Hey yall! Life has been crazy so it's taken me a little longer than I wanted to get this part up, but I hope you guys like it!
By some miracle, I managed to dodge the suffocating weight of Toji’s presence for two full days. They were two amazingly anticlimactic days, filled with a silence that—while still eerie—was at least my own. This brief break from being the target of his sharp-edged disdain allowed my brain to stop vibrating with anxiety long enough to realize I was living in a vacuum. If Daichi wanted me to play house in this high-end tomb, he was going to have to open his checkbook.
I spent an entire afternoon hunched over the cold marble countertop, drafting a list that felt less like a request and more like a ransom note. If I was going to be a prisoner, I was going to be a well-stocked one. I leaned into the spite of it, adding everything I’d been deprived of: tampons, pads, the specific Dermalogica cleanser that actually kept my stress-prone skin from breaking out.
Then I moved to the soul-soothing stuff—yarn, crochet hooks, a stack of paperbacks with cracked spines, and an embarrassing amount of baking supplies. I even threw in a request for frozen pizza rolls, a petty jab at the "gourmet" lifestyle my father thought I belonged to. Seeing those items alongside the high-end skincare felt like a small rebellion.
The look on the front sentry’s face when I handed him the three-page manifesto was a masterpiece of confusion and annoyance. His eyes bugged at the request for "extra-toasty Cheez-Its." It was an image I planned to tuck away in my mind and revisit whenever I felt particularly small. For a few hours, the "princess" had issued an order, and the tower had to provide.
By the third day, the reprieve ended.
I was back in the kitchen, the air thick and sweet with the scent of melting chocolate and cocoa powder. I’d reclaimed the record player—another "essential" from my list—and had Sleep Token spinning at a volume that helped drown out the persistent hum of the security system. I was focused, my hands steady as I whisked the brownie batter, lost in the rhythmic, hypnotic movement of the spoon. For a moment, I could almost pretend I was back in my own apartment, just a girl baking on a Tuesday.
No greeting. No warning. Just the sudden intrusion of cold air that seemed to follow him like a physical wake. His voice was rough, a gravelly sound that grated against the melody of the music and made my stomach do a slow, uneasy roll. I didn't turn around. I didn't even break my rhythm, though my heart began to gallop against my ribs. I just kept mixing, the wooden spoon hitting the side of the bowl in a steady thwack-thwack-thwack.
"Can't. Busy," I replied, my voice sounding flatter and braver than I felt.
I could feel his aura—or rather, the heavy, oppressive lack of one—looming directly behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, a primal warning signal that a predator was standing in my shadow. The kitchen suddenly felt much smaller, the heat from the oven clashing with the chill radiating off him.
"It’s time to stop ignoring the problem and face it," he countered.
I stopped whisking then, my shoulders tensing until they ached. I didn't know if he meant the "problem" of my father, the "problem" of my current confinement, or if he was referring to himself. In my mind, they were all tangled into the same messy, unsolvable knot. I weighed the pros and cons of ignoring him again, but I knew Toji didn't do "ignored." He was a man who occupied space until you had no choice but to acknowledge him.
I let out an exasperated sigh, one that I hoped conveyed exactly how much of a chore he was, and wiped my chocolate-smudged hands on the sage green apron I’d recently acquired. I turned around, forced to look up to meet his dark, unreadable gaze. He looked as solid and immovable as the mountain of marble behind me.
"And how do you suppose I do that?" I asked skeptically, planting my hands on my hips. "By standing here and letting you insult my life choices some more? Or should I just wait for the next set of orders from the tower?"
"We’re going outside," he said, his eyes tracking the movement of my hands. He ignored my sarcasm entirely, as if my bite was nothing more than a mosquito's buzz.
He didn't wait for an answer. He simply turned his back on me—a move that felt both dismissive and entirely too confident—and headed for the secured back door. I froze, my heart skipping a beat. Outside? I hadn't seen the sky without a pane of glass between us since I was dragged here. The idea of it felt both liberating and terrifying.
"Excuse me?" I yelled after him as he unbolted the heavy locks.
A sliver of the autumn sun sliced through the kitchen, blindingly bright and smelling of crisp leaves, damp earth, and freedom. He didn't stop, didn't look back. I stood there for a heartbeat, paralyzed by the suddenness of the light, until a streak of black fur darted past my legs. Stink let out a happy, chirping trill and bounded toward the open door, his tail held high like a flag.
