Agito 4-4

The young man opened his eyes from feeling the light coming from outside.

He got out of his sleeping bag and opened up his tent, causing the light to flood into his eyes. 

The mountain was illuminated with the morning light. 

The leaves on trees, the ground, and even the very air itself appeared to be shining. 

The young man walked out of the tent and took a deep breath as the light showered his body. 

At the same time, his stomach let out a rumble. 

His name was Tetsuya Sawaki. 

He was a kind young man with a gentle smile. 

 

Tetsuya headed to the nearby brook with his fishing pole in hand. 

He then grilled the fish he caught and had breakfast. 

As he ate with a smile on his face, he suddenly thought of a new recipe. 

He picked up the sketchbook that lied next to him and scribbled down the general idea he had in mind for the recipe. 

Tetsuya had attended a cooking school in Tokyo. 

Filled with talent and spirit, he was a chef that had a unique cooking style that wasn’t bound to just European or Japanese genres. 

He had even blown away his teacher with his experimental “red bean paste spaghetti” before. 

Tetsuya still wanted to encounter new flavors. 

That passion drove him to travel. 

After graduating from the cooking school, the 21-year-old Tetsuya traveled across the country with a single kitchen knife in hand. 

His goal was to taste the local ingredients in each area on the spot and come up with new creative recipes using them.  

After finishing his breakfast, Tetsuya packed up his tent into his large backpack and began walking towards no specific place in particular. 

He didn’t have anything like a tourist guide on him. 

He enjoyed the unexpected discoveries that his feet happened to bring him to. 

 

It was just after noon. 

Tetsuya came to a stop in a mountainous region noticing thick black clouds covering the area in front of him. 

It didn’t look like a natural phenomenon. 

Just as he was about to turn around due to having a bad feeling about it, he heard what sounded like a dying scream of a woman coming from the direction of the clouds. 

Worried about what could have happened, Tetsuya nervously made his way into the clouds. 

It was a small settlement. 

The thick milk-like clouds obstructed the light, casting darkness over the entire village even though it was the afternoon. 

Tetsuya then witnessed a nightmare. 

He couldn’t tell if the scene he witnessed was so bad that he wished it was a nightmare or if he was just experiencing a horribly realistic nightmare. 

The ground was covered with human corpses that barely gave him any room to walk. 

Most of them were near unrecognizable as human remains. 

The majority of them were ripped and torn to shreds. 

Piles of organs belonging to who knows how many people scattered about the area. 

Tetsuya carried his feet forward as the clouds seemingly dragged against them. 

He heard sounds coming from a Japanese-style house that could be seen amidst the now thinning clouds. 

Upon turning his eyes towards its direction, he saw a young woman that appeared to be a mother holding the hand of a small girl, along with a young man that was assumedly the father, rushing out of the house without even any shoes on.  

Right afterward, an unknown creature appeared that seemed to be chasing after them. 

It was Agito. 

Tetsuya looked at Agito while shaking in fear. 

What is that thing…?! Was it that thing that did all of this…?! 

The mother dropped down to her knees with her hands against her blood-covered thighs. 

The husband stood in front of his wife and daughter to protect them and turned his hand towards an agricultural tractor in the field. 

The tractor then betrayed gravity and floated up into the air, and with a swing of his arm, it flew straight towards Agito. 

That man undoubtedly used psychic powers. 

But Agito easily caught the tractor with just one hand and threw it back like a ball. 

A squishing sound could be heard along with the thud of the tractor. 

The crushed man was no longer alive. 

Tetsuya was paralyzed with fear. 

He couldn’t speak. 

Agito approached the trembling mother and daughter that were holding each other. 

He then heard cryptic words come out of its mouth. 

“Humans should stay as humans.” 

It was an androgynous voice that sounded neither male nor female. 

Tetsuya had no idea what those words could mean. 

Tetsuya did not know anything. 

Why did Agito attack Akatsuki Village? 

 

Tetsuya did not know. 

The people of Akatsuki Village were all born with some kind of special power. 

It was usually insignificant enough that most people didn’t know realize they had it. 

The power to attract a slight bit of fortune, the power to cause electrical appliances to occasionally malfunction, the power to subdue unease and worry in others. 

There were many kinds of powers, including the ability of Mana’s father to see slightly into the future. 

Akatsuki Village was just like any other village out there, with only a few people knowing the existence of these powers. 

But there were those that found out about Akatsuki Village’s secret. 

They were the creatures the police have named the Unknown. 

Agito was one of them. 

They denied the unknown potential of humans. 

Agito had appeared in order to eliminate the humans who had the ability to surpass humanity. 

 

Agito took a step forward toward the trembling mother and daughter. 

“Stop!” 

Tetsuya instinctively shouted out without thinking. 

It was the first time in the gentle Tetsuya’s life that he had ever shouted like that. 

He of course had never laid a hand against anyone before either. 

But his hands clenched into fists from the fear and anger that boiled up from within him. 

“Uwaaaah!” 

He shouted as he threw his fist towards Agito. 

Its head barely moved even though he landed a direct hit to its face. 

In Agito’s eyes, Tetsuya was merely just another worthless piece of human garbage. 

With just a light swing of its hand, Agito easily sent Tetsuya flying and making a parabola in the air before he landed onto the ground ten meters away. 

The impact could have easily killed him right then and there, but his backpack served as a light cushion. 

Tetsuya quickly got up and glared at Agito, but he then found himself taken aback by a heart-wrenching sight. 

Agito’s arm had impaled both the mother and daughter. 

Tetsuya couldn’t even blink. 

Agito pulled out its blood-covered hand. 

The dead mother and daughter silently collapsed. 

…!! 

Something like a seed within Tetsuya then burst open, sprouted, and bloomed. 

Maybe it was a psychic power. 

Or maybe it could have been considered to be a power that surpassed any kind of psychic power that existed. 

Agito approached Tetsuya, and Tetsuya prepared for the worse. 

He then suddenly gazed up at the sky. 

He could see a slimmer of the blue sky among the gaps of the flowing clouds. 

Ahh, how beautiful, he thought. 

Tetsuya’s soul was swallowed by the sky. 

The very next moment, Agito turned into a ball of light. 

It then shot into Tetsuya’s body at the speed of a bullet and sunk into him. 

Tetsuya then came to his senses. 

He examined his body that had absorbed Agito. 

His appearance didn’t seem to change in any way. 

But he could feel something rising from within him. It was unsettling. 

He then suddenly transformed into Agito. 

Tetsuya was filled with pain that made him want to scream out in agony. 

A fierce battle was playing out within him. 

Agito was fighting against Tetsuya’s consciousness in an attempt to seal it away. 

Tetsuya began walking forward in his form as Agito as he fought against the pain. 

His dragging feet eventually brought him out of the village. 

He spent about two weeks wandering the mountains before finally losing consciousness and collapsing. 

He had returned to his form as Tetsuya at that point. 

Tetsuya had sealed Agito away within him. 

But the price he had to pay for that was severe. 

Tetsuya had lost his memories. 

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