Chapter 8:The Still Point

The sun was a dying ember over the Inuyama Academy rooftop,casting long,bruised shadows across the courtyard.The festival booth,a skeletal frame of the fresh cedar smelled of sawdust and honest labor.

Reizen Koga stepped down from the scaffolding,his tall yet lean frame moving with fluid and rhythm.He wiped a smudge of grease from his forearms,his muscles still humming from the effort of holding a heavy beam in place while others bolted it.

Rei found peace in doing it after all,he wasn’t using that strength to take it out on someone but rather doing honest and hardworking labor.

Rei thought to himself.”My father and mother would have loved this moment.”

As evening rolled in,he noticed Hiyori shivering slightly besides blueprints and equipments.Without saying a word,Rei unzipped his oversized charcoal-grey hoodie and draped it over her shoulder.

“You’re losing body heat,” he said simply,his voice still as always low.”The thermal transition from the sun setting will drain your energy before we finish the booth.”

Hiyori blinked,feeling the warm comfort of the fabric.The sleeves hung past her fingertips,and the hem reached her mid-thigh.She pulled the collar up,breathing in the scent of cedar and laundry soap that clung to his hoodie.She looked up at him,her eyes softening in a way they never did during club meetings.

“Thank you… Rei,” she spoke softly.

The sound of his first name being called hit him harder than any punches or kicks he had ever thrown.He froze,his breath hitching as the formal barriers he had built around himself for years finally experienced structural failure.

“Come sit with me,” Hiyori said with her heart pounding.

Rei sat next to her ,he too was also feeling his heart pounding,not fast but slowly.

“The Physics of Rest,Rei.” She murmured,her fingers moving to remove the splinter from Rei’s cheek.”You’re always coiled like a spring.You need to learn how to let your mind sit at zero,without plans or stances.”

Rei didn’t flinch.He looked at her,the distance between them felt closer than ever.Both instinctively leaned in.The air felt heavy,charged with a different tension than the one he used to feel with.

Clack.

The sharp sound of a wood hitting the ground shattered the silence.

“Did I disturbed something?” Mio’s voice rang out,cold and sharp.

Both of them jumped apart,Hiyori’s face turning a shade of red that rivaled the sunset.Mio stood ten feet away,her bokken resting on her shoulder.Her dead stare was fixed on Rei.

“Aren’t you at your club’s meeting?” Hiyori said, trying to cover her face with Rei’s hoodie.

“Yeah but that meeting is boring,so I decided to go find my Hiyori and didn’t expect to see Koga there.” said by Mio.”Care to explain what was happening here?”

Before Rei could defend himself,a frantic sound erupted from behind the booth. Kenji stepped into the light,his oversized tracksuit zipper jingling as he stared at Mio’s wooden sword.

"Calculations... carry the four... if the load-bearing beam is offset by 3 centimeters, the entire structural integrity becomes a liability!" Kenji muttered, nearly walking straight into Mio’s wooden sword.

He froze, looking up at Mio’s towering, athletic presence. He blinked, adjusting his glasses. "Oh. Biological mass. High muscle density. Significant forearm grip strength—likely a practitioner of Japanese swordsmanship.

Koga, you didn't mention your recruitment of a Class-A kinetic asset."

Mio lowered her sword, looking at Kenji like he was a strange species of insect. "Koga... who is this high-frequency entity?”

“Mio,this is Kenji.He’s the… data guy,”Rei sighed.”Kenji,this is Mio.Don’t analyze her grip strength again if you want to stay alive.”

She stepped forward,her hand clamping onto the collar of Rei's undershirt with a grip that Rei himself couldn't escape.

“Hiyori,take the data nerd and go check in the equipment shed,”Mio commanded,her voice sounding like a commander.

“But Mio–” Hiyori started,clutching the oversized hoodie closer to her chin.

Mio looked at Hiyori,with a friendly smile,”Please,”

As Hiyori and a stammering Kenji retreated toward the shed,Mio dragged Rei toward the far edge of the courtyard,beneath the shadow of a massive tree.She let go of him,her stare piercing through his neutral face.

“Now tell me,why did you come here,in Inuyama, to study and what's with your monstrous strength and power.” Mio said with an interrogating tone.

“Well why should I tell you? There's nothing in for me if I said the truth about where I'm from and what's my purpose here.” Rei countered Mio with a question.

Mio stepped back,”Well,I just want to know you better.Is that enough of a reason?”

“No,” said Rei with a neutral tone.

Mio pointed her wooden sword to Rei’s face.”I can’t take no as an answer,if you don’t tell me the reason,we will have to duel in this courtyard,right now and I won’t hold back.”

Rei thought to himself,”It’s not worth the trouble to keep a secret,but it just feels heavy somehow.Fine I will just end this conflict and tell her.”

“Alright, fine,I will tell you the truth about where I'm from and why I am here in the first place.”

“I came from a school that has a hierarchy factor that is developed by a former ‘human’ I known.The hierarchy works like a food chain,the stronger and a reputation straight from hell itself will get you on top of the hierarchy while the weakest of the chain will be at the bottom being preyed on by others on the high rank.I was Rank 2,you may asked why,I wasn’t Rank 1 even though I display a fighting intellect that could rival the national champions of different martial artists.Well to give you the answer,a person named ‘Kazuma Zen’ or better known as The Shadow of Reign.”

“I heard that nickname before… but I could not remember.” Mio answered,with a curious but cautious of Rei tone.

“He was said to be a powerhouse not only for his martial arts talent but for his intellect as well.It said that he was an illegitimate child that was bought in by the principal of that school.His martial arts talent were said to be learned illegally as it was filled with techniques that were equipped by Special Forces to handle in close quarter combat.He was also said to be fast enough to able to cause a slight distortion in the air whenever he used his speed.”