The panic was instantaneous. I scrambled to untie my apron, tossing it onto the counter with trembling hands. I didn't have a choice now. Whether this was a trap, a training exercise, or just another of Toji's cryptic whims, I wasn't letting my cat go into that gated backyard alone.
I stepped over the threshold, the real sun hitting my face for the first time in days, warming my skin in a way the indoor heating never could. Behind me, I heard the heavy, final click of the door closing, locking me out with the man who felt more like a cage than the house ever did.
The backyard was an extension of the house—expensive, manicured, and bordered by a fence high enough to remind me that "outside" didn't necessarily mean "free." The grass was lush and a deep, vibrant green, still damp with the morning’s dew. I watched Stink immediately disappear into a cluster of perfectly pruned hydrangeas, his predatory instincts faring much better than mine.
Toji was already standing in the center of the lawn, his back to me. He had shed his sweat-soaked shirt, leaving it discarded on a stone bench. The sight of his back was... a lot. It was a map of scars and muscle, a physical history of a life lived in violence. I stayed near the door, hugging my arms to my chest as the crisp autumn air nipped at my skin.
"The scenery is nice," I said, my voice sounding thin in the open air. "But I have brownies in the oven, Toji. What are we doing out here?"
He turned around, his expression as stoic as the stone statues lining the perimeter. "Brownies aren't going to keep you alive when the people who put that bounty on your head decide to come collect."
The mention of the bounty made my breath hitch. It was the reason I was here, the reason my father had hunted me down. Someone, somewhere, had put a price on the head of Hoshigaki Kaya, and the number was high enough to bring the worst kind of monsters out of the woodwork.
"I have the Celestial Reservoir," I whispered, my hand instinctively drifting to my chest. "Doesn't that count for something?"
"It counts for everything to them, and nothing to you," Toji snapped. He walked toward me, his movements fluid and predatory. "You’ve got a limitless well of energy, Kaya. You draw it from the air, the trees, the dirt. You’re a walking, breathing battery that never runs out. But let’s be real—you can’t wield it. Your father told you that himself, didn't he?"
I looked down at my hands. Sometimes, when I was angry or terrified, small sparks of energy would dance across my knuckles—flickers of white-hot light that looked like dying stars. But that was it. No matter how much energy I felt rushing into me from the world around me, I couldn't shape it. I was a vessel with a hole in the bottom. My power wasn't meant to be a weapon; it was meant to be a fuel source for someone else’s cursed energy. I was a prize to be used, not a force to be feared.
"It’s unstable," I conceded, my voice small. "I don't trust it. I don't trust me."
"Good. Because I don't trust it either," Toji said, stopping just a few feet away. "We aren't touching that Reservoir. If you try to tap into that well and lose control, you’ll burn this house down with both of us in it. No. Today, you learn to use your hands."
"You want to play karate in the backyard?" I asked, trying for sarcasm to hide the spike of adrenaline.
"I don't play," he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. He reached out, his hand like a vice as he gripped my shoulder to wrench me into a standing position. I gasped at the sudden contact, my skin humming where his fingers pressed into me. "Don't mistake this for a bonding exercise. I couldn't care less about your 'journey' or your safety in a sentimental sense."
He leaned down, his face inches from mine. I could smell the salt and iron of his skin, a sharp contrast to the vanilla ice cream scent of my own. "I’m doing this for one reason: you are my paycheck. If you die on my watch, the direct deposit stops. If some curse-user snatches you because you’re too stupid to throw a punch, I lose my leverage with your father. You are a walking bank account to me, Hoshigaki, and I don't like losing money."
The bluntness of it felt like a slap. My heart thudded with a mix of fear and a sudden, sharp hatred for him.
"So," he drawled, letting go of my shoulder with a dismissive shove that made me stumble. "Square your shoulders. Feet shoulder-width apart. Are you going to keep looking at me like a lost puppy, or are you going to learn how to keep my checks coming in? Strike me."
"What?" I blinked, my vision blurring with frustrated tears.
"Hit me. As hard as you can. Show me that five years behind a bar gave you something more than a talent for pouring drinks and feeling sorry for yourself."
