeting when someone directed one at him.

Bickering

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:08:39 +0000

It was just another school day.

After everything that had happened over the past few weeks, Nezu had almost started to appreciate how uneventful those could be. The teacher talked while most of the class made varying attempts at pretending to listen, pens moved across notebooks whenever something important appeared on the board, and somewhere near the back of the classroom, a student was doing a particularly poor job of hiding a phone beneath the desk.

Just his turn

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:09:22 +0000

The new school was beginning to feel familiar.

Not comfortable, exactly. Nezu wasn’t sure he would call any school comfortable, but the halls no longer required conscious effort to navigate. He knew which staircase led where, which teachers tended to keep students after class, which doors were usually locked, and which corridors emptied first once the final bell rang.

Segu had adapted faster.

Mostly because she treated familiarity as permission to complain more efficiently.

Glass

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:12:04 +0000

The strange weapons had barely finished taking shape when the first man moved.

Nezu watched from behind the classroom window.

A moment earlier, none of them had been armed. Now a shield rested against Riku’s arm, two katanas gleamed in the hands of the man beside him, and the woman closest to Akane wore a metal gauntlet over one hand, three long claws extending beyond her fingers.

Across from them stood three more.

Star and Dragon

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:15:16 +0000

Rin understood the deception a fraction too late.

The man’s laboured breathing stopped.

His shoulders straightened, the weakness vanishing from his posture as though it had never existed, and he emerged from the dust already swinging. Rin brought her staff across her body, but the mace struck before she could properly brace herself.

The impact lifted her from the ground.

She flew sideways and crashed through what remained of the school’s outer fence, metal folding beneath her back before she disappeared among the twisted bars. Her staff escaped her fingers and rolled across the pavement.

Mom

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 21:42:06 +0000

A week later, the television in one of the Brown Mansion’s sitting rooms continued to show the same images.

The school appeared behind the reporter, much of its exterior concealed by barriers and temporary coverings. What remained visible was blackened by fire, with shattered windows and a collapsed section of the entrance offering some indication of the violence that had taken place there.

“Authorities continue to investigate the gas explosion that severely damaged the school last week. Although investigators have not yet determined the precise cause, the explosion is believed to have originated in an external storage tank before spreading to the surrounding structure.”

Search History

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:05:17 +0000

Nezu had expected to feel worse.

Considering that he had collapsed with a fever high enough to make several people considerably more worried than he thought was reasonable, waking up feeling almost normal should probably have been reassuring. Instead, it bothered him.

Kuro was still unconscious.

The doctors had assured him that the cat appeared stable and had specifically instructed Nezu to remain where he was and rest while they continued observing both of them.

Inconclusive

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:06:58 +0000

The first test began the following morning, when Nezu discovered that the bathroom scale was wrong.

He stepped off, waited for the numbers to disappear, and stepped onto it again.

The result remained the same.

Nezu moved the scale to another part of the floor, reasoning that one of the tiles might be uneven, and repeated the process. When that failed to correct the result, he replaced the batteries. When that also failed, he carried the scale downstairs and placed a bag of rice on it to confirm that it could still measure a known weight accurately.

Wrong Turn

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:07:25 +0000

The attention began before Nezu had even reached his desk.

It followed him through the classroom in brief glances that retreated whenever he turned toward them, gathering again the moment he looked away. Most belonged to the same group of boys who had made his life difficult before his absence, although there was nothing particularly unusual about that. They had watched him before. They had laughed when he passed, whispered loudly enough for him to hear and occasionally discussed what they intended to do to him as if informing their victim in advance made the threat more impressive.

Unusually Large

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:07:55 +0000

Nezu obeyed.

The wall was pale, featureless and immediately became the most important object in the building.

There was a small imperfection in the paint at eye level. Beneath it, someone had left a faint pencil mark. Farther down, two slightly different shades of white met where part of the surface had been repainted.

Nezu studied all three with desperate concentration.

Behind him, the girls continued preparing for PE. Their conversations overlapped throughout the locker room, mixed with the sounds of opening lockers, closing bags and shoes being placed upon the floor. Ordinarily, Nezu would have processed those noises without difficulty, using them to maintain an awareness of everyone around him.

Later

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:08:53 +0000

By the time they returned to the classroom, Segu had managed to restrain herself for almost three minutes.

It was an impressive display of self-control.

Akane had barely sat down when Segu leaned across the gap between their desks.

“So.”

Akane closed her eyes.

“No.”

“I didn’t ask anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I was going to say so.”

“Segu.”

“So you can become invisible.”

Akane opened her eyes again and looked at her.

Cubs

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:29:26 +0000

Akane remained bowed for several seconds after the apology had left her lips.

Neither Nezu nor Segu immediately knew what to do with it.

Segu had imagined this conversation more times than she cared to admit. In some versions she had shouted. In others, Akane had finally explained everything and somehow produced an answer that made the last two years reasonable. There had even been a few particularly unpleasant versions where Segu had simply walked away.

Further Testing

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:30:42 +0000

A knock broke the tension before either sibling could decide what to say.

Rin released Akane reluctantly, although her hands remained upon the girl’s shoulders for a moment longer than necessary. Akane straightened her clothes while the woman’s ears turned towards the door, and the last trace of movement disappeared from her tail.

“Nezu?” Diana called from the corridor. “Segu? Lunch is ready.”

The room changed before she finished speaking.

Nothing

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:25:42 +0000

Nezu had expected sleep to solve the problem.

It usually did. Information acquired during the day was processed, irrelevant details discarded, useful details retained, and by morning most events could be examined without the interference caused by exhaustion.

Apparently, kissing Akane was an exception.

His eyes opened and he stared at the ceiling.

Akane pulled away just enough to look at him.

Do you have enough evidence now?

No.

That had not been the end.

Together

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:51:26 +0000

Neither of them spoke much on the way home, which by itself was enough for Nezu to understand that Segu was having as much difficulty processing what they had learned as he was. Silence had never been particularly unusual for him, but Segu normally filled the empty space without appearing to notice she was doing it, commenting on traffic, complaining about school, answering messages, showing him things on her phone he had never asked to see, or simply starting conversations about whatever happened to enter her mind. This time, she remained beside him with her head turned toward the window, watching the city pass beyond the glass while Nezu made no attempt to interrupt her.

Normal

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 19:42:07 +0000

The invitation arrived shortly after breakfast.

Nezu was sitting at the dining table with a book open beside his untouched tea when his phone vibrated. Across from him, Segu continued spreading jam over a piece of toast, apparently unconcerned by the fact that most of it was accumulating near the edges and would inevitably escape onto her fingers.

Nezu looked at the screen.

Are you both free today?

The message had come from Akane.

Beige

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 19:42:59 +0000

The conspiracy began three days before Nezu’s birthday.

Segu stopped talking when he entered the kitchen.

This alone would not have been suspicious. Segu frequently stopped talking when he entered rooms, usually because whatever she had been saying concerned him and was not intended to survive his arrival. The problem was that Akane stopped at exactly the same moment.

They sat beside each other at the kitchen table, surrounded by several sheets of paper which Segu immediately covered with both arms. Akane had been holding a pen. Upon seeing him, she placed it on the table and attempted to look innocent.

First

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 19:43:22 +0000

Nezu woke before the alarm.

For several seconds, he remained still beneath the blankets, staring at the ceiling while the pale morning light slowly outlined the room around him.

Nothing appeared different.

The ceiling had not changed during the night. The same curtains covered the same window, Kuro occupied considerably more than his rightful portion of the bed, and the digital clock on the bedside table continued advancing with complete indifference to the significance of the date.