“Okay,but that still doesn’t answer the question why are you here and what's with your strength but please go on.” Mio replied.

“The reason I was Rank 2 on the hierarchy was due to my skill in which could take out anyone within 2 or 3 strikes,The king of reign saw my potential and promised me to bring me power and money,which I was going to decline but the mention of money can help with my family’s financial issues.So i took in his dirty works.Taking out anyone who was in his way or against him.” Rei explained,with his breath almost out.

He explained why he was here and he saw Mio’s stare went from a threatening stare to a somewhat remorseful stare.

“You felt bad for me huh?” Rei teases her

Mio’s grip on her fist before letting her fist open, her face a mask of stubborn pride. "Feeling 'bad' for a monster is a waste of metabolic energy, Koga. I’m just making sure the rot from your past doesn't spread to Hiyori. She sees the best in everything—it’s her greatest flaw."

​Rei straightened his collar, the weight of the confession still hanging in the humid night air. "She’s not a flaw, Mio. She’s the only person who looked at a Rank 2 predator and saw a librarian."

​Mio let out a sharp, short huff—not quite a laugh, but the ice in her gaze had thawed into something more like a begrudging respect. She sheathed her wooden sword into her belt. "A librarian who can move at subsonic speeds. Fine. But if I see that 'Ghost' side of you take over... if you break the peace she’s trying to build... I won't just use a wooden stick next time."

A sudden notification appeared on Mio’s phone.”And Koga?Wear the hoodie tomorrow. Hiyori's been smiling like a fool since you gave it to her.I want to see her smile like that again.

Rei stood alone under the tree for a moment.He looked up at the stars,which were visible now that the school’s floodlights had dimmed.In Tokyo,the sky was always choked by smog and neon–a constant pressure of light.Here,the darkness was vast but it wasn’t empty enough to look like a void.

He walked toward the shed,where the muffled sound of Kenji explaining the “Gravitational constant of a falling hammer” was then replied by Hiyori’s soft,melodic giggling.

Rei paused at the door, his hand resting on the handle. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel like a spring coiled for impact. He felt like a man standing at a Still Point—the moment in a pendulum’s swing where gravity and momentum are perfectly balanced, and for a split second, there is no friction at all.

He opened the door.

"The structural integrity of the shed is fine, Kenji," Rei said, stepping into the warm light. "Stop confusing Hiyori with your collapse theories."

Hiyori looked up, still wearing the oversized charcoal hoodie, her eyes bright. "Welcome back, Rei.”

The ghost inside him was gone.At the moment,he felt the need to tell Hiyori the truth about his past.

“Hey Kenji,could you go home and rest first.I want to have a moment with Hiyori.” Rei spoke softly for the first time of his life,Hiyori heard his voice soft.

“Sure thing,could you please not give me intensive training tomorrow?” Followed by Rei’s response,”Did you forget your father’s promise?”

Kenji, feeling defeated, agreed to leave the shed and prepare himself for tomorrow’s training.

“So, what do you want me for?” Hiyori spoke.

“I wanted to tell you something,something I've been hiding from.” Rei replied,with a soft tone this time.

“Go ahead,I'm all ears.” Hiyori said.

Rei leaned against the wooden frame of the shed,his eyes not focused on Hiyori’s eyes.”Back in my former school… I wasn’t just a student who got into fights for fun. I was a tool made for fighting.A Rank 2 for a mysterious person just to crush people.I used this strength because it was easy,and because the person mentioned something,a monetary benefit,something that could help my family.”

He looked up then,meeting her gaze.The moonlight filtered through the window of the shed,casting silver light across both of them.”The accident that took my parents… I used to think it took away my only purpose in this world.But standing here,in this town,with you and everyone else… I realize it was the only thing preventing me from going down the wrong path,something my parents would not want me to have.I’m not a ‘Ghost’ because I'm scary,Hiyori. I’m the ‘Ghost’ because the person I used to be had to die just for me to stand here,at this moment.”

Hiyori remained silent for a long moment,the sound of chirping crickets echoed throughout the night.She didn’t look away,and she didn’t look afraid of him like she used to.She reached out,her smaller hand hovering over his scarred knuckles before gently resting there.

“Rei…,” she whispered.”Photography is about capturing a single moment in time.But people aren’t still images.They’re a sequence.Your past ‘frames’ might be dark,but the ones you are developing here?They’re full of light.”

She squeezed his hand softly,a tiny gesture that Rei didn’t calculate.”The only Rei I care about is the Rei right now not the ‘ghost’, the ‘ghost’ in the past doesn’t matter anymore and the Rei I know and care about is right now.”

Rei felt a weight lift from his chest– a localized reduction in atmospheric pressure that made it finally able to breathe.He didn’t flinch or anything,not even a sudden calculation in his mind.He stood there with her in the quiet shed,two point in space finally finding a common equilibrium.

The promise wasn’t just about not hurting people anymore.It was about moving through his past guilt and moving on to his new life to avoid the same mistakes he made in the past.

“Thank you,Hiyori..” Rei thanked her, not realizing he was using his soft tone to call her name.

Hiyori grabbed the collar close to her face,hiding her flustered face.

“Are you alright? Did I say something bad?” Rei worried.

Author's note:

✍️ Fun Fact:

The charcoal-grey hoodie isn't just a piece of clothing; it's a metaphor for Rei’s "Social Armor."By giving the hoodie to Hiyori, he is literally and figuratively stripping away his protection and leaving himself vulnerable to her.