I looked at him—at the arrogant tilt of his head, the scar on his lip, and the way he looked at me like I was a broken tool he had to fix. I felt the energy of the backyard—the vibration of the trees, the heat of the sun—pulling into my chest, a vast reservoir I wasn't allowed to touch. I kept it locked down, funneling all that useless potential into a single, physical point.
I didn't think. I just balled my fist and swung.
I didn't even see him move. One second I was throwing my weight behind a punch, and the next, I was eating a mouthful of dew-slicked grass. Toji hadn’t just dodged; he had stepped into my space and used my own momentum to send me sprawling.
"Pathetic," he drawled, his voice coming from somewhere above my head. "You telegraph your moves like a neon sign. Your eyes go where you want to hit before your hand even moves. Again."
I scrambled up, my face burning with more than just the friction of the grass. I lunged again, a desperate hook that he parried with a casual flick of his wrist. The contact sent a strange, sharp vibration up my arm—not just the sting of bone on bone, but a faint, rhythmic thrumming that made the air around my hand shimmer for a split second. I ignored it, fueled by a rising heat in my chest that had nothing to do with the workout.
Over and over, the cycle repeated. Every time I lunged, he was gone, a shadow that refused to be caught. I ended up face-down on the lawn or reeling back from a sharp jab to my ribs that left me breathless.
"Is this the 'bar-room grit' you were bragging about?" he mocked, circling me like a shark. "Because right now, you look like a toddler trying to fight a thunderstorm."
The humiliation was a slow-acting poison. My breathing became ragged, and with every "too slow," the temperature of my skin seemed to climb. I noticed the grass beneath my feet beginning to curl and brown where I stood too long. A faint smell of ozone—sharp and metallic—began to compete with the scent of the damp earth.
"Shut up," I hissed, my voice vibrating.
I swung again, and this time, as he stepped aside, a small spark jumped from my knuckle to the air, making a sharp crack like a whip. Toji’s eyes narrowed, tracking the light. He didn't pull back; if anything, he leaned in, testing the tension.
"There it is," he murmured, his voice low. "The battery is charging. But you’re still just swinging a fist, Hoshigaki. All that power, and you’re still a victim."
That was the breaking point. The word victim snapped the final thread of my restraint. I wasn't just angry at Toji; I was angry at the five years I’d lost, at the father who’d hunted me like an animal, and at the cosmic joke of a power that made me a target but never a warrior.
Suddenly, the "hum" in the air became a roar in my ears.
Because I was a Hoshigaki, I didn't generate energy; I invited it. My Celestial Reservoir was a vacuum, and as my rage peaked, the seals I usually kept on my soul began to fray. I could feel the life force of the lush grass, the ancient energy of the trees at the edge of the property, and the very heat of the afternoon sun being sucked into the marrow of my bones. It wasn't a flow; it was a flood.
"Stop," Toji said. The mocking lilt was gone, replaced by a cold, professional alertness.
I couldn't. I was a live wire.
Jagged arcs of white light began to dance across my shoulders, snapping against my skin. It felt like my veins were being injected with molten lead. The pressure behind my eyes became unbearable, a rhythmic thumping that felt like my skull was being hammered from the inside out. My skin felt too tight, like it was a size too small for the sheer volume of energy screaming for an exit.
"Kaya, I said stop," Toji commanded, stepping forward. The air around me was distorting now, warping the light like heat rising off a summer road.
I doubled over, the agony of the accumulation hitting me all at once. It was the "fullness"—that God-awful, suffocating pressure I hadn't felt since I was fifteen. Back then, my father’s "mentors" had pushed me until I glowed, until I was screaming in a language of pure static. They didn't know how to handle a Reservoir; they only knew how to treat a vessel on the verge of bursting.
They tried to bleed it out.
"Cut me," I wheezed, my fingers clawing at the grass, tearing up clumps of dirt as sparks jumped from my nails into the soil. "Toji... you have to cut me. Now!"
Toji stood his ground, his hand resting on the hilt of the tool at his hip. He looked at me not with pity, but with a calculated, confused frown. "I'm not your father's butchers, kid. Just breathe through it."
"I can't breathe!" I screamed, the sound echoing off the high walls of the gates. The light was blinding now, a halo of unstable white-blue energy that made my vision swim. "It’s in my blood! If it doesn't leak out, I'm going to burst! Please!"
