The days after the fight stretched long and gray, slow as winter mud. Kaito drifted through them with the strange numbness of someone who'd tasted death and found it almost sweet. He ate little a half-rotten apple here, a handful of soggy rice there, a chipped mug of rainwater, cold and metallic on his tongue. But his hunger was deeper than food.
At night, as bruises darkened and the deep ache of exhaustion eased only a little, he pressed a hand to his chest, seeking that faint thrum: the echo of power, of threads, of something that had almost killed him. He felt it in shivers sometimes strong, sometimes faint, sometimes not at all.
The city, meanwhile, didn't wait for him. Gangs roamed. Fights broke out. The sky above never quite cleared, always stained with ash and the drifting remnants of someone else's fire. From his hiding place beneath a slanted steel plate, Kaito watched it all, unmoving, patient as a scavenger bird.
He was recovering, yes. But it wasn't rest. It was strategy.
Every day, when he could force himself upright, he tested his limits. He would close his eyes, gather the fragile aura within him, and press it outward: Ten, first, a soft pulse barely more than warmth. Then, when his breath didn't catch and his heart didn't race, he'd pull it in Zetsu letting the cold bite at his skin. It was harder than before; he was weaker, the effort made him dizzy, his arms and legs tingled with the threat of collapse. But he persisted.
He didn't conjure the threads at first. He was afraid, almost, of touching that part of himself too soon. But the urge was there, a constant itch beneath the ribs. It called to him every time he heard a fight in the distance, every time he caught a glimpse of sharp metal glinting in the dusk, every time the city itself seemed to hold its breath.
Finally, on a morning thick with mist, he let his aura slip from his fingertips, as gentle as the fog swirling around his ankles. A single, thin thread shimmered. It didn't do much just bent a blade of grass, made a beetle veer left instead of right. But it was real. His, again.
He grew bolder. As strength crept back into his limbs, he used the threads for little things practical, cautious. When he scrounged in the trash heaps, he wove a thread around his wrist, nudging a can to roll closer or a rat to dart away from his hiding place. When a wall of stacked crates threatened to topple, he slipped a thread through the gap, shifting the pile just enough to let him pass safely. When he curled in a nest of blankets and old coats, hungry and tired, he let the thread drift outward, feeling luck tug a little sometimes leading him to a safe, overlooked corner where no one thought to look.
The effects were minor. Sometimes the thread snapped with barely any result. Sometimes it cost him more aura than he meant to spend, leaving him shaky and cold. But each time, he felt himself learning the small cues of exhaustion, the warning signs of pushing too far, the delicate balance of risk and reward.
Still, a fear grew in him. Was he just making himself a slave to luck? Was he using power for nothing just for scraps, for comfort, for fleeting ease?
That fear settled into resolve one night as he lay awake, listening to the city breathe outside his shelter. He watched the threads flicker between his fingers, faint blue in the darkness. His mind wandered back to the worst moment of the fight: the wild, uncontrollable need, the cost that nearly broke him.
He whispered to himself, voice hoarse and low.
"No more tricks. No more scraps. No more petty uses."
He pressed two fingers to his chest, feeling the flutter of his heart.
"From now on, these threads are only for what matters. For real fights. For real need. Never for greed, never for cruelty. Only for the moments that shape my path."
The words burned. The vow, once spoken, pulsed through him a weight and a promise both. He felt the threads snap tighter, sharper, as if agreeing to the bargain. His aura didn't swell with new strength, but it sharpened a blade instead of a club, a scalpel instead of a stone.
He knew, deep down, what this meant: the next time he tried to cheat his own vow, the power would rebel, backlash worse than before. But if he kept his word, the threads would grow stronger, truer, more reliable each time.
In the dawn's half-light, Kaito stood at the edge of the heap, hands thrust deep in his pockets, breath turning to mist. His body was still weak. His aura was a candle. But his eyes were bright, clear with the focus only suffering and recovery can give.
Meteor City roared and clattered and screamed beyond him an endless war of hunger and violence and filth. He smiled, crooked, feeling a thread coil quietly at his wrist.
"I'm not done yet," he said, the words lost in the wind.
He took a step forward, into the chaos, the vow burning clean and silent in his blood. The city would not wait. Neither would he.