I stood next to the casket with tears streaking down my face. The funeral proceedings had wrapped up and everyone was gone. Moonlight shimmered through the stained glass windows of the church. I stayed silent, clenching my fist as if I could physically hold the tears back. It was only when I tasted blood that I realized I was biting my lip. Mother was an amazing person. It just wasn’t fair that she had passed. I gently held her gray hair in the palm of my hand. 

“This is bullshit,” I muttered.

I recalled the doctors explaining to me that the reason she died was because of the origin disease, a phenomenon that affected the genetic stability of individuals blessed with powerful gifts. Sometime in the 21st century, people began to develop abilities known as “gifts.” These gifts ranged from small quirks to superpowers. As time passed and people passed their gifts down each generation, they would become more powerful. At a certain point, some people’s gifts would require more energy than the human body could sustain, causing a breakdown at the genetic level. My mother was one of those people. Her condition only worsened after I was born.

Etsuko Sakurayama. I read the nameplate on the casket. She was truly an elite. Her gift was called Elementalist, and it allowed her to control fire, water, wind, lightning and earth. A gift so powerful, that she was once an heir to the Sakurayama family, a renowned hero clan in Japan. Not that it mattered now, since the clan abandoned her due to her relationship with my father. 

For the first time since I was a small child, I fell to my knees and sobbed. The unknown guilt I always carried with me, recurring nightmares and my mother’s lifeless body all came crashing down at once, constricting my throat with heaving coughs and cries. Mother always told me that she dreamed of having kids. I felt like I was the product of a dream that led her to her death. Maybe if she never married my dad and I was never born she would still be alive today.

Suddenly, the doors to the church slammed open. In the doorway stood a massive winged figure named Victor Obsidian, my father. The last person I wanted to see right now. I could barely make out his features in the steam that surrounded him. His top speed caused his metal wings to rapidly heat up due to friction, and they were evaporating every raindrop that touched him.

“Nice of you to finally show up, Father.” I muttered under my breath as I repositioned myself to sit facing away from him.

“I heard that,” Father said as he sat down next to me, with his back against mine. The metal feathers on his back were warm, like they hadn’t completely cooled down from his top speed. 

“Yeah? Did you hear from the other side of the continent as I was crying while carrying Mother’s portrait? Did you hear that, huh?” I questioned.

“I heard that too,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

I silently cursed him for his gift. It was known as Steelwing, a rather literal name. However, the feathers his wings were made of were composed of thousands of extremely sensitive barbules, essentially allowing him to have super hearing. He took it one step further though, utilizing his telepathic connection with each individual feather by leaving them in densely populated areas in order to be able to rush to any accident across the entire continent.

Silence filled the air as I sat with my guilt. I knew it wasn’t right for me to be angry with Father, when Mother would have wanted him to go help others. Plus, this had personal stakes for him as well. I recalled a conversation where Mother and Father spoke to me about Novaflare’s kids, who were the same age as me. Father had always been overly sensitive when it came to villain or monster attacks on children.

“Father,” I said without turning around, wiping my tears. “Do I have to leave?”

“Atlas, I’ve explained already. This is for your own safety. Now that Mom’s gone, I can’t protect you from villain attacks on my own. I have the entire country to protect,” he said.

“What does that matter?” I snapped. “You know I can defend myself! I was accepted to the Academy even without a gift! It’s safe there!”

A sharp pain stabbed my heart, like my guilty conscience reminding me that I never would have even been able to apply to the Academy without my parents’ influence. I tried my best to ignore it. Even if it was probably true, I couldn’t leave now. There were things, people, that I couldn’t leave behind.

“No, it’s not!” Father yelled. “Every day, I pray that no villain is going to attack the school to get to you! What happens when one day my prayers aren’t answered? I can’t lose you too. You’re all I have left.” 

“So your solution is to ship me off to Canada to live with Aunt Claire? She’s barely even an adult and we aren’t even blood related!” 

“She’s twenty-three, which I’d say is old enough to raise a twelve year old! And she has a hero license, even though she’s not an active hero, so she can protect you!” he rebutted.

“Liar!” I thundered, tears welling up in my eyes again. “You just don’t want to be there when I die to origin disease!”

Father was stunned. “How do you know about that? I told the doctors not to tell you.”

“I overheard your conversation with Uncle Akaza!” I screamed.

Shortly after my mother’s passing, when my father was in a drunken state of sorrow, Bloodborne visited him. Akari and I listened to their conversation and overheard that the disease was likely hereditary, and could be the reason why I was without a gift. 

Father calmed down instantly. “Believe me, you misunderstood what we were talking about. I promise you’ll understand when you’re older,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Believe me, if I could keep you at the academy, I would. But it’s just too dangerous. You don’t remember this, but when you were young, maybe about four, a group of villains attacked you. They nearly killed you. That was why I put you in the Academy in the first place.”

He gripped my shoulder a little firmer before continuing. “You being a contender for the high school hero course wasn’t in my plan, but it’s become too dangerous to even consider. Haven’t you heard about the recent string of attacks on campus? They’re targeting you. Because they want to hurt me. I’m sorry you have to be punished for being my son, Atlas. I really am.”

I noticed that his steel wings were noticeably duller, which only happened when he was exhausted. Even when he first spent weeks on end flying around the country saving people from natural disasters, I had never seen his wings this dull. 

I stared at the tattoo on the back of his hand. It was an image of a snake consuming its own tail in the shape of a zero, an Ouroboros. The symbol of when he was the youngest in his orphanage. I suddenly felt extremely guilty for lashing out. It wasn’t just me who had lost someone important. My father lost his wife. And now he was being forced to give up his son as well.

“Can I at least leave a letter for Akari before I go?” I asked.

Father smiled. “Yeah. Be careful though, Akaza is the head of a Yakuza family, even if he’s a hero first. I can’t guarantee that he’ll be okay with you making moves on his daughter.”

“It’s really not like that, Father.”

“Whatever you say, kiddo.”

Father took me back to the dorms of the American Hero Academy, where I quickly wrote a letter and slid it under Akari’s door. I chuckled to myself, guessing that when she read it she would cry from how sincere it was. 

“Is that a love letter?” 

As I was heading down the stairs, a voice startled me. I froze, before realizing it wasn’t Akari’s voice. I looked up and saw Byron Adamson, someone who considered me a rival. I considered him a friend and good training partner.

His gift was Barrier, an ability that allowed him to form a single spherical barrier around himself. It wasn’t a particularly flexible gift, but it was sturdy, and he wasn’t necessarily bad at hand-to-hand combat, so I enjoyed training against him.

“I told you it’s not like that. I don’t like Kari.”

“You know you’re not supposed to be out of your room right now, right?” he questioned.

“I’m leaving. I’m transferring to a regular school in Canada. I’ll still be seeing you in the Battlefield league though. I haven’t given up on being a hero.”

“Without a gift? Good luck with even making it to the tier one league,” he smirked through his wispy pink bangs. 

He extended a hand and I ran back up the stairs and gave him a quick handshake. 

“Train hard, Byron. You can’t keep getting beat by me in one on ones.” I smiled.

Before he could protest, I was already out of the building. 

“Ready to go?” Father asked.

I took a deep breath and I looked back at the dorms for the last time. My heart ached as I thought about the memories I had of the academy.

“Let’s go.” I said.