I remembered the cold steel of the knives when I was fifteen. I remembered the red bloom on the white floor and the way the pressure had finally, mercifully, ebbed away as the world went dark. To them, it had been a successful experiment. To me, it was the only way to survive the light.
Toji remained a statue. He wasn't a sorcerer; he didn't have the "sixth sense" to feel the internal mechanics of a soul being crushed. He just saw a girl losing her mind, her body radiating a heat that was beginning to singe the very air.
"Fine," I choked out, the words barely audible over the crackling of the energy. "If you won't... I will."
I turned and bolted. My legs felt like leaden weights, every step a struggle against the gravity of my own power, but the sheer terror of the "fullness" propelled me. I burst through the back door and into the kitchen. The scent of the brownies I’d forgotten was now sickly sweet, like rotting flowers, making me want to gag.
I didn't look back to see if he was following. I dove for the drawer near the sink, my fingers fumbling against the handle as sparks jumped from my fingertips to the metal with a painful zap. I gripped the handle of a heavy, serrated kitchen knife, the cold steel a promise of the only relief I knew.
I stood over the marble island, my breath coming in jagged, sobbing gasps, the knife trembling in my hand. I could feel him enter the room behind me—a heavy, silent shadow.
"Kaya, put the knife down," he said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, low frequency.
I didn't listen. I couldn't. The feeling of being a "live wire" was a thousand times worse than the thought of the blade. I pressed the edge of the steel against the soft, pale skin of my forearm, desperate to let the light out before it consumed everything I was.
I didn’t wait for his permission. I didn’t wait for him to understand.
I pressed the blade down.
The initial bite of the steel was cold—so cold it was almost a relief—before the sharp, searing heat followed. I dragged the edge across my forearm, a jagged, desperate line. For a heartbeat, there was nothing. Then, the crimson bloomed, thick and dark against my pale skin.
But it wasn't just blood.
The white-hot sparks that had been screaming under my skin seemed to rush toward the exit. As the blood spilled onto the white marble of the kitchen island, faint wisps of shimmering, celestial vapor rose from the wound, dissipating into the air like steam. The agonizing pressure in my skull—the feeling that I was about to be obliterated from the inside out—began to ebb.
Behind me, I heard a sharp, indrawn breath.
Toji was across the room in a blur of motion, his hand slamming down on the counter next to mine. For the first time since I’d met him, the mask of bored indifference was gone. His face was contorted in a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
"What the hell are you doing?" he roared, his voice vibrating through the floorboards.
He didn't understand. He saw a girl self-destructing, a "paycheck" trying to bleed out on his watch. He grabbed my shoulder, spinning me away from the knife, but his movements were uncharacteristically jerky. He was a man who dealt in death, but this—this ritualistic, desperate mutilation—was a language he didn't speak.
"I told you..." I gasped, my legs turning to water. "I told you to cut me."
The world was starting to tilt. The edges of my vision were fraying into a soft, hazy grey. The "live wire" feeling was fading, replaced by a heavy, numbing cold that started in my fingertips and raced toward my heart.
"You're a goddamn lunatic," Toji hissed. He snatched a clean kitchen towel from the rack, his large, calloused hands surprisingly steady as he wrapped it tightly around my arm. He applied a pressure that should have been painful, but I barely felt it. "You think this is how you handle it? You think bleeding out on my floor is a solution?"
"It works," I whispered, my head lolling back against his chest.
He was so warm. The scent of salt and sweat was grounded and real, a stark contrast to the ethereal, terrifying light that had almost consumed me. I could feel the frantic thud of my own heart slowing down, the rhythm stuttering as the blood loss took its toll.
"Shut up, Hoshigaki. Just stay awake," he commanded, though his voice sounded like it was coming from the end of a long tunnel. He was pissed—I could feel the tension in his muscles, the way his jaw was set like granite—but there was something else there. A flicker of something that looked almost like... frustration at his own lack of knowledge.
"I'm... calm now," I murmured, a ghost of a smile touching my lips as the darkness finally surged forward to meet me.
The last thing I felt was Toji’s arm hooking under my knees, lifting me easily against him, and the low, muffled sound of a curse word I’d never heard him use before. Then, the light finally went